(As a child my father had me watch Malcolm X when he was on TV on the news and occasionally on other programs. My Dad used to say "Malcolm X stuck his finger in the eye of White hypocrisy". I have never heard anyone describe his legacy better than that.)
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Thursday, November 28, 2024
After Five Generations, a Family Gave Back the Treasures in its Closet
After Five Generations, a Family Gave Back the Treasures in its Closet
“The descendants of a 19th-century federal official decided to return a prized collection of heirlooms to a descendant of a Lakota leader, Chief Spotted Tail.
The beaten-up suitcase had been in the Newell family for more than a century, passed from dusty closet to dusty closet and pulled out every now and then for guests.
They would unlatch the metal clasps and take out a fringed shirt adorned with careful beadwork, a weathered pair of moccasins and an elaborate headdress that trailed eagle feathers down to the floor.
Passed along with the suitcase was the story told by their 19th-century ancestor, Major Cicero Newell, who said he had received the clothing from the well-known Lakota leader, Chief Spotted Tail, during his stint as an agent for the federal government’s Indian affairs office beginning in the late 1870s in what is now South Dakota.
The suitcase had been passed down five generations, ending up in the guest room closet of Newell’s great-great-grandson, James, a retired salesman living in a small town in Washington State.
But when it came time for James Newell to think about passing it along again, the sixth generation had a different idea.
“‘Well, Dad, why don’t we try giving it back?’” James Newell, 77, recalled his son, Eric, asking when the topic came up several years ago at the dinner table.
The older Newell thought about it. There was the issue of whom they would give it back to, but that could be worked out.
“It felt right,” James Newell said.
The Newells’s suitcase is part of an untold number of Native artifacts kept in attics and closets across America, their origin stories often clouded by decades-long games of intergenerational telephone.
A 1990 federal law set up a protocol for museums and other institutions to repatriate Native human remains, funerary objects and other cultural items in consultation with tribes and descendants. But that law doesn’t cover the artifacts found in your grandfather’s basement or your aunt’s cupboard.
As younger generations inherit these possessions, they’re more likely to have an impulse toward giving them back, repatriation experts say. Some are motivated by a sense of ethical responsibility, some by practical considerations, and some because they have less interest in the “cabinet of curiosities” traditions of earlier times.
“Priority No. 1 was to get it into the hands of somebody who is going to take care of it and maintain it,” said Eric Newell, 46, who noted that it had been his “great-great-great-grandfather” who had the original connection to it.
So his father started doing research on the old suitcase in the closet, starting with the man who had asked that it be passed down to the firstborn son of each generation. (It had gone to James Newell, a second son, because his older brother had been wary of keeping the heirlooms in his trailer in the mountains, where he had worked as a logger.)
As with many family stories, the exact circumstances of how Cicero Newell came into possession of the heirlooms are somewhat ambiguous, so the Newells relied on what they had been told by previous generations and what they could find online.
A Civil War veteran from Michigan, Cicero Newell was appointed what was then termed a U.S. Indian agent — an employee tasked with communicating between the federal government and tribes. He was stationed in what is now reservation land of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.
It was a tumultuous time in the region: The U.S. government had recently seized the Black Hills, flouting the treaty that had promised tribes control over the vast Great Sioux Reservation.
Newell, who later wrote extensively about his time on the reservation, described how he came to admire the Lakota leaders he met. His tenure at times drew criticism; some newspaper accounts accused him of acting as a pawn for Lakota officials such as Chief Spotted Tail. One article criticized him in harsh personal terms for helping spread the word about a Sun Dance ceremony put on by the chief.
In his writings, Newell expressed a particular affection for Chief Spotted Tail, a storied tribal spokesman and negotiator who was shot and killed in 1881 by a member of his tribe. Newell wrote that when he passed on to the afterlife, “I hope that one of the first persons I may meet there will be my dear old friend Spotted Tail.”
