THE 'SUPINE' COURT -- |
 | Sotomayor, in a seething objection to the ruling, which allowed profiling of Latinos, puts it this way: We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent. |
 | Kavanaugh, defending the ruling, excuses the government’s tactics as having minimal impact on legal citizens, while dismissing objections to the tactics as little more than a lawbreaker’s attempt to avoid capture. He writes: The interests of individuals who are illegally in the country in avoiding being stopped by law enforcement for questioning is ultimately an interest in evading the law. That is not an especially weighty legal interest. |
THE ORDER WAS PART of the Supreme Court’s “emergency docket,” in which the orders usually aren’t signed or explained.
But Kavanaugh decided to give it a try, writing a “concurring” opinion. Whether his fellow conservatives – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – agreed with his reasoning isn't clear, since they wrote nothing.
Whether it was her need to counter Kavanaugh’s statement, or the weight of the issues themselves, Sotomayor wrote a dissent, which was signed by fellow liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
After reading both statements Un-Judge Jones boils things down to two items:
1. The terms of the Fourth Amendment, which says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
2. The meaning of the word “reasonable,” as when it’s okay to “search” or “seize” people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
Un-Judge Jones was surprised by one element of the case: Federal law does allow immigration officers to stop and question an “alien’ or “suspected alien” about his or her legal status. But the catch is that an officer has to have a “reasonable suspicion,” based on specific facts, to do so.
Which is where the troubling profiling questions come in.
PROFILING
In their writings, the two justices largely agreed that that immigration agents had been using four factors in their hunt for undocumented immigrants:
To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion. Under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.
So the racial appearance alone isn't sufficient, he said. But heck, the way you look, combined with the other factors, and agents have got a suspicious character.
Sotomayor isn't buying that:
The Government, and now the concurrence (Kavanaugh) has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.
WHATS THE BIG DEAL?
Kavanaugh describes the stops by immigration agents as being no major problem for those involved, even people who turned out to have legal status, because, at worst, the stops were momentary inconveniences. He puts it this way:
If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.
But Sotomayor cites actual examples, including those involving U.S. citizens, that were more brutal and disruptive than Kavanaugh described.
Such activities in “Operation At Large,” have caused “panic and fear” in the city and surrounding communities, she writes, with some people afraid to go to work or pick up their children from school.
BY THE NUMBERS
Kavanaugh notes that illegal immigration is a huge problem in the U.S., especially in Los Angeles, where he says 10 percent of the population, or 2 million persons, are “illegal immigrants.”
Not surprisingly, given those extraordinary numbers., U .S. immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.
So having lots of undocumented people around validates the use the four profiling factors to locate and question individuals.
But it doesn’t take a math wizard to consider the “extraordinary numbers” from a different point of view: that if 10 percent of the LA population is believed to be undocumented, then 90 percent are authorized to be in the U.S.
So it’s logical that a good many of the people are being stopped for no good reason.
Sotomayor says other LA numbers argue against using the profile factors as a way to zero in on illegal immigrants.
Never mind that nearly 47 percent of the Central District's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino . . . Never mind that over 37 percent of the population of Los Angeles County speaks Spanish at home,and over 55 percent speak at language other than English.
WHAT’S “REASONABLE?”
In order to stop someone for questioning, Kavanaugh writes, immigration officials must have “a reasonable suspicion” that a person is illegally in the U.S.
So, a combination of factors does that job, he says, including the “high number” of undocumented persons in LA; the belief that undocumented folks “tend to gathering in certain locations;” that “they often work in certain kinds of jobs;” and that many “come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English.” Kavanaugh writes:
Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal residents in the United States.
Not so fast, Sotomayor counters.
It’s not reasonable to suspect individual persons of wrong doing if the factors “describes a very large category of presumably innocent people,” she writes, quoting previous cases.
In one past case, Mexican ancestry “alone did not constitute reasonable suspicion to support stops by Border Patrol agents," because large numbers of authorized persons near the border look like people with Mexican backgrounds.
She says:
The Fourth Amendment thus prohibits exactly what the Government is attempting to do here: seize individual based solely on a set of facts that ‘describes a very large category of presumably innocent’ people.
THE PROPER ROLE OF THE COURT
Kavanaugh goes to some length to say that he isn’t trying to set immigration policy, just uphold the courts’ role as fair enforcers of the Constitution and the law, as the Supreme Court has done in the past.
. . . We now likewise must decline to step outside our constitutionally assigned role to improperly restrict reasonable Executive Branch enforcement of the immigration laws.
Consistency and neutrality are hallmarks of good judging and in my view, we abide by those enduring judicial values in this case by granting the stay.
But Kavanaugh sure sounds like a policy maven, with strong views on immigration, and not positive ones, noting that "millions" of people are here illegally, and that the big numbers cause a "myriad" of social and economic problems, quoting a previous case.
