Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (1946- ), a US senator from Alabama since 1997, has just been named Attorney General by President-elect Donald Trump. If confirmed by the Senate, as looks likely, he will become head of the Department of Justice (DOJ), of which the FBI is a part – even though in 1986 he was considered too racist to become a federal judge!
Donald Trump says Sessions:
“is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama.”
David Duke, former head of the Klan:
“Bannon, Flynn, Sessions — Great! Senate must demand that Sessions as AG stop the massive institutional race discrimination against whites!”
Andrew Anglin, alt-right head of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer:
“Basically, we are looking at a Daily Stormer Dream Team … Trump is making a point by putting an aggressive anti-Black racist in as AG.”
The NAACP gives his Senate voting record an F.
Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza:
“On every single issue under the purview of the Justice Department – civil rights, voting rights, criminal justice reform, and immigration most notably – he holds positions diametrically opposed to the Latino community, the civil rights community, and to the mainstream.”
Voting rights: He called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation.” He favoured the gutting of it by the Supreme Court in 2013. As Attorney General he will be the last main line of defence against voter suppression laws. Fun fact: he grew up near Selma.
Police brutality: It will be up to him whether to look into racist police forces and enforce any needed reforms. This will most immediately affect Baltimore, which is still in the middle of hammering out reforms.
Mass incarceration: He favours mandatory minimum sentences, which have filled US prisons with Black men at world record levels.
Immigration: In 2013 he led the successful fight to kill immigration
reform. In 2015 he helped to shape (and defend) Trump’s draconian immigration policies. He sees foreigners coming to live in the US as bringing crime, terrorism and lower wages. He doubts even the benefits of the Asian brain drain. He is against birthright citizenship.
Sexual assault: Grabbing women “by the pussy”, which Trump boasted of doing, does not count.
Gay rights: Against same-sex marriage, against homophobic violence as a hate crime.
Confederate flag: In 2015, he opposed South Carolina taking it down.
Early adopter: In 1964 he was a Goldwater Repblican back when few White Southerners were Republican. In 2016 he became the first sitting senator to openly back Trump.
In the 1980s and 1990s, as “a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama”, he looked into cases of voter fraud among Blacks, but not among Whites. As Black churches burned across his state he did nothing.
On the other hand, he did go after the Klan after they hanged Michael Donald from a tree in 1981. He also took part in anti-segregation cases.
Sessions:
“I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks.”
– Abagond, 2016.
Update (November 7th 2018): Jeff Sessions is out as Attorney General. This comes just a day after the midterm elections. There were rumours that after the midterms Trump would try to shut down the Russiagate investigation by getting rid of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and, therefore presumably, Sessions too.
See also:
- What Coretta Scott King said about him
- Jefferson Davis – his namesake
- David Duke
- alt-right
- Donald Trump
- Steve Bannon – a Sessions fanboy since 2013. Wanted him to become president.
- Michael Flynn
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- mass incarceration
- police brutality in Baltimore
- Black church burnings
- Confederate flag
- Asian brain drain
556
Senate Democrats need to show some testicularity and block this appointment by filibustering.
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Such moves might end the Justice Department as we know it. 😦 Sad and scary. We can never underestimate the power of Whiteness.
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These appointments will accelerate the racial polarization of the USA.
On the “bright” side (and I hesitate to call it exactly bright), it might create some new opportunities for shared political interests among blacks, Asians and Native Americans.
But, it will put pressure on certain other marginal groups, esp. Latinos and multiracials and Muslims. They will be forced to demonstrate whether they are loyal to the oppressors or not and whether they will pay the price to join the white club. If not, then they form part of oppressed groups, eg,
* Latinos will increasingly become a “race” (those that did not elect to join the white club).
* Muslims will become a “race”
* Multiracials will be pressured to demonstrate racial loyalty. Those that resist will either be forced to join one of the other “races”, or form a new “race” (ie, a multiracial one akin to “coloreds” in SA). Multiracials who are triracial or quadriracial may be unwilling to join one of the other groups.
Such pressure has been exercised to Native Americans for centuries, but now other groups will be affected by it. But the pattern of Native American oppression has created few avenues for shared political interests as theirs has a different form from the others. However, more oppression creates new opportunities.
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Disturbing.