What, exactly, Chief Spotted Tail thought of Newell is less clear from the historical record. Newell wrote that during his time as a U.S. Indian agent, he had successfully convinced Spotted Tail and other Lakota parents to send their children to a new federal boarding school out east.
In recent years, research into Native American boarding schools has more fully revealed the neglect and abuse that many children endured in them, as well as their targeted efforts to erase Indigenous students’ cultures to achieve assimilation.
In 1880, the year before he died, Chief Spotted Tail traveled to the school in Carlisle, Pa. Newspaper articles from around that time and letters kept in government archives indicate that he had been unhappy with the school’s approach to punishment and grew distraught over the sickness and deaths of schoolchildren.
For James Newell, an idea of what to do with the suitcase began to take shape in 2020.
Newell, who had been researching for more than a year, was looking on the website of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe when he came upon a familiar name: John Spotted Tail, chief of staff to the tribal president. He reached him over the phone and told him what was inside his family’s closet.
“At first I kind of thought it was a crank call,” John Spotted Tail, 69, recalled.
But as he listened to Newell’s story — after explaining to him that he was five generations removed from Chief Spotted Tail — he began to grow interested.
Newell was eager to give the contents of the suitcase to a descendant of the Lakota chief but wary of driving it across the country. Federal law prohibits the possession of eagle feathers without special dispensation, but the government allows exceptions for Native Americans because of their religious and cultural significance. Newell was worried that if he were to be stopped on the road, his possession of the headdress could land him in jail.
John Spotted Tail’s curiosity was piqued by Newell’s story. When he came home from work, he asked his wife if they had enough money to travel to Washington.
They got in the car the next morning, supplied with lunch meat and bread, and began a 1,400-mile drive to the home of a complete stranger.
“We’re halfway there and I look at John and I said, ‘What if these people aren’t real?” said Spotted Tail’s wife, Tamara Stands and Looks Back-Spotted Tail.
But as soon as the couple arrived in La Center, Wash., the Newells opened the suitcase for them. In addition to the clothing, it contained a bison horn and braided hair that could have belonged to a horse or a person.
“We looked at each other and we said, ‘Is this real? 144 years?’” she said. “We were just kind of in awe.”
After spending three days with the Newells, the Spotted Tails drove back to the Rosebud Reservation with the suitcase in the trunk of their Volkswagen Passat.
There was a tribal protocol they needed to follow to determine where the belongings would end up. They consulted Lakota spiritual leaders and cultural experts, participated in a ceremony surrounding the clothing and consulted other Spotted Tail relatives.
Some were skeptical about the story from the Newells; others wanted to see the items kept with the family. John Spotted Tail favored putting it in a museum, where visitors could learn about the Lakota leader.
For several years, he kept the suitcase in his home, but the responsibility began to weigh on him. “It was hard to even leave home or go anywhere because they were here,” John Spotted Tail said.
He and his wife called the South Dakota State Historical Society in Pierre, where curators wanted to feature the century-and-a-half old heirlooms prominently and assured them that they would be well preserved. And the museum was less than a two-hour drive from the reservation, making it accessible to local relatives who wanted to visit.
The suitcase, and the story of how it got here, was a historical society director’s dream.
The director, Ben Jones, looked through old photographs and read Newell’s writings to try to find evidence indicating that the Lakota chief had given the one-time Indian agent such a significant gift.
None surfaced, but it was clear that the two men had crossed paths, living in the same area for a couple of years and navigating the conflict around the U.S. government’s westward expansion.
In May, the Spotted Tails formally transferred the suitcase and its contents to the historical society at a ceremony involving Lakota prayers at a middle school in Pierre. The museum is hoping to put the heirlooms on display late next year.
“They became colleagues, and then friends,” Jones said of Newell and Chief Spotted Tail, “and five generations later, their families were wondering what to do with these artifacts.”
