Heather Digby Parton at Salon writes—Jeff Sessions to police: Just be you! Civil rights are overrated anyway:
[A]s I predicted would happen when Jeff Sessions was sworn in as attorney general, his Department of Justice is the one agency that seems to be functioning smoothly. As it’s turned out, his recusing himself from the Russia investigation has opened the political space for Sessions to concentrate on implementing the “law and order” agenda that had Trump’s crowds cheering at all those campaign rallies last year. Sessions isn’t wasting any time.
As The Washington Post reported on Monday, Sessions announced that prior agreements between local law enforcement agencies and the Justice Department are all under review so as to ensure that “these pacts do not work against the Trump administration’s goals of promoting officer safety and morale while fighting violent crime.” Protecting he civil rights of citizens is way down the list of his concerns.
Session has long been a critic of DOJ consent decrees and is skeptical that systemic racism in law enforcement exists at all.
Jonathan Stevenson at The New York Times writes—Bannon’s Out. But Did H.R. McMaster Win?
The Trump administration’s decision to remove its chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, from the National Security Council’s principals committee, along with the deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland’s likely exile to Singapore, as the United States ambassador, seems to indicate that Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, is finally getting a little hard-earned bureaucratic traction.
Not so fast: Other signals suggest that President Trump’s national security team remains as weak and dysfunctional as ever. And while some people are crediting General McMaster with a big win, the reality is much different.
E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—The Gorsuch filibuster is about far more than payback:
Why are Democrats filibustering Judge Neil Gorsuch? Because they’ve had enough with the politics of power-grabbing and bullying.
At the root of this fight is a long-term conservative effort to dominate the Supreme Court and turn it to the political objectives of the right.
This is thus about far more than retaliation, however understandable, for the Senate Republicans’ refusal to give even a hearing to Judge Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the seat Gorsuch would fill. Behind the current judicial struggle lies a series of highly politicized Supreme Court rulings.
It started with Bush v. Gore, when five conservative justices abruptly halted the recount of Florida’s ballots in the 2000 election and made George W. Bush president.
The unsigned majority opinion unmasked (to use the word of the moment) the unprincipled and unmistakably results-oriented nature of the decision with this lovely little sentence: “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”
Vanita Gupta and Corey Stoughton at The New York Times write—Don’t Let Jeff Sessions Undermine Police Reform:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently ordered a review of federal agreements with a number of local law enforcement agencies aimed at reforming troubled departments. As a first step, the Justice Department on Monday asked a judge to delay a consent decree that would overhaul Baltimore’s police force.
On its face, Mr. Sessions’s order simply asks whether the consent decrees promote public safety, support officers, respect local control and are warranted. But underlying the order is the Trump administration’s belief that efforts to align police practices with the Constitution have compromised public safety and thrown police officers under the bus.
This couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Emily Atkin at the New Republic writes—Can the White House Office of Science Survive Trump?
When President Barack Obama took the White House in 2008, his knowledge of science was admittedly limited, but his interest in it wasn’t. Within days of his election, he began selecting the scientists and tech wonks for his science advisory board, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The OSTP was fully staffed within months, and became “the most active in history, starting 34 studies of subjects as varied as advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity,” according to The New York Times. The office also advised Obama on relevant budgets, technological advancements, and policy goals, and organized an annual science fair for youngsters that produced reliably fun, nerdy videos in which, for instance, a student fires a marshmallow cannon inside the State Dining Room of the White House.
Today, nearly three months into Donald Trump’s presidency, OSTP is nearly empty. According to a report last week in The New York Times, the 24-person staff of the chief technology officer “has been virtually deleted,” and scores of career OSTP staffers have departed since Obama skipped town. [...]
A bare-bones OSTP staff at this point is not unprecedented. President George W. Bush waited until June of his first year to select his science advisor. But amid endless accusations that Trump is waging a war on science, his lack of attention to OSTP concerns scientists such as Dr. John Holdren, the former OSTP director and Obama’s chief science advisor.
Viv Groskop at The Guardian writes—Vulgar misogyny didn’t harm Donald Trump – it helped him:
I experienced this “defence of the pussy” first-hand recently after Piers Morgan retweeted something I wrote (to his five million followers). Morgan had questioned the validity of the women’s marches and suggested a march for emasculated men. I replied I would come with him when a woman is recorded inviting similar abuse of men’s genitals. (Except I said it more bluntly than that.) Trump supporters fought back in their exhausting hundreds.
