Chris Hedges's Blog, page 549

President’s Tweet Sabotages GOP on Immigration

WASHINGTON—Just when House Republicans needed Donald Trump’s backing the most—on their big immigration overhaul—he dashed off a presidential tweet saying they should quit wasting their time on it.

The Friday tweet is hardly the first time the president has abandoned his allies in a moment of need. Over and over, Trump has proven himself a saboteur, willing to walk away from promises and blow up a deal, undermining the GOP agenda in Congress.

“You just fear that tweet in the morning,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. The retiring Republican said members of Congress can’t help but think, “Oh no, how many policies will you undo by the day’s end? Because the day’s not over. Heck, it’s not even noon yet. How many times could he change his mind?”

On Capitol Hill on Friday, the mood was gloomy, particularly among the more centrist Republicans who have been pushing the party’s immigration compromise. That bill would provide $25 billion for Trump’s border wall and set new limits on family visas in favor of merit-based entry — but also create a path to citizenship for young “Dreamers.” It seemed to be losing — rather than gaining — support ahead of rescheduled voting next week. Trump had publicly backed the bill earlier in the week.

“It’s a horrifically chilling signal,” said another retiring Republican, Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who recently lost his primary election after frequently criticizing Trump.

“What the president just signaled is, ‘I’m not going to be there.’ And therefore I think people will take the cue,” Sanford said. “I think it makes immigration reform that much more unlikely.”

Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho said lawmakers who are counting on Trump to provide a presidential nudge should reconsider. “He changes so frequently that anybody who depends on that, I think, is in trouble,” he said.

Others, particularly conservative Republicans who don’t support the immigration deal, said Trump’s actions should come as no surprise. He ran on disrupting Washington, aides said, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.

In fact, he does it all the time. Last year, not long after House Republicans stood in the Rose Garden with Trump celebrating passage of their replacement for former President Barack Obama’s health care law, he mocked their legislation as a “mean” bill. After Congress approved a budget deal to end a government shutdown in February, Trump turned on lawmakers and threatened to veto it.

At a White House meeting this week with some two dozen wayward Republicans who needed nudging on the immigration bill, one lawmaker directly asked the president if he would reverse course on it the way he did when he threatened to veto the budget deal, according to two Republicans familiar with the private exchange.

The president reassured them that would not happen, they said.

“Everybody is sensitive to what the president is saying,” said Rep. Paul Cook, R-Calif., who’s undecided on the immigration measure. “I think it makes it very, very difficult. … What he says influences a lot of members.”

The assessment of Trump’s changes isn’t much different at the White House, where officials were caught off guard by his sudden shifts this week on immigration — including his reversal in signing an executive order to halt the separation of immigrant families at the border.

Officials portray a president who increasingly relies on his own counsel, ignoring their advice. They say they follow along with the rest of the country on Twitter to learn what their boss is doing.

“Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November,” Trump tweeted early Friday. “Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solve this decades old problem. We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!”

Officials said the president’s haphazard actions seem to have less to do with campaign politics — or even his own standing with voters — than ego. He’s frustrated with Congress and the media, particularly after the flop of the GOP’s health care overhaul last year, which made him wary of fully embracing legislation before it passes.

What is unclear, though, is whether the president realizes the moderate Republicans he is alienating by shunning their immigration overhaul are among those most endangered in the midterm elections.

“No one has more to lose in November than the president does when it comes to the majority in the House, because if this majority flips over to being a Democrat, there will be a big push for impeachment,” said Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., who opposes the immigration bill.

House GOP leaders have made it clear they do not expect the immigration bill to pass, but have little choice but to press forward and keep a promise made to moderate Republicans.

One leading architect of the bill, Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, holds out hope that the bill can be revised to gain support.

“What we need from the president is for him to sign a good immigration bill, and he and his team have indicated that he will. That’s all we need,” Curbelo said.

Besides, said Rep. John Faso, R-N.Y., a supporter of the bill, maybe Trump will change his mind again: “Just wait a few hours, the tweet will be different.”

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Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Matthew Daly, Kevin Freking, Laurie Kellman and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.

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Family Reunification Methods Unclear, ICE Official Says

WESLACO, Texas — The Latest on the separation of immigrant children from their parents following President Donald Trump’s order allowing them to remain with their parents (all times local):

5:25 p.m.

Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer ordered an immediate inspection of Topeka group homes that are housing unaccompanied immigrant children.

Colyer directed the state Department for Children and Families to inspect The Villages homes Friday after four Democratic state legislators criticized him during a Statehouse news conference. They said Colyer was not being aggressive enough in seeking information about the immigrant children there.

The Villages has a federal contract to house 50 unaccompanied immigrant children at its seven group homes in Topeka and Lawrence. But it won’t say whether any of them had been separated from their parents during recent crackdown at the border.

Colyer spokesman Kendall Marr said the state doesn’t have control over the federal contract but can ensure that the homes continue to meet state standards.

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5:15 p.m.

Ryan Patrick, the top federal prosecutor in South Texas, says he continues to file all illegal entry cases referred to him by border authorities, keeping the zero tolerance policy in effect at his office. What’s unclear is if the Border Patrol has pulled back on referring cases to him.

“Right now we’re looking at what we’re going to do. Whatever we do we are going to keep the families together,” Manuel Padilla, chief of the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, said at news conference at the agency’s station in Weslaco.

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4:55 p.m.

A top immigration official says it’s unclear how family reunification will occur now that President Donald Trump ordered patents and children no longer be split.

“It’s a big question. There have not been a lot of answers,” Henry Lucero, a director of field operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Lucero spoke at a forum at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco headlined by U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Texas Republicans.

ICE, which detains the patents, says family reunification isn’t new to the agency but the numbers are larger now. Lucero said in the majority of cases he knows during his career, the parent asks to be deported and leave the child with a caretaker, typically a relative.

Sister Norma Pimentel of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley pushed back, saying parents choose to go home without their children because it takes four months to reunite.

