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Raising awareness of human trafficking, keeping area families safe

Human trafficking, one of the worst types of exploitation, is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the world -- second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable form of crime, according to the U.S. Department of State.

Earlier this month, I voted to declare January Human Trafficking Awareness Month in Michigan and to bring some light to this important issue that not only affects people in large cities, but also those living in rural areas.

Additionally, I was part of a joint committee of the House Health Policy Committee and House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services where the focus was solely on human trafficking. We heard from human trafficking survivor Ruth Rondon, the executive director of the Michigan Human Trafficking Commission Kelly Carter, and Todd Reineck and Sue Lucas with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

During that committee meeting, we had the immense responsibility of hearing Ruth Rondon's story; Ruth, unfortunately, was roped into human trafficking at a very early age. It was eye-opening to hear directly from a human trafficking survivor about her experiences and how the system continuously failed her throughout her life. She showed a tremendous amount of courage and strength as she shared her story with us.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until Ruth was jailed multiple times and started speaking about her experiences with others that she truly realized what her perpetrators had done to her. She was in fact a victim, not a criminal. It has taken her a long time, but through counseling and educating herself on the topic, she has come to a place where she is able to share her story in the hopes of saving others from ending up victims of human trafficking like her.

Even though these stories are hard to hear, I can't begin to express the importance of discussion about this tragic topic. My goal is for all families in Midland and Bay counties to be aware of the reality of human trafficking and to help them avoid falling victim to it.

As your representative - as well as a mother to one daughter, three daughters-in-law, and six granddaughters - I am passionate about prevention and ending this crisis.

Human trafficking and every other crime we face in this state demand the most vigorous, aggressive, and effective prosecution possible.

I agree with President Barack Obama's attorney general Eric Holder, who said that not having someone serving as U.S. Attorney for half the state of Michigan is a major impediment to effective law enforcement, that includes ensuring human trafficking comes to an end in Michigan.

"Not having a Senate-confirmed head of a U.S. attorney's office is a real major thing," Holder said. "The offices really can't focus in a way that with a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney they can. Someone that comes in and sets priorities. There's an accountability that a confirmed person has that an acting person does not," Holder added. "The fact that they don't have one for two and a half years... that's just nuts."

That is why I recently urged U.S Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow to stop preventing former Michigan House Speaker Tom Leonard - who happens to have bipartisan support - from being appointed as a U.S. attorney.

Leonard's nomination has high-level bipartisan support, including Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, both Democrats.

"I find Mr. Leonard uniquely qualified to serve our citizens as a United States Attorney. He possesses the leadership skills, character, and experience necessary to excel in this position and I strongly encourage the Senate to move quickly to confirm him," Duggan wrote, while Hackel attested to Leonard's "heart for service and seeking justice."

With almost 400 reported cases of human trafficking in 2019, Michigan was near the top of the list of reported cases. And, we know there are many more cases that go unreported. It is imperative that we fill the position of U.S. Attorney and that Sens. Stabenow and Peters work diligently to confirm Tom Leonard.

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Raising awareness of human trafficking, keeping area families safe - Midland Daily News

Many have been all too quick to make Attorney General William Barr out to be a reflexive toady for President Trump. Just this month, the New York City Bar Association took the extreme step of writing to congressional leaders to investigate Barr for political bias. And last month, he came under blistering criticism for defending the Trump campaign and characterizing the FBIs Russia investigation into the 2016 election as bogus.

Slate has accused Barr of using the Department of Justice as a personal law firm for Trump. Vox has bewailed the departments politicization under Barr. The Daily Beast has lamented how Barr has become another of Donald Trumps personal lawyers. The New York Times has noted that the attorney general had reprised his role as a vocal defender of President Trump.

Perhaps none of these media outlets recall the time when then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. famously described himself as President Obamas wingman. Curiously, Holder actually took to the Washington Post to decry Barrs ostensible self-debasement as an unfortunate instrument of politics.

Holders hypocrisy aside, the new stance in favor of a strongly independent attorney general among liberals is misguided as a matter of constitutional interpretation and ahistorical as a matter of American custom.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution states that (t)he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. The power is vested not in numerous sources, but solely in the president. The president maintains plenary authority over the entirety of the executive branch.

