Right-Wing Lies Kick Into Gear Over Ocasio-Cortez Visit To Concentration Camps

Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice dissects a right- wing disinformation lie and influencing campaign unfolding in real time on the southern border:

A congressional delegation (CODEL) went to visit several Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) facilities today. John just put up a post about it here at Balloon Juice Actual. But we weren’t the only ones tracking on it. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks, as well as her just being part of the CODEL, set off the expected firestorm. The highly credulous, fabulist Anna Giaritelli, who poses as The Washington Examiner‘s Homeland Security reporter, and who was not on site covering the CODEL, decided to report, first by tweet and then in the Examiner, that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez threw a pair of temper tantrums during the visits. This was picked up by Students for Trump* on twitter and put on blast. Townhall, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and The Blaze all picked up Giaritelli’s disinformation and published their own stories around it. So while there are at least five articles about this in the conservative news media, four of them simply refer back to Giaritelli’s original reporting, which hasn’t been confirmed by any of the reporters actually in attendance with the CODEL. [snip]

I expect that by the evening the disinformation will have fully spread throughout the Republican, conservative, alt-right, and white supremacist information ecosystems. It’ll finish making the rounds of Twitter and Facebook, jump to Gab, the Chans, and the sub-reddits. From there it will be amplified. Most likely by the President’s caddy, Dan Scavino, who runs the President’s social media feeds, Jr, and other of the President’s social media surrogates, as well as the Russian troll and bot networks will pick it up and kick it into high gear. And, if we were able to actually monitor the direct messages of Scavino, Jr, Giaritelli, whomever is running the Students for Trump twitter account, as well as a variety of other Presidential surrogates, including those in the conservative news media, I would be very surprised to find that there isn’t widespread coordination going on between the players on these disinformation and influence operations.

As Silverman goes on to note, the purpose of the campaign is to not only smear Rep. Ocasio- Cortez, but to divert attention away from the inhumane, deadly conditions at the Trump concentration camps, such as people being encouraged to drink out of toilets. It's no surprise that the goon outfits Silverman mentions in the right- wing media miasma would eagerly repeat lies and smears -- after all, look at who they idolize.  What would also be no surprise: the corporate media being distracted by these shiny objects spread in their path.

Some of Trump's bullies- on- the- beat were also willing to pitch in to the campaign: 

Customs and Border Protection has launched an investigation into a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents who posted derogatory remarks targeting migrants and lawmakers.

The group, which called itself "I'm 10-15" — a reference to the Border Patrol code for "aliens in custody" — was revealed Monday by ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, as a delegation of Democratic congressional lawmakers toured three migrant detention facilities in southwestern Texas.

Among the group's most offensive posts were discussions of recent migrant deaths, including that of a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who died in May while he was in Border Patrol custody in Texas. Other posts joked about throwing burritos at lawmakers visiting its facilities.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, who were both part of the delegation, were also targets of the group. Members referred to the women as "scumbags" and on multiple occasions posted graphic illustrations of Ocasio-Cortez performing a sex act.

We believe this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg and that other examples of sociopaths- in- uniform exist that we may never know about.  The evil instincts many of these people have long suppressed has been given a green light by the words and actions of the demagogue in the White (Supremacist) House.  Beyond exposing them, we agree with Rep. Nadler that there are crimes that deserve to be prosecuted here (but, we won't be holding our breath on that).  Also unlikely, though to be desired, is a tear- down and re- forming of the CBP into a more professional and humane organization.

It's fortunate that we have moral, courageous people like Rep. Ocasio- Cortez and Rep. Escobar to act as the conscience that is so missing in the current regime and its minions.  It's small comfort, but it's what we have right now in this hellscape.

(Reminder:  If you can, please consider donating to humanitarian relief efforts for the immigrant community.)

Tweets Of The Day - Trump's America

On a day when neo- fascist nitwit white nationalist Donald "Rump" Trump signed a revised and somewhat watered down Executive Order restricting travel from six predominately Muslim nations, here is what his Department of Homeland Security/ Customs and Border Protection jackboots were up to:

A U.S. Army veteran injured while serving 2 tours of duty in Afghanistan is fighting not to be deported to Mexico https://t.co/UUUtPgfvhC

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 6, 2017

U.S. Agents At LAX Detain Afghan Family With Visas And Hold Them For Days- no counsel on top of everything else!!! https://t.co/v3maSTWzab

— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) March 6, 2017

JUST IN: Gold Star father Khizr Khan cancels scheduled speech in Toronto after being told his "travel privileges are being reviewed." pic.twitter.com/3dXFMnjced

— Rosa Hwang (@journorosa) March 6, 2017

#MAGA! Makes you proud, doesn't it?

