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WASHINGTON Fresh from handing President Trump a victory in his impeachment trial, the U.S. Senate has moved to install federal judges who have expressed disdain for the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law that struck down rules across the South that kept African-Americans from the ballot box.

Overturning voting-rights protections tends to benefit Republicans, who have said states, not the federal government, should decide the particulars of how elections are conducted. Some scholars even believe that weakening the Voting Rights Act ahead of the 2016 election helped Trump win the presidency.

The first of those nominees, Andrew L. Brasher, 38, was formerly the solicitor general of Alabama, a position that allowed him to stake out conservative stances on issues from gun control to reproductive rights. He was confirmed to an Alabama district court last year and, in a rapid elevation, was nominated only months later for a seat on the 11th Circuit court of appeals, which is based in Atlanta. Despite intense opposition by progressive groups, Brasher was confirmed by the full Senate on Feb. 11 in a 52-43 vote.

He is the 188th judge confirmed during Trumps time in the White House.

The other nominee is Cory Wilson, 49, a former Mississippi politician who is now a state appellate judge there. He is currently being considered for a Mississippi federal district judgeship and is expected to face a full Senate vote sometime in March.

The nominations were an opening salvo to 2020, and not a welcome one at that, said Lena Zwarensteyn, an expert on the judiciary at the progressive Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. She worried that these two jurists, and others, were advancing really extreme arguments when it comes to voting rights.

Conservatives argue that it is unfair to characterize judges like Brasher for work they did on behalf of constituents they were required to defend in court. When lawyers take litigating positions on behalf of their clients, theyre doing their jobs, says Mike Davis, whose Article 3 Project advocates for a conservative judiciary.

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Democrats, he warned, need to remember that Eric Holder provided free legal services to suspected terrorists. The reference is to pro bono work by Holders firm, Covington and Burling, on behalf of suspected jihadists detained at Guantnamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. Holder served as U.S. attorney general for former President Barack Obama.

Brashers confirmation means that half of the judges on the 11th Circuit are now Trump nominees. None of those judges is African-American, though there are nearly 8 million African-Americans living in the three states it covers.

Wilson, meanwhile, would be seated in the Southern District of Mississippi, which is part of the Fifth Circuit along with Texas and Louisiana. Of the five Trump appointees to the Fifth Circuit, four have been white men.

Trump has remade federal courts all across the country, but those changes could be especially consequential in the Deep South, where judges helped keep segregation in place, but then later struck segregation down during the civil rights era. Many decades since then, courts have continued to struggle with race, in particular regarding the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which gave the federal government great powers to supervise elections in Southern states that had previously kept African-Americans from voting.

Fairness of elections was also at the heart of Democrats argument about the just-concluded impeachment inquiry. Trump was accused of pressuring the Ukrainian government to open investigations that would benefit him domestically, but he was acquitted by a Republican-controlled Senate.

Senate Republicans are trying to rig the election at every turn, Nan Aron of progressive organization Alliance for Justice told Yahoo News.

After giving Trump a pass on withholding foreign aid in exchange for interference in the election, they immediately returned to confirming nominees with terrible records, including on voting rights, she added.

As far as the presidents critics are concerned, appointing judges who will roll back voting-rights protections also has long-term effects on elections. Even if the new judges dont help Trump in the near-term, their lifetime tenure on the federal bench could ensure Republican majorities for a generation to come. Bob Moser, author of a book on Southern politics called Blue Dixie, notes that voter suppression efforts have been moving forward in Florida, Tennessee and Texas.

A former solicitor general of Alabama, Brasher has a long history of resisting federal oversight of state election laws. In 2012, he filed a petition in favor of an Arizona law that would require identification at the polls. Voter ID laws, as they are known, tend to decrease participation by poor people and minorities because they are sometimes unable to meet the kind of stringent documentary requirements such laws demand. The brief was signed by some of the most conservative attorneys general in the nation, including Greg Abbott of Texas and Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma.

In 2013, he filed a brief in Shelby County v. Holder, a case in which an Alabama county tried to get out from under the supervision foisted on it by the Voting Rights Act. The Alabama of 2013 is not the Alabama of 1965 or of 1970, 1975, or 1982, Brasher wrote in his brief. He argued that Congress violated the constitution by continuing to treat the state as if it somehow persisted in restricting African-American participation in the democratic process.

Later that year, the Supreme Court decided Shelby County in favor of Alabama, handing conservatives a long-sought victory.

In 2014, he argued Alabamas case against African-American legislators who charged that Republicans created electoral districts that concentrated black voters, depriving Democrats of broad statewide support, a practice known as gerrymandering.

Brasher denied that any gerrymandering took place. A district judge disagreed, writing that the evidence here is overwhelming that the State has intentionally singled out individuals based on race. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme court agreed, rejecting Brashers claim.

Progressives mounted a ferocious opposition to Bashers nomination. For Republicans determined to snuff out voting rights in the courts, Brasher is an ace in the hole, wrote former Florida gubernatorial nominee and voting rights advocate Andrew Gillum in a Tampa Bay Times op-ed.

Wilson, the Mississippi district court nominee, is also in favor of voter identification laws. In a 2013 article for the Press-Register of Mobile, Ala., he complained about the recent mayor election in nearby Hattiesburg, Miss., which a Democrat had won. Wilson, a Republican, complained of voter impersonation and disenfranchised felons voting, a claim frequently repeated by conservative media outlets covering elections.

