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Jeff Sessions Attacked Hawaii. The NY Times’ Response Is Perfect

Jeff Sessions Attacked Hawaii. The NY Times’ Response Is Perfect

Yesterday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions provoked a firestorm of outrage when he implicitly threatened the Hawaii-based Ninth District Court for daring to do their jobs even if that means blocking the President’s un-American and discriminatory agenda.

“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.”

Not only is he echoing President Trump’s un-American and undemocratic attacks on our independent judiciary, he is insinuating that Hawaii isn’t a real American state and should have no bearing on issues concerning the mainland, which is the height of irony considering that there are thousands of native Hawaiians who have spent the past century wishing the colonizing mainland would stop dictating to them. 

Sessions was treated to widespread mocking for his “island in the Pacific” remark, and this morning the New York Times openly trolled the racist Attorney General by publishing a full-length article explaining exactly what Hawaii is, where it is, and reaffirming that in fact it is one of the fifty states and has all the legitimacy of the forty-eight continental states.

Entitled “What Is Hawaii?,” the piece by By Patrick Laforge and Christine Hauser makes it clear who this article was written for.

You may have questions about Hawaii. Many Americans do. After all, Hawaii is quite far from mainland United States — about 2,390 miles from the West Coast. That’s almost the distance between New York and Los Angeles (about 2,450 miles). So perhaps it should be no surprise that at least one high-ranking federal official thinks of Hawaii as a distant island.

While maintaining a modicum of civility, the tongue-in-cheek intent of the piece is obvious from the outset:

Can you drive to Hawaii?

Of course not. It is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. There are eight main islands: Hawaii Island, Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Lanai, Molokai, Kahoolawe and Niihau.

Is Hawaii a state?

Yes.

It is a dark day for our republic when the head of the Justice Department is openly criticizing the actions of a judge that he himself voted to confirm on behalf of a traitor president who will stop at nothing to disembowel our independent judiciary in order to force through institutionalized racism.

But we can all stop and have a little laugh at this excellent response by one of our nation’s most prominent newspapers.

Read the whole article here.

Colin Taylor
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.

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