Their reasoning was fascinating. They had no problem with the “pussy” thing. For them it was not a comment on Trump’s vulgarity or misogyny. It was a comment on how “easy” women are. They didn’t focus, as liberals did, on the words “grab them by the pussy”. They heard the previous quote: “When you’re a star, they let you do it.” It was a comment about people who have got it coming and who have had it coming for a long time. In other words, a bully’s charter.
How prescient the words “grab them by the pussy” turned out to be. Now it’s obvious that “pussy” stood for so much more than women. It stood for screwing things over generally.
What “sport” do you think those two sexual predators are discussing?
Noah Berlatsky at the New Republic writes—Bernie Sanders’s Misguided Attacks on the “Liberal Elite”:
“We need a Democratic Party that is not a party of the liberal elite but of the working class of this country,” Senator Bernie Sanders declared at a rally in Boston last week. This has become a very common refrain for Sanders specifically and the progressive left generally. After the election, Nation editor at large D.D. Guttenplan declared that liberal elites who spurned populism are responsible for President Donald Trump, while Chris Hedges argued last month that Trump’s greatest allies are, unwittingly, liberal elites.
“The elites, who live in enclaves of privilege in cities such as New York, Washington and San Francisco, scold an enraged population,” he wrote at Truthdig. “They tell those they dismiss as inferiors to calm down, be reasonable and patient and trust in the goodness of the old ruling class and the American system.” [...]
But it’s worth asking: If all these full-throated attacks on liberal elitism ended with the ascension of a racist, sexist authoritarian who has a gross history of mistreating working people, then is attacking liberal elitism really the proper strategy for the opposition to Trump? Maybe the left should think about going back to attacking a more tried and true bugaboo: the wealthy.
Jonathan Freedlund at The Guardian writes—Inaction over Syria has exacted a terrible price:
The world made its decision on Syria – where more than 400,000 have been killed and millions upon millions have been turned into refugees – long ago. It concluded that it does not have the means or, crucially, the will to stop the agony. Anne-Marie Slaughter, formerly of the Obama administration, suggests a single strike that would crater, say, a runway used by Assad’s warplanes – not an invasion, not a full-scale military operation, but some way of punishing Syria for what it has done.
But you know that will be deemed too much. That it would be vetoed at the security council and condemned as a violation of international law – even though, of course, Assad has himself broken international law, indeed broken a set of precious, century-old conventions and agreements that ban chemical weapons.
A world without such a prohibition, a world where the use of chemical weapons goes unpunished, where it becomes routine, is a terrifying prospect. And yet, surely, Assad’s impunity is, at this very moment, being noted and filed away by the world’s most brutal regimes: the precedent is being set. This is what you can get away with.
Barbara Ransby at In These Times writes—MLK Called for a “Radical Revolution of Values.” The Movement for Black Lives Delivers One:
During the final year of his life, King was at his most radical in his politics and the most sweeping in his analysis. Emboldened to resist what he termed the triple evils of militarism, racism and poverty, King in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech offers a lesson for our own time. It is rich with provocative and relevant messages for the racial justice and economic justice movements, and the international solidarity work they require. Take, for example, his insistence that we wage a war on poverty rather than invest more human and financial resources in military aggression abroad. What demand could be more timely, give the promise by the 45th president to siphon an additional $54 billion [...] from public funds to further engorge the Pentagon budget?
In the speech, King underscored the “fierce urgency of now,” and the need for this country to embrace a “radical revolution of values.” That revolution, of course, has yet to come, and its urgency has only increased. But King’s vision is resurgent in the coalition of Black-led organizations known as the Movement for Black Lives (MBL). Fittingly, on April 4, MBL, and dozens of allied organizations, is launching the Beyond the Moment campaign, which takes its name from King’s speech. It will kick off with massive political education events and a call for May Day demonstrations alongside labor, immigration and climate activists.
The MBL “Vision for Black Lives” platform issued in August 2016 spells out what King’s “radical revolution of values” might look like. The platform echoes King’s vision—in its demands for healthcare, housing and jobs and its critique of a system that “place(s) profit over people.” Two pivotal struggles were at the heart of King’s work during his final year: the Poor People’s Campaign and the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike.
