We received the following letter from a prisoner at the Bristol County House of Correction in Dartmouth.
July 26, 2018
Dear [omitted],
At this time I am incarcerated at the Dartmouth House of Corrections of the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office. The whole jail has been on a hunger strike due to the injustices we are faced with on a daily basis here. Today is day two of the hunger strike and there is still no change. I am here to give you an account of what is actually going on in this jail.
I’ve witnessed inmates with severe medical issues such as epilepsy get violently assaulted by Corrections Officers. What was said by AG Maura Healey is true. They are giving inhumane amounts of time in segregation (the hole). I personally have been to the segregation unit. They took my food, all of it, and said I was running a “store.” They coerced me into taking 20 days in segregation with threats, saying I will remain there for the remainder of my time in the jail. I had receipts for all my food and they still took it. As inmates, we have few liberties, such as: food; health care; and earned good time. We don’t get any of those things.
The food we get is not enough to feed a five year old child. We get nothing but soy products with either rice or mashed/scalloped potatoes every day. Never mind breakfast: it’s either one of three things — grits, oatmeal, or tasty-ohs. Some meats that they give have hundreds of tiny little bones that break your teeth. We all put in grievances bu they said it’s just fat and it’s healthy.
To see the doctor or dentist you must put in a medical slip. By the time you are seen it is approximately 4-6 months after you put in said medical slip. This is exactly why this county jail has the highest amount of suicides. There is no health care. We inmates are supposed to be allowed to get good time, yet there are very few programs that you can actually earn good time. All of the programs that are stated online that are here haven’t been in this jail for over ten years.
For god’s sake, we sat in our rooms without electricity for two days. I don’t make commissary so when they took my few belongings it really hurt. We are humans and we are not being treated as such. Something has to change. Sheriff Hodgson is not doing his job. He is focused on building a wall at the border. Where are our programs? Where is our healthcare, and where is our food?
The injustice we face every day is inhumane and it has to be against the law. This is my testimony on the inside of DHOC. I don’t mind if you quote any of this but make it anonymous because time is hard here with constant threats by Corrections Officers.
I am due to be released on [omitted] and I am willing to do what I can to make sure no one has to endure what I’ve had to endure for over a year. Make copies of this and send it to whoever can help our cause. I hope [omitted] because reform needs to be made because DHOC is not a House of Correction. That’s why the recidivism rate is beyond compared to every other county jail in MA.
Sincerely,
[prisoner’s name withheld]
P.S.: So far the jail said they will lower the cost of commissary and make the food better because of the article in the Standard Times this morning, but only time will tell.
Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here — written in 1935 when America had seen the likes of Father Coughlin and Huey Long, and when Lewis could see the Third Reich barreling down on Europe — features a protagonist who was “vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected… He was an actor of genius.”
Spoiler alert: fascism comes to America. The back cover says it all.
Today Marion Davis of MIRA issued a press release announcing that the Democratic-majority legislature had abdicated moral leadership by stripping four immigrant protection provisions from the 2019 budget. It echoed U.S. Congressional Democrats doing much the same thing last January. Sacrificing immigrants for budgets is becoming a Democratic habit.
In MIRA’s press release, Eva A. Millona, executive director of the MIRA Coalition, was quoted:
“We are deeply disappointed. The Massachusetts Legislature had a prime opportunity to stand up for civil rights and human decency, and under political pressure from Governor Baker and conservative Democrats, it backed down. The safety and well-being of tens of thousands of immigrant families will suffer as a result.”
Democrats did this.
“It is particularly disturbing that the Legislature succumbed to fear-mongering about ‘sanctuary’ policies. Though nothing in the four provisions approved by the Senate actually met the definition of ‘sanctuary’ used by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, prominent House members embraced nativist propaganda misrepresenting those provisions, using the falsehoods as political cover for their inaction.”
Democrats did this.
“We find it shocking that, with this agreement, the Legislature has tacitly accepted the notion that police should be able to ask people who ‘look foreign’ to show their papers before they can report a crime, and that immigrants should be kept in the dark about their legal rights, so it’s easier to deport them. The Legislature couldn’t even agree that Massachusetts should never contribute to a Muslim registry. That is stunning and embarrassing.”
Democrats did this.
“Our country faces an existential crisis, and in the face of horrific abuses by the federal government, it is morally imperative for states to act to protect their most vulnerable residents. By failing to pass the Safe Communities Act, and now failing to pass even basic legal protections, the Legislature has abdicated its moral leadership, and failed a large share of its constituents.”
Instead, the Massachusetts House chose expediency and making a Republican governor happy.
On June 2nd Tom Hodgson, along with 69 others chosen from 365 nominations, received the National Sheriff’s Association’s (NSA’s) “National Command & Staff College” Magnus award for “building and maintaining trusