So, it is with great nervousness and excitement and trepidation and joy that I am announcing my next big project.
Patreon Launched!
A Vigil for Barry Lee
On the tail end of the original Baltimore Ceasefire weekend, a man is killed in West Baltimore
During the reading of the names at the end of the Baltimore Ceasefire weekend, Barry Lee’s name was the last to be read. His mother requested we attend his vigil in West Baltimore.
We later discovered he had been out to Cease Fire events.
Waking Up During a Wave of White Supremacy
Don’t ask Black people for more.
This morning I woke up to videos of white supremacists marching with torches.
Last night I attended a vigil for someone who died in segregated Black Baltimore.
The white supremacists in Charlottesville are literally marching to keep places like Black Baltimore, and other economically starved areas of the country, the same. Continue reading “Waking Up During a Wave of White Supremacy”
The Confederate Roots of the Maryland Flag
How secessionists adopted the Crosslands banner and how Maryland tried to reconcile with them
When I moved to Maryland, I was blown away by seeing the flag everywhere. I’d never seen so much pride in a state flag before. Continue reading “The Confederate Roots of the Maryland Flag”
Never Forget
9/11
The government asks us to remember this day, to memorialize it with hashtags and news articles and statues and vigils and sermons and moments of silence, but it dictates what part of the truth we remember. We’re called to remember the police, the paramedics, and the firefighters that put their lives on the line. We give a moment of silence to the thousands lost in the towers that fell, the Pentagon that was hit, and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. We’re asked to remember the pain and suffering of those who died, to never forget the trauma our nation endured, and to take pride in the resilience we have as a nation against terror.
And those are good things to remember. But some of us remember some other things that happened on this day.
Trump Administration Faces EO Setbacks in Four Courts – Quinta Jurecic – Lawfare
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has granted an emergency motion to stay the removal of immigrants and refugees detained and prevented from entering the United States as a result of President Trump’s executive order.
The suit was filed yesterday on behalf of two Iraqi refugees granted visas to the enter the United States but who were detained at JFK International Airport. The original habeas petition challenges the executive order as a violation of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi’s rights under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses, while the petitioners also sought a class certification to represent all refugees and immigrants “legally authorized to enter the United States, but who have been or will be denied entry.” (Darweesh was allowed entry into the United States earlier today, after the initial habeas petition had been filed.) Petitioners later filed an emergency motion for a stay of removal to prevent Alshawi and other members of the class from deportation.
The order, handed down by Judge Ann Donnelly, rules that:
The petitioners have a strong likelihood of success in establishing that the removal of the petitioner and others similarly situated violates their rights to Due Process and Equal Protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution. . . .
There is imminent danger that, absent the stay of removal, there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees, visa-holders, and other individuals from nations subject to the . . . Executive Order.
On those grounds, the court finds the government to be:
ENJOINED AND RESTRAINED from, in any manner and by any means, removing individuals with refugee applications approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and other individuals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen legally authorized to enter the United States.
hile the order prevents removal from the United States, it is not clear whether it requires the plaintiffs to be allowed entry. It is also unclear whether the stay will apply going forward to individuals who fall under the ban imposed by the Executive Order but who are otherwise “legally authorized to enter the United States”—that is, whether the stay prevents only the removal of those individuals currently detained in airports as a result of the order or whether it will continue to prevent removal of any similarly situated individual who arrives in a U.S. airport in the near future.
The court also ordered the government to provide a full list of individuals detained as a result of the Executive Order. Further proceedings are set for February.
Meanwhile, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a temporary restraining order requiring the government to permit green card holders detained in Dulles International Airport access to counsel and forbidding the detainees from being removed from the United States for seven days.
The EDNY’s order to stay, the emergency motion, and the memorandum in support of the motion are available below, along with the EDVA application for a temporary restraining order and the order itself.
UPDATE: There appears to have been another stay:
Seattle District Court Judge grants Emergency Stay on Motion of Removal. Great work by @ACLU-WA and @NWIRP.
— Governor Jay Inslee (@GovInslee) January 29, 2017
The order, granted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, grants a stay of removal for two unnamed plaintiffs. It is included below.
UPDATE II: Early on Sunday morning, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a temporary restraining order halting the removal of immigrants and refugees. Notably, the order also bars the government from detaining those individuals affected. It also limits secondary screening to the extent permitted prior to the Executive Order and requires Customs and Border Patrol to notify airlines that individuals affected by the Order arriving at Logan Airport will be allowed entry in the United States.
Additionally, the State of California filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claiming that the Executive Order represents an unconstitutional infringement of separation of powers and of the Establishment Clause and requesting immediate injunctive relief. The Massachusetts order and the State of California’s complaint are included below.
UPDATE III: The State of Washington appears to also be filing suit in response to the order:
Soulnumb
When half-fixed pants
Is the romance
The olive branch
You don’t know whether
To smile or cry Continue reading “Soulnumb”
Then the Lord said to Daniel; Where is your brother Eric?
#AdventUs “While they were out on the sidewalk, Daniel attacked his brother Eric and killed him. Then the Lord said to Daniel, ‘Where is your brother Eric?’ ‘I do not know,’ he replied, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?'” Genesis 4:8&9 reinterpreted
Continue reading “Then the Lord said to Daniel; Where is your brother Eric?”
And so, it begins…
#AdventUs “At the time that was a marker for the beginning of His reign, the God of everything formed and gave meaning to all that was chaos.” Genesis 1:1 (paraphrased)
Or; as most people have heard it, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Continue reading “And so, it begins…”
Someone was pleading in the wasteland, ‘Clear a path so that the King can reach us!
#AdventUs “Someone was pleading in the wasteland, ‘Clear a path so that the King can reach us!'” Mark 1:3 (paraphrased)
I didn’t get this verse at all at first. Mostly because I kept hearing “Behold he comes, riding on the clouds” over and over in my head. It’s one of those earworms of a song that’s just chock full of Christianese that not many people really truly understand. Continue reading “Someone was pleading in the wasteland, ‘Clear a path so that the King can reach us!”