Kavanaugh does take a moment to show that he's a nice guy:
To be sure, I recognize and fully appreciate that many (not all, but many) illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape poverty and the lack of freedom and opportunities in their home countries, and to make better lives for themselves and their families.
But he puts on his judicial face, noting sternly that illegal immigrants cause problems for immigrants who are doing things the right way:
. . . they are not only violating the immigration laws, but also jumping in front of those non-citizens who follow the rules and wait in line to immigrate into the United States through the legal immigration process.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, isn't debating immigration policy, but concentrates on the court’s role in enforcing the Constitution and immigration laws. The District Court’s order banning the profiling factors, she says:
. . . does not preclude the Government from enforcing the immigration laws, so long as in doing so, it stops individual based on additional facts on top of the four factors listed.
She writes that actual cases showed that legal as well as undocumented persons suffered, despite Kavanaugh’s assurances that stop were only mildly inconvenienced and that Kavanaugh’s reasoning:
. . . improperly shifts the burden onto an entire class of citizens to carry enough documentation to provide that they deserve to walk freely. The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status.
She continues with this damning statement:
Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.
CONCLUSION
Un-Judge Jones, having read the two opinions, thinks Sotomayor out-classes Kavanaugh, certainly from a debating perspective.
Kavanaugh trivializes the harm caused to legal citizens, in the frightening nature of the experience of being stopped, in time lost from work and in the sheer worry about being intercepted by immigration officials, with some people feeling the need to carry documents proving their citizenship.
On the surface, at Kavanaugh's arguments sound like "common sense," one of the phrases he uses in his opinion, but actually they seem reckless, leaving citizens unprotected from overbearing government agents.
If someone looks like an undocumented person, talks like one, shows up in places where undocumented people supposedly frequent and if they perform jobs that many undocumented persons work - well, what the heck, why not? Ignoring the majority of people who fit the profile, but are legal citizens.
I find Kavanaugh's sympathy for immigrants, and his professed commitment to judicial impartiality, to be superficial and hypocritical - but that may be unfair to him.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, seems hard-headed and properly focused on the plain reading of the Fourth Amendment in protecting all of us from improper stops. I also like her emphasis on what happens in actual cases, as opposed to what's supposed to happen. She writes:
Immigration agents are not conducting "brief stops for questions," as the concurrence would like to believe. They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence and warehouse detentions.
Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the Government's conduct. United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.
What jumped out at me was that the ruling on profiling tactics is proably not about “illegal immigrants” but about people who are U.S. citizens.
Sotomayor emphasizes that the Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect everyone, and in this case, thousands of people are being brutalized, many of them legal U.S. citizens.
Think of profiling in a different context, let's say locating potential assassins.
The criteria might include factors such as: *gun owners, *registered voters, *young males, *consumers of social media, *people with valid drivers' licenses, *folks who wear baseball caps, *weirdos who lately have been acting even more strangely than usual, *video gamers, *guys living in their parents' basements, and * people who weren't popular in school.
Rounding up thousands, even millions, of people meeting those criteria might land one or two possible assassins; or, maybe not. But, for sure you'd be bothering lots of innocent people.
Sadly, though, I don't think words matter all that much in today's Supreme Court
The ultimate decision, when the profiling case completes the appeals level and returns to the Supreme Court for a final opinion, what's "reasonable" and what's not will depend on the whims of the individual justices.
And I'm betting the justices have already made up their minds, and they'll dress up their conclusions in courtly, legal language.
Then what will matter won't be words, but numbers.
Six to three; five to four.
All of this, of course,is just Un-Judge Jones' opinion.
He very much would like to be overruled - and surprised - by the nation's highest court.
* * *
NOTE: If you'd like to read the case, here's the PDF that includes the Kavanaugh and Sotomayor opinions.
But Kavanaugh decided to give it a try, writing a “concurring” opinion. Whether his fellow conservatives – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – agreed with his reasoning isn't clear, since they wrote nothing.
Whether it was her need to counter Kavanaugh’s statement, or the weight of the issues themselves, Sotomayor wrote a dissent, which was signed by fellow liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
After reading both statements Un-Judge Jones boils things down to two items:
1. The terms of the Fourth Amendment, which says:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
2. The meaning of the word “reasonable,” as when it’s okay to “search” or “seize” people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
Un-Judge Jones was surprised by one element of the case: Federal law does allow immigration officers to stop and question an “alien’ or “suspected alien” about his or her legal status. But the catch is that an officer has to have a “reasonable suspicion,” based on specific facts, to do so.
Which is where the troubling profiling questions come in.
PROFILING
In their writings, the two justices largely agreed that that immigration agents had been using four factors in their hunt for undocumented immigrants:
- What did immigrant suspects look like, based on their racial and ethnic appearances?
- Did they speak English and, if so, how well?
- What places where undocumented persons were likely to gather, perhaps looking for work, like a big box store parking lot, a car wash or a bus stop?