Lucero disagreed, saying it “generally takes days” for ICE to reunite a willing parent with the child, who is monitored by the Health and Human Services Department.

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4:15 p.m.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti says there are approximately 100 migrant children separated from their families in the city, but that city officials have little information about them.

Garcetti told reporters at City Hall on Friday that he wants the children to be reunited with their parents as soon as possible, but they are under federal jurisdiction and beyond the city’s control.

The two-term Democrat says many of the children are very young, including some too young to identify their parents.

The children are with foster families or group homes contracted with the federal government, but the city did not know where. The city learned of them from activists and other groups that take in unaccompanied minors.

He says the federal government will not share any information.

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4 p.m.

Three Democratic U.S. senators say a holding facility for immigrant children on the Texas border near El Paso appears to be occupied by about 250 teenage boys mostly from Central America.

The lawmakers made the discovery Friday as they pushed for more information about the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy for immigrants crossing the border illegally.

The fenced-off cluster of tents near Tornillo on Texas’ border with Mexico and other holding facilities for immigrant children are under scrutiny amid confusion over President Donald Trump’s order to stop separating migrant children from families detained while crossing into the U.S. illegally.

A contractor that operates the shelter 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of El Paso briefed U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut without letting the lawmakers enter holding areas or speak with detained minors.

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3:20 p.m.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has visited a Miami-area facility housing more than 1,000 teenage migrants.

After his tour Friday, the Florida Republican said he didn’t speak to any of the children inside the Homestead complex because of privacy regulations.

Officials say all the children are classified as unaccompanied minors, including fewer than 70 who were separated from adult relatives at the border.

He said splitting up families at the border was “a terrible situation,” but the U.S. doesn’t have the money or the capacity to hold families together when they are detained by immigration authorities.

Rubio said Congress would need to create those kinds of facilities. He added the desire to keep families together needed to be supported with policies that would help prevent people from making dangerous journeys to flee violence in their homelands.

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2:05 p.m.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued a notice that it may seek up to 15,000 beds to detain immigrant families.

The agency on Friday put out a request for information to help in planning for potential new family detention facilities.

The notice comes after the administration stopped separating immigrant children from their parents on the southwest border amid public outcry and officials said they intended to seek to detain families together during immigration proceedings.

The agency currently has about 3,300 beds for immigrant parents and their children in family detention facilities.

The notice comes amid a scramble by federal agencies to find space for immigrants.

The Pentagon says it’s drawing up plans to house up to 20,000 unaccompanied children on military bases.

___

1:15 p.m.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says that 66 of the more than 2,300 migrant children separated from their families at the border in recent weeks under President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy are in Chicago area shelters.

The Illinois Democrat said Friday two-thirds of those children are below the age of 13.

Durbin’s comments marked the first time a public official has specified how many of them are in the Chicago area.

They remain separated from their parents after Trump this week signed an order to stop separating families who cross the border illegally.

The children are being cared at shelters run by Heartland Alliance, a nonprofit human rights organization.

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1:10 p.m.

Some of the parents who were separated from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border are being held at an immigration facility in suburban Denver.

U.S. Customs and Immigration said Friday that 50 parents are being held at its detention center in Aurora.

Spokesman Carl Rusnok said he didn’t have any more details about how long those people had been held at the center, which is run by a private contractor, the GEO Group.

Immigration attorneys say they’ve been working to get parents released on bond as they try to reunite with their children.

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1:05 p.m.

Louisiana Democratic state senators have pushed legislation asking Gov. John Bel Edwards to recall Louisiana National Guard troops at the Texas border until separated families who entered illegally are reunited with their children.

A Senate committee on Friday advanced the legislation with a 3-1 vote, solely on Democratic support. Republican Sen. Neil Riser voted against the measure.

Louisiana has had a three-person National Guard team and one helicopter at the border since May. Edwards, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that the team will remain until mid-July as planned.

Edwards said the crew had no role in separating families, a policy the governor criticized as “unconscionable.”

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1 p.m.

The father of the girl who is pictured crying on the cover of this week’s Time magazine says the Honduran foreign ministry told him that his daughter is detained with her mother in McAllen, Texas, and the two have not been separated.

Denis Varela says he hasn’t heard from his wife or daughter in almost three weeks. The girl’s mother apparently took their daughter to the United States without telling him.

Varela, a dockworker who lives in Puerto Cortes, Honduras, said that the ministry had given him the girl’s detainee identification number. He was told his daughter was in McAllen with her mother, but nothing else.

The girl’s photo was apparently taken when she and her mother were first detained by Border Patrol officers and the mother was being searched.

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12:50 p.m.

A coalition of progressives in Nevada upset with the Trump administration’s immigration policy is urging a national association of school-based law enforcement officers to withdraw its invitation to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to speak at a school safety conference in Reno next week.

Sessions is scheduled to address the National Association of School Resource Officers at a Reno hotel-casino on Monday.

Leaders of more than a dozen labor unions, women’s, religious and minority groups sent a letter Thursday asking the association to rescind its invitation to Sessions because of the administration’s stand on immigration.

They said “rolling out the welcome mat to Sessions” would demonstrate complicity with his support for the “zero tolerance” policy of separating migrant parents and children at the U.S. border.

Spokesman Jay Farlow of the Alabama-based association had no immediate comment.

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11:50 a.m.

Four Democratic state lawmakers from Kansas are demanding that Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer be more aggressive in seeking answers about immigrant children housed in northeast Kansas group homes.

They accused Colyer Friday of being passive about getting information about reports that some children separated from their parents are being housed by the nonprofit agency The Villages.

Colyer spokesman Kendall Marr said the federal government didn’t notify the administration of its plans and the state has sought information.

The Villages confirmed Thursday that it has a federal contract to house 50 unaccompanied immigrant children at seven group homes in Topeka and Lawrence.

But it would not say whether any of them had been separated from their parents during recent crackdown at the border.

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11:30 a.m.

A lawyer says Friday has marked the first time since May 24 that no parents charged with crossing border illegally in the McAllen, Texas area had been separated from their kids.

