Trump & Sessions Ignored Warning Of Psychological Harm To Children With Zero Tolerance Policy - PBS News Hour

“Jonathan White of Health & Human Services warned President Trump & AG Jeff Sessions about ‘significant risk of harm’ & ‘psychological injury’ to children affected by their new zero tolerance border policy ... and was ignored.”

The full article is available here

New Study connects U.S. Citizen Racial/Cultural Intolerance & Support For Authoritarianism

A new study finds a correlation between U.S. citizen’s racial and cultural intolerance, and support for authoritarian rule.  The data shows that when intolerant U.S. citizens fear that democracy may benefit marginalized people groups, they abandon their commitment to democracy.

The growing concentration of racially and culturally intolerant voters in the Republican Party has created a party whose workings appear less and less committed to a democratic society.

When faced with a choice between bigotry and democracy, too many U.S. citizens are embracing the first while abandoning the second.
The full article is available here

Cohen Tape: Further Evidence Trump Committed 'Felony Campaign Finance Violation'

A secret payment to keep an alleged affair quiet, designed to help the Trump campaign and not properly disclosed, violates federal campaign finance laws. Because the amount exceeded $25,000, it would be punishable as a felony (as was the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels). 

In the unwieldy tape, Cohen and Trump appear to be discussing plans to set up a shell company to buy the rights to story of Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who alleges she had an affair with Trump.

The story was purchased by American Media Inc. (AMI)—the parent company of the National Enquirer—for $150,000.  (The Enquirer never ran the story, a fact that many argue strongly suggests that the tabloid killed it at Trump's behest).

Cohen's tape appears to contradict repeated claims by the president's team that Trump had no knowledge of any payments to silence McDougal.

Lawmakers and ethics experts argued that the newly released audio provides evidence of a serious campaign finance violation.

Journalist David Atkins said, "On the tape, Cohen and Trump are discussing a conspiracy to repay a tabloid owner for buying and shelving a story by the candidate's mistress. Which is not only a major scandal, but a felony campaign finance violation."

The full article is available here

Did My Family Really Come “Legally”? - Today’s Immigration Laws Created a New Reality

Until the late 19th century, there was very little federal regulation of immigration—there were virtually no laws to break.

Today’s laws require that potential immigrants be closely related to qualified U.S. citizens or permanent residents, have employment offers from U.S. employers, or qualify as refugees.

Today’s laws would have effectively restricted many of our families that immigrated before the passage of those laws from coming legally to the United States.

Until the late 19th century, there was very little federal regulation of immigration—there were virtually no laws to break. The U.S. was a growing, increasingly industrialized nation that needed workers, and immigration was “encouraged and virtually unfettered."

When many families arrived in the United States, there were no numerical limitations on immigration, no requirements to have an existing family or employment relationship with someone in the country, and no requirement to obtain a visa prior to arriving.

Before the 20th century, there was virtually no bureaucracy responsible for enforcing immigration laws. The first numerical caps on immigration and limitations on Europeans were not established until the 1920s—after the great wave of immigration to the United States.

Acknowledging the large numbers of Europeans in the United States without proper authorization, the 1929 Registry Act allowed “honest law-abiding alien[s] who may be in the country under some merely technical irregularity” to register as permanent residents for a fee of $20 if they could prove they had lived in the country since 1921 and were of “good moral character.” 

The full article is available here

Alleged Russian Spy Was Working to Infiltrate Religious Right As Well As Gun Groups

Why would Russian espionage efforts target the US Christian Right?  Well, the affection with which some Christian right figures hold Russia and specifically the LGBTQ-persecuting policies of Putin is hardly a secret.

(For more on how the National Prayer Breakfast was the perfect shady venue for Russians to connect with the NRA and Trump, head here)

In 2015, alleged Russian spy Butina and her associate, U.S. political operative Paul Erickson, appeared on the radio show of conservative evangelical superstar (and big-time Trump promoter) Eric Metaxas to discuss gun rights and religious freedom — topics that are strangely congruent in the conservative Christian circles in which all these birds flew.

But why would Russian espionage efforts target the US Christian Right?  Well, the affection with which some Christian right figures hold Russia and specifically the LGBTQ-persecuting policies of Putin is hardly a secret.

Putin’s evangelical fan club includes some pretty big names, like conservative Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, National Organization for Marriage leader Brian Brown, and American Family Association spokesperson Bryan Fischer.

In almost every case it has been his distinctive combination of homophobia and Islamophobia that has made Putin popular with those men. The cultural conservative preference for authoritarian moralism is echoed to the former KGB officer who has revived Russia’s pre-communist tradition of militantly authoritarian Christianity.

The full article is available here

"Totalitarianism For Christ:" How National Prayer Breakfast Plays Into Indictment Of Alleged Russian Spy

The National Prayer Breakfast is organized by "The Family," a powerful and secretive Washington DC lobby that pursues what they've described as "totalitarianism for Christ." The Family frequently uses the National Prayer Breakfast, and the week surrounding it, as a means of back-channel engagement with lobbyists and foreign governments that organizers feel share its “strongman” approach, without formal government oversight.

Maria Butina, a Russian graduate student at American University and gun rights activist, was arrested and accused of “acting as an agent for a foreign government.”

One of the most striking elements of Butina’s case was the venue she allegedly chose to exert influence: the National Prayer Breakfast. At the 2016 and 2017 events, Butina allegedly met with unnamed American officials and “very influential” Russians, and seems to have successfully attempted to broker meetings between figures in these groups.

The National Prayer Breakfast is organized by "The Family," also known as "C Street." It is a powerful right wing organization that claims to be Christian, but who have an erroneous view of Jesus as the ideal “strongman,” an idea they've also referred to as "Totalitarianism For Christ."  (The founders of this group were great admirers of the European Fascism of the 1930's).

In strongman-sympathetic President Trump, The Family has found an ideal vessel for their beliefs.

The Family frequently uses the National Prayer Breakfast, and the week surrounding it, as a backdoor recruiting and diplomacy tool, often using the events around the breakfast as a means of back-channel engagement with lobbyists and foreign governments that organizers feel share its “strongman” approach, without formal government oversight.

The Family's distorted belief that Jesus was a strongman guides their understanding that if you're in power, it's because God puts you there. Their efforts to work with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin are going on in the context of a growing U.S. Christian Right admiration for Putin over the past decade. 

The full article is available here

Authoritarianism Making A Comeback In West. Here's the time-tested way to defeat it - The Guardian

Authoritarians' tactics require the consent of large numbers of people.
The first lesson, then, is not to obey in advance.

Modern authoritarians rely on repression, intimidation, corruption and co-optation to consolidate their power. Good citizens will then ask: "but what should we do?" History provides an answer: civil resistance.

Civil resistance works by separating the authoritarian ruler from pillars of support, including economic elites, security forces, and government workers. It attracts diverse groups in society, whose collective defiance and stubbornness eventually elicits power shifts.

Unarmed civilians using petitions, boycotts, strikes, and other nonviolent methods have been able to slow, disrupt and even halt authoritarianism. Civil resistance has been twice as effective as armed struggle.

The dictator’s handbook mastered by Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey, Maduro in Venezuela, Putin in Russia, Zuma in South Africa, Duterte in the Philippines (and being flirted with by Trump in the US) provides the traditional tactics:

• attack journalists 
• blame dissent on foreigners and “paid protestors” 
• scapegoat minorities and vulnerable groups 
• weaken checks on power 
• reward loyalists 
• use paramilitaries 
• reduce politics to a question of friends and enemies, us and them.

The full article is available here