The AP highlights this huge shift from Obama-era immigration policy—the “silent raids” targeting undocumented immigrants who, after years of regularly checking in with ICE, are suddenly getting cuffed, detained, and deported after their meetings with immigration officials.

According to the AP, ICE is tracking nearly 1,000,000 undocumented immigrants—82 percent have no criminal record. Many of these immigrants, so long as they’ve shown that they are staying out of trouble, have been allowed to leave their meetings and stay in the U.S. with their families. This process can repeat every three months, six months, and sometimes up to a year. 

But the Trump-era has seen the turbo-boosting of a frightening occurrence—undocumented immigrants, simply following the rules by heeding the federal government’s instructions to meet with immigration officials, walk into ICE offices but don’t walk back out:

In Michigan, Jose Luis Sanchez-Ronquillo reported to authorities for more than four years before he was arrested at an April check-in and sent to a Louisiana detention facility. The 36-year-old father of two came into contact with police during a traffic stop and lost his immigration case in 2012. But he was then repeatedly allowed to stay, said Shanta Driver, his lawyer.

In Virginia, 33-year-old Cesar Lara was detained in May after living here for a decade. The Mexican house painter wound up with a deportation order after he was arrested in 2012, when officials stopped him for removing wood from a forest, said his mother, Maria De Lara.

“(Trump) said they were just going to deport pure criminals and bad people, and my son is not a criminal,” she said. “He’s working for the community.”

Of the 970,000 people on ICE’s radar, “it’s hard to know how many immigrants with deportation orders are being detained,” noted the AP. But “in Atlanta, immigration attorney Charles Kuck said one in five of his clients with scheduled check-ins has been detained since Trump took office, something that hardly ever happened during the prior administration.”

A reminder that underneath all the questions about Russia and tax returns and white nationalists and take-your-pick, the heart of the Trump-Pence administration remains a big ol' grift.

Dozens of House and Senate Democrats plan to sue President Donald Trump in the coming weeks, claiming he is breaking the law by refusing to relinquish ownership of his sprawling real-estate empire while it continues to profit from business with foreign governments.

The lawsuit follows months of threats from Democratic lawmakers that Trump, by refusing to sell off his companies or place them in a blind trust, is in ongoing violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause — which prohibits the president from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments — and might face consequences.

Whether or not anything comes of it in the Republican-controlled Congress—hint: they don't give a damn—the fact remains that Donald Trump is not allowed to accept cash from foreign governments by the U.S. Constitution itself and yet he's doing it anyway. He attempted to dodge this inherent lawbreaking by claiming his business would be tracking those payments and donating them away again; as soon as anyone bothered to check up on that, however, the company said that no, they were not in fact doing that because it would be a horrible bother. So he is violating the Constitution, and in the absence of any single individual Republican lawmaker finding some integrity squirreled away in a closet the rest of America is reduced to filing suit against the sitting president in an attempt to compel him to stop.

This would be a different lawsuit from the one that has already been filed by several businesses who say they're being hurt by competing Trump companies' grifts. As for the question of legal standing:

“Members of Congress we say have standing because the emoluments clause says without the permission of Congress, you can’t accept any gift, etc., etc., from a foreign state,” Nadler said. “We are injured by being denied our right to vote on this, that’s our standing.”

Again, there's no legitimate reason for Republicans to be turning a blind eye to these grifts. They're doing that purely because they consider the party agenda they want Trump to sign to be more important than whether he's broken any laws. Since we're in the middle of living it, it's difficult to wrap the national psyche around just how deplorable a notion that is. When this is all finally over, though, there are going to be a lot of new names added to the history books—and what the books have to say about each of them won't be kind.

Battles regarding the removal of long-standing confederate monuments have been making the rounds in the South as of late. Though this debate isn’t necessarily new, recently in Louisiana, Alabama and Virginia, folks have gone to absurd lengths to protect their beloved monuments. This has included intimidation and harassment, violence, death threats against public workers and contractors and the passage of laws that have made it almost impossible to make any changes to monuments. Louisiana even went so far as to pass a bill in the House requiring an actual election before any war memorial can be removed or altered. But surprisingly, the attachment to confederate memorials is not limited to Southern states. Arizona is now engaged in its own debate about removing six confederate memorials, the most recent of which was erected in 2010.