Efren Olivares of the Texas Civil Rights Project advocacy group has been interviewing adult immigrants to track them and their children through separate government processing systems.

Olivares says the development Friday at the federal court in McAllen appears to be “a consequence of a change in policy by the government.”

A senior Trump administration official told The Associated Press that about 500 of the more than 2,300 children separated from their parents had been reunited since May.

Olivares says his group has had contact with 381 parents separated from their children, and that none had confirmed being reunited.

He says some children were successfully placed with sponsors, including relatives in the U.S.

— Colleen Long in Washington.

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10:30 a.m.

The U.N human rights office says President Donald Trump’s decision to stop the U.S. policy separating migrant parents from their children doesn’t go far enough.

A Trump executive order ended the policy of separations. Families will still be detained, just together.

Human rights office spokeswoman Ravini Shamdasani said Friday that “children should never be detained for reasons related to their or their parents’ migration status.”

Shamdasani urged the U.S. to overhaul its migration policy, such as by relying on “non-custodial and community-based alternatives” under the “logic of care” rather than that of law enforcement.

Also Friday, a group of nearly a dozen independent human rights experts commissioned by the U.N. said the new U.S. policy “may lead to indefinite detention of entire families in violation of international human rights standards.”

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10:25 a.m.

U.S. officials have allowed journalists to tour a South Florida facility housing more than 1,000 teenage migrants but did not let them take photos or record video during the visit.

Private contractors who run the center for unaccompanied minors in Homestead, Florida., showed journalists around the campus like-complex for about an hour.

The complex includes dorm-style buildings where children sleep up to 12 per room in steel-framed bunk beds, and warehouse-sized, air-conditioned white tents where minors attend classes and watch movies.

The children could be seen walking to the dining hall and classes, wearing government-issued cotton T-shirts and gym shorts. Some could be seen playing basketball and soccer, sometimes shouting and laughing.

Program director Leslie Wood said fewer than 70 of the 1,179 children had been separated from families at the border.

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8:40 a.m.

A coalition of civil rights and student advocacy groups has sued the Boston Public Schools to find out how much student information the system shares with federal immigration officials.

The groups, including the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice, allege in the suit that the school system and Superintendent Tommy Chang have a “disturbing practice” of giving student information to immigration authorities.

The suit stems from the deportation of an East Boston High School student. The suit says evidence used by federal officials in deportation proceedings included a school report about two students who tried unsuccessfully to start a fight.

Chang has in the past said the schools don’t share student information.

A schools spokesman said he could not comment because the system had not been served with the suit.

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5:15 a.m.

A 7-year-old boy and his migrant mother who had been separated a month ago have been reunited after she sued in federal court and the Justice Department agreed to release the child.

The two were reunited at about 2:30 a.m. Friday at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Maryland, hours after a Justice Department lawyer told a U.S. District Court judge the child would be released.

The mother, Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia, had filed for political asylum after crossing the border with her son, Darwin, following a trek from Guatemala. She said she started crying when the two were reunited and that she’s never going to be away from him again.

Darwin said he was content and happy with the reunion.

The mother and son were to travel to Texas, where they will live while her asylum claim is being decided.

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2:25 a.m.

Immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border was plunged deeper into chaos over President Donald Trump’s reversal of a policy separating immigrant children from parents.

A senior Trump administration official says about 500 of the more than 2,300 children separated from their families at the border have been reunited since May. It was unclear how many of the children were still being detained with their families.

The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

In the Texas border city of McAllen, federal prosecutors unexpectedly did not pursue charges against 17 immigrants. One said “there was no prosecution sought” in light of Trump’s executive order ending the practice of separating families.

But the president showed no sign of softening in public remarks.

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Trump Calls for 20,000 Children’s Beds at U.S. Military Bases

Responsibility for unaccompanied children and families who arrive in the U.S. via the southern border appeared to shift to the U.S. military on Thursday, as the Trump administration called on the Pentagon to make preparations to house approximately 20,000 children on military bases.

Per Pentagon memo obtained by the Post, HHS has asked Pentagon whether it can house up to 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children at military bases from as early as July thru end of the year https://t.co/SHaZGyPrCZ

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) June 21, 2018

Following President Donald Trump’s executive order in which he directed federal agencies to prepare detention facilities to house families together and to end the forcible separation of families, Pentagon officials agreed to determine whether military bases in Arkansas and Texas could house families and unaccompanied minors.

According to the Washington Post, the arrangement would involve housing children on military bases for at least six months, until the end of 2018.

The deal between the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the care and supervision of unaccompanied children who immigrate to the U.S. via the southern border, follows reports that Defense Secretary James Mattis would send more than 20 military attorneys to border states to assist in prosecuting immigrants.

I served on active duty as a JAG. The @realDonaldTrump policy of having JAGs prosecute immigration cases is STUPID.

-JAGs are not trained in immigration law

-JAG Corps is always stretched thin

-JAGs main mission is to help commanders fight our wars, not prosecute misdemeanors. https://t.co/iDi5fMWo6v

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 21, 2018

The Trump administration originally examined the possibility of housing children on military bases in May, shortly after Attorney General Jeff Sessions introduced his “zero tolerance” policy under which more than 2,000 children have been separated from their parents, and before the practice drew international condemnation and widespread protests which ultimately forced Trump to sign his executive order.

The original reports drew comparisons to World War II-era internment camps from critics.

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Donald Trump Is Reshaping the Courts in His Own Image

Donald Trump’s most lasting legacy might be his impact on the federal court system. It must be stopped.

Quite apart from the Supreme Court, the president is already having a dramatic effect on the lower federal courts.

Even though much of his legislative agenda has stalled in Congress, Trump is nominating and getting Senate confirmation of judges to the federal bench much faster than previous presidents.

Many of Trump’s picks for these lifetime positions are extremists with little judicial experience. For example, Thomas Farr, his nominee for a North Carolina judgeship, has ties to a group that has promoted white supremacist policies and eugenics.

