LibertyVoter.Org

By Heather Digby Parton, Salon

Until Wednesday it was a weirdly slow news week in this high-energy Trump era, with no more than a few desultory tweets from the president and almost no public appearances. The most obvious reason for Trump's unwillingness to address the press was that the Stormy Daniels story had dominated the news cycle and he didn't want to have to answer questions about that. Trump also got bad news this week on the emoluments lawsuit that alleges he's improperly profiting from his Washington hotel as president. Or maybe he's just come down after his manic run of the past couple of weeks.

On Tuesday, Trump's silence took on a more ominous tone, however, when senators on both sides of the aisle sent letters to various members of the Justice Department, more or less begging them not to cooperate with any move to shut down Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. For no obviously discernible reason, Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del., authors of a bill introduced more than a year ago to protect Mueller, issued a joint statement urging Trump “to allow the Special Counsel to complete his work without impediment, which is in the best interest of the American people, the President, and our nation.” Later, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and the eight other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee released a letter to five DOJ officials asking them to commit to protecting Mueller.

Blumenthal went on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show and explained:

Sen. Blumenthal is leading Senate Judiciary Committee members in calling on DOJ officials to not interfere in the Mueller probe.

“The reason I led this letter was my increasing alarm … that the President may attempt to fire Bob Mueller.” – @SenBlumenthal pic.twitter.com/S54I3vCvp7

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) March 28, 2018

Meanwhile, the reasoning behind the letters to the Justice Department was spelled out in this Slate article by Blumenthal and historian Rick Perlstein, looking to the Watergate precedent.

A couple of stories have broken over the last couple of days …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Brendan Gauthier, AlterNet

North Carolina became the 19th state to prohibit or restrict the shackling of pregnant inmates during childbirth this week, after its director of prisons, Kenneth Lassiter, signed legislation banning the practice.

The new policy is an apparent response to pushback from a coalition of advocacy groups, including the Atlanta-based SisterSong, which sent a letter last month to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety on behalf of inmates from the North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women who were shackled while in labor. The coalition said two unnamed women were shackled “in spite of the concerns of medical staff and the fact that it was in violation of NC Department of Public Safety written policies and legal precedent.”

Though further information about the two inmates has yet to surface, the letter prompted an internal review that ultimately led to the change in policy, which further bans the use of handcuffs or other restraints “during the mother's initial bonding with her newborn, including nursing and skin-to-skin contact,” according to the News & Observer.

In 2006, the UN Committee against Torture found the practice of shackling pregnant inmates during childbirth to be in violation of Article 16 of the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The American Medical Association condemned the “barbaric practice that needlessly inflicts excruciating pain and humiliation” at its annual meeting in 2010, urging states to model new anti-shackling legislation on New Mexico’s, which bans “restraints of any kind” unless a pregnant inmate poses a flight risk or an immediate threat to herself or others.

“I am unaware of any cases of women or girls in labor attempting to escape. If I did, I …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Aniqa Raihan, OtherWords

It’s now been over a month since 17 teenagers were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, culminating in a march that brought 

And though the story of the battered wife is not an unfamiliar one, a recent study at the University of Pennsylvania found that over 80 percent of intimate partner violence incidents reported in 2013 involved current or past dating partners, while current and past spouses accounted for less than 20 percent of incidents.

As Americans continue to get married later and less frequently, the nationwide population of unmarried adults will grow, which is why closing the boyfriend loophole should be a top priority for lawmakers across the country.

Oregon’s new law makes it the 24th state to officially close the loophole, but there’s still much work to be done. The federal law prohibiting gun ownership for abusers doesn’t actually outline a mechanism for them to hand over weapons they already own.

Twenty-seven states require convicted abusers and those subject to protective orders to relinquish their firearms, but only half of those specify whom the weapons should be given to. And just four require law enforcement to proactively remove guns from offenders rather than wait for them to be turned in.

Meanwhile, 13 states have no laws at all to prevent domestic abusers from owning or buying new guns. Six of those states are in the top 10 with the highest rates of gun deaths.

Representatives Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Dan Donovan (R-NY), along with Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), have introduced legislation to close the boyfriend loophole on the federal level. But that alone won’t be enough to ensure that abusers don’t have access to deadly firearms.

We need thoroughness and uniformity across state lines. We need specific systems to remove weapons from dangerous people, including laws allowing law enforcement to seize weapons found while responding to reports of intimate partner violence.

We need legislation requiring law enforcement agencies to report offenders for inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

And, of course, we need universal background checks on all gun sales, …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Jefferson Morley, AlterNet

For John Bolton, warmongering abroad and partisan politics at home go hand in hand. As Bolton has advocated waging war on Iran and North Korea in recent years, he has built an empire of political influence with two political action committees that spread his hawkish views and support like-minded Republican candidates.

Since 2013 the Bolton PAC and Super PAC have raised more than $23 million and spent more than $14.1 million on Republican candidates and causes, according to FEC records. While previous national security advisers such as Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger have become political stars in the Republican Party, none has played the role of kingmaker that Bolton aspires to.

Such partisanship breaks with the tradition of the national security adviser as an honest broker of policy proposals coming from the military, the foreign service and the intelligence agencies. The job requires reconciling conflicting views before issues require the president to intervene.

“The obvious question is whether John Bolton has the temperament and the judgment for the job,” tweeted Richard Haass, former NSC official and head of the Council on Foreign Relations. Former president Jimmy Carter says Bolton’s appointment is a “disaster for our country.”

Another question is whether his donors will have outsized influence over U.S. policy. Bolton’s biggest backer is Robert Mercer, the New York financier and Trump supporter. Mercer has given Bolton $5 million, including $1 million in two $500,000 payments in late 2017.

Another big Bolton booster is the Falic family of Florida, which donated $175,000 since 2013. The Falics, who own a chain of duty-free shops in airports around the world, are also one of the biggest funders of …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Heather Digby Parton, Salon

I am probably more tolerant of #NeverTrump conservative pundits than a lot of liberals, simply because I think many of them are ruthlessly effective at taking apart their political opponents. In the Trump era, I figure we need all the rhetorical firepower we can get. While I'm not going to forget their role in bringing us to this moment or write paeans to their great moral awakening, if they are willing to put their dark talents to work to help in this national emergency I'm not going to stand in their way.

Likewise, I'd be willing to cut GOP elected officials who criticize the president some slack — if they ever backed up their words with action. It's not as if they don't have any power. All it would take right now is three senators switching parties, even unofficially, to put the Senate in Democratic hands and at least apply the brakes to this slow-motion train wreck. (Why not lame ducks John McCain and Jeff Flake, both of Arizona, and Bob Corker of Tennessee, for example? They literally have nothing to lose.) I'll give McCain, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, plaudits for refusing to sign on to the Obamacare repeal. I welcome McCain's curmudgeonly complaints in other matters. But they've all voted in lockstep with the president on everything else, despite their harsh criticisms of him, so their protestations of independence are pretty weak tea.

Even Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is obviously angling for the permanent McCain Sunday-show slot, is mealy-mouthed in his criticism. And there are effectively no GOP House members who aren't marching over the cliff behind the president.

According to Bob Corker, this is because the voters just love Trump so darned much:

The president is, as you know — you’ve seen his numbers among the Republican base — it’s very strong. It’s more than strong, it’s tribal in nature. People who tell me, who are out on [the] trail, say, look, people don’t ask about issues anymore. They don’t …read more

Source: ALTERNET