National Guard and DHS

  Patrick G. Eddington at Cato:

The normal peacetime mission of the NG in any state or territory is to be available to help with actual emergencies that affect that state, usually of the natural disaster variety. The California NG has often played a role in helping contain the wildfires that have plagued that state for years now. Those are totally appropriate missions for state NGs to perform.

When I was a young enlisted soldier in the Missouri NG in 1983, my transportation unit was called up to provide anti-looting and commercial business security in the wake of a tornado that had swept through part of my hometown of Springfield. Our unit leadership was so concerned that there not be a shooting incident involving any member of our unit that we deployed without bolts in our M‑16s (i.e., the rifles couldn’t fire). We could still have used the weapons as de facto clubs, I guess, but the main point of our deployment was providing physical security for an area of the city that had just been hit by a major tornado. We had no lawful arrest or detention authority; that was the job of the Springfield Police Department.

Contrast that with the regime’s flip-flop on whether NG troops deployed to DC would be armed—earlier this week, it was announced they would not be armed. Then the story changed to “some might be armed.” Putting young NG personnel on DC’s streets—none of whom likely know the first thing about civilian criminal law—in a politically volatile environment is inviting a Kent State-like tragedy.

On my way into DC today, I had a roughly 15-minute chat with two young NG members. To protect their identities, I’m not going to reveal the state or unit they’re with or their genders. After I introduced myself, I asked these NG members what kind of legal training (if any) they’d received prior to their deployment to the District. They spoke in extremely general terms, and it was clear they were uncomfortable going into details about the training. What they did say was that if they were in doubt about their actions, their orders were to “lean on their leadership” and the civilian police on hand and nearby. The NG personnel I spoke with were simply standing around, providing “a presence” (their words) to “help the American people.” The latter formulation is consistent with the Trump regime’s propaganda line about the massive, multi-state NG deployment to the nation’s capital.

ICE RECRUITING VIDEO (SOUTH PARK VERSION)

Bill Lueders at The Bulwark:

In June, Border Patrol agents—not ICE, exactly, but close—apprehended Narciso Barranco, a 48-year-old man in Santa Ana, California. They chased him down, pepper-sprayed him, threw him to the ground, and punched him repeatedly in the head as he cried out in pain. Was it for raping, murdering, pedophilia, or gang activity?

None of the above. The guy is a landscaper! He was doing some work outside of an IHOP. He’s been in the United States since the 1990s and three of his sons are Marines, two of them on active duty. Although Noem’s DHS claimed Barranco “swung a weed whacker” at one of the heavily armed masked men who accosted him, it’s apparent from the video that he was not a danger to anyone.

Neither was Yeonsoo Go, a 20-year-old South Korean student at Purdue University, whose mother is a well-known and respected Episcopal priest. In late July, ICE agents arrested Go when she showed up at an immigration hearing to get her R-2 visa for the dependents of religious workers converted into a student visa, a perfectly legal thing to do. The agents claimed she had overstayed her current visa, but in fact it does not expire until December. Nonetheless, Go was thrown into detention for five days, before public outrage forced her release.

Cases like these are the norm and not the exception. Through late June, according to the Cato Institute, 65 percent of the more than 200,000 people arrested by ICE since October 2024, the start of the current fiscal year, had no criminal history, and most of those who did were for minor offenses.

 

Noncitizen Voting in DC?

The Washington Post opposes a proposal to allow noncitizens to vote in DC elections:

This newspaper has opposed efforts over the past decade to rewrite D.C.’s election code so green-card holders could vote. What’s now before the council is more radical. The proposal has been expanded to give voting rights in local elections to all noncitizen adults, regardless of whether they are in the country legally, so long as they’ve resided in the District for 30 days.

Anyone who has ever been to a naturalization ceremony can attest to how special it feels to welcome new members into the American family. New citizens must swear an oath renouncing all allegiances to foreign powers and promising to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies. There’s nothing in this measure to prevent employees at embassies of governments that are openly hostile to the United States from casting ballots. Or foreign students who are studying abroad in Washington for a semester.

Green Light to Emoluments Clause Suit

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate:

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte gave an unexpected green light to the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia, who had claimed in a lawsuit that payments to properties owned by Donald Trump violate the Constitution’s arcane foreign and domestic Emoluments Clauses. Messitte, who works out of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, found that the plaintiffs have standing to proceed with their case, at least with respect to the Trump International Hotel in D.C., but not properties in other states.

In a similar case in December, a judge in New York ruled against a different set of plaintiffs, finding they had not shown they were directly harmed by domestic and foreign officials making payments to Trump properties. But in his 47-page ruling, Messitte denied the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss with respect to Trump properties in the District of Columbia but not Maryland. The court made no other decisions beyond finding that the plaintiffs have standing to move forward with their case.

Of particular note, wrote the judge, was the Trump International Hotel D.C., “a five-star, luxury hotel located on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., in Washington, near the White House.” He noted that “[d]irectly or indirectly, the President shares in the revenues that the Hotel and its appurtenant restaurant, bar, and event spaces generate.” Messitte noted that “[s]ince the President’s election, a number of foreign governments have patronized or expressed a definite intention to patronize the Hotel, some of which have indicated that they are doing so precisely because of the President’s association with it” and made special mention of the fact that “at least one State—the State of Maine—patronized the Hotel when its Governor, Paul LePage, visited Washington to discuss official business with the Federal Government.”