Other Trump picks have openly spread conspiracy theories, defended lethal injection, and one even called a sitting Supreme Court justice a “prostitute.”

Fortunately, not all of them have been confirmed. But by the end of his first term Trump could end up filling over 20 percent of the judgeships in the federal courts.

And even if he’s removed from office, these judges will be around long after he’s gone. Trump has identified young candidates who could serve for decades.

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is greasing the wheels in the Senate to speed up the confirmation process.

Traditionally either senator from a judicial nominee’s home state was allowed to block a nomination. But McConnell has done away with this rule, even though he did everything he possibly could to block President Obama’s nominees, including his pick for the Supreme Court.

This takeover of the federal bench is another assault on our democracy. The power of the courts is being placed in the hands of people who share Trump’s ideology.

That’s why we need to keep up the pressure, and it’s another reason why we need to win back the Senate.

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Trump Scraps Policy Protecting Oceans, Great Lakes

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.—President Donald Trump has thrown out a policy devised by his predecessor to protect U.S. oceans and the Great Lakes, replacing it with a new approach that emphasizes use of the waters to promote economic growth.

Trump revoked an executive order issued by President Barack Obama in 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, it killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of crude that harmed marine wildlife, fouled more than 1,300 miles of shoreline and cost the tourism and fishing industries hundreds of millions of dollars.

Obama said the spill underscored the vulnerability of marine environments. He established a council to promote conservation and sustainable use of the waters.

In his order this week, Trump did not mention the Gulf spill. He said he was “rolling back excessive bureaucracy created by the previous administration” and depicted the Obama council as bloated, with 27 departments and agencies and over 20 committees, subcommittees and working groups.

The Republican president said he was creating a smaller Ocean Policy Committee while eliminating “duplicative” regional planning bodies created under Obama.

But he said federal agencies could participate in regional partnerships formed by states. His administration has encouraged a “cooperative federalism” approach that shifts more responsibility to state governments.

Trump’s order downplays environmental protection, saying the change would ensure that regulations and management decisions don’t get in the way of responsible use by industries that “employ millions of Americans, advance ocean science and technology, feed the American people, transport American goods, expand recreational opportunities and enhance America’s energy security.”

In another reversal of Obama policy, Trump earlier this year called for opening most coastal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling, drawing fierce opposition from many coastal states. His administration also is stepping up federal leases for offshore wind energy development.

“Domestic energy production from federal waters strengthens the nation’s security and reduces reliance on imported energy,” Trump said in his order, which also mentioned shipping, fishing and recreation as among industries standing to benefit from his plan.

The order drew praise from a group representing offshore energy producers.

Jack Belcher, managing director of the pro-industry National Ocean Policy Coalition, said the new approach would remove “a significant cloud of uncertainty” for marine commerce.

Environmentalists said it erases a national mandate to improve ocean health.

“In another attempt to reverse progress made under President Obama, the Trump administration is recklessly tossing aside responsible ocean management and stewardship,” said Arian Rubio, legislative associate for the League of Conservation Voters.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Republican and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said Trump’s approach would “help the health of our oceans and ensure local communities impacted by ocean policy have a seat at the table.”

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and ranking member of the committee, demanded a hearing and accused Trump of “unilaterally throwing out” years of conservation work.

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Associated Press reporters Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, and Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.

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In Win for Privacy, Justices Limit Cellphone Tracking by Police

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Friday that police generally need a search warrant if they want to track criminal suspects’ movements by collecting information about where they’ve used their cellphones, bolstering privacy interests in the digital age.

The justices’ 5-4 decision marks a big change in how police may obtain cellphone tower records, an important tool in criminal investigations.

Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by the court’s four liberals, said cellphone location information “is detailed, encyclopedic and effortlessly compiled.” Roberts wrote that “an individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his physical movements” as they are captured by cellphone towers.

Roberts said the court’s decision is limited to cellphone tracking information and does not affect other business records, including those held by banks.

He also wrote that police still can respond to an emergency and obtain records without a warrant.

Justices Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch each wrote dissenting opinions. Kennedy wrote that the court’s “new and uncharted course will inhibit law enforcement” and “keep defendants and judges guessing for years to come.”

Roberts does not often line up with his liberal colleagues against a unified front of conservative justices, but digital-age privacy cases can cross ideological lines, as when the court unanimously said in 2014 that a warrant is needed before police can search the cellphone of someone they’ve just arrested.

The court ruled Friday in the case of Timothy Carpenter, who was sentenced to 116 years in prison for his role in a string of robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio. Cell tower records that investigators got without a warrant bolstered the case against Carpenter.

Investigators obtained the cell tower records with a court order that requires a lower standard than the “probable cause” needed to obtain a warrant. “Probable cause” requires strong evidence that a person has committed a crime.

The judge at Carpenter’s trial refused to suppress the records, finding no warrant was needed, and a federal appeals court agreed. The Trump administration said the lower court decisions should be upheld.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing Carpenter, said a warrant would provide protection against unjustified government snooping.

“This is a groundbreaking victory for Americans’ privacy rights in the digital age. The Supreme Court has given privacy law an update that it has badly needed for many years, finally bringing it in line with the realities of modern life,” said ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, who argued the Supreme Court case in November.

The administration relied in part on a 1979 Supreme Court decision that treated phone records differently than the conversation in a phone call, for which a warrant generally is required.

The earlier case involved a single home telephone and the court said then that people had no expectation of privacy in the records of calls made and kept by the phone company.

“The government’s position fails to contend with the seismic shifts in digital technology that made possible the tracking of not only Carpenter’s location but also everyone else’s, not for a short period but for years and years,” Roberts wrote.

The court decided the 1979 case before the digital age, and even the law on which prosecutors relied to obtain an order for Carpenter’s records dates from 1986, when few people had cellphones.

The Supreme Court in recent years has acknowledged technology’s effects on privacy. In 2014, Roberts also wrote the opinion that police must generally get a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest. Other items people carry with them may be looked at without a warrant, after an arrest.