But Arizona's Confederate memorials don't date back to [the Civil War] era.

They tell another, even less well-known story: one of white Southerners who moved to Arizona in the post-World War II era and brought their fondness for intimidating black citizens with them. The state's oldest Confederate memorial was dedicated nearly 80 years after the Civil War ended, in 1943. The newest, shockingly, went up in 2010.

How truly ugly is this? Decades after Arizonians should clearly know better and be on the right side of history, their hatred and racism are on full display—literally, as monuments. Then again, it’s not all that surprising. This is the “show me your papers” state as well as the home of “English only” laws. So, the idea of intimidating black people being a pastime for some white folks in the state doesn’t exactly sound farfetched. And evidence of their anti-black racism could be seen well into the mid-and late twentieth century.

"As thousands of Southerners moved to a drier climate, they brought with them an identity grounded in the constant presence of Confederate symbols," [historian William Stoutamire writes]. "Confronted with Arizona's secessionist history, they felt the need to memorialize and commemorate the Confederacy's attempted extension into the Southwest."

By then, the civil rights movement was ramping up across the country. Not coincidentally, honoring the Confederacy suddenly became a popular pastime for white people with a tenuous connection to the Old South.

It was hardly a fringe movement: When the Civil War centennial rolled around in 1961, Arizona recognized the anniversary by flying the Confederate flag over the State Capitol. [...]

In the 1990s, however, the Arizona chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans experienced a resurgence, and once again began erecting monuments to the Confederacy.

According to one hell of an eye-opening report, the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General found that an unnamed (um, why exactly?) senior executive from the Executive Office of Immigration Review, a federal department responsible for adjudicating immigration cases, abused their position by—among a shit ton of egregious acts that “violated federal statutes, federal regulations, and DOJ policy”—maintaining “inappropriate relationships” with subordinates, retaliating “against employees who refused to hire the executive’s friends,” soliciting and accepting gifts, and participating in an “inappropriate quid pro quo scheme with a contract company.” Despite the rap sheet, “prosecution of the executive was declined.” Drain the swamp, y’all! 

On seven occasions, the OIG said, the unnamed official awarded jobs or contracts to close friends. In one instance, the person promoted a friend before the subordinate was eligible, and in another instance, the person promoted a friend who did not have the right qualifications. The person also shared nonpublic information with friends about a pending DOJ contract and lobbied for friends to get higher contractor salaries, the report summary said.

"The OIG found that this conduct violated federal statutes, federal regulations, and DOJ policy," according to the report.

Additionally, the official asked a DOJ contractor to employ and train personal friends, in exchange for an offer to participate in and award a purchase agreement to the contractor, the OIG said.

The employee also “lacked candor and provided false statements to the OIG in relation to the executive’s conduct in the above‐described matters, in violation of federal statute and regulation,” according to the investigation summary.

But still no prosecution for the unnamed executive.

There’s been surprisingly little attention focused on something as legitimately corrupt and scandalous as what’s described in this report, but that’s perhaps due to the corrupt and scandalous popular vote loser in the White House overshadowing everything. Still, why hasn’t this person been named? Which administration brought them onboard? And why have there been no consequences for this outrageous misconduct in a federal department, especially during the administration that’s always pointing to undocumented immigrants as the criminals and “bad hombres”?

But then again, look who’s in the White House and the culture he’s encouraging. As David Waldman tweeted, “I wonder where they got the idea that you could just get away with whatever the fuck.”

Trey Gowdy is bringing his crack investigating skills, honed by years of failing to produce any new information on Benghazi, to the chair of the House Oversight Committee. Or he will if the full Republican conference approves the recommendation of the Republican Steering Committee, anyway.

House GOP leaders encouraged Gowdy to run upon learning of Chaffetz’s looming departure. He is a close ally of Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on a panel comprised of unpredictable Freedom Caucus conservatives with rocky relationships with leadership.

Is that “unpredictable” as in “might decide Trump isn’t extremist enough and investigate him for something”? Anyway, we know Gowdy will be all reliable and leak to the right reporters and do the right things to create just enough appearance of independence for people who only care about appearances.

