I haven’t yet weighed in on the Mitch McConnell Mystery. Is he alive, or not? Either is possible, but I’m increasingly leaning toward not. Notwithstanding the handful of people who claim to have talked to him, if he’s conscious and able to communicate I don’t understand why the hospital would not be allowed to release that information. It’s very possible he’s in a coma, but if there is still some brain activity and a chance he could come out of it, again, why wouldn’t the hospital be allowed to say so?
McConnell is/was retiring, and people already were campaigning to replace him in the November general election before his heart attack. But under Kentucky state law, if he dies before August 3 the state has to have a special election to find someone to finish his term. And the rumor is that Trump is terrified that Rep. Thomas Massie could win. You’ll remember that Massie, who was critical of Trump, lost his primary to a Trump endorsee. So it’s now widely expected the Senator will succumb on August 4.
Yesterday morning’s news informed us that Trump had fired the remaining three commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission. It’s not clear to me how much of a threat this is. The EAC mostly distributes funding and provides election security support for states. But I’m still really, really worried about the elections. The Regi8me had already threatened states with a loss of FEMA anti-terrorism support if they didn’t surrender to Trump’s election demands. I believe some states have already declined.
The more I learn about the shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, the more heartbreaking it is. And the government of Mexico says it will file criminal complaints in the United States over the death of Lorenzo Salgado and several other Mexican nationals who have died in ICE custody.
Of course, ICE released it’s standard lie to excuse the shooting.
ICE officials released a statement on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the shooting in the predominantly Latino East End neighborhood. They said they were performing a “targeted enforcement operation” and alleged Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle,” rammed it into an ICE car and attempted to run over an ICE officer, who then shot Salgado Araujo in self-defense, according to ICE.
Last night on All In, Chris Hayes showed a photo of the van he said was taken after the incident. The front of the van, including the grill, were completely undamaged and showed no sign of having impacted anything. Big surprise.
We don’t have the benefit of independent videos of what happened on July 7 when Salgado Araujo was shot. And the ICE agents were not wearing body cams, or at least claimed they weren’t. ICE blamed Democrats and the most recent government shutdown in spite of the billions of dollars Congress has given ICE to fund it.
We do have eyewitnesses. There were three other men in the car, who gave the same story when questioned independently.
The three other men in the van told a lawyer that Salgado Araujo never veered toward federal agents and that a federal officer fired at them almost immediately after exiting his vehicle, the Washington Post reports. Attorney Hugo Balderas-Ibarra said he met with the three men individually while they were in detention and they separately gave similar accounts. “All of them reiterated that there were never any ICE agents in front of the van,” Balderas-Ibarra told the Post. “They came in and started shooting from the sides.”
ICE immediately pressured the three witnesses to “self-deport,” according to several news stories.
This is from the New York Times:
The federal authorities initially said that ICE agents stopped a vehicle around 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday and tried to arrest Mr. Araujo, whom they described as an “illegal alien.” On Friday, ICE said in a statement that Mr. Araujo had hit an ICE vehicle, had not followed orders and had tried to run over an officer. An ICE agent fired in self-defense, the statement said. Mr. Araujo was shot in the abdomen and taken to a hospital, where he died hours later, according to the Houston Fire Department.
Here’s a heartbreaking detail. Before putting Salgado Araujo into the ambulance, ICE stripped him of his wallet and all identifying information. He was admitted to a hospital as a John Doe. One of his sons saw a news story about the shooting and recognized his father’s van. And he also realized a man shown injured on the ground was his father. The authorities wouldn’t tell him anything. Hospitals had no record of his father. The son didn’t locate his father until after he had died.
And then later ICE confessed that no one in the vehicle had actually been an ICE target; it was a case of mistaken identity. Oops, our bad. And as with Milwaukee, the DoJ is sitting on all the evidence, including the van, and won’t let state or local law enforcement agencies have access to it. In brief, this stinks out loud.
If there’s one thing I’d like to say to ICE agents, it’s that Donald Trump won’t be president forever. Someday, I have to believe, we will have a real president and a federal government that follows the law and works for the people and not Trump. And I believe there is no statute of limitations on murder.
I have read that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and his wife had lived in the U.S. for 35 years. He had been in the process of regularizing his immigration status, had begun applying for authorization, and did not have a criminal record. See also:
Salgado Araujo and his wife came to America after meeting in their teens in Mexico and deciding they wanted a better life for their future family, Ronaldo Salgado said.
The father of three built houses in the Houston suburbs, started his own business and established his own crew. He had no criminal record, his family said.
Ronaldo Salgado, the oldest son, became a teacher. He said one of his brothers is an engineer and the other is studying engineering in college.
Such a travesty. Such a waste.