Roberts said then that a cellphone is almost “a feature of human anatomy.” On Friday, he returned to the metaphor to note that a phone “faithfully follows its owner beyond public thoroughfares and into private residences, doctor’s offices, political headquarters, and other potentially revealing locales.”

As a result, he said, “when the government tracks the location of a cell phone it achieves near perfect surveillance, as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phone’s user.”

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Which Side Are You On?

A powerful song written by the wife of a union organizer in 1931, popularized by the radical folk singer Pete Seeger and later adapted by the civil rights movement, perfectly expresses the moral question of our particular political moment: “Which Side Are You On?” I hear the refrain of that song in my mind each time I read about a fresh new horror in the ongoing crisis of forced separation of undocumented immigrant families by President Donald Trump’s administration. The crisis has been building for months, but its hideous extent has only recently has come to light. Trump’s executive order calling for indefinite detention of whole families as a panacea for his choice to separate children from their parents is more of the same cruelty.

So many figures in the Trump administration have in recent days exposed their stone-faced callousness even as heartbreaking photos of crying children and the stories behind them have gripped the nation. Among them is Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who gave a disastrous press conference on Monday. Unable to address valid questions from the press about why children were being mentally tortured en masse through separation from their parents, she resorted to technicalities, obfuscations and feigned ignorance.

When a reporter played the gut-wrenching audio ProPublica said was of Central American kids aged 4 to 10 wailing for their parents at a detention center in Texas, Nielsen ignored the tape and eventually said, “I think that they reflect the focus of those who post such pictures and narratives.” In other words, Nielsen made it eminently clear which side she was on: the opposite of those who call out the torture of innocent children.

The Root rightly distinguished Nielsen as having beaten out press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for the title of “Most Hated Person in Trump’s White House” with her cold-blooded performance, writing, “Must be nice to insert robotic, formulaic answers to human questions about humanity.”

Right up there with Nielsen is the man who in May first formally announced the U.S. policy of family separation: Attorney General Jeff Sessions. I wrote in an earlier column about his deliberately contradictory accusations that people were trafficking their own children. Asked whether the conditions in which undocumented children were being held was reminiscent of Nazi Germany, Sessions, instead of vehemently denouncing the comparison, decided to pick up on a nuanced difference between the two, saying that, “In Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country.” As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp wrote,“Whether the policy is literally identical to what the Nazis did is almost beside the point. If you need to explain why you aren’t like Hitler, you’ve already lost.” Sessions has effectively failed to assert that he is not on the side of Nazis.

In a speech to law enforcement officers last week, Sessions quoted from the Bible, Romans 13, saying it was important “to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.” He added, “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent and fair application of the law is in itself a good and moral thing, and that protects the weak and protects the lawful.” Except that Sessions invoked a part of the Bible that had been used to justify slavery in the South. In doing so, he made it clear which side he was on: that of the slave owners rather than the enslaved.

Sessions’ own church has put him on notice. Hundreds of clergy from the United Methodist Church, of which he is a member, wrote a strongly worded letter in which they called him out for his “harmful actions” and “the damage he is currently causing to immigrants, particularly children and families.” The signatories issued a set of serious “church charges” against him that include child abuse, immorality and racial discrimination. In doing so these Methodist church members and clergy made it very clear that they were on the side of vulnerable undocumented children.

If there was any doubt that the Trump administration is creating its own unique standards of morality, recent revelations about the so-called White House Bible Study group eviscerate them. The group’s weekly meetings are apparently attended by Nielsen, Sessions, Vice President Mike Pence and others, and are administered by a man named Ralph Drollinger of Capitol Ministries. Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that Drollinger’s interpretation of the Bible includes justifying corporal punishment of children and is virulently anti-immigrant. One of his tenets apparently is, “God’s Word says He frowns on illegal immigrants—just like He says He frowns on children ruling the roost!”

If Drollinger has influenced top Trump officials using the garbage logic of fundamentalist Christianity, it is presidential adviser Stephen Miller who has pushed the policy-level idea that using undocumented children as political pawns is a useful deterrent against immigration. “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period,” said Miller.”The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.” Perhaps knowing that a recording of Miller saying these words would be used to further excoriate him and his president, the White House protested against The New York Times publishing the audio of Miller’s interview, and the paper complied. After all, Miller was the force behind the Muslim ban, and once famously minimized the Statue of Liberty’s pro-immigrant etchings. There is good reason why the 32-year-old has been labeled “the White House’s resident troll.” Like Nielsen and Sessions, Miller has made it eminently clear, even from behind the scenes, that he is on the side of child abusers.

As for Trump himself, it is not relevant any more to ask which side the president is on. Trump is a side unto himself. Just as we may have asked whether one is on the side of Nazis or the anti-fascists, the slave-owning South or the abolitionist North, the KKK or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, we ought to ask today whether one is on the side of Trump or the resistance to Trumpism. In one of his latest tweets dehumanizing immigrants, the president said, “Democrats … want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13.” The word “infest” deliberately invokes insects, pests and disease, and echoes what he said in his weekly address just days earlier that “MS-13 gang members are truly, and you’ve heard me say it, animals.” Last month, the White House even used the term “animals” in a written press release after Trump said it during a meeting. It matters little that the children and parents being separated from one another today have nothing to do with the MS-13 gang. It only matters to Trump that in the minds of his fanatical supporters the two disparate communities are conflated.

So which side are Americans on? On the side of Trump and his child abusers or on the other side?

So far, many Democrats and some Republicans are locating their humanity and balking at the images and sounds of children suffering. But not nearly enough lawmakers are signing on to the Keep Families Together Act to legislatively end the practice of family separation. Even if Trump would most likely veto any such bill were it to pass Congress, it is critical for all members to articulate which side they are on, and it is incumbent on us as their constituents to demand they pick a side—and pick the right one.

It is not acceptable to let the administration set the agenda and, as Trump’s new executive order stipulates, normalize the locking up of whole families together, indefinitely, as a solution to locking up parents separately from their children.