It is unclear which direction Gowdy will take his part of the Trump-Comey investigation, which has quickly become one of the most contentious political scandals in modern American history. While the House and Senate intelligence committees have jurisdiction over Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election, questions of obstruction and how Trump may have tried to influence the probe fall more into Oversight’s purview, at least in the House.

Ha. Yeah. That’s one of the ways his predictability and ties to Paul Ryan factor in. He’ll take that investigation whichever way will make it look like he’s doing something while doing the most possible to bury it.

For his part, Gowdy demonstrated his status as a Very Serious Person by releasing a statement defining the jurisdiction of the Oversight Committee. Scintillating stuff that reveals exactly nothing about what he’ll actually do with the chair.

Among the most interesting series of questions asked during the whole lengthy Senate Intelligence Committee hearing were questions that had little to do with Trump, or his meetings with James Comey. In fact, they were questions that Comey was clearly not expected to answer.

Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, working in brisk prosecutorial style, spent her seven minutes asking Comey question after question, one after another. Many were questions that she obviously knew the former FBI director would not, or could not, answer in an open forum. The theme to these questions:

Sen. Kamala Harris of California pressed James Comey on Thursday to reveal whether Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions played any inappropriate role in the Russia investigation.

Harris asked if Sessions had reviewed additional documents on the Russian investigation before he recused himself. Obviously, Comey didn’t know. Harris asked about documents Sessions read after he recused himself. Who had he talked to? What did he read? What did he know?

Occasionally Harris darted to a question that addressed the Trump regime more broadly.

"Are you aware of any meetings between the Trump administration officials and Russian officials during the campaign that have not been acknowledged by those officials in the White House?” she asked.

But the failure to secure an answer on these questions in the public hearing was clearly not a concern to Harris. Which suggests that 1) she was getting these questions in front of the public as part of a plan, and 2) there’s a good chance some of these same questions were fired at Comey in the closed session.

While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has yet to present the actual bill, he's started the legislative process and is ready to bring it to the floor by the end of June—without hearings, without public scrutiny, and without any input whatsoever from Democrats. He probably won't even let the Democrats see it before it comes up. That means one of two things—he was honest when he said he'd bring it whether he had the votes or not, or he has the votes. Knowing that Mitch McConnell is rarely honest, the only conclusion can be is that he thinks he's got the votes.

That's reinforced by the news that Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV)—the most vulnerable Senate Republican up in 2018—has signed off on a Medicaid proposal.

"I support seven, I support seven," Heller told reporters on his way into a healthcare working group meeting in the Capitol. "So do a number of us, including [Sen. Rob] Portman [R-Ohio] and others who have been working on this."

Heller's comments indicate that he is willing to end the extra federal funding for Medicaid expansion, as long as it is on a slow enough timetable. His comments, and those of other more centrist GOP senators, could indicate that Republicans can find some compromise on the Medicaid issue, one of their biggest obstacles to passing an ObamaCare repeal bill.

With the moderates there—and they have signed on to the idea, that's all McConnell really needs. But that doesn't mean those so-called moderates aren't still persuadable—more than 275,000 people gained Medicaid coverage in Nevada alone through the Affordable Care Act. Heller is talking about kicking them out of their insurance, and it isn't going to make much of a difference to them if it happens in three years or seven. He's still taking it away.

McConnell might be promising him a lot of things to get his vote on this, things ostensibly for his state. But nothing McConnell can offer can compare to the health and the lives of three-quarters of a million people.

While all eyes in Washington are glued on the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing with former FBI Director James Comey, the House is going to be busy voting to allow Wall Street the ability to wreck the entire economy again. Yep, they're repealing Dodd-Frank today.

The bill coming up for a vote, the Financial Choice Act, has maintained a low profile compared with Republican plans on health care and taxes, but it represents a major part of an agenda the Republicans say will unshackle the economy and accelerate economic growth.

“This legislation comes to the rescue of Main Street America,” Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Wednesday. “The Dodd-Frank Act has had a lot of bad consequences for our economy, but most of all in the small communities across our country.” […]

The Choice Act would exempt some financial institutions that meet capital and liquidity requirements from many of Dodd-Frank’s restrictions that limit risk taking. It would also replace Dodd-Frank’s method of dealing with large and failing financial institutions, known as the orderly liquidation authority — which critics say reinforces the idea that some banks are too big to fail — with a new bankruptcy code provision.