Jennifer Schuessler contributed reporting.“
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Jasmine Crockett BLISTERS white GOP members over DEI attacks | Roland Ma...
Evidence of the Exodus
Q: You and other scholars point out that there isn't evidence outside the Bible, in historic documents and the archeological record, for a mass migration from Egypt involving hundreds of thousands of people. But it may be plausible that there was a much smaller exodus, an exodus of people originally from the land of Canaan who were returning to it. Is that right?
Meyers: Yes. Despite all the ways in which the exodus narratives in the Bible seem to be non-historic, something about the overall pattern can, in fact, be related to what we know from historical sources was going on at the end of the Late Bronze Age [circa 1200 B.C.E.], around when the Bible's chronology places the story of departure from Egypt.
Now, what is the evidence? First of all, during this period there likely were a lot of people from the land of Canaan, from regions of the eastern Mediterranean, in Egypt. Sometimes they were taken there as slaves. The local kings of the city-states in Canaan would offer slaves as tribute to the pharaohs in order to remain in their good graces. This is documented in the Amarna letters discovered in Egypt. So we know that there were people taken to Egypt as slaves.
There were also traders from the eastern Mediterranean who went to Egypt for commercial reasons. And there also probably were people from Canaan who went to Egypt during periods of extended drought and famine, as is reported in the Bible for Abraham and Sarah.
So Canaanites went to Egypt for a variety of reasons. They were generally assimilated—after a generation or two they became Egyptians. There is almost no evidence that those people left. But there are one or two Egyptian documents that record the flight of a handful of people who had been brought to Egypt for one reason or other and who didn't want to stay there.
Now, there is no direct evidence that such people were connected with the exodus narrative in the Bible. But in our western historical imagination, as we try to recreate the past, it's certainly worth considering that some of them, somehow, for some reason that we can never understand, maybe because life was so difficult for them in Egypt, thought that life would be greener than in the pastures that they had left.
And it's possible that a charismatic leader, a Moses, rallied a few of those people and urged them to make the difficult and traumatic and dangerous journey across the forbidding terrain of the Sinai Peninsula, back to what their collective memory maintained was a promised land.
Elon Musk wants to target Soros-backed Democrat district attorneys elections - The Washington Post
‘Soros of the right’ Elon Musk eyes progressive prosecutors as next target
Donald Trump adviser Brooke Rollins had a question for the crowd celebrating his election at his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month. “Where is the George Soros of the right?” she called from the stage, referring to the billionaire investor and prolific liberal donor.
To loud cheers, a younger billionaire in the audience threw his right hand into the air: Elon Musk.
Musk is being likened to Soros in Republican circles — and embracing the comparison — after he plowed more than $118 million into his pro-Trump super PAC to support the former president’s campaign. He is also planning to use Soros’s past donations as a road map to guide his own political targets.
The tech mogul told advisers shortly before the election that America PAC should challenge “Soros DAs,” referring to a cohort of progressive district attorneys across the country who received support from Soros and affiliated organizations, according to two people familiar with Musk’s plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Musk believes that prosecutors linked to Soros are too lenient on crime and directly responsible for theft and other quality-of-life issues in cities across the country, the people said. Many DAs linked to the liberal donor campaigned on platforms of criminal justice reform and were elected in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
“The progressive district attorneys are a problem, and they are easy pickings,” one of the people said.
Soros, a Hungarian-born hedge-fund founder, has long been a target of right-wing conspiracy theories about his involvement in liberal politics around the world.
Over the past decade, Soros and affiliated groups have backed prosecutors across the country who campaigned on progressive ideals, like reducing mass incarceration and improving equity in the criminal justice system. His donations have ranged from thousands to millions of dollars, in cities large and small. His intervention in local district attorney races, which generally attract little outside notice, has added contention to some campaigns.