- What kinds of jobs did undocumented workers seek, such as landscaping, construction, agriculture and day labor.
To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion. Under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.
So the racial appearance alone isn't sufficient, he said. But heck, the way you look, combined with the other factors, and agents have got a suspicious character.
Sotomayor isn't buying that:
The Government, and now the concurrence (Kavanaugh) has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.
WHATS THE BIG DEAL?
Kavanaugh describes the stops by immigration agents as being no major problem for those involved, even people who turned out to have legal status, because, at worst, the stops were momentary inconveniences. He puts it this way:
If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go. If the individual is illegally in the United States, the officers may arrest the individual and initiate the process for removal.
But Sotomayor cites actual examples, including those involving U.S. citizens, that were more brutal and disruptive than Kavanaugh described.
- Jason Gavidia, “a Latino U.S. citizen,” was working on his car in a tow yard, when a masked agent asked three times whether he was an American, to which he said yes. But when Gavidia couldn’t remember the name of the hospital in which he was born, agents “racked a rifle,” took his phone, pushed him against a fence, and twisted his arm. He was released only when Gavidia produced a REAL identification, (which was not returned to him).
- *Jorge Viramontes, a citizen, managed a car wash, which immigrant agents went to four times over nine days. One of those times, an agent refused to accept Viramontes' driver’s license as proof of citizenship and drove him to a “warehouse” for 30 minutes before verifying his status and driving him back to the car wash.
Such activities in “Operation At Large,” have caused “panic and fear” in the city and surrounding communities, she writes, with some people afraid to go to work or pick up their children from school.
BY THE NUMBERS
Kavanaugh notes that illegal immigration is a huge problem in the U.S., especially in Los Angeles, where he says 10 percent of the population, or 2 million persons, are “illegal immigrants.”
Not surprisingly, given those extraordinary numbers., U .S. immigration officers have prioritized immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.
So having lots of undocumented people around validates the use the four profiling factors to locate and question individuals.
But it doesn’t take a math wizard to consider the “extraordinary numbers” from a different point of view: that if 10 percent of the LA population is believed to be undocumented, then 90 percent are authorized to be in the U.S.
So it’s logical that a good many of the people are being stopped for no good reason.
Sotomayor says other LA numbers argue against using the profile factors as a way to zero in on illegal immigrants.
Never mind that nearly 47 percent of the Central District's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino . . . Never mind that over 37 percent of the population of Los Angeles County speaks Spanish at home,and over 55 percent speak at language other than English.
WHAT’S “REASONABLE?”
In order to stop someone for questioning, Kavanaugh writes, immigration officials must have “a reasonable suspicion” that a person is illegally in the U.S.
So, a combination of factors does that job, he says, including the “high number” of undocumented persons in LA; the belief that undocumented folks “tend to gathering in certain locations;” that “they often work in certain kinds of jobs;” and that many “come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English.” Kavanaugh writes:
Under this Court’s precedents, not to mention common sense, those circumstances taken together can constitute at least reasonable suspicion of illegal residents in the United States.
Not so fast, Sotomayor counters.
It’s not reasonable to suspect individual persons of wrong doing if the factors “describes a very large category of presumably innocent people,” she writes, quoting previous cases.
In one past case, Mexican ancestry “alone did not constitute reasonable suspicion to support stops by Border Patrol agents," because large numbers of authorized persons near the border look like people with Mexican backgrounds.
She says:
The Fourth Amendment thus prohibits exactly what the Government is attempting to do here: seize individual based solely on a set of facts that ‘describes a very large category of presumably innocent’ people.
THE PROPER ROLE OF THE COURT
Kavanaugh goes to some length to say that he isn’t trying to set immigration policy, just uphold the courts’ role as fair enforcers of the Constitution and the law, as the Supreme Court has done in the past.
. . . We now likewise must decline to step outside our constitutionally assigned role to improperly restrict reasonable Executive Branch enforcement of the immigration laws.
Consistency and neutrality are hallmarks of good judging and in my view, we abide by those enduring judicial values in this case by granting the stay.
But Kavanaugh sure sounds like a policy maven, with strong views on immigration, and not positive ones, noting that "millions" of people are here illegally, and that the big numbers cause a "myriad" of social and economic problems, quoting a previous case.
Kavanaugh does take a moment to show that he's a nice guy:
To be sure, I recognize and fully appreciate that many (not all, but many) illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape poverty and the lack of freedom and opportunities in their home countries, and to make better lives for themselves and their families.
But he puts on his judicial face, noting sternly that illegal immigrants cause problems for immigrants who are doing things the right way:
. . . they are not only violating the immigration laws, but also jumping in front of those non-citizens who follow the rules and wait in line to immigrate into the United States through the legal immigration process.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, isn't debating immigration policy, but concentrates on the court’s role in enforcing the Constitution and immigration laws. The District Court’s order banning the profiling factors, she says:
. . . does not preclude the Government from enforcing the immigration laws, so long as in doing so, it stops individual based on additional facts on top of the four factors listed.