Dexter Filkins at The New Yorker writes—Trump’s Terrible Moment of Truth in Syria:
Now comes the moment of truth for President Trump. Sources inside Syria are reporting that a sarin-gas attack in Idlib Province killed dozens of civilians and injured hundreds more on Tuesday. In a statement, Trump blamed Assad’s regime, called the attack “reprehensible,” and said that it “cannot be ignored by the civilized world.” He also described the attack as a “consequence of the past Administration’s weakness and irresolution.”
What happens now? Trump’s comment put forward no clear policy or planned response. During a press briefing on Tuesday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, strongly suggested that the Administration is preparing a military response in order to punish the Syrian government and deter it from carrying out any more chemical-weapons attacks.
The Obama Administration took plenty of actions against the Assad government, including sending arms to rebel groups. But Obama’s other aim, in addition to destroying isis, was to avoid a collapse of the Syrian state—the kind that might happen if the United States were to directly attack the Assad regime. Obama feared that the ensuing vacuum in Damascus would be filled by the likes of isis and the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. When Obama looked at Damascus in 2013, he saw Baghdad in 2003.
Kate Aronoff at The Guardian writes—No, Ivanka Trump will not moderate her father. She will just strengthen him:
The main criticism leveraged against the President Trump’s oldest daughter has been that she and her husband, Jared Kushner – now a senior Trump adviser – are complicit in what her father and his advisers are doing in the Oval Office. By virtue of being young, photogenic and not visibly unhinged, Ivanka and Jared have been painted as the great moderators – people with allegedly progressive views on things like women’s rights and climate change, who can temper the effects of Trump’s administration.
Her interview on CBS News this morning should lay those rumours to rest. “If being complicit is wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact, then I’m complicit,” the president’s oldest daughter shrugged.
But as the interview shows, Ivanka is worse than complicit, and certainly no force for good. She serves a vital role in keeping her father’s administration afloat. Like Kushner and his adventures in the Middle East, Ivanka’s official capacity is ambiguous. Both have top-level security clearance, and have been sitting in on high-profile meetings between the president, various business leaders and foreign dignitaries since he was elected. Now she’ll have the first lady’s office in the White House. Ivanka seems to talk a lot about Women Who Work, though exactly what she’ll do in that office remains undefined. She’s already an invaluable asset for her father: Ivanka feeds the illusion that the Trump administration contains moderate voices.
Rebecca Traister at New York Magazine writes—Of Course Donald Trump Doesn’t Think Bill O’Reilly Did Anything Wrong:
By every rational measure, “Donald Trump Defends Bill O’Reilly on Sexual Harrassment Allegations” should be the least surprising headline of any given day.
Yet some of us who retain the ability to be shocked by our new normal still gasped and recoiled upon reading that the President of the United States had described the host at Fox News — which has reportedly paid out $13 million over the years to keep allegations of sexual harassment and verbal abuse quiet — as “a person I know well … a good person,” who “shouldn’t have settled” with his accusers, but instead taken his defense “all the way,” because, Trump said, “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”
Where even to begin, except with a reminder that we are now five days into April, a month Trump has designated “National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month”? The decree he signed on March 31 read in part: “We recommit ourselves this month to establishing a culture of respect and appreciation for the dignity of every human being.”
William Greider at The Nation writes—The Senate Should Censure Trump:
Yes, by freakish happenstance, an unstable character with irresponsible impulses has been put in charge of the national government.
But Trump is not in charge of us. People all over know this and are putting themselves in motion. The ferment is about more than the marches and banners. People are beginning to see themselves as active agents in the legislative battles, entitled to be heard because they are citizens. Does that sound corny? Yes some of us are corny optimists. [...]
So how can the people talk back to Donald Trump? By proposing that the Senate adopt a resolution of censure officially denouncing Trump for his flagrantly fraudulent claims and, even worse, his unconstitutional behavior as president. The list of potential charges is robust. He and his family are blatantly in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits presidents from drawing business benefits from foreign interests. Trump also routinely falsifies official reporting to his own administration. Think of official censure as the highbrow answer to Trump tweets.