Musk is currently directing the bulk of his attention on the nongovernment “efficiency” commission he will co-chair for Trump, the people familiar with his discussions said, and his plans for America PAC’s future are still preliminary. But the private comments fit with public statements by Musk indicating his intention to intervene in DA races around the United States, and his concerns about Soros’s support for local prosecutors.
The Tesla CEO said in a live stream on Election Day that America PAC would “aim to weigh in heavily” on future races for the House, Senate and local district attorney offices.
In a post last week on his social network X, Musk amplified a list of six Democratic DAs described as “Soros-backed,” who have received funding from Soros or affiliated groups and are nearing the end of their terms.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for America PAC declined to comment.
Musk took an interest in Soros and his involvement in local political races even before he became a top Republican donor: “Soros figured out a clever arbitrage opportunity,” Musk wrote in a post on his social network X early last year. Campaign dollars go further in local races for district attorneys and judges, he wrote, “so it is far easier to sway the outcome.”
On an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast later in 2023, Musk said that Soros was “doing things that erode the fabric of civilization — you know, getting DAs elected who refuse to prosecute crime.” A spokesperson for Soros declined to comment.
Musk last week suggested in another post on X that he was open to learning more about Soros’s political projects. “I would be curious to meet and understand your goals better,” Musk wrote in a reply to the liberal donor’s son Alex, who chairs his father’s nonprofit Open Society Foundations.
The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which tracks spending by Soros and affiliated organizations, estimated that as of January 2024 Soros had spent at least $50 million in direct and indirect spending over the past decade to support candidates in DA races.
The liberal billionaire’s donations can be difficult to trace because they are sometimes funneled through a tangle of national and state-level PACs, allied organizations, nonprofits and other entities.
In some Republican circles the terms “Soros-backed,” “Soros-funded” or “Soros DA” are used as epithets for liberal prosecutors who favor reducing mass incarceration or improving equity in the criminal justice system. They are sometimes applied to candidates who only received minimal, indirect funding from the deep-pocketed investor.
Recently, a series of progressive prosecutors — including some who received support from Soros or associated groups — have suffered electoral backlash after criticsblamed them for increases in homelessness, drug use and theft.
The traditionally liberal counties that are home to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, all recently recalled or replaced progressive prosecutors as frustrations over quality of life issues boiled over.
Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, said Musk’s greater resources and celebrity could make him even more impactful than the older billionaire. Soros, who is 94, is more than 40 years older than Musk, 53, and worth $6.5 billion to the tech mogul’s $348 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Musk “has more capacity and ability to transmit information and influence people than maybe anyone else,” Johnson said.
Several district attorneys who have been linked to Soros are up for reelection this year, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who secured Trump’s convictionfor falsifying business records in May. While Bragg has not directly received support from Soros, he previously received funding from a group backing liberal candidates that received money from the billionaire.
Maud Maron, a former attorney for the nonprofit Legal Aid Society, is running as a Republican against Bragg, she told the New York Post this week. A spokesperson for Bragg declined to comment.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who this week dropped a lawsuit against Musk and America PAC over a $1 million voter giveaway during the presidential campaign, also reaches the end of his term this year. He has not yet declared whether he intends to stand for reelection.
A spokesperson for Krasner declined to comment. Krasner received support from a Soros-affiliated PAC in his last run for district attorney.
Ramin Fatehi, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Norfolk, received more than $220,000 in support from Soros-affiliated organizations, according to public filings.
“In a large and not wealthy city, the money was helpful in getting my message to the people,” said Fatehi, who faces reelection in 2025. “Elon can put in whatever kind of money he wants here … but voters are smart and vote for the message.”
No opponents to Krasner or Fatehi have yet declared an intention to run for their offices.
Musk intervened in a district attorney race in Texas earlier this year without success. A September Wall Street Journal report linked the Tesla CEO to an effort to unseat José Garza, a Soros-linked district attorney in Travis County, home to Austin, where Musk spends much of his time. Garza handily won, receiving 70 percent of the vote in a county that traditionally favors the Democratic Party.
Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of nonprofit organization Prosecutors Alliance Action, said she was encouraged by Garza’s win despite Musk’s involvement. Still, she said, America PAC’s involvement in DA races should be unwelcome.
“It will be much harder to win races where there are millions put into spread misinformation, and use fearmongering to try to get voters to move away from candidates who are more committed to their local communities than Musk would ever would be,” DeBerry said.
America PAC primarily focused on turning out low-propensity voters for Trump during the November campaign but also spent millions on competitive congressional races around the country, potentially providing a preview of how Musk could loom large in local contests.
In Michigan’s 7th District, Musk’s America PAC spent about $1 million to support Republican Tom Barrett, who defeated his Democratic challenger and flipped the seat.
Barrett’s campaign spokesman, Jason Roe, said that while Musk’s support was a fraction of the total spent campaigning for the seat, he contributed an “eye popping” amount in a tight race ultimately won by about 17,000 votes.
“Soros can overwhelm a race, so now it’s nice to have Musk,” Roe said. “When he [Musk] does stuff like this, it gets attention.”
Rudy Giuliani Loses His Lawyers, and His Cool, in Court - The New York Times
Rudy Giuliani Loses His Lawyers, and His Cool, in Court
"The subject of several cases, the former New York City mayor lashed out at a judge questioning why he had not forfeited personal assets as required.
Rudolph W. Giuliani was not having a good day, and it showed.
The former New York City mayor was in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday to discuss his continuing failure to give up nearly $11 million worth of personal assets. The forfeiture was meant as a down payment on the $148 million Mr. Giuliani owes to two Georgia election workers for defaming them by claiming, without evidence, that they had helped to steal the 2020 presidential election.
But first, Judge Lewis Liman allowed Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers to withdraw from the case. They had requested to be removed two weeks ago, citing an unspecified “professional ethics” concern.
“I’m sorry it came to this,” Kenneth Caruso, one of Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers, said before he and his co-counsel left the hearing.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Caruso said that there had been “a difference of opinion” with Mr. Giuliani but they wished his new counsel “every success.”
The focus then shifted to Mr. Giuliani’s new lawyer, Joseph M. Cammarata, a former police officer. The men forged a relationship after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when Mr. Cammarata’s brother, a firefighter, was killed.
Mr. Cammarata, who has been involved in the case for just over a week, asked that Mr. Giuliani’s trial, which is scheduled for Jan. 16, be delayed to determine whether the former mayor could keep his condominium in Florida and several custom-made Yankees World Series rings.
Mr. Cammarata said the delay was necessary because he also had to prepare for a December court appearance in Washington, where Mr. Giuliani could be found in contempt of court for continuing to make false accusations about the two Georgia poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.
Also, Mr. Cammarata said, Mr. Giuliani would like to attend President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, and a trial could prevent that.
The answer, Judge Liman said, was no.
The hourlong hearing, punctuated by an angry outburst by Mr. Giuliani, was the most contentious yet in the winding search for his personal assets, which he was ordered to hand over to the two women more than a month ago.
For the first time in weeks, the strain of several cases stemming from Mr. Giuliani’s time as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer appeared to be getting to him, as he sat slumped back in his chair with his arms crossed.
After missing several deadlines to surrender the bulk of his assets, Mr. Giuliani has only turned over a fraction of notable items, including some pieces from his luxury watch collection and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz convertible that he says once belonged to the actress Lauren Bacall. But Mr. Giuliani still has not provided the keys or the title to the vehicle.
The former mayor has begun the transfer of his most valuable asset, a 10-room apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that had been listed for sale at more than $6 million. The process has been delayed because the property remains jointly held with his ex-wife, Judith Giuliani.
The scant items that have been surrendered are problematic, according to Judge Liman.
“The car without the keys and title is meaningless,” he said, cutting off Mr. Cammarata midsentence.