She writes that actual cases showed that legal as well as undocumented persons suffered, despite Kavanaugh’s assurances that stop were only mildly inconvenienced and that Kavanaugh’s reasoning:
. . . improperly shifts the burden onto an entire class of citizens to carry enough documentation to provide that they deserve to walk freely. The Constitution does not permit the creation of such a second-class citizenship status.
She continues with this damning statement:
Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor. Today, the Court needlessly subjects countless more to these exact same indignities.
CONCLUSION
Un-Judge Jones, having read the two opinions, thinks Sotomayor out-classes Kavanaugh, certainly from a debating perspective.
Kavanaugh trivializes the harm caused to legal citizens, in the frightening nature of the experience of being stopped, in time lost from work and in the sheer worry about being intercepted by immigration officials, with some people feeling the need to carry documents proving their citizenship.
On the surface, at Kavanaugh's arguments sound like "common sense," one of the phrases he uses in his opinion, but actually they seem reckless, leaving citizens unprotected from overbearing government agents.
If someone looks like an undocumented person, talks like one, shows up in places where undocumented people supposedly frequent and if they perform jobs that many undocumented persons work - well, what the heck, why not? Ignoring the majority of people who fit the profile, but are legal citizens.
I find Kavanaugh's sympathy for immigrants, and his professed commitment to judicial impartiality, to be superficial and hypocritical - but that may be unfair to him.
Sotomayor, on the other hand, seems hard-headed and properly focused on the plain reading of the Fourth Amendment in protecting all of us from improper stops. I also like her emphasis on what happens in actual cases, as opposed to what's supposed to happen. She writes:
Immigration agents are not conducting "brief stops for questions," as the concurrence would like to believe. They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence and warehouse detentions.
Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the Government's conduct. United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.
What jumped out at me was that the ruling on profiling tactics is proably not about “illegal immigrants” but about people who are U.S. citizens.
Sotomayor emphasizes that the Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect everyone, and in this case, thousands of people are being brutalized, many of them legal U.S. citizens.
Think of profiling in a different context, let's say locating potential assassins.
The criteria might include factors such as: *gun owners, *registered voters, *young males, *consumers of social media, *people with valid drivers' licenses, *folks who wear baseball caps, *weirdos who lately have been acting even more strangely than usual, *video gamers, *guys living in their parents' basements, and * people who weren't popular in school.
Rounding up thousands, even millions, of people meeting those criteria might land one or two possible assassins; or, maybe not. But, for sure you'd be bothering lots of innocent people.
Sadly, though, I don't think words matter all that much in today's Supreme Court
The ultimate decision, when the profiling case completes the appeals level and returns to the Supreme Court for a final opinion, what's "reasonable" and what's not will depend on the whims of the individual justices.
And I'm betting the justices have already made up their minds, and they'll dress up their conclusions in courtly, legal language.
Then what will matter won't be words, but numbers.
Six to three; five to four.
All of this, of course,is just Un-Judge Jones' opinion.
He very much would like to be overruled - and surprised - by the nation's highest court.
* * *
NOTE: If you'd like to read the case, here's the PDF that includes the Kavanaugh and Sotomayor opinions.
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THE COLLIE & THE CROW
Raising again, our enduring, elusive vision of an America united.
MEEKO AND RUSSELL, border collie and crow, in their Oregon backyard. PHOTO CREDIT: Autumn Buck, via the Washington Post
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE QUIRKY ANIMAL STORIES meant to distract us from the despair and distress of the normal news. And, now, in today's harsh political moment, it's especially welcome.
The border collie and the crow. The bird and the dog. Fast friends in the grassroots of the American Northwest.
Maybe you saw the story in last week’s Washington Post.
A young crow was injured this past June when its nest fell from an 80-foot-tall tree into the backyard of Autumn Buck and her husband, Tedd Simmons, in Portland, Oregon.
Autumn and Tedd fashioned a homemade nest for the crow, raising it six feet from the ground, and then feeding their young patient typical hospital gruel: mashed bananas and soggy kibble.
Enter Meeko, the couple’s 5-year-old border collie. With no sheep to superintend, Meeko took charge of recovery nest security, chasing away errant cats and standing guard.
The bird – now Christened “Russell” after the actor, Russell Crowe – healed, getting back use of his land legs, then learning fly.
In the meantime, a bond between bird and dog evolved and matured.
Russell took to sleeping on Meeko’s tail.
They played fetch: somebody would throw a tiny crocheted “cake;” Russell would grab it, then drop it for Meeko to retrieve. Toss Meeko a Frisbee, and Russell raced to get there first. They played “chase.” Together, they greeted the mail carrier. And in their spare time, they just hung out.
