“That Conversation about Race” category archive

Sam and the crew dissect what MAGA’s furor over Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl tells us about the culture war mongers.

The EFF reports that the Trump maladministration wants to track those who disagree with its tactics. A snippet:

In the past year, DHS has consistently targeted people engaged in First Amendment activity. Among other things, the agency has issued subpoenas to technology companies to unmask or locate people who have documented ICE’s activities in their community, criticized the government, or attended protests.

These subpoenas are unlawful, and the government knows it. When a handful of users challenged a few of them in court with the help of ACLU affiliates in Northern California and Pennsylvania, DHS withdrew them rather than waiting for a decision.

These subpoenas are unlawful, and the government knows it.

At Above the Law, Jonathan Wolf reports that :ICE “kidnapped” some of the staff of his favorite burrito shop. Later on in the article, he explains his use fo that term (emphasis added):

I say “kidnapped” because this most definitely was not an “arrest” and there is no better word for what actually took place. When a police officer takes another person into custody, he or she is acting under the color of legal authority. This police officer must respect the constitutional rights of the accused, and must have probable cause indicating that the person being arrested has committed a crime. When police officers make arrests, their badges and the badge numbers on them are visible, their last names are stitched into their uniforms, and their faces are uncovered, so that if your rights are indeed violated while you are in custody, you know who to complain about later on. When a police officer goes beyond the legal authority with which he or she is entrusted, that police officer is subject to disciplinary action, civil liability, or even criminal prosecution.

The color of someone’s skin or the fact that they speak English with an accent does not amount to probable cause.

Thom has seen this before. A snippet:

Every modern society that normalizes hunts of the poor, the dark-skinned, the undocumented, or the politically inconvenient eventually discovers that the culturally acceptable definition of undesirable keeps expanding.

At Above the Law, in the midst of a longer story about efforts by lawyers and law students to pressure (the Republican-controlled) Congress to require the Trump maladministration’s ICE to obey the law, lies this little fact:

Minnesota is presently a constitutional law dumpster fire. The Constitutional Accountability Center identifies at least five constitutional amendments that the Trump administration is repeatedly violating on the ground.

Farron comments on the Trump maladministration’s project to build concentration camps and the implications thereof.

Thom says they should be called what they are: not “detention centers,” but “concentration camps.”