“Your client is a competent person,” the judge added, noting that Mr. Giuliani was a former U.S. attorney. (He was, however, recently disbarred in New York and Washington, D.C.)
Mr. Giuliani objected.
“I have applied for the title,” he said of the Mercedes. “I haven’t gotten it yet. What am I supposed to do, make it up myself?”
He continued.
“I don’t have a car,” he said in a raised voice. “I don’t have a credit card. I don’t have cash.” He complained that he didn’t “have a penny” that was not tied up by Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss.
Judge Liman warned Mr. Giuliani to let his new lawyer speak for him.
“Somebody has to tell the truth!” Mr. Giuliani shot back.
“Next time, he’s not going to be permitted to speak,” Judge Liman told Mr. Cammarata. “And the court will have to take action.”
The women’s lawyers described their frustration in trying to recover Mr. Giuliani’s property, much of which is in a storage facility in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., on Long Island.
Aaron Nathan, one of the women’s lawyers, said Mr. Giuliani’s compliance had been “lackadaisical at best, and intentionally obstructive at worst.”
Last week, the women’s lawyers said that more than 20 pallets of moving boxes belonging to Mr. Giuliani were still at the storage facility, America First Warehouse, and that the owners were making it difficult to search the contents.
A facility representative, who calls himself “Joe the Box” on social media, posted a defiant video on X in which he expressed support for Mr. Giuliani and said he would not stand for someone to “dissect” the former mayor’s life.
Last Friday, Judge Liman ordered Mr. Giuliani to account for all of the property at the facility that was subject to seizure and to deliver it to a warehouse of the women’s choosing by Dec. 13.
If Mr. Giuliani continues to miss deadlines in the case, he could face steep penalties, including jail time. There could be similar consequences in Washington, where a judge will decide in December if the former mayor has violated an order not to defame the women by accusing them again of election fraud on recent media appearances.
As he left the courthouse, Mr. Giuliani repeated his grievances at a prepared microphone stand about being targeted for political ends. A heckler shouted at Mr. Giuliani as he walked to a waiting car.
“You got nothing now!” the man said. “You’re a bum!”
Mr. Giuliani smiled and turned toward the man.
“I wouldn’t bet against me,” he said.
Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.
Stefanos Chen is a Times reporter covering New York City’s economy. He previously covered real estate in the city for over a decade. More about Stefanos Chen
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 17 of the New York editionwith the headline: Judge Scolds Giuliani and Denies Trial Delay After 2 Lawyers Leave Over ‘Ethics’."
Rudy Giuliani Loses His Lawyers, and His Cool, in Court - The New York Times
Judge Finds New York in Contempt, Clearing the Way for Rikers Takeover - The New York Times
Judge Finds New York in Contempt, Clearing the Way for Rikers Takeover
"The finding was a landmark in a court case that has stretched out over more than a decade. Plans for a receivership of New York City’s jails will be heard on Jan. 14.
A federal judge overseeing New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex on Wednesday found the city in contempt for failing to stem violence and excessive force at the facility, and said she was leaning toward taking control of the city’s jails.
The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, said in a 65-page opinion that the city and its Department of Correction had violated the constitutional rights of prisoners and staff members alike by exposing them to danger, and had intentionally ignored her orders.
The judge wrote that she was “inclined” to impose an outside authority, known as a receiver, which she said would be a “remedy that will make the management of the use of force and safety aspects of the Rikers Island jails ultimately answerable directly to the court.” She ordered the city and lawyers representing prisoners to devise a plan for a receivership by Jan. 14.
Judge Swain’s ruling came nearly a decade after the city’s jails, which include the Rikers Island complex, fell under federal oversight in a settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by prisoners and the Legal Aid Society. Since then, a court-appointed monitor has issued regular reports on the violence that has continued to plague the facilities. In the past two years, at least 33 people have died in the jails or shortly after being released.