In the morning, the crow, who slept in a chestnut tree, would come to a glass door of the house, persistently pecking at the glass demanding that Meeko be let out to play.
REALLY? DID THIS HAPPEN? Is the story true? Sound too good?
Reasonable questions, and mine, too. Autumn Buck, as you can see if you can access the Post story, supplied the newspaper with bird-dog photo; and there's even some video of the duo in action.
But in today’s untamed and unreliable internet, now made even less reliable by fast-evolving artificial intelligence, who knows?
I’m choosing to believe it. Border collies are protective; crows are among the world's smartest birds.
But as far as seeing the tale as a cutesy, escapist story, I see it as a modern Aesop’s Fable, a parable about America’s long and continuing aspiration to become a nation for all of us.
GETTING ALONG IS ACTUALLY A BIBLICAL CONCEPT.
It's that lion lying down with the lamb business. The actual wording is from the Book of Isaiah, 11-6:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
OF COURSE, THERE ARE THE COUNTRY'S FOUNDING DOCUMENTS
The Declaration of Independence put it this way in 1775:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
THE MOST MOVING AND ENDURING STATEMENT of American unity comes from Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, which, on Aug. 28, 1963, defined the civil rights movement.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
* * *
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day, right down in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.
I have a dream today.
A little more than four years later, King was assassinated, perhaps as much as punishment and rejection for his vision, as from the impact of his murder’s bullet.
ANOTHER MAN NAMED KING took up the theme more that two decades later.
Rodney Glen King wondered why people from different backgrounds and viewpoints couldn’t see eye to eye.
King had been stopped by Los Angeles police for drunk driving and was videotaped as he was savagely beaten. Officers were charged, never convicted, and that outcome produced six days of riots, in which 63 people were killed.
On May 1, 1992, Rodney King made a TV appeal that the rioting stop:
I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?
* * *
It's just not right, because those people will never go home to their families again. And, I mean, please, we can, we can get along here. We all can get along. We just gotta. We gotta. I mean, we're all stuck here for a while. Let's, you know, let's try to work it out. Let's try to beat it, you know. Let's try to work it out.
Rodney King, who had confronted substance abuse throughout his life, drowned in his swimming pool in 2012, his death ruled accidental, with drugs and alcohol said to be contributing factors.
THE UNITY THEME WAS PICKED UP AGAIN, when Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Boston, July 27, 2004.
In his version of a common community, Obama rejected political, racial and cultural divisions.
. . . there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.
There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.
The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats.
But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States.
The speech propelled Obama into the presidency, the first person of color to hold the nation’s highest office. Obama served two terms, from 2009 to 2017. And it seemed as if Obama’s vision and those of the two Kings and of the Bible’s prophets, and of the Founders, finally had been realized.
My opinion is the opposite – that America could not countenance a Black man in the White House, and savagely, that formed the basis for Donald Trump, a racist, to be elected president. Twice.
Trump, a man of unbounded hatred, now is tearing the country to pieces by setting all of us apart – Black, White, girl, boy, liberal, conservative, red state, blue state, rich, poor, college graduate, high school graduate, urban, rural, Native American, immigrant American.
Never have we been more divided since the Civil war, and maybe the divisions today are even deeper than during a period when our differences were so profound: slave versus free man/woman.
But I also think the prophecy, the dream, the vision, the plea for unity will live on until they become a fact, in practice as well as in principle.
We can get along. Our superficial differences do not define us. At a time of environmental collapse, in fact, we creatures have the same interest in our mutual survival, and more in common, than our remarkable differences.
I mean, if the bird and the dog, the collie and the crow, can do it, why can't the rest of us do the same?
The border collie and the crow. The bird and the dog. Fast friends in the grassroots of the American Northwest.
Maybe you saw the story in last week’s Washington Post.
A young crow was injured this past June when its nest fell from an 80-foot-tall tree into the backyard of Autumn Buck and her husband, Tedd Simmons, in Portland, Oregon.
Autumn and Tedd fashioned a homemade nest for the crow, raising it six feet from the ground, and then feeding their young patient typical hospital gruel: mashed bananas and soggy kibble.
Enter Meeko, the couple’s 5-year-old border collie. With no sheep to superintend, Meeko took charge of recovery nest security, chasing away errant cats and standing guard.
The bird – now Christened “Russell” after the actor, Russell Crowe – healed, getting back use of his land legs, then learning fly.
In the meantime, a bond between bird and dog evolved and matured.
Russell took to sleeping on Meeko’s tail.
They played fetch: somebody would throw a tiny crocheted “cake;” Russell would grab it, then drop it for Meeko to retrieve. Toss Meeko a Frisbee, and Russell raced to get there first. They played “chase.” Together, they greeted the mail carrier. And in their spare time, they just hung out.
In the morning, the crow, who slept in a chestnut tree, would come to a glass door of the house, persistently pecking at the glass demanding that Meeko be let out to play.
