Another Brick in Trump's Wall - Stolen From the Rule of Law

This is what modern corruption, waste, fraud and abuse look like:

President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.

He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly, those officials said.

It also means that Congress’s Power of the Purse as enumerated by the allegedly Republican Revered Constitution is now nothing more than a suggestion:

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper is expected to approve a White House request to divert $3.6 billion in Pentagon funds to the barrier project in coming weeks, money that Trump sought after lawmakers refused to allocate $5 billion. The funds will be pulled from Defense Department projects in 26 states, according to administration officials who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the matter.

And those laws designed to ensure fair, competent contracting is done with taxpayer dollars – not even thought about:

“Border Patrol insists on compressed acquisition timelines, and we consent. Their goal is to get contracts awarded, not for us to get a quality contract with a thoroughly vetted contractor,” said one senior official who is concerned the agency has been hurried to hand out contracts as quickly as possible.

 Military officials expect more contract protests because the arrangements have been rushed, the official added. The Army Corps already has had to take corrective actions for two procurement contracts, after companies protested.

And of course, there’s no consideration for environmental damage or private property rights:

The companies building the fencing and access roads have been taking heavy earth-moving equipment into environmentally sensitive border areas adjacent to U.S. national parks and wildlife preserves, but the administration has waived procedural safeguards and impact studies, citing national security concerns.

“They don’t care how much money is spent, whether landowners’ rights are violated, whether the environment is damaged, the law, the regs or even prudent business practices,” the senior official said.

CBP has suggested no longer writing risk-assessment memos “related to the fact that we don’t have real estate rights and how this will impact construction,” the official said.

Now many folks would say that interests of national security require us to forgo the legal mandates and Congressional preferences so that we can secure our border. And were we under active military invasion they MIGHT have a point.

But we aren’t.  All this wall is being done as a spectacle to fuel race-based animosity against powerless defenseless migrants literally fleeing for their lives.  They are seeking succor in the US – a country whose proxy war with Russia in the last century in Central and South America largely drove the violence and destitution they are fleeing. They come here and mow our lawns, build our houses, feed us, clean our office buildings, pick our fruit and slaughter our chickens.  They add dollars to local economies, they send their kids to school to learn English, and they give away billions in tax dollars for services they can not receive.   American born citizens do not do the jobs they do, nor will they once immigrants are thrown out.

The Wall is a political misdirection.  It takes money that Congress set aside for other purposes and throws it at a useless barrier that won’t make meaningful changes to immigration or economic policy so the President can stoke fears to keep power.  And along the way, the Part of Law and Order and the Constitution can keep trashing all those things because no one will notice.  Or care.

Oh, for a functional Deep State.

Left Behind Already - Why Mr. Trump's Bullying Works

Like a lot of pundits, CNN’s Michael D’Antontio almost gets to the heart of the matter assessing Mr. Trump’s recent racist tirades against sitting members of Congress.  He seems to correctly diagnose Trump’s bullying for what it is, and then extends it to his followers thusly:

The fear of being targeted, excluded -- or even sent away, like the President was as a youngster -- may also lurk in the hearts of voters who accept Trump's behavior. With his attacks on the four members of Congress, his coldhearted crackdown on America's immigrant families and asylum seekers, and his repeated effort to demonize those who disagree with him, Trump has demonstrated what happens if you step out of line.

What he misses, however, is the fact that many if not most of Trump’s supporters ALREADY feel thrown out – out of the economy, out of social and cultural superiority, out of the ability to control their own destiny.  Mr. Trump’s attacks against a vast array of “others” on their behalf gives them the feeling of being back in, of achieving power stripped from them by a world and systems that evolves without their input, much less their permission.  They might well have decided Rep. Ilhan Omar was worthy to be an American (albeit a second class one in many eyes), but no one asked their permission directly, and since they have bought 4 decades of stories about brown skinned people taking from them (again based on bully fear mongering), they now demand to be heard. There will be no peace until they are, but the cost to the nation until then will be dear.

Dr. King and the Furlough - Attacks on the Dream

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day (abbreviated MLK Day). Its also day 30 of the latest government “shutdown.” Contemplating each day requires contemplating both.  And sadly, this year we seem to be even farther from Dr. King’s vision and call to a higher place.

The furlough is impacting communities nationwide and has spread its pernicious damage well beyond the 450,000 or so federal civil servants who have now worked a month without pay.  Hundreds of thousands of federal contractors – who work beside us daily to deliver federal services to our fellow citizens – remain furloughed as well, and they will not be back paid for time lost. Their economic straits will get worse more quickly and honestly I don’t expect to see many of their faces when we do return to work.  Many small businesses are also suffering – dry cleaners, restaurants, office suppliers, and a thousand thousand others who rely on federal spending to make their money are now either shuttered or running on a shoestring.  They too will not be compensated.

Lost in those grim statistics is the number of immigrants and people of color whose lives are upended by this. People of color make up 36.7% of the federal workforce, and many of them are employed by the agencies currently shuttered.  Contractors too are significant employers of people of color, most notably in the building maintenance, food service, custodial, and childcare facility contracts.  Roughly 25% of the workforce of the Department of Homeland Security are minorities, which means people of color working to secure our border are seeing their livelihoods impacted in the President’s fight over the wall.

Elsewhere communities of color are being impacted by the closure of HUD; by the decrease in food safety inspections, and by the inability of the IRS (so far) to issue tax refunds.  Thus this shut down isn’t just about shafting fed to try and force Democrats to do something most American don’t want; nor is it winning support for Republicans (only 29% of respondents in the survey linked to the Examiner article say Democrats are to blame).  Rather, this latest political intrusion into good government is also impacting communities of color in growing and pernicious ways.

So what would King say in response?

There are few direct quotes in his many speeches and writings about government directly, except that he notes on many occasions that local governments seek to preserve a racist status quo in the US. He frequently takes whites to task for their assertions of moderation and ill timing of the Civil Rights movement, and this leads me to wonder if he would rebuke those who call for civil servants to just back up and bear it all.  Mostly though, I believe he would be on the forefront of those who remind us this shut down is not about border security, but another battle in the long war to bring true justice to those people of color who labor to make their nation a better place by working in the government system, even as that government continues to be used against them.