The federal monitor, Steve J. Martin, filed a report last year saying that violence was unabated in the jails and that officials were hiding information about it. Mr. Martin’s team recommended that the judge consider holding the Department of Correction in contempt.
On Wednesday, Judge Swain found the city in contempt of 18 provisions reached in the settlement. She wrote that the nine years since the deal was reached had shown that depending on jail officials who answer to politicians would merely mean more confrontation and delay.
“The current management structure and staffing are insufficient to turn the tide within a reasonable period,” Judge Swain wrote, noting “that enormous resources — that the city devotes to a system that is at the same time overstaffed and underserved — are not being deployed effectively”
The lawyers who filed the suit against the city — from the Legal Aid Society and the firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel — called Wednesday’s ruling “a historic decision,” in a joint statement.
“The culture of brutality on Rikers Island has resisted judicial and political reform efforts for years,” they said.
Last November, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, formally joined calls for the appointment of an outside authority to take control of Rikers Island. Nicholas Biase, his spokesman, declined to comment on Judge Swain’s ruling.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York region. More about Hurubie Meko"
Monday, November 25, 2024
F*^k you RFK Jr.! Roland DESTROYS him for telling Black folks what we ne...
(RFK Jr. is a rich ignorant spoiled man who became a heroin addict. Watch this video.)
The Posse Comitatus Act Explained | Brennan Center for Justice
The Posse Comitatus Act Explained
The Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement except when expressly authorized by law. This 143-year-old law embodies an American tradition that sees military interference in civilian affairs as a threat to both democracy and personal liberty. However, recent events have revealed dangerous gaps in the law’s coverage that Congress must address.
What does the term “posse comitatus” mean?
In British and American law, a posse comitatus is a group of people who are mobilized by the sheriff to suppress lawlessness in the county. In any classic Western film, when a lawman gathers a “posse” to pursue the outlaws, they are forming a posse comitatus. The Posse Comitatus Act is so named because one of the things it prohibits is using soldiers rather than civilians as a posse comitatus.
What are the origins of the Posse Comitatus Act?
The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878, after the end of Reconstruction and the return of white supremacists to political power in both southern states and Congress. Through the law, Congress sought to ensure that the federal military would not be used to intervene in the establishment of Jim Crow in the former Confederacy.
Despite the ignominious origins of the law itself, the broader principle that the military should not be allowed to interfere in the affairs of civilian government is a core American value. It finds expression in the Constitution’s division of power over the military between Congress and the president, and in the guarantees of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, which were in part reactions to abuses committed by the British army against American colonists.
Today, the Posse Comitatus Act operates as an extension of these constitutional safeguards. Moreover, there are statutory exceptions to the law that allow the president to use the military to suppress genuine rebellions and to enforce federal civil rights laws.
What does the Posse Comitatus Act say?
The Posse Comitatus Act consists of just one sentence: “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
In practice, this means that members of the military who are subject to the law may not participate in civilian law enforcement unless doing so is expressly authorized by a statute or the Constitution.
Are all members of the military covered by the Posse Comitatus Act?
No, only federal military personnel are covered. While the Posse Comitatus Act refers only to the Army and Air Force, a different statute extends the same rule to the Navy and Marine Corps. The Coast Guard, though part of the federal armed forces, has express statutory authority to perform law enforcement and is not bound by the Posse Comitatus Act.
Members of the National Guard are rarely covered by the Posse Comitatus Act because they usually report to their state or territory’s governor. That means they are free to participate in law enforcement if doing so is consistent with state law. However, when Guard personnel are called into federal service, or “federalized,” they become part of the federal armed forces, which means they are bound by the Posse Comitatus Act until they are returned to state control.
What are the main statutory exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act?