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Can someone please explain to me how those two elite stalwarts of the justice department, former AG Eric Holder and soon to be former AG Loretta Lynch were guardians and protectors of the rights and liberties of ordinary Black people?? How much worse can JS be? Especially in this era of continued mass lynchings/executions of Black people by bullets/choking/tasing, etc – under a BLACK president no less.
Should I be afraid of being afraid of what someone appointed/elected might do?
Then again, that may be the reason some countries build up a huge military, defenses that occupy the entire globe, and then set out to plunder the rest of the world – because they’re afraid someone is going to screw them, if they don’t screw them first.
Mankind is a bunch of weird-goofy folks!
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@ Fan …
There will be widespread Jim Crow reinstated with these elected officials. It looks like you won… You can stop pretending now.
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@ Fan
TeddyBearDaddy sounds hyperbolic but he is not far off.
The Fifteenth Amendment, which gave Blacks the right to vote, has a fatal flaw: it leaves it to the states to determine who is qualified to vote. There is no voter registration at the national level. So after the North pulled out its troops in the late 1870s, the South started passing voter suppression laws (poll taxes, literacy tests, etc). That in turn gave us Jim Crow laws.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was meant to fix that hole in the amendment and it did, pretty much, but then in 2013 it was gutted by Scalia and others on the Supreme Court. It left the Attorney General as the last main way to challenge and overturn voter suppression laws. With Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch as AG it was still possible to do that, but with Jeff Sessions you can kiss that goodbye. Voter suppression will get way worse.
I know you do not believe in voting, but laws do not come out of thin air. They are voted on by lawmakers who in turn are voted in or out of office by those who show up to vote.
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@ Fan
Also, you may sniff at Holder and Lynch, and, true, they were far from perfect, but they investigated and reformed far more police departments than did Bush II’s attorney generals. Expect Sessions to do little of that. He is far more likely to investigate Black Lives Matter than police departments.
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@abagond
Just like Hoover investigated Black Panther Party rather than the Klan policies which the entire country operated within. History is repeating itself.
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So what are we going to do? Are we screwed? How can we counter this, or is it hopeless? Have the white supremacists taken over the government? Do we have any allies leftt or are we going to see Jim Crowe 2.0 in 2017? If so then you will not see me talking to a single white person alive.
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“Also, you may sniff at Holder and Lynch, and, true, they were far from perfect, but they investigated and reformed far more police departments than did Bush II’s attorney generals.”
@ Abagond
I could be mistaken, but wasn’t there a greater number of police departments murdering unarmed Black people under Holder & Lynch than under Bush II??
Perhaps the last decent AG the US had was Robert Kennedy. Look at how long ago that was, not to mention the strange circumstances surrounding his demise and a topic for another time.
For the record, I understand how laws are made. There’s more to that process than what you just let on. Presidents also make laws via executive orders, illegal as it seems. Judges make laws by their judicial rulings from the bench. Laws do often appear to come out of thin air. In fact there are so many of them it’s impossible for any one person, even lawyers and judges, to know them all, or keep them all. The patriot act wasn’t read by the majority of legislatures that vote for it. (The representative republic system IS BROKEN. The thing is a sham. The constitution is a DEAD letter.) We could waste a lifetime just arguing back and forth about that alone.
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@ Fan
It is hard to tell since Bush II did not even bother to keep numbers on that.
In my own experience, it was rare to hear about a case outside of my city (New York) before Twitter took off in 2009.
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@Jony
Well Special Agent Jony perhaps you will be a SS type of Agent sent out massacre people of color under special orders from your superior Jeff Sessions.
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You’re straight up stupid teddy. You must have me twisted with some brainwashed Al Sharpton type negro. No, you won’t see me doing a single thing except being as big a thorn in the side of white supremacy as I can. If that means just making the white supremacists uncomfortable by calling them on their sh*t then so be it.
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@Jony
Your post seemed like a troll post from a government agent surveillance member. “Never speaking to a single white person alive” ? What is that? You know how this country works and you know that’s not possible… I don’t care if you people are monitoring me.. Do it…
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@Teddy no I’m just one of 40 million black people in this country who is more fed up than the 20 million black people were back in 65 over racism. And they were pretty fed up the way I hear it.
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Donald Trump says Sessions:
“is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama.”