REALLY? DID THIS HAPPEN? Is the story true? Sound too good?
Reasonable questions, and mine, too. Autumn Buck, as you can see if you can access the Post story, supplied the newspaper with bird-dog photo; and there's even some video of the duo in action.
But in today’s untamed and unreliable internet, now made even less reliable by fast-evolving artificial intelligence, who knows?
I’m choosing to believe it. Border collies are protective; crows are among the world's smartest birds.
But as far as seeing the tale as a cutesy, escapist story, I see it as a modern Aesop’s Fable, a parable about America’s long and continuing aspiration to become a nation for all of us.
GETTING ALONG IS ACTUALLY A BIBLICAL CONCEPT.
It's that lion lying down with the lamb business. The actual wording is from the Book of Isaiah, 11-6:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
OF COURSE, THERE ARE THE COUNTRY'S FOUNDING DOCUMENTS
The Declaration of Independence put it this way in 1775:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
THE MOST MOVING AND ENDURING STATEMENT of American unity comes from Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, which, on Aug. 28, 1963, defined the civil rights movement.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
* * *
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day, right down in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.
I have a dream today.
A little more than four years later, King was assassinated, perhaps as much as punishment and rejection for his vision, as from the impact of his murder’s bullet.
ANOTHER MAN NAMED KING took up the theme more that two decades later.
Rodney Glen King wondered why people from different backgrounds and viewpoints couldn’t see eye to eye.
King had been stopped by Los Angeles police for drunk driving and was videotaped as he was savagely beaten. Officers were charged, never convicted, and that outcome produced six days of riots, in which 63 people were killed.
On May 1, 1992, Rodney King made a TV appeal that the rioting stop:
I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?
* * *
It's just not right, because those people will never go home to their families again. And, I mean, please, we can, we can get along here. We all can get along. We just gotta. We gotta. I mean, we're all stuck here for a while. Let's, you know, let's try to work it out. Let's try to beat it, you know. Let's try to work it out.
Rodney King, who had confronted substance abuse throughout his life, drowned in his swimming pool in 2012, his death ruled accidental, with drugs and alcohol said to be contributing factors.
THE UNITY THEME WAS PICKED UP AGAIN, when Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, addressed the Democratic National Convention in Boston, July 27, 2004.
In his version of a common community, Obama rejected political, racial and cultural divisions.
. . . there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.
There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.
The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats.
But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States.
The speech propelled Obama into the presidency, the first person of color to hold the nation’s highest office. Obama served two terms, from 2009 to 2017. And it seemed as if Obama’s vision and those of the two Kings and of the Bible’s prophets, and of the Founders, finally had been realized.
My opinion is the opposite – that America could not countenance a Black man in the White House, and savagely, that formed the basis for Donald Trump, a racist, to be elected president. Twice.
Trump, a man of unbounded hatred, now is tearing the country to pieces by setting all of us apart – Black, White, girl, boy, liberal, conservative, red state, blue state, rich, poor, college graduate, high school graduate, urban, rural, Native American, immigrant American.
Never have we been more divided since the Civil war, and maybe the divisions today are even deeper than during a period when our differences were so profound: slave versus free man/woman.
But I also think the prophecy, the dream, the vision, the plea for unity will live on until they become a fact, in practice as well as in principle.
We can get along. Our superficial differences do not define us. At a time of environmental collapse, in fact, we creatures have the same interest in our mutual survival, and more in common, than our remarkable differences.
I mean, if the bird and the dog, the collie and the crow, can do it, why can't the rest of us do the same?
DEPARTMENT OF NAMES
Get out your erasers and Sharpies as we align titles and names with our nation’s goals and philosophies.
 THE WHITE HOUSE |  THE GOLD HOUSE |
ON JUNE 5, PRESIDENT TRUMP signed an executive order moving to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
The text of the order said that change “… demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend.”
In comments at the signing, Trump said the move actually restores a title that had been used until after World War II, when, in his telling, the country “decided to go woke” and stopped winning wars.
That version of history would have surprised the only man who has ordered the destruction of two cities with atomic bombs, President Harry Truman, who later went on to change “war” to “defense.”
“We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.” said Trump, who has long been suspected of dodging the draft during his student years.
My wife points out another irony, since among the honors that Trump seems to covet is the Nobel Peace Prize, a concept that seems at war with the military department's new title.
In any case, the War Department designation got me thinking – and I’m sure a lot of people, too – about other changes that better fit with Trump’s vision for America.
HERE’S A FEW OF MY SUGGESTIONS. Some need just a syllable or two added or subtracted; others. a word or two, here or there.
CURRENT NAME: The White House.
PROPOSED NAME: The Gold House.