The unitary executive theory, which Democrats routinely excoriate, comes from the plain text of the Constitution. As Barr recently said during his remarks at the Federalist Societys 2019 National Lawyers Convention, the notion of the unitary executive is not new, and it is not a theory.' On the contrary, he continued, (i)t is a description of what the Framers unquestionably did in Article II of the Constitution.

Throughout American history, attorneys general have intuited and acted upon their nonindependent subordination to presidents of the United States. In Conflicting Loyalties: Law and Politics in the Attorney Generals Office, 1789-1990, the scholar Nancy V. Baker explored the historical nature of the attorney generals position. Baker devoted entire book sections to The Attorney General as a Legal Advisor and The Attorney General as a Policy Advisor. She observed that before he became an administrator of a sprawling Department of Justice bureaucracy, the attorney general assumed the role of the advisor to the president. Whats more, the attorney generals responsibility to serve in such an advisory capacity has antecedents in seventeenth-century England.

Indeed, the role of the attorney general as a top presidential adviser has been a recurring theme throughout American history. When President Lincolns attorney general, Edward Bates, famously wrote to Congress in 1861 to defend Lincolns unilateral suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, he did so not as a neutral arbiter of legal principle, but as Lincolns top legal adviser who shared his superiors ultimate policy aim of a Union victory in the Civil War.

Similarly, President Franklin Roosevelts wartime attorney general, Francis Biddle, ceased his vocal opposition to Japanese American internment after it became obvious that Roosevelt planned to sign the fateful Executive Order 9066. Biddle understood that he was not in any way independent of the president, but that he was a political appointee who had to support the president in order to keep his job.

In modern times, the Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel, which was created by Congress during the New Deal, provides legal advice to the president and all executive branch agencies and reviews all executive orders and substantive proclamations proposed to be issued by the president. The president also has at his disposal the White House counsels office, but that office tends to focus on legal issues arising from legislation, executive and judicial branch nominations and ethics questions.

Though the Office of Legal Counsel does sometimes reach legal conclusions at loggerheads with the White House, it is hardly independent in any meaningful way. Former Acting Assistant Attorney General David Barron, who led the OLC during the early years of the Obama administration, once stated that the offices legal analyses may appropriately reflect the fact that its responsibilities also include facilitating the work of the Executive Branch and the objectives of the President, consistent with the law. And legal scholarship has observed the systematic deference that the Office of Legal Counsel generally shows toward the presidents prerogatives.

Eric Holder was correct the first time. The attorney general, in large part, actually is the presidents wingman.

Josh Hammer is editor at large of the Daily Wire and of counsel at First Liberty Institute. He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

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Josh Hammer: William Barr isnt a toady. Thats the nature of his job - St. Paul Pioneer Press

(Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) The Senate impeachment trial cannot be confused with due process, because due process is designed to protect the accused, President Donald Trumps personal attorney and a member of his impeachment defense team, Jay Sekulow argued Tuesday during the Senate impeachment trial.

The president has been denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, the right to access evidence, and the right to have counsel present at the impeachment hearings, he said.

Senator Schumer said earlier today that the eyes of the founders are on these proceedings. Indeed, thats true, but It is the heart of the Constitution that governs these proceedings. What we just heard, from Manager Schiff - courts have no role, privileges don't apply, what happened in the past, we should just ignore, Sekulow said.

In fact, Manager Schiff just said, try to summarize my colleague's defense of the president. He said it not in those words, of course, which is not the first time Mr. Schiff has put words into transcripts that did not exist, Trumps attorney said.

Mr. Schiff also talked about a trifecta. Ill give you a trifecta. During the proceedings that took place before the Judiciary Committee. The president was denied the right to cross-examine witnesses. The president was denied the right to access evidence, and the president was denied the right to have counsel present at hearings. Thats a trifecta a trifecta that violates the Constitution of the United States, he said.

Sekulow said that the Mueller report was empty on the issue of Trump allegedly colluding with Russia.

One manager said that it is you that are on trial - the Senate. He also said that - and others did that youre not capable of abiding by your oath, and then we had the invocation of the ghost of the Mueller report. I know something about that report. It came up empty on the issue of collusion with Russia, he said.