Americans involved in the machinery of government child abuse also ought to ask themselves which side they are on. The nonprofit group Southwest Key, which houses children separated from their parents in several detention centers for the government, is reportedly facing an internal “dilemma” about being part of a system that tortures children. Sadly, the organization appears to have chosen nearly a half-billion dollars in government contracts over a principled stand against family separation. One of the organization’s employees, Antar Davidson, chose the side of children when he resigned, saying, “I can no longer in good conscience work with Southwest Key programs,” adding, “I am feeling uneasy about the morality of some of the practices.”

As we’ve seen before in U.S. history, this is a make-or-break moment for the nation. Just as Germans were forced to choose sides during World War II—the side of anti-fascists, Jews, progressives and others, or the side of the Nazis—so, too, Americans have had to choose in our own past between slave owners or the enslaved and abolitionists. We have had to choose between the lynch mobs and those fighting for equality. So, too, now we have to choose between the side of the children or the side of their kidnappers and torturers. Anti-fascist and anti-Trump Americans could demonstrate their choice by attending any of the countless protests that are being organized in front of ICE offices and elsewhere.

In the matter of the lives of tens of thousands of children, there should be absolute clarity. There are no gray areas, no nuances when children’s lives are at stake. Those having trouble choosing the side of the children have catastrophically failed a basic test of humanity. They will find themselves on the wrong side of history—the same side that Nazis, slave owners and lynch mobs were on.

Melania Trump Visits Migrant Children Near Border

McALLEN, Texas — Melania Trump visited with migrant children Thursday during a brief stop at a Texas facility housing some of the youth separated from their parents as her husband’s administration prosecutes adults who enter the U.S. illegally from Mexico.

The first lady, who has a 12-year-old son, smiled and laughed with the migrant children. “Be kind and nice to each other, OK,” she said as she left one classroom at Upbring New Hope Children’s Center and headed for another.

Plans for her to visit a second facility where children housed in cages were seen by The Associated Press last week were canceled because of flooding there.

The first lady’s stop in McAllen came one day after President Donald Trump ordered a halt, at least for now, to the separation of immigrant families who are detained at the border.

Her visit to the one-story, red brick building was quickly arranged after Mrs. Trump decided earlier this week that she wanted to go, her spokeswoman said, adding that she wanted to lend support to children who have been separated from their parents. The facility housed 55 boys and girls, ages 12-17, on Thursday, but only about six of them had been separated from parents, officials said. The other children were placed there after they crossed into the U.S. alone.

“I’m here to learn about your facility,” the first lady said as she met with staff and federal health and border patrol officials. She asked how she could help “these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible” and how often they communicate with their families. She learned the children are allowed a 10-minute phone call twice a week.

Students welcomed her with a large paper American flag taped to a wall that they’d signed. The words, “Welcome! First Lady” were written in black marker across the red and white bars. Mrs. Trump, herself an immigrant from Slovenia, signed the flag and gifted it back to the center.

She visited three classrooms, each time asking the children where they came from, their ages, how long they’d been at the center and their favorite subjects. Staff said the children, who are mostly from Guatemala, typically spend between 42 and 45 days at the facility, which is operated by a Lutheran social services organization contracted by the government.

The children are often distraught when they arrive, staff said, but they reassured Mrs. Trump the youth are quickly assessed for any physical or mental health issues and are well-cared for. The children attend school five days a week and have access to a variety of activities.

“We see them as if they were our own,” said Roy De La Cerda, the program director.

Mrs. Trump left Washington wearing a green, hooded military jacket that had “I really don’t care, do u?” written in graffiti-style on the back in white lettering that left the blogosphere wondering what message she was trying to send as she flew off to visit migrant children.

Asked about the message, spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said by email that it was just a jacket.

“There was no hidden message. After today’s important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn’t going to choose to focus on her wardrobe.” Grisham underscored that message with a tweet and the hashtags #SheCares and #ItsJustAJacket.

Mrs. Trump had changed into a pale yellow jacket before arriving in McAllen and wore that during the more than hour-long visit to the center, but donned the green jacket once again as she returned to the White House. She went straight to the Oval Office to brief the president, who later tweeted that the jacket’s message referred to her feelings about the “Fake News Media.”

The president had come under withering pressure to stop separating migrant families, including from the first lady, following a public outcry sparked by widespread government-distributed images of children held in fence-like structures.

Some 2,300 migrant children have been separated from their families since May, according to the government.

Mrs. Trump reached her decision to make Thursday’s trip before the president’s executive order to keep families together was in the works.

“She told her staff she wanted to go and we made that happen,” Grisham said. “She told him ‘I am headed down to Texas’ and he was supportive.”

Mrs. Trump, whose focus as first lady is on child well-being, appears to have been among those pushing him to act.

Grisham released a statement last weekend saying the first lady “hates” to see children separated from their families and “believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

Shortly before Trump signed the executive order, a White House official revealed that Mrs. Trump had been voicing her opinion to the president for some time. The official refused to be identified discussing Trump’s private conversations with his wife.

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Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

Armenia’s Velvet Revolution: Ruben Malayan’s Posters of Protest and Hope

In April and May, the people of Armenia rose up in a series of dramatic anti-government protests in the streets of Yerevan and other cities and towns and peacefully overthrew the government of Serzh Sargsyan. The demonstrations were initially a response to Sargsyan’s attempt to retain power following the transformation of Armenia from a presidential republic to a parliamentary republic. He sought and was briefly elected to the post of prime minister, keeping his hold on the nation’s wealth and power.

During his 10 years in office, corruption was rampant and poverty grew enormously. Many thousands left the country in search of employment, and Armenia’s economic growth benefited those closely linked to Sargsyan’s Republican Party. The protests that led to his ouster were huge and magnificent. Directed by opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan, marches and strikes paralyzed the capital. People of all ages and occupations participated, but young people supplied the most energy and momentum. Pashinyan declared it a Velvet Revolution, reminiscent of the Czech Velvet Revolution in 1989.