Empowering Bullies In Trump's America (UPDATED)

It appears the inner Himmlers of some U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been unleashed for some unknown and completely inexplicable reason.  Here are a few examples rounded up by Dana Milbank:

You can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, but you can’t come in if your name is Ali. 

That’s the way it was looking for Muhammad Ali Jr., son of the late boxing legend, when he returned home to the United States last month from a black-history event in Jamaica. Ali, who is American born and an American citizen, was detained for hours by Customs and Border Protection and interrogated about being a Muslim.  

But if border officials have gained newfound zealotry under President Trump, they appear to have lost all sense of irony. Also last month, they detained Australian Mem Fox, who writes children’s books about — wait for it — tolerance and acceptance. She told the Guardian that she was treated with “shocking insolence” and “monstrous” and “horrible” behavior by people “gone mad.” 

Henry Rousso knows about monstrous and horrible: He’s a leading French scholar on the Vichy regime and its collaboration with Nazi Germany. And Rousso, an Egyptian-born Jew, said he was detained for more than 10 hours after arriving in America last month to give a lecture. “The United States is no longer quite the United States,” Rousso wrote in the French Huffington Post.  (our emphasis)

Then there were these folks caught in a CBP dragnet:

The detention of a former prime minister of Norway coming for the National Prayer Breakfast. 

CBP requiring identification from all passengers arriving in New York on a domestic flight. 

An undocumented woman seeking a protection order against her boyfriend arrested in the courthouse by immigration officials. 

A NASA scientist, an American-born citizen, detained and directed to turn over his phone. 

Canadians alleging they were turned away at the U.S. border after telling U.S. officials that they were coming to participate in anti-Trump protests. 

A British Muslim schoolteacher traveling to New York with a group of children ordered off a plane on instructions from U.S. authorities. 

Then there's the story of Celestine Omin, a software engineer from Nigeria who was detained for several hours because, well, you know =cough= Nigeria =cough=:

It was Sunday, Feb. 26, and the 28-year-old software engineer had left his home in Lagos, Nigeria, to come to the United States for the first time. It was a work trip. For the last six months, Omin had been working for Andela, a startup that connects the top tech talent in Africa with employers in the U.S. Andela accepts less than 1% of applicants into its program and is backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. For this particular role, Omin was helping NYC-based fintech startup First Access create a JavaScript application for emerging markets and had secured a short-term joint B1/B2 visa. 

After landing, Omin waited for 20 minutes and then reached the front of the line, where a Customs and Border Protection officer asked him a series of questions. It was here that Omin realized that the job might be challenging, but getting into America could now be impossible. No one at Andela had prepared him for the new reality.

After a few minutes of grilling him about the job, the border agent escorted Omin into a small room and told him to sit down. Another hour passed before a different customs officer came in. (our emphasis)

(In our fantasy world, Omin would have told the interrogators to "byte me.")

Go to the link above to find out how the crack CBP interrogators finally determined Omin might be okay to let into the US of A (but they were still suspicious!).  It'll make you proud of American genius at work.

As far as the seeming increase in these "aggressive" tactics by the CBP folks?

[I]t appears that border officers, feeling emboldened by Trump, are taking it on themselves to act more aggressively. 

And where would they get such an idea? Well, perhaps from the president’s tweet saying “I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY.” Or White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s claim that Trump wants to “take the shackles off” deportation officials.  (our emphasis)

The President's national security actions vill not be kvestioned!  

Most of us have had experiences with good law enforcement and bad. As with any other profession, there are some people who have no business being in law enforcement because they see it as an opportunity to grind axes or simply feel powerful. We don't know about you, but these anecdotes seem more to be examples of empowered bullies than trained officers doing their jobs professionally. But maybe empowered bullies will become the rule rather than the exception in an America with a bully as the "president."

UPDATE:  It's not just the boys at CBP;  there are some real hard asses (emphasis on "asses") at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).