There was no obstruction. In fact, the Mueller report, contrary to what these managers say today, came to the exact opposite conclusions of what they say. Let me quote from the House impeachment report, at page 16, Although President Trump has at times invoked the notion of due process, an impeachment trial, an impeachment inquiry is not a criminal trial and should not be confused with it, Sekulow said.

Believe me, what has taken place in these proceedings is not to be confused with due process, because due process demands, and the Constitution requires that fundamental fairness and due process - we're hearing a lot about due process - due process is designed to protect the person accused, the presidents attorney said.

When the Russia investigation failed, it devolved into the Ukraine. A quid pro quo, when that did not prove out. It was bribery, maybe extortion, somebody said. One of the members of the House said treason, he said.

However, Sekulow said the actual articles of impeachment that were approved in the House had a vague allegation about a noncrime allegation of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

On the issue of executive privilege, he pointed out that former President Barack Obamas Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt because Obama exerted executive privilege.

Members, managers, right here, before you today, who have said that executive privilege and constitutional privileges have no place in these proceedings, on June 28th, 2012, attorney general Eric Holder became the first United States attorney general to be held in both civil and criminal contempt. Why? Because president Obama exerted executive privilege, Sekulow said.

He quoted Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and an impeachment manager, when Schiff defended the use of executive privilege in defending Obamas use of executive privilege during contempt hearing against Holder.

With respect to the Holder content proceedings, Mr. Manager Schiff wrote The White House assertion of privilege is backed by decades of precedent that has recognized the need for the president and his senior advisors to receive candid advice and information from their top aides. Indeed, thats correct, not because Manager Schiff said it, no, because the Constitution requires it, Sekulow said.

He said that House Judiciary Chairman and impeachment manager Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said at the time that the effort to hold Holder in contempt for refusing to comply with various subpoenas was politically motivated and Speaker Pelosi called the Holder matter, and I quote A little more than a witch hunt.

Sekulow said the reason why the Senate is holding an impeachment trial is because Democrats have wanted to remove Trump from office since the day of his swearing-in. He called impeachment the Democrats reinsurance or umbrella policy.

What are we dealing with here? Why are we here? Are we here because of a phone call? Or are we here before this great body because, since the president was sworn into office, there was a desire to see him removed? I remember in the Mueller report, there were discussions about, remember, insurance policies. Insurance policy didnt work out so well, so then we moved to other investigations. I guess you would call it reinsurance, or an umbrella policy. That did not work out so well, Sekulow said.

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Sekulow: What Has Taken Place in These Proceedings Is Not to Be Confused with Due Process - CNSNews.com

Via Americas Lawyer:Mike Papantonio and Trial Lawyer Magazine editor Farron Cousins walk us through accusations against U.S. defense contractors, alleging they are paying off the Taliban in protection fees while knowing full-well that these funds are being allocated toward the killing of American soldiers abroad.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Mike Papantonio:Defense contractors working for the US military had been accused of paying off members of the Taliban to protect them in the Middle East. But a new lawsuit says that this money has been used to kill US soldiers. I have Farron Cousins from the trial lawyer magazine to talk about this and other stories. Farron, first of all, weve seen the same type of, I brought a similar lawsuit against the against banks, US all the banks that were washing money for terrorists, knowing that they were washing money. Pled guilty, actually nobody was, nobody was really punished, but they admitted that yes, we were washing money for terrorists. We understood that the money was going to be used in directly or indirectly to kill Americans and of course our justice department under Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch prosecuted nobody. So here we have a different scenario of that, dont we?

Farron Cousins:We, we do. What were finding out, in fact, actually, let me back that up. What we found out 10 years ago in 2010 the summer of 2010 this story broke all over in US media. That these contractors that we are paying to be over there in the Middle East had been paying protection money to the Taliban. They understood, and they even said this in interviews, if we give them money, they dont F with us at all. So they know that we just give them a little money. Its like the mafia. We give them a little money, they do not mess with our operations. We make tons of profit. The Taliban gets their money and we go on. But this story actually broke in the summer of 2010. So just as you said, Eric Holder did nothing about the banks doing this. He did nothing with this information at the time. We could have gone after and immediately started prosecuting these people because these kinds of payments are illegal. Weve seen prosecutions for it in the past with Chiquita Banana, down in South America. But holder said, no, Im not going to touch these guys either.