This would fit in with Trump’s executive mansion makeover, plastering gold leaf over the Oval Office and other historic areas, converting the Rose Garden to a patio, adding a convention wing, with the goal of recreating a Washington version of the original American Dream home, Mara-a-Logo
CURRENT NAME : Department of Health and Human Services
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Death and Inhumane Services
Carries out Director R. F. Kennedy’s vision of how to make America sick again by discouraging vaccine use and by cutting cutting-edge medical research, while implementing the Big Beautiful Bill’s reductions to Medicaid, which are sure to be followed by reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits to both able and disabled Americans of all ages. A political question: will people who are sick and dying be allowed to vote?
CURRENT NAME: Department of Energy
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Fossil Fuels
Implements the president’s vision of a nation free of wind and solar power in favor of oil and natural gas, along with the Great Coal Revival. “Our planet got started with a Big Bang," the president said, reading from prepared remarks. "Let’s see if it ends the same way.”
CURRENT NAME: Harvard University
PROPOSED NAME: Trump University
“I ask you,” the president exclaimed at a signing of an agreement between the Administration and the nation’s most esteemed university, “shouldn’t higher education reform be about more than money? Of course not: money trumps everything. But the 'Art of the Deal' says if you can get all of Harvard’s endowment, plus a meaningful name change, go for it. And I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that the president of the Trump University and the United States of America WILL BE ONE IN THE SAME. Thank you for your attention.”
CURRENT NAME: Environmental Protection Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Environmental Pollution Agency
(See Department of Fossil Fuels)
CURRENT NAME: Department of Housing and Urban Development
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unhousing and Urban Disparagement
“I would have preferred 'The Department of Homelessness,'" Trump said at the signing. "But I wanted to keep the gullible liberals guessing about whether I’m going woke. But don’t you worry, whether we increase the number of homeless people or number of unhoused people, we'll need to call out more of the National Guard to protect our wretched cities from the poorest and most helpless.”
CURRENT NAME: Department of Homeland Security
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Homeland Insecurity
No explanation needed. Masked, unidentified thugs with dubious police powers snatching people off the streets and stuffing them into unmarked SUVs and sending them to secret detention centers before deporting them to countries with names most of us can’t spell: Makes it hard to get good night’s sleep, then to wake up to a nightmare that turns out not to be a dream.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Justice
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Injustice
Another no explanation needed. On his first day in office, Trump granted pardons and/or clemency to about 1,600 people convicted or suspected of taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in 2021. Later, his DOI went after people involved in those prosecutions or who otherwise offended the president. Bringing criminals to justice in America has always been iffy; now, it's that much harder to tell the bad guys from the good guys, assuming there still are good guys.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Labor
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unorganized Labor
“I mean, how stupid does a union guy (or gal) have to be to have voted for me, and any other Republican,” Trump said while signing the executive order. “Talk about un-enlightened self interest.”
CURRENT NAME: Federal Bureau of Investigation
PROPOSED NAME: Federal Bureau of Intrusion
(See Department of Injustice, Department of Homeland Insecurity).
CURRENT NAME: Central Intelligence Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Central Ignorance Agency
The CIA has long been a mixed blessing. We need spies to know what other countries are up to; but the agency has long been a mechanism for international meddling. "Now, the perceived danger is that in the past, the CIA came up with actual facts. Trust me, facts no longer matter.”
CURRENT NAME: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
PROPOSED NAME: Bureau for the Promotion of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
“It’s time we accelerated the development, possession and use of substances and mechanisms that maim and kill and that generally are bad for the human body,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This change reflects core values of this Administration.”
CURRENT NAME: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
PROPOSED NAME: Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts
But you knew that was coming.
CURRENT NAME: National Portrait Gallery
PROPOSED NAME: National Portrait Gallery
Same name, but a new Permanent Exhibit: Featuring photographs, paintings and Time magazine covers of Donald J. Trump through the 20th and 21st Centuries.
CURRENT NAME: Library of Congress
PROPOSED NAME: None
We closed the place.
CURRENT NAME: United States of America
PROPOSED NAME: Disunited States of America
The text of the order said that change “… demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars on behalf of our Nation at a moment’s notice, not just to defend.”
In comments at the signing, Trump said the move actually restores a title that had been used until after World War II, when, in his telling, the country “decided to go woke” and stopped winning wars.
That version of history would have surprised the only man who has ordered the destruction of two cities with atomic bombs, President Harry Truman, who later went on to change “war” to “defense.”
“We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.” said Trump, who has long been suspected of dodging the draft during his student years.
My wife points out another irony, since among the honors that Trump seems to covet is the Nobel Peace Prize, a concept that seems at war with the military department's new title.
In any case, the War Department designation got me thinking – and I’m sure a lot of people, too – about other changes that better fit with Trump’s vision for America.
HERE’S A FEW OF MY SUGGESTIONS. Some need just a syllable or two added or subtracted; others. a word or two, here or there.
CURRENT NAME: The White House.
PROPOSED NAME: The Gold House.