In addition, the legislation would weaken the powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Under the proposed law, the president could fire the agency’s director at will.

This time, Ryan is having the vote with a Congressional Budget Office score in hand. The CBO says the bill would reduce federal deficits by $24.1 billion over the next 10 years, but said that it is a very uncertain estimate because it was "difficult to predict when a 'systemically important' financial firm might fail." That's comforting, huh?

The bill will pass, probably with just Republican votes. Because the Senate is limited in the number of things it can pass under the budget reconciliation procedure, this one won't get through the Senate unless Mitch McConnell decides to nuke the filibuster for legislation. Which is always a possibility, because McConnell seems willing to do just about anything to enact the Republican agenda, never mind the corrupt, potentially treasonous president he's doing it for.

Presumably exhausted from keeping Donald Trump off of Twitter during former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s personal lawyer, has released a statement insisting on exactly what you’d expect: a lot of cherrypicking aimed that stitching together the case that Trump did nothing wrong and Comey is a showboat and a dirtbag and a leaker. The Comey testimony as described in the statement is almost unrecognizable if you actually watched Comey testify.

Kasowitz’s statement leads with “Contrary to numerous false press accounts leading up to today’s hearing, Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the President privately: The President was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference.” Okay … 

“Mr. Comey’s testimony also makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election ...” Hmm. I’m going to stop you there, Marc-with-a-c. Comey said he didn't remember any conversation about Russian election interference because Trump showed no interest or concern or curiosity about that. He also said repeatedly that he felt Trump had attempted to impede his investigation into Michael Flynn’s Russia ties. Maybe this is a careful way to say that Flynn and election interference were two entirely separate Russia issues, and maybe it’s just a Trumpian lie. 

Tipping the scales toward Trumpian lie, Kasowitz goes on to claim that “the President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that [sic] Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go.’” This is a claim that Republican senators tried to make, beginning with Sen. Jim Risch arguing that Trump’s “I hope” was merely a hope and not an implicit order. It didn’t work then, either, and Comey pushed back hard.

“The President also never told Mr. Comey ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty’ in any form or substance.” Perhaps Kasowitz has reviewed Trump’s tapes of the conversation and the exact quote is worded slightly differently? Or perhaps Kasowitz is representing a liar. Kasowitz goes on to say blah blah blah the president should get loyalty but instead he gets dirty leakers and Comey is one of them. 

GOP Sen. James Risch spent the entirety of his time Thursday during former FBI director James Comey's testimony trying to exonerate Donald Trump of an obstruction of justice charge. Now just let that sink in for a second.

Okay, then—Risch argued that when Trump brought up the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn and told Comey, "I hope you can let this go,” it was just a whimsical wish rather than a menacing order made under threat of dismissal. “He did not direct you to ‘let it go,’” Risch concluded. Right. So you've been cornered into having a private meeting with your boss, the most powerful person in the world, and he tells you he wants you to stay on in your position and, oh, by the by, he "hopes" you'll end your investigation into that "good guy" Mike Flynn—that wasn't meant to intimidate or give you pause in any way.

Risch’s argument doesn’t even come close to passing the smell test (B.S. never does). Context matters and there's plenty of situations in which "hope" is clearly a threat and the law has indeed viewed it as obstruction of justice. The New York Times’ Adam Liptak came up with one without breaking a sweat.

In context, Comey said, “I took it as a direction.”

That’s because when someone holds your job over your head then says they “hope” you’ll do something, it’s an order.

1. Democrats win the House (odds are good)

2. Democrats win the Senate (really tough, but small possibility)

3. House impeaches the popular-vote-losing Donald Trump and Mike Pence

4. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, third-in-line, becomes president 

We could actually make that happen. Obviously, hers would be a caretaker presidency, just holding down the fort until the American people got their say in 2020. But a caretaker would be far preferable to whatever the fuck Trump is, and a Democratic president would be in line with the wishes of the majority of the electorate. Not to mention, provide competence, and take the threat of nuclear annihilation off the map. Oh, and the Russians would lose their puppet. 

So yes, we can make that happen, and we should work our asses to make it happen. Because President Nancy Pelosi sounds pretty good right about now.