David Duke, former head of the Klan:
“Bannon, Flynn, Sessions — Great! Senate must demand that Sessions as AG stop the massive institutional race discrimination against whites!”
Andrew Anglin, alt-right head of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer:
“Basically, we are looking at a Daily Stormer Dream Team … Trump is making a point by putting an aggressive anti-Black racist in as AG.”
In order to make the empty statements such as those listed above by supposed normal people are nothing short of delusions of persecution. White people are not being persecuted. These are simply Grandiose (superiority) ideas of collective whites referring to another people, who are supposedly and covertly planning the takeover of their country, when it was never possessed by whites to begin with. White people are superior to no other group. This is an indication of classic group narcissism on display.
The 1828, 1849, 1854, and 1859, editions of Webster’s Dictionary almost say it all. American, the noun, “ORIGINALLY applied to the aboriginals, Black or COPPER-COLORED races, found here by the Europeans.”
Even further, “stop the massive institutional race discrimination against whites.” But yet, Puke Duke is unable to point one piece of legislation either at the local, state or federal level of government that would reasonably lend credence to his statement.
Additionally, as President-elect Mr. Rump puts it when referring to Mr. Sessions: “is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama.” But yet, he fails to point to even one piece of legal brief or one piece of proposal that was so well grounded in legal theory that it astounded the experts and uprooted precedents in the process. Perhaps Mr. Rump lowered the bar so that Mr. Sessions could meet the requirements (no pun intended regarding his challenged physical stature).
Generally, this is how most whites behave, especially those in power. They prophesy and feed nonsensical fallacies to the lower class whites who in turn, immediately consume these beseeched garbage and these politicians proceed to act by implementing policies to this effect. They do so by initiating financial, judicial and social laws and policies in an attempt to justify their future behavior.
This country is essentially based upon a long series of contemporary and historical lies. Intentional inexactness such as the U.S. Constitution’s “Three-fifths Compromise” allowed a state to count three fifths of each Black person in determining political representation in the House. Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. The men were told they were being treated for so-called “bad blood.” (smh) Hermstein and Murray’s 1994: The Bell Curve”, a book which basically states that Black people have lower IQs when juxtaposed against whites and other groups. Tom Brokaw’s 1998 book: “The Greatest Generation.” Now, here comes Donald Rump with another lie: “Make Amerika Great Again.” The latter two lies clearly exemplify dog-whistle, racist lexicons. In both instances, the word “great” is used synonymously in place of white, as in “Making Amerika White Again” or “The Whitest Generation” are just a few that allude to these long held misconceptions. Even further, and as most of us already know, Amerika was never great!
All of the Psychological terms utilized are usually used in reference to patients who are sometimes under lock-and-key. I utilize them here because there are no other ways to describe these current bottom-of-the-barrel politicians. Having said that, this is not to be construed that I previously had confidence in these self serving *ssholes in the first instance!
But yet, after all of the generational trials and tribulations, I still wholeheartedly believe in American exceptionalism. Conversely, not for the reasons most may think. Which usually refer to the special character of the United States as a uniquely free nation based on democratic ideals and personal liberty, … huh! However, I believe in Amerikan exceptionalism because Amerika still is and will always be exceptionally racist!
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave may be of some assistance.
Richard Lewis Nettleship, Philosopher, thought this about the allegory: “the allegory of the cave as one about human ignorance and people who are unable or unwilling to seek truth and wisdom.”
Selah!
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This is very disturbing. Could America really become a Nazi state?
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“This is very disturbing. Could America really become a Nazi state?” – Zoe Jordan
@Zoe, Amerika always has been a neo-Nazi State. This country professes to be and cloak itself in Democratic garb, but operationally, it is far from anything resembling a free State.
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@ Zoe J.
Where do you think the defeated Nazi scientists fled to escape persecution for their world war II crimes? They ran directly to Amerika’s open arms for aid, comfort and refuge. They called it Operation Paperclip! In many cases they not only received a new identity but also a nice lump of cash…for working for the Amerikan gov’t.
The elite are great at programming the law-abiding population that crime doesn’t pay, while they break every law known to man and God. Amerika simply isn’t that wonderful nation shining her beacon of light to all the world’s weary and downtrodden … She’s a corrupt and rotting corpse of decay and dead mens’ bones masquerading as a clean and honest country.