In his article, Wilson argued that federal oversight was not necessary, while more stringent voting regulations were. They might spend less time chasing agendas that aren't there, he wrote of federal monitors, and more time investigating the voter fraud and other irregularities.

Writing in another op-ed, Wilson argued that Voter ID is a part of ensuring cleaner elections. Studies have found that to not be the case. Wilson blamed both politicians and the media: The Rachel Maddows of the media world have joined the chorus of voter suppression right on cue from Team Obama, he wrote.

Brashers confirmation was not a surprise, and Wilsons record of inflammatory writing may not make a difference. The current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has previously supported extension of Voting Rights Act provisions. But he is now one of President Trumps closest allies on Capitol Hill and has made confirming Trumps judicial nominees a priority.

The full Senate has sometimes proved more problematic for Trump nominees. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only African-American member of the Republican conference, has more or less single-handedly stopped the confirmations of two Trump nominees: Thomas Farr of North Carolina, who had been accused of voter-suppression efforts, and Ryan Bounds, who had published inflammatory articles on race.

But as the vote on Brasher neared, it became clear that Scott was not going to stand in the way. Scotts spokesman, Sean Smith, noted in response to a Yahoo News query that Scott had voted in favor of Brashers confirmation to the district court last year. I have not heard anything to indicate his position has changed, Smith said.

Judicial nominees could potentially encounter resistance from moderate Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for reasons unrelated to voting rights. Collins and Murkowski have both expressed disfavor for judges who want to strike down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

Wilson has called Roe the result of a liberal activist court and, as a state legislator, has endorsed a number of measures that would make it more difficult for a woman to terminate a pregnancy. As the solicitor general of Alabama, Brasher routinely defended similar measures.

Neither the office of Collins nor Murkowski responded to a request for comment ahead of the Brasher vote. Both senators voted to install him on the 11th Circuit.

Trump has appointed several judges with records on voting rights similar to those of Brasher and Wilson. Some of those judges have begun to agitate for the kind of lessened federal oversight conservatives have long yearned for.

Earlier this month, as the impeachment trial was coming to an end, a Trump-appointed judge said, in a dissenting opinion, that the Voting Rights Act infringed on states rights. That judge, Lisa Branch, sits on the 11th Circuit. She will soon have an ideological ally in Brasher.

In another dissent on voting rights, Fifth Circuit Trump judge Don Willett argued that states had the right to oversee their own elections, something conservatives want and progressives fear. Willett opened his dissent by invoking Abraham Lincoln, author of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed African-Americans from slavery.

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Written by Peter Pedroncelli

Feb 12, 2020

Qatar Airways is set to own60 percent of Rwandas new international airportwhen it is fully built and is now in negotiations to buy49 percent of Rwandas state-owned carrier, RwandAir.

A stake in RwandaAir would increase Qatar Airways reach in one of the worlds fastest-growing aviation regions, according to the Financial Times.

Africa is set to be one of the fastest-growing aviation regions globally in the next 20 years with an annual expansion of nearly 5 percent, according to the International Air Transport Association.

The African aviation industry generates $80 billion in economic activity, supporting around 6.9 million jobs.

The RwandAir deal couldhelp Qatar Airways to bypass restrictions imposed on it by some Arab stateswhich force itto fly longer routes to avoid the forbidden airspace of some of its neighborsin the Gulf, Businesslive reports.

Due to a regional dispute,Qatar Airways has been banned from flying to 18 cities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt since June 2017.Thosecountries cut ties with Qatarin 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

The ban does not apply to foreign airlines flying to Qatar, according to Reuters.

This means that RwandAir could potentially carry passengers from Africa through the blocked airspace to Doha without any airspace restrictions.

Qatar Airways already owns a stake in International Airlines Group,a London-based company thatowns British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling,and European low-cost airlineLevel as well as a stake in China Southern, Cathay Pacific, and Latam Airlines Group.

In December 2019, Qatar Airways agreed to buy a 60 percent stake in a new $1.3 billion airport that is under construction in Rwanda, AlJazeera reported.

TheBugesera International Airport in Kigali is expected to have the capacity for around 7 million passengers per year before expansion to 14 million passengers by 2032.

The Rwandan government hopes that the new airport will position the country as a regional hub.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 69: Jamarlin Martin

Jamarlin goes solo to unpack the question: Was Barack Obama the first political anti-Christ to rise in Black America? To understand the question, we have to revisit Rev. Wright and Obamas decision to bring on political disciples David Plouffe, Joe Biden and Eric Holder.

Rwanda will have serious competition from nearby Ethiopia which has announced plans to build a new $5 billion airportat Bishoftu that is expected to have a capacity of 100 million passengers per year, according to Bloomberg.

Ethiopia already has the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and its capacity of 22 million passengers a year.

The state-owned Ethiopian Airlines is Africas largest carrier. It has an operating fleet of 111 planes, flying to more than 119 international passenger and cargo destinations, with more than 61 of those in Africa alone, according to BusinessInsider.

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Qatar Airways Plans To Buy 49 Percent Of Rwandas State-Owned Airline - Moguldom

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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(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