In Armenia, there were some arrests and minor violence, but no one was killed, and few injuries were reported. On April 23, Sargsyan resigned, and on May 8, Pashinyan was elected prime minister. Except in Armenian communities in the United States and throughout the diaspora, these dramatic events played out largely off the radar. Americans pay little attention to Armenia and its affairs and usually know little or nothing about its history and culture. The U.S. media paid scant attention to the spring events, and those wanting to follow the drama had to look for more comprehensive and responsible foreign news sources or Armenian-American outlets.

I was fortunate to visit Armenia shortly after the revolution. I found the spirit on the streets extremely optimistic and hopeful . Most people realize, of course, that a simple change in government is only the first step, and probably a minor one at that. The oligarchs who dominate the nation’s wealth and capital resources will not relinquish their power easily. Massive social problems, including unemployment and poverty, lack of access to quality heath care, inadequate housing, domestic violence, homophobia and many others require deeper and longer efforts by political leaders and social organizations.

This Velvet Revolution, perhaps, is the beginning. An exciting feature of the dramatic events was the colorful and dynamic artistic and cultural activity that accompanied the massive protests. One of the most engaging people on the scene was award-winning artist Ruben Malayan, whose posters of protest and hope have added powerfully to the burgeoning body of socially conscious art of the early 21st century.

I attended the exhibition of his posters in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, and had the opportunity to speak with the veteran artist both about his work and about the massive demonstrations in Republic Square in the city center. Malayan is an exceptionally accomplished visual artist who produced posters daily as the protests increased in intensity. The exhibition was spectacular. His works revealed yet again how the finest political art combines powerful social commentary with excellent technical and formal mastery.

Malayan’s photographs of the protesters provide a dramatic glimpse into one of the most dramatic people’s rebellions since the end of the Soviet Union. Figures 1, 2 and 3 depict mostly youthful demonstrators. Significantly, the last two photographs reveal signs in English. The people knew well that the world was watching and that protest signs in English were more likely to attract the attention of the international media.

Figure 1 shows young Armenians blocking the street, emulating the time-honored tactics of nonviolent protests, including massive disruption and civil disobedience. Figure 2 depicts Armenians at Republic Square with their national flag, with one young woman holding a sign in English proclaiming “Imagine Armenia Free.” Figure 3, which Malayan took at night at Republic Square, is an artful photograph highlighting the defiant word “No,” signifying the collective seriousness of the massive national revolt against the old, corrupt regime.

Malayan’s posters augment the dramatic photographs and elevate the power of the poster as an effective tool of political communication. Figure 4 draws on the artist’s long record as a master of Armenian calligraphy. His decades of study of Armenian manuscripts inform his political art. This is especially present in this poster, which reinforces the “Great Refusal” of “No” through an intricate combination of Armenian calligraphy and the call to Armenian nonviolent revolution in English. The work is stunningly aesthetic, which heightens its political appeal. Observers clearly understand that this is a poster for the ages, an effort that specifically addresses the urgency of the moment yet, like all great political art, also transcends the specific events of April and May.

Figure 5 is more direct: The artist labels the Sargsyan government as a criminal gang, echoing the widespread sentiments of the thousands of protesters. Simple in composition, the poster is effective in communicating its oppositional message, especially to the foreign media covering the protests. Likewise, Figure 6 celebrates the women, men, girls and boys who took to the streets throughout the country. They were—and remain—the Fearless Generation he depicts in the poster. Malayan’s symmetrical dual Armenian/English text highlights the people who left their jobs and their classrooms and took to the streets in a mass uprising for democracy.

The visual complexity of Figure 7 mirrors the many demands of the Armenian revolutionaries. Malayan again uses both Armenian and English to issue a stern warning to the disgraced regime: You Are Done; Traitors of the Armenian Nation; Free Armenia; Nikol, the People’s Choice. The poster also contains the quintessential message of hope, embedded deep within its calligraphic composition: Imagine Free Armenia, the deepest aspiration of millions of Armenian citizens and people throughout the diaspora.

With the revolution successful, and the old, disgraced government thrown from power, much remains to be done. In one of his most visually striking posters (Figure 8), Malayan demands freedom for political prisoners in the new Armenia. It is a beautiful and stunning artwork, with a powerful message of justice.

The issue is whether it will be implemented. The new prime minister has promised to make this a high priority. Pashinyan is himself a former political prisoner, so he deeply understands the human rights issue. He has pledged to establish an independent judicial system in Armenia, and the process of releasing political prisoners has begun.

One of Malayan’s posters raises even deeper issues about change in the new Armenia. Figure 9, “Boycott Oligarch Business,” is a call for major economic action. It recognizes that the economic barons who control the Armenian corporations that the artist identifies in his work are the nation’s real power brokers. His call for a boycott reveals his understanding of the economic realities that have perpetuated the profound imbalance of wealth and power in the country. These oligarchs have been Armenia’s actual rulers since the end of the Soviet era; the previous government has merely been a useful handmaiden to advance their interests at the expense of the majority of the population. A massive consumer boycott would be a valuable step. A more structural change in predatory capitalism would be even better for the nation’s people.

Malayan’s “Revolution Armenia 2018” (Figure 10) is a majestic artistic summary of the Armenian events of April and May. But like all enduring, socially conscious artworks, it has thematic significance beyond its specific focus and origin. The hope of revolution lives among many people in Armenia’s neighboring countries such as Azerbaijan and Turkey, where dictators Ilham Aliyev and Recep Erdogan respectively rule their autocratic nations with iron hands, brutally ignoring human rights and repressing democracy. Clandestine artists in these countries are doubtless creating posters and other works to continue the honorable and sometimes dangerous tradition of visual dissent. Perhaps, too, in Armenia’s other autocratic neighbors, Russia and Iran, other oppositional political artists are at work, at great personal peril.

Ruben Malayan’s posters of protest and hope document a monumental step towards democracy in a remote region of the world. He joins a long and continuing tradition of artists who engage the world critically and who use their talents provocatively to demand a better, more humane future for its citizens.

Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer-Winning Reporter and Conservative Pundit, Dies at 68

NEW YORK — Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and pundit who helped shape and occasionally dissented from the conservative movement as he evolved from “Great Society” Democrat to Iraq War cheerleader to denouncer of Donald Trump, died Thursday.

He was 68.

His death was announced by two organizations that employed him, Fox News Channel and The Washington Post.

Krauthammer had said publicly a year ago he was being treated for a cancerous tumor in his abdomen and earlier this month revealed that he likely had just weeks to live.

“I leave this life with no regrets,” Krauthammer wrote in The Washington Post, where his column had run since 1984. “It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.”

Sometimes scornful, sometimes reflective, he was awarded a Pulitzer in 1987 for “his witty and insightful” commentary and was an influential voice among Republicans, whether through his syndicated column or his appearances on Fox News Channel. He was most associated with Brit Hume’s nightly newscast and stayed with it when Bret Baier took over in 2009.

Krauthammer is credited with coining the term “The Reagan Doctrine” for President Reagan’s policy of aiding anti-Communist movements worldwide. He was a leading advocate for the Iraq War and a prominent critic of President Barack Obama, whom he praised for his “first-class intellect and first-class temperament” and denounced for having a “highly suspect” character.

Krauthammer was a former Harvard medical student who graduated even after he was paralyzed from the neck down because of a diving board accident, continuing his studies from his hospital bed. He was a Democrat in his youth and his political engagement dated back to 1976, when he handed out leaflets for Henry Jackson’s unsuccessful presidential campaign.

But through the 1980s and beyond, Krauthammer followed a journey akin to such neo-conservative predecessors as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, turning against his old party on foreign and domestic issues. He aligned with Republicans on everything from confrontation with the Soviet Union to rejection of the “Great Society” programs enacted during the 1960s.

“As I became convinced of the practical and theoretical defects of the social-democratic tendencies of my youth, it was but a short distance to a philosophy of restrained, free-market governance that gave more space and place to the individual and to the civil society that stands between citizen and state,” he wrote in the introduction to “Things That Matter,” a million-selling compilation of his writings published in 2013.

For the Post, Time magazine, The New Republic and other publications, Krauthammer wrote on a wide range of subjects, and in “Things That Matter” listed chess, baseball, “the innocence of dogs” and “the cunning of cats” among his passions. As a psychiatrist in the 1970s, he did groundbreaking research on bipolar disorder.

But he found nothing could live apart from government and the civic realm. “Science, medicine, art, poetry, architecture” and other fields were “fundamentally subordinate. In the end, they must bow to the sovereignty of politics.”

Ever blunt in his criticisms, Krauthammer was an “intense disliker” the liberal columnist E.J. Dionne told Politico in 2009. And opponents had words for him. Christopher Hitchens once called him the “newest of the neocon mini-windbags,” with the “arduous job, in an arduous time, of being an unpredictable conformist.”

He was attacked for his politics, and for his predictions. He was so confident of quick success in Iraq he initially labeled the 2003 invasion “The Three Week War” and defended the conflict for years. He also backed the George W. Bush administration’s use of torture as an “uncontrolled experiment” carried out “sometimes clumsily, sometimes cruelly, indeed, sometimes wrongly. But successfully. It kept us safe.” He was sure that Obama would lose in 2008 because of lingering fears from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and foresaw Mitt Romney defeating him in 2012.

But he prided himself on his rejection of orthodoxy and took on Republicans, too, observing during a Fox special in 2013 that “If you’re going to leave the medical profession because you think you have something to say, you betray your whole life if you don’t say what you think and if you don’t say it honestly and bluntly.”

He criticized the death penalty and rejected intelligent design as “today’s tarted-up version of creationism.” In 2005, he was widely cited as a key factor in convincing Bush to rescind the Supreme Court nomination of the president’s friend and legal adviser Harriet Miers, whom Krauthammer and others said lacked the necessary credentials. And he differed with such Fox commentators as Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham as he found himself among the increasingly isolated “Never Trumpers,” Republicans regarding the real estate baron and former “Apprentice” star as a vulgarian unfit for the presidency.

“I used to think Trump was an 11-year-old, an undeveloped schoolyard bully,” he wrote in August 2016, around the time Trump officially became the Republican nominee. “I was off by about 10 years. His needs are more primitive, an infantile hunger for approval and praise, a craving that can never be satisfied. He lives in a cocoon of solipsism where the world outside himself has value — indeed exists — only insofar as it sustains and inflates him.”

Trump, of course, tweeted about Krauthammer, who “pretends to be a smart guy, but if you look at his record, he isn’t. A dummy who is on too many Fox shows. An overrated clown!”

Krauthammer married Robyn Trethewey, an artist and former attorney, in 1974. They had a son, Daniel, who also became a columnist and commentator.

The son of Jewish immigrants from Europe, Krauthammer was born in New York City and moved with his family to Montreal when he was 5, growing up in a French speaking home. His path to political writing was unexpected. First, at McGill University, he became editor in chief of the student newspaper after his predecessor was ousted over what Krauthammer called his “mindless, humorless Maoism.”

In the late 1970s, while a psychiatric resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, a professor with whom he had researched manic depression was appointed to a mental health agency created by President Jimmy Carter. Krauthammer went, too, began writing for The New Republic and was soon recruited to write speeches for Carter’s vice president and 1980 running mate, Walter Mondale.

Carter was defeated by Reagan and on Jan. 20, 1981, Reagan’s inauguration day, Krauthammer formally joined The New Republic as a writer and editor.

“These quite fantastic twists and turns have given me a profound respect for serendipity,” he wrote in 2013. “A long forgotten, utterly trivial student council fight brought me to journalism. A moment of adolescent anger led me to the impulsive decision to quit political studies and enroll in medical school. A decade later, a random presidential appointment having nothing to do with me brought me to a place where my writing and public career could begin.

“When a young journalist asks me today, ‘How do I get to a nationally syndicated columnist?’ I have my answer: ‘First, go to medical school.'”

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AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.