This would fit in with Trump’s executive mansion makeover, plastering gold leaf over the Oval Office and other historic areas, converting the Rose Garden to a patio, adding a convention wing, with the goal of recreating a Washington version of the original American Dream home, Mara-a-Logo
CURRENT NAME : Department of Health and Human Services
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Death and Inhumane Services
Carries out Director R. F. Kennedy’s vision of how to make America sick again by discouraging vaccine use and by cutting cutting-edge medical research, while implementing the Big Beautiful Bill’s reductions to Medicaid, which are sure to be followed by reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits to both able and disabled Americans of all ages. A political question: will people who are sick and dying be allowed to vote?
CURRENT NAME: Department of Energy
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Fossil Fuels
Implements the president’s vision of a nation free of wind and solar power in favor of oil and natural gas, along with the Great Coal Revival. “Our planet got started with a Big Bang," the president said, reading from prepared remarks. "Let’s see if it ends the same way.”
CURRENT NAME: Harvard University
PROPOSED NAME: Trump University
“I ask you,” the president exclaimed at a signing of an agreement between the Administration and the nation’s most esteemed university, “shouldn’t higher education reform be about more than money? Of course not: money trumps everything. But the 'Art of the Deal' says if you can get all of Harvard’s endowment, plus a meaningful name change, go for it. And I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that the president of the Trump University and the United States of America WILL BE ONE IN THE SAME. Thank you for your attention.”
CURRENT NAME: Environmental Protection Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Environmental Pollution Agency
(See Department of Fossil Fuels)
CURRENT NAME: Department of Housing and Urban Development
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unhousing and Urban Disparagement
“I would have preferred 'The Department of Homelessness,'" Trump said at the signing. "But I wanted to keep the gullible liberals guessing about whether I’m going woke. But don’t you worry, whether we increase the number of homeless people or number of unhoused people, we'll need to call out more of the National Guard to protect our wretched cities from the poorest and most helpless.”
CURRENT NAME: Department of Homeland Security
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Homeland Insecurity
No explanation needed. Masked, unidentified thugs with dubious police powers snatching people off the streets and stuffing them into unmarked SUVs and sending them to secret detention centers before deporting them to countries with names most of us can’t spell: Makes it hard to get good night’s sleep, then to wake up to a nightmare that turns out not to be a dream.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Justice
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Injustice
Another no explanation needed. On his first day in office, Trump granted pardons and/or clemency to about 1,600 people convicted or suspected of taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in 2021. Later, his DOI went after people involved in those prosecutions or who otherwise offended the president. Bringing criminals to justice in America has always been iffy; now, it's that much harder to tell the bad guys from the good guys, assuming there still are good guys.
CURRENT NAME: Department of Labor
PROPOSED NAME: Department of Unorganized Labor
“I mean, how stupid does a union guy (or gal) have to be to have voted for me, and any other Republican,” Trump said while signing the executive order. “Talk about un-enlightened self interest.”
CURRENT NAME: Federal Bureau of Investigation
PROPOSED NAME: Federal Bureau of Intrusion
(See Department of Injustice, Department of Homeland Insecurity).
CURRENT NAME: Central Intelligence Agency
PROPOSED NAME: Central Ignorance Agency
The CIA has long been a mixed blessing. We need spies to know what other countries are up to; but the agency has long been a mechanism for international meddling. "Now, the perceived danger is that in the past, the CIA came up with actual facts. Trust me, facts no longer matter.”
CURRENT NAME: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
PROPOSED NAME: Bureau for the Promotion of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
“It’s time we accelerated the development, possession and use of substances and mechanisms that maim and kill and that generally are bad for the human body,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This change reflects core values of this Administration.”
CURRENT NAME: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
PROPOSED NAME: Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts
But you knew that was coming.
CURRENT NAME: National Portrait Gallery
PROPOSED NAME: National Portrait Gallery
Same name, but a new Permanent Exhibit: Featuring photographs, paintings and Time magazine covers of Donald J. Trump through the 20th and 21st Centuries.
CURRENT NAME: Library of Congress
PROPOSED NAME: None
We closed the place.
CURRENT NAME: United States of America
PROPOSED NAME: Disunited States of America
BRIAN C. JONES
I'VE BEEN a reporter and writer for 61 years, long enough to have learned that journalists don't know very much, although I've met some smart ones.
Mainly, what reporters know comes from asking other people questions and fretting about their answers.
This blog is a successor to one inspired by our dog, Phoebe, who was smart, sweet and the antithesis of Donald Trump. She died Feb. 3, 2022, and I don't see getting over that very soon.
Occasionally, I think about trying to reach her via cell phone.
Mainly, what reporters know comes from asking other people questions and fretting about their answers.
This blog is a successor to one inspired by our dog, Phoebe, who was smart, sweet and the antithesis of Donald Trump. She died Feb. 3, 2022, and I don't see getting over that very soon.
Occasionally, I think about trying to reach her via cell phone.
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