Trumping Justice

Politicizing Horror:  Remember when the White House refused to take up a discussion about restricting bump stocks right after the murderous rampage in Las Vegas because it was too soon to talk about legislative solutions.  Apparently that restriction only applies to gun murders committed by white people.  When the perpetrator of a horrendous crime is a Muslim Uzbecki immigrant using a weaponized van, it’s okay to move immediately to accusatory tweets, executive orders and legislative solutions.  Apparently, it’s also okay to start attacking New York legislators prior to calling them to express your condolences.  Sayfullo Saipov, the terrorist who killed eight and injured many more entered the US through the diversity visa lottery program, a program originally designed to help Irish immigrants.  Trump blamed Senator Schumer for supporting the visa program, even though the 2013 Gang of Eight immigration reform legislation that Schumer advanced, which passed the Senate but died in the Republican controlled House, called for its elimination.  Another member of the Gang of Eight, Senator Flake, responded to Trump’s accusation by jumping to Schumer’s defense. Schumer responded by speaking in front of the Senate asking Trump “where is your leadership,” and pointing out the stark contrast between Bush’s speech after 9/11 and Trump’s comments. Trump also called for the end of chain immigration, the process by which legal immigrants are allowed to sponsor their families, a provision that is favored by some because it eases the transition of new immigrants but is banned by the restrictive RAISE immigration act that Trump wants passed.  Essentially, he used the New York terrorist attack to further push his immigration agenda. No question that he’s entitled to have a view and an agenda, but the timing of his statements are inappropriate, at best.  Trump also went on to attack the US Justice system saying that the way it punishes terrorists makes the US a joke and a “laughing stock” to the rest of the world.  He wants to send Saipov to Guantanamo Bay for “military justice,” an option that would probably not be constitutional and would also be pointless.  Despite his assertions, the US Federal Courts are far more effective than military commissions when it comes to trying terrorists.  Federal civilian criminal courts have convicted more than 620 individuals on terrorism related charges since 9/11 including Richard Reid (the shoe bomber), Ramzi Yousef (the 1993 World Trade bombe), Faisal Shahzad (the Times Square bomber) and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law) with the New York Federal Court leading the way.  In contrast, military commissions have convicted only eight and three of those convictions have been overturned.  An example of the failings of the Guantanamo military tribunals is presented by the case against Abd al Rahim al Kashiri who is still being tried for the 2000 bombing of  the USS Cole.  Details of the case are included in an article in yesterday’s Miami Herald and were covered last night on Rachel Maddow’s show. As a result of accusations of violations of prisoner-lawyer confidentiality, al Kashiri’s civilian lawyers have resigned, a senior military lawyer has been temporarily jailed for supporting their decision and the case has ground to a halt and because the issues surrounding the accusations remain top secret, the public doesn’t know what really happened.   Suffice it to say, the civilian Federal courts will result in justice for the slain and injured more transparently and more quickly than any Guantanamo tribunal unless of course Trump’s Wednesday night tweet calling for the death penalty for Saipov muddies the waters and his lawyers get to cite Trump’s tweet at sentencing time.        

Tax Reform:  Republicans plan to release their tax reform/cuts bill today.  The arithmetic still doesn’t really work, but it probably never will, so they’ve decided that they might as well start facing the music, and by music, think something akin to a funeral dirge. Trump added one more wrinkle on Tuesday night by tweeting “wouldn’t it be great to repeal the very unfair and unpopular Individual Mandate in Obamacare and use those savings for further tax cuts.”  The elimination of the mandate would achieve about $416 billion in deficit savings because it would result in a decrease in the number of people getting Medicaid benefits while at the same time increasing the overall number of the uninsured. Conflating Obamacare repeal with tax reform, would also make it that much more difficult to get tax reform legislation passed so Trump’s tweet fell on tired, increasingly deaf ears.  At least for now Representative Brady and Senator Orrin Hatch, two of the legislators responsible for the tax bill, have pushed the suggestion to the side.

Social Media:  Representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter continued to face the music yesterday, though notably company CEOs stayed away leaving Congressional testimony to their legal officers.  The social media companies continue to assert that they are neutral platforms for information dissemination, that they are not responsible for judging content and that they are not media companies.   The audience wasn’t buying what they had to say or how they were delivering their message.  Senator Manchin spoke for many when he said that “I wish your CEOs were here, they need to answer for this.”  A few of the more nefarious Russian ads were shown yesterday, including one from a fictional organization labeled “Black Matters” that was intended to spread fear among white adults in Georgia, Maryland Missouri and Virginia.  My personal favorite is the Russian Army of Jesus Facebook page that shows Hillary boxing with Jesus, asking readers to “like” if they want Jesus to win.  Even Facebook doesn’t know how many people were exposed to the Russian ads, in just one day they’ve upped their estimate from 126 million to 150 million, and admitted that the onslaught started earlier than originally noted well before the 2016 election.

Rumors of Demise:   In response to articles that he is furious about the trajectory of the Mueller investigation and the recent indictments and Papadopoulos guilty plea, Trump called his favorite NY Times Reporter Maggie Haberman to assure her that he is totally calm and that reports to the contrary are just fake news because “I’m in the office early and leave late; it’s very smooth.”  Honestly, I’m really enjoying it.”  However, he made no effort to counter a recent Vanity Fair article that reports that son-in-law Jared, who Trump now holds responsible for all of his bad decisions, including the hiring of Paul Manafort and the firing of James Comey, is the current target of his fury.