Conformational Bias in Action


The Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation is unlike the usual Liberal-Conservative kerfuffle.  For the Trump administration, this is the camels-nose-under-the-tent moment they fear will sap their momentum and undermines their agenda.

Please, put aside what you think you know about this story and consider the following.

The administration admitted that Garcia was mistakenly grabbed up and deported to a foreign prison.  When pressured to bring him back, the President said it was “out of his control” to do so when of course we know that was a lie and in proving that, as pressure grew, magically Garcia was returned.  Critics say he was here illegally.  This is false.  Although Garcia entered the country illegally, a federal immigration judge granted him  “withholding of removal” status, which allowed him to legally live and work in the U.S. indefinitely.

Now embarrassed by the power of the federal judiciary over the Executive branch, the administration mounted a full-on character assassination campaign against Garcia in order to divert the glare of scrutiny from their overall deportation schemes. 

Just give this next question a moment of your thought:

When is the last time you can recall the United State of America arresting people and then sending them off to foreign prisons?

Now after being embarrassed, the administration lied about supposed tattoos on Garcia’s hands signifying gang affiliation.  The images were digitally altered.  Playing on fear, the administration planted the label of   “GANG-MEMBER & MS-13” into the minds of Americans in the effort to vilify him and justify his mishandling.  No court or judge or and legal process has proven any gang affiliation to Garcia.  This is an accusation without proof.  A healthy dose of skepticism should raise a red flag when the administration knowingly offers up false information in order to make their case.  Trusting anything they say about this going forward should be weighed against the lies they have already told.

Next came the allegations of domestic violence which Garcia’s wife disputed, explaining that she had been a victim of abuse in a previous relationship.  Acting on an abundance of caution during a rough patch in her marriage to Garcia 6-years ago, she sought a civil protective order in anticipation of conflict which never materialized after successful couples counseling.  Since then, the couple’s relationship improved and the matter was put behind them, but not before the continued character assassination in the media, pillorying and convicting this man in the public square.  Now in the minds of many American’s who consume main-stream-media, Garcia is not only a gang-member, but a wife beater as well.

This is how an authoritarian administration paves the path to justify their actions by demonizing and dehumanizing.  Once the targeted subject is sufficiently despised in the public’s eye, any means are justified as deserved.

And finally, when all of these schemes failed, the now infamous traffic stop in Tennessee 3-years ago becomes the secret sauce fed to a secretly convened Grand Jury that belches up the federal indictment for transporting aliens for financial gain.  Garcia was stopped for speeding in Tennessee.  He had 8-men in his vehicle, transporting them to a job site.  Go to any Lowe’s or Home Depot parking lot at 6AM and you will find legions of central and South Americans eager for construction work.  This was what was likely happening.   The key to understanding this “Hail-Mary” indictment, some 3-years after it happened, is to know that the Tennessee State Police that made the traffic stop released Garcia and the men without any charges.  The only reason this was elevated to presentation to a Grand Jury is obvious.  The administration was out of accusations.  After scouring the federal courts for similar examples of seeking indictments 3-years after the fact, this looks more and more like an act of malicious prosecution.  Add to this the threat of facing a Ugandan prison and you can see just how desperate and vile this administration is acting.

Here are excerpts from the various federal and state courts about this case.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia’s release on bail.  In her order, Judge Holmes questioned the strength of the human smuggling case, noting that some of the allegations “approach physical impossibility”. She also criticized the government’s lack of proof for its claims of MS-13 gang affiliation, writing that concluding such “would border on fanciful.”

 The Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. and ensure his case was handled properly.  In a concurring statement, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, with whom Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, criticized the government’s position, writing that it “implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene”. 

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued multiple temporary restraining orders, blocking the government from deporting Abrego Garcia to Uganda.  Judge Xinis told government attorneys that they were “absolutely forbidden” from removing Garcia from the continental U.S. She also set an evidentiary hearing for October 6, where she will consider whether his removal to Uganda would violate his due process rights by placing him in danger of persecution or torture. 

This is just what it looks like; a vindictive, hateful and malicious witch hunt that has taken on proportions far beyond the reasonable scope of legal reasoning.  The most logical and likely explanation for this is to nip in the bud any possibilities of examining these radical processes in a much larger scope.

It may surprise you to know that I am a staunch Conservative and that I support President Trump in many, many ways, but not in this case.  It stuns and alarms me that those fellow Conservatives that I in general have admired and followed for years are in near total unison in seeing this matter in the opposite way as I do.  I write what I write generally because I tend to see things a bit different than do most people and I share those insights, hoping to add a different perspective to the dialogue of thinking people, but in this case and in this instance, I am completely baffled by the inability of otherwise smart and thinking people to see this for what it really is.  Let history guide us.

“First the came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.  Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.  Then the came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Pastor Martin Niemoller

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