Mike Papantonio:Okay, well heres what Holder knew. Heres what Loretta Lynch knew. This is why this is so disgusting to me. This is the most inept department of justice maybe weve had in a long, long time. And that was Loretta Lynch knew in the bank case that HSBC had been washing money. They had the whole thing laid out for them. It was all the evidence was there. All the moving parts were right in front of the department of justice, HSBC and other banks even signed off and admitted, yes, we did these things and not one of them was prosecuted. So given that, the only question is now, so this has been going on, this was also going on during the, during the Eric Holder years, but were not seeing any, anything different out of the Trump years, are we?

Farron Cousins:Right. And to be honest, this began, this process began during the Bush administration.

Mike Papantonio:Yeah.

Farron Cousins:So were talking about three different administrations and their DOJs, you know, Trumps entering his fourth year now. They knew about this the entire time he has been in office and we get absolutely nothing, possibly because of part of the revolving door carousel of administration officials.

Mike Papantonio:Okay. So, to distill it, here it is. Were a corporation. We only care about our shareholders. So yes, were willing to give money to people that we know are killing American soldiers and other American contractors, by the way.

Farron Cousins:Right.

Mike Papantonio:But whats important to us is that we report to our shareholders that we werent closed down by Taliban activity. Thats how ugly the story is.

Farron Cousins:Right.

Mike Papantonio:So as the CEO, who makes that decision, obviously the CEOs making a decision for himself or herself. I get a bigger bonus. We didnt close down. Yes, we paid off these, these murderous thugs who are killing Americans. But its okay. Its all right because they dont shut us down. And the department of justice says, looks at it and they say, yeah, it looks like good business in America.

Farron Cousins:Well, and part of the way they got away with this for so long is the fact that they were actually using their subcontractors to make the payments. So it wouldnt look like these corporations were directly handing cash, which is what happened in some instances, to members of the Taliban. So they write it off. We had to pay a subcontractor to come and do this job, but instead its not actually a job. It is go deliver this bag of money to these warlords over here so that we can keep doing business.

Mike Papantonio:Yeah. American capitalism gets really sketchy sometimes. This is a good example of them.

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Defense Contractors Accused Of Paying Off Taliban For Protection In Middle East Countries - The Ring of Fire Network - The Ring of Fire Network

Theres a new approach on how to determine future districts fairly in the Commonwealth.

Virginia Democrats have long maintained that Republicans gerrymandered the states districts in their favor in elections. Now that they are in control of the General Assembly, fair redistricting is a priority for the party.

Some have falsely claimed recently that Democrats are changing the rules so they can hold power forever. Below we help dispel that myth by explaining the two approaches Democrats are considering when it comes to redistricting. Which one the party will ultimately favor is currently unclear.

The first proposal is to continue pursuing a constitutional amendment to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission meant to curb gerrymandering in the state. This measure was approved with bi-partisan support by the General Assembly last February but would need to be approved again this current session to be added to Virginias Constitution.

Some Democrats now say that commission doesnt go far enough to deal with the issue. Under that approach, if the maps proposed by the committee dont win the legislators approval, they will be sent to state Supreme Court to decide. Critics are concerned the court members, who were primarily chosen by Republicans, will routinely take a conservative position.

As an alternative, Del. Cia Price proposed a different approach earlier this month. Under her proposal, any undecided issues would be handled by a bipartisan group comprised of General Assembly members, instead of the state Supreme Court. It would be made up of four Democrats, four Republicans, and three unaffiliated members who are representative of the geographic, racial, and gender diversity of the state.

Under Prices proposal, lawmakers would use the model laid out in her legislation in the scheduled 2021 redistricting process until a more far-reaching model could be adopted. While Prices proposal has been backed by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee led by former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder, some members of her party say that they need to pass the Constitutional amendment now and then address the issues further down the line through legislation.

It isnt clear which approach the party will ultimately pursue. Two of the most prominent Democratic voices, Gov. Ralph Northam and House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn have maintained the importance of redistricting but have yet to fully endorsed either approach.

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Democrats Are Committed to Fair Redistricting But Differ on How Best to Handle it - The Dogwood