There are many statutory exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, but the most important one is the Insurrection Act. Under this law, in response to a state government’s request, the president may deploy the military to suppress an insurrection in that state. In addition, the Insurrection Act allows the president — with or without the state government’s consent — to use the military to enforce federal law or suppress a rebellion against federal authority in a state, or to protect a group of people’s civil rights when the state government is unable or unwilling to do so.
What are the constitutional exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act?
There are no constitutional exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act. The law allows only for express exceptions, and no part of the Constitution expressly empowers the president to use the military to execute the law. This conclusion is consistent with the law’s legislative history, which suggests that its drafters chose to include the language about constitutional exceptions as part of a face-saving compromise, not because they believed any existed.
This has not stopped the Department of Defense from claiming that constitutional exceptions to the law exist. The Department has long claimed that the Constitution implicitly gives military commanders “emergency authority” to unilaterally use federal troops “to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” when doing so is “necessary” and prior authorization by the president is impossible. In the past, the department also claimed an inherent constitutional power to use the military to protect federal property and functions when local governments could not or would not do so. The validity of these claimed authorities has never been tested in court.
What are the weak points in the Posse Comitatus Act?
Events in 2020 and 2021 have highlighted two loopholes in the Posse Comitatus Act. The first involves the District of Columbia National Guard. Unlike all other state and territorial National Guards, the DC Guard is always under presidential control. Despite this, the Department of Justice has for years asserted that the DC Guard can operate in a non-federal, “militia” status, in which it is not covered by the Posse Comitatus Act. By this interpretation, presidents can use the DC Guard for law enforcement whenever they choose.
Another weakness in the Posse Comitatus Act arises from the law that allows the National Guard to operate in “Title 32 status.” In Title 32 status, a middle ground between purely state operations and federalization, Guard personnel are paid with federal funds and may perform missions requested by the president, but they remain under state command and control. That means they are not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, even though they are serving federal interests.
How have these loopholes in the Posse Comitatus Act been exploited?
In the summer of 2020, President Trump deployed the DC National Guard into Washington to police mostly peaceful protests against law enforcement brutality and racism. Simultaneously, over the objections of DC’s mayor, the administration asked state governors to deploy their own Guard personnel into Washington in Title 32 status, and 11 governors did so. Although these out-of-state forces were nominally under their governors’ control, it was later revealed that they were reporting up through the DC Guard’s chain of command for “coordination” purposes. That meant they were ultimately taking orders from the president. In this way, the Trump administration brought a large, federally controlled military force into Washington and used it for civilian law enforcement, all while skipping over the procedures in the Insurrection Act and evading the political costs of invoking it. That is exactly what the Posse Comitatus Act is meant to prevent.
Moreover, the deployment of non-federalized, out-of-state Guard forces into a jurisdiction without its consent represents another threat to the Posse Comitatus Act. When operating in Title 32 status, Guard forces are exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act because they are under state command and control. A key part of that control is the governor’s right to decline a particular federal mission. That right is meaningless if the president can simply approach a different governor and ask her to deploy her state’s Guard into the unwilling governor’s state. In this scenario, the cooperating governor becomes a fig leaf for the president to use the military as a police force anywhere in the country, free from the constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act.
How should the Posse Comitatus Act be reformed?
Congress should pass three reforms to help close these loopholes in the Posse Comitatus Act. First, it should transfer control over the DC National Guard from the president to the mayor of Washington. The president would still be able to take command of the DC Guard when necessary by federalizing it, but it would then be subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, just like all other federally controlled military forces.
Second, Congress should clarify that governors may not send their National Guard forces into another state or territory without the latter jurisdiction’s consent. This will stop future presidents who want to use the military domestically, but do not want to follow the laws established by Congress, from going from governor to governor until they find one who is willing to do their dirty work.
Third, Congress should enact a law clarifying that the Posse Comitatus Act applies to National Guard forces whenever they report through a federal chain of command, regardless of whether they have officially been called into federal service. This will ensure that form is not elevated over substance and will more fully realize the principle behind the law."
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