Notices by Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)

I work with different groups of people on pro-democracy efforts, I already sense the strain my colleagues and allies are under. It makes everybody very sensitive to any flaw in anything each or all of us are trying to do. 3/

When people put their all into important effort, they get stressed, even beyond the stress produced by the factors that have driven them to get involved in the effort. We start stressed by Republican Fascism and we will now be increasingly stressed by our own drive to use the election to strike a blow against it. 2/

The coming months are going to be particularly rough for those of us concerned about and active in U.S. politics. It is true that the midterms cannot eliminate Republican Fascism from the federal govt, they are an opportunity to make a dent. And we so need to fight and defeat fascism. Every pro-democracy activist is starting to put heart and soul into the election. 1/

We also have to remind ourselves to treat our colleagues and allies and coalition partners as kindly and warmly as we possibly can. We must summon all our capacity for friendliness and goodwill and use it to bolster one another. 6/

At the same time, we have to try to improve our work and our efforts as we go along, attempting to absorb constructive criticism as the help it can be. 5/

We must try to cut each other and ourselves some slack. We cannot let the perfect or even the extremely good be the enemy of the quite good or even the good enough. 4/

The principles I’ve been talking about apply not only to our immediate circles, but to the widest possible circle of people we can include in the fight against fascism in the U.S. 7/7

Attorney General Bonta Defends Against Latest Trump Administration Attempt to Compel States to Participate in Civil Immigration Enforcement https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-defends-against-latest-trump-administration-attempt

Want to do Election Protection in #NewMexico this fall? #LandofAction, the initiative I founded, is offering an opportunity to do NM Election Watching. Learn more from this video presentation. https://vimeo.com/1216231434?fl=tl&fe=ec

AG Campbell Sues Trump Administration To Stop Illegal Tariffs https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-campbell-sues-trump-administration-to-stop-illegal-tariffs

Attorney General Bonta Highlights Broad Success in Litigation to Defend California’s People, Values, and Resources Against Attacks from the Trump Admi... https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-highlights-broad-success-litigation-defend-california%E2%80%99s

The Trump regime’s motion to dismiss attempts to throw the Department of the Interior (home of the U.S. Park Service) under the bus. One representative paragraph in pic. 4/

Here’s DoJ’s official conclusion as to the cause of the peeling liner at the Reflecting Pool: “hasty and botched work”. (Worth reading entire paragraph in pic.) 5/5

There is so much that is absurd about this. But it is a serious kind of absurdity because the incompetence of the prosecutors — who were under no obligation to indict Hearn and could, like any of the rest of us, know that the problem with the liner was that it was obviously a botched job — brought the full force of federal criminal justice system to bear on a pretty clearly innocent person. 3/

The U.S. Attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, has had to dismiss its indictment of Davey Hearn, the Olympian the Trump regime accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. The motion to dismiss is something else. 1/ https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/28528042/260731-hearn.pdf #LawFedi

Pirro basically arguing that her office was at the mercy of incomplete information provided by the U.S. Park Service, so the prosecutors could not have known@when they indicted Hearn that the entirely lining job was mishandled and that this, not vandalism, was the cause of peeling liner. 2/

Pirro’s fingerpointing at the slowness of Department of Interior in providing DoJ with full evidence could help Hearn in a suit against the Park Police. In such a suit, Hearn would claim the Park Police negligently and intentionally caused him serious emotional distress. The U.S. government has waived sovereign immunity for such claims. They would be adjudicated under DC’s substantive tort law. 2/

RE: https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/117016929580160902

Lots of people asking if Hearn can sue for damages. There are many obstacles to him being able to bring suit against the prosecutors, fewer to bringing suit against Park Police. Generally speaking, federal prosecutors enjoy very broad immunity from suits alleging harm arising from prosecutorial acts such as seeking an indictment. 1/ #LawFedi

Hearn would have to show that the conduct of the Park Police violated all standards of human decency, that the Park Police behaved utterly outrageously. Hearn also has to be able to document exceptional emotional distress 4/

A negligent infliction of emotional distress claim would be very hard to win because DC only allows this if the plaintiff’s emotional distress arises from being physically endangered. An intentional infliction of emotional distress claim would be hard, but not as hard, to argue. 3/