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/15/275877755/the-secret-operation-to-bring-nazi-scientists-to-america
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What a time to be alive.
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@blakksage
Thanks for sharing that Allegory of the Cave claymation video.
Very deep.
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@Afrofem,
you are very welcome!
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it’s my understanding von braun et al were solicited by the american defense industry
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Even though I’m not an American I was against Clinton because of Libya and her utterances concerning a no-fly zone over Syria and her aggressive comments on Iran. But … Trump, I reckon, may well turn out to be a white Idi Amin!
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What are you implying? My tomcat’s name is Nathan Bedford!
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My next tomcat will be named Beelzebub!
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@ Herneith
All cats are small demons, whether named for one or not.
I’m picking my cats up tomorrow after being boarded at the vet for a week. I expect there to be much howling, scratching, rending of garments, and gnashing of teeth.
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The cat loves to urinate and defecate on the floor if their human is gone for any prolonged time, POS!
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Cats were gods in Egypt, and they have never forgotten it!
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Joe Biden had this to say of Jeff Sessions: “People change.”
But what else can we expect from the racist architect of the racist ’94 Crime Bill?
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@ Scribh
I am shocked, utterly shocked.
/sarcasm off
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/sarcasm on again
“But sure, there’s nothing going on between the right wing and Russia at all…”
finally. some sanity about the deep state propaganda.
/sarcasm off
” Both (libs and cons) believe, without evidence, that the Russians intervened to try to get Trump elected.”
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the deep state strikes again
neo-mccartheyism running wild. absolutely ridiculous
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[…] Jeff Sessions […]
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“I fear that this could give ammunition to Hawaiian separatists, who might then be in a position to take one of our most liberal states out of the Union. I do NOT want to see that happen.”
Right. God forbid those brown people get their nation back. ASG-M cares more about their liberal votes than their sovereignty and autonomy.
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@ ASG-M
You’re over-complicating things. All this is, is me calling out your racism when and where I see it.
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@LOM
“Does she care more about standing up to the actual bad actors?”–She is doing just that. Even though your bad acting is a smaller part, she is standing up to it by calling you out.
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@ ASG-M
Hey, if you really honestly want to discuss the intersection of Hawaiian independence and racism, take it to the Open Thread and I’ll meet up with you there. But if you’re not serious and honest about it, don’t waste my time. You can just hang out here all by your little lonesome with your self-pitying martyr act.
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Yet somehow, Solitaire finds a way to attack me.
Everyone needs a hobby!
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@abagond
Maybe it is an idea to categorize this post in the “senators”-category (with the articles on McCain, Robert Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, etc.) you wrote ten years ago. That would make a nice collection of articles on American Politics.
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And maybe these articles could also fall under the ‘senators’-category:
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@ Jeff Elberfeld
I second the category idea. I would also love to see some e-book compilations of Abagond’s best updated posts on various topics.
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http://herneith.d.pr/dN7Ub4
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@ Herneith
Good one. Those two could be sister and brother.
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Those two could be sister and brother.
How do you know they’re not?
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A lot of old rude white men don’t like Kamala Harris she had him sputtering and stuttering like an old adlepated fool. She reminds them of how old and senile, immoral, and unethical ,and incompetant and stupid they are. I am sure he wanted to call her uppity.
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A Racist and a Fascist.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-greenlights-police-to-increase-seizures-of-cash-and-property-from-suspected-criminals/2017/07/19/3522a9ba-6c99-11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html?tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.5f51ecd298c7
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@ michaeljonbarker
Civil asset forfeiture and police seizures are a way to keep the “troops” fed and watered plus squeeze a bit of cash out on the side for the Feds.
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This is outrageous, really. I can see confiscating the proceeds of crime, even then, ferreting out ill gotten gains from legitimate ones, would prove difficult. This reminds me of ancient Rome where the troops were allowed to pillage conquered areas as a way of providing bonuses.
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Update: Jeff Sessions is out as Attorney General. This comes just a day after the midterm elections. There were rumours that after the midterms Trump would try to shut down the Russiagate investigation by getting rid of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and, therefore presumably, Sessions too.
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Sessions continued to stay and lick Trump’s boots even though he knew Trump had no respect for him. Sessions was a racist and I have no sympathy for him. He knew dealing with someone unstable as Trump his days were numbered. So now Trump can put another monster in his place
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