Overdoses and Life Expectancy

The Centers for Disase Control reports that life expectancy dipped slightly in 2016

• Life expectancy for the U.S. population in 2016 was 78.6 years, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2015.
• The age-adjusted death rate decreased by 0.6% from 733.1 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2015 to 728.8 in 2016. Age-specific death rates between 2015 and 2016 increased for younger age groups and decreased for older age groups.
• The 10 leading causes of death in 2016 remained the same as in 2015, although unintentional injuries became the third leading cause, while chronic lower respiratory diseases became the fourth.

Another CDC report suggests that drug overdoses were the cause. 

• In 2016, there were more than 63,600 drug overdose deaths in the United States.
  The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in 2016 (19.8 per 100,000) was 21% higher than the rate in 2015 (16.3).
• Among persons aged 15 and over, adults aged 25–34, 35–44, and 45–54 had the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in 2016 at around 35 per 100,000.
• West Virginia (52.0 per 100,000), Ohio (39.1), New Hampshire (39.0), the District of Columbia (38.8), and Pennsylvania (37.9) had the highest observed age-adjusted drug overdose death rates in 2016.
• The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (drugs such as fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and tramadol) doubled between 2015 and 2016, from 3.1 to 6.2 per 100,000.

Emoluments Clause Lawsuit

A press release from the Attorney General of Maryland:

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced today that they have filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump, alleging that the President’s wide-ranging business entanglements violate the Constitution’s Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses. The suit seeks an injunction to put a stop to the president’s constitutional violations.

The Emoluments Clauses were included in the Constitution as anti-corruption provisions, meant to shield the president from outside influence and ensure that he works in the nation’s interest rather than focusing on his own bottom line. Specifically, the Foreign Emoluments Clause bars foreign powers from influencing or inducing the President with money or other items of value. The Domestic Emoluments Clause prevents individual states from competing against each other by giving the President money or other things of value.

“President Trump has violated important anti-corruption provisions of the U.S. Constitution. We are a nation of laws and no one—including the President of the United States—is above the law,” said Attorney General Racine. “As state attorneys general representing the people, we have a duty to serve as a check and balance against the president, whose business activities have opened the door to the type of corruption the Framers of our Constitution aimed to prevent.” “

Elected leaders must serve the people, and not their personal financial interests. That is the indispensable foundation of a democracy,” said Attorney General Frosh. “We cannot treat a president’s ongoing violations of the Constitution and disregard for the rights of the American people as the new and acceptable status quo. The president, above all other elected officials, must have only the interests of Americans at the heart of every decision.”

“President Trump’s continued ownership interest in a global business empire, which renders him deeply enmeshed with a legion of foreign and domestic government actors, violates the Constitution, calling into question the rule of law and the integrity of our political system,” the complaint states. For example, the President continues to own luxury hotel and resort properties - - including a new one just down the street from the White House -- catering to foreign and state government business. He continues to seek --- and in fact recently obtained from China -- valuable trademarks from foreign countries for his business ventures. Foreign and U.S. government entities rent space in Trump-owned buildings.

According to the complaint, “[U]ncertainty about whether the President is acting in the best interests of the American people, or rather for his own ends or personal enrichment, inflicts lasting harm on our democracy. The Framers of the Constitution foresaw that possibility, and acted to prevent that harm.” Attorneys General Racine and Frosh expressed their thanks to their staffs and to several partners who provided assistance in assembling the lawsuit. In particular, they thanked Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) for their assistance. The full complaint can be found here. For more information about the lawsuit, including a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), please visit www.oag.dc.gov or www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/Pages/Emoluments/. 

Frontiers of Geographical Illiteracy

Tina Nguyen reports at Mediaite:

WFTV Washington correspondent Justin Gray was flying back to DC from Orlando, Fla., when a TSA agent halted him for holding a license from a state he didn’t recognize, and asked him for his passport. Gray was confused: he didn’t bring his passport, because his District of Columbia driver’s license should have been sufficient. The agent insisted that he didn’t recognize it.

People from New Mexico have a similar problem.  In 2007, Lynn Neary reported at NPR:

Let's say you really need a vacation. You decide to stay here in the U.S. but when you're making your plane reservations, the booking agent advices you to bring a valid passport to the airport. Not possible, you say?

Well, if you live in New Mexico, it may sound familiar because it turns out some people don't realize that New Mexico is part of the United States. In fact, this happen so often that New Mexico Magazine has a monthly compilation of these stories called "One Of Our 50 Is Missing." Its editor is Walter Lopez. He joins us now from Santa Fe.

Hi, Walter. Good to have you with us.

Mr. WALTER LOPEZ (Editor, New Mexico Magazine): Hi. How are you doing?

NEARY: You know, Walter, when I first heard this, I really couldn't believe it. How often does this really happen that Americans don't know that New Mexico is one of the 50 states?

Mr. LOPEZ: It happens quite often. Normally, I would say in 50 to 100 different submissions a month.

NEARY: Do you have any favorites?

Mr. LOPEZ: Yeah. Yeah. Our favorite story is Phil, who lives in Santa Fe and he had a relative who was competing in the Atlanta Olympics so he desperately wanted tickets. So he gave them a call and the lady said, well, you got to have to call the Mexican Consulate in order to order your tickets. And he said, why is that? I'm in the United States. I'm in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The supervisor said, old Mexico, New Mexico it's still the same. You're going to have to call the Consulate.