Prosecutors “argue,” and a judge agrees, that Paul Manafort is a “danger to the community,” to the public—not the legions of criminals and grifters pouring over the Southern border, but President Trump’s former campaign chairman.

“When Manafort was first arraigned and pleaded not guilty in October, a magistrate judge set a $10 million bail price and placed him under house arrest.”

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort will await his trial for foreign lobbying charges from jail.
Two weeks after special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors dropped new accusations of witness tampering on him, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Friday revoked Manafort’s bail, which had allowed him to live in his Alexandria, Virginia, apartment under house arrest.

The order marked an end to almost eight months of attempts by Manafort to lighten his house arrest restrictions after he was charged and pleaded not guilty to foreign lobbying violations.
“The harm in this case is harm to the administration of justice and harm to the integrity of the court’s system,” Berman Jackson told Manafort in court.

The judge emphasized to Manafort how she could not make enough rulings to keep him from speaking improperly with witnesses, after he had used multiple text messaging apps and called a potential witness on an Italian cellphone.

MORE.

Whether ordered by Barack Obama or Donald Trump; sending National Guard troops to the border, it must be clear, has always been about optics, no more.

Indeed, previous administrations have done so.

But it remains true that the National Guard can act as “extra eyes and ears for border guards,” and no more, notes The Economist, in its April 7th-13th (2018) issue. As we know all so well, “there are legal constraints on using soldiers for law-enforcement.”

In Trump translation: “We have horrible, horrible and very unsafe laws in the United States.”

The president was, therefore, wrong when he announced in April that, “We are preparing for the military to secure our border between Mexico and the United States.”

Certainly President Trump’s “proclamation to deploy the National Guard” does nothing to stop Central American asylum-seekers. These brazen border-crossers “rarely hide from border agents,” for they know that, to stay in the US, and live off the American taxpayer’s avails, all they need do is “lodge a legal claim to stay.”

In Trump translation: We have the crappiest, most liberal immigration laws.

RECENT HISTORY: “During Trump’s first nine months in office, arrests for immigration violations were 42% higher than they were during the same period in Barack Obama’s last year. Non-border deportations rose 25% in fiscal 2017. Deportations of illegal immigrants who have committed no other crime, and who were not a priority in the Obama era, nearly tripled. Refugee admissions have plummeted. This fiscal year 16% of them are Muslim, compared with 42% a year ago.”

ICE agents have increased their presence at courthouses. ICE said they will use courthouse arrests only for “specific, targeted aliens” with criminal records, gang affiliations or removal orders, or who pose national security threats.

MOREOVER, I don’t know if Jeff Sessions’ Department of Justice has done so yet, but it was “to set quotas for clearing cases for immigration judges to hit.”

White House officials had been “drafting a package which would, among other things, make it easier to deport children who arrive alone at the border.”

All good stuff the sainted Sarah Sanders, White House spokesperson, never mentions.

So, to bypass the shitty lawmakers who’re unprepared to heed the country, should Republicans “eliminate the rule that most new laws can pass the Senate only with a 60-vote supermajority”? Should they, before it’s too late?

(Source: “Be Very Afraid: Donald Trump takes a hard turn on immigration.“)

THE NEW COLUMN IS “Liberal Brains Are Pickled In The Formaldehyde Of Identity Politics.” It’s now on WND.com and on the Unz Review.

“There are no more civil libertarians left,” warned celebrated attorney Alan Dershowitz.

The topic was the left. The location was Tucker Carlson’s TV studio, May 30.

Dershowitz, a life-long liberal and civil-libertarian, has refused “to allow partisan politics to pre-empt his views on the Constitution,” in general, and in the matter of Grand Inquisitor Robert Mueller and his tribunal, in particular.

Conversely, the  American Civil Liberties Union has supported the FBI’s manifestly unconstitutional raid on Michael Cohen’s offices, even asserting that the seizing of client-attorney privileged files from the Trump attorney was kosher.

“… all indications thus far are that the search was conducted pursuant to the rule of law,” crowed the ACLU, in “stunning rebuke to the basic concepts behind the [organization’s] mission.”

To ACLU silence—and in contravention of that quaint thing called the Fourth Amendment—Mueller had previously taken possession of tens of thousands of emails exchanged among President Donald Trump’s transition team.

The meek, weak Jeff Sessions has failed miserably to bust these sham, kangaroo-court proceedings, leading former House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz to carp: “The attorney general is just not up to the job.”

In the absence of an effective legal counterweight, Mueller, of course, is getting away with it.

On TV, Dershowitz has been joined by the talented Mr. Turley (Jonathan Turley, Esquire), in protesting the warrantless theft of the Trump campaign’s emails.

Let the record show that Dumbo Napolitano (Fox’s Judge Andrew) seconded Mueller’s legal authority, declaring, on December 18, 2017, that, “Mueller did not improperly obtain Trump’s transition emails.”

Talk to the hand, Judge Napolitano, because this face ain’t listening to you any longer.

“The left is less interested in civil liberties,” observed Tucker, ruefully, to which Alan Dershowitz quipped: “The ACLU is dead in the water when it comes to defending the civil liberties of people they don’t agree with.”

Do “the shoe is on the other foot test,” Dershowitz instructs. Ask yourself: “If the shoe were on the other foot, would you be taking the same position you’re taking today?” Everyone has to pass it.

Having taken the test, you’ll sympathize with the intractable positions against the partisanship of justice, taken by civil libertarians like Alan Dersh and libertarians like this writer. …

…  Another near-extinct political animal is your old-school, antiwar liberal. …

… READ ON. THE NEW COLUMN IS “Liberal Brains Are Pickled In The Formaldehyde Of Identity Politics.” It’s now on WND.com and on the Unz Review.

“There are no more civil libertarians left,” warns celebrated attorney Alan Dershowitz, on “Tucker,” May 30, 2018.

Dershowitz, a life-long liberal and civil-libertarian, has refused “to allow partisan politics to preempt his views on the Constitution,” in the matter of Grand Inquisitor Robert Mueller and his tribunal.

The ACLU (The American Civil Liberties Union) has supported the FBI’s manifestly unconstitutional raid on Michael Cohen’s offices, asserting that the removal of his client-attorney privileged files was a good thing.

“… all indications thus far are that the search was conducted pursuant to the rule of law, and with sign-offs from Trump appointees,” [which is] a stunning rebuke to the basic concepts behind the ACLU’s mission. ”

“The left is less interested in civil liberties.” Much less.

“The ACLU is dead in the water when it comes to defining the civil liberties of people they don’t agree with.

Do “The shoe is on the other foot test” says Dersh. Everyone has to pass it. “If the shoe were on the other foot, would you be taking the same position you’re taking today?” Then you’ll grasp civil libertarians or libertarians.

For us, it’s about justice for all, so that each one of us is safe. Simple. Defend the rights of all to be “be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” so that each and everyone of us can live free of unconstitutional raids on our businesses or bedrooms.

“Too many on the right and the left do not pass the shoe-is-on-the-other-foot” test, averred Dersh: Conservatives fail the test. Liberals fail the test.

“We need neutral principles. We need standards of constitutionality,” Dershowitz inveighed.

We have them, sir. We don’t abide them. We’ve ditched them.

This is why civil libertarians like Alan Dersh and creedal libertarians (check) will always be on the fringe, annoying partisans on both sides.

.@AlanDersh: "I refuse to allow partisan politics to preempt my views on the Constitution, which have stayed the same for 50 years." #Tucker pic.twitter.com/YfC6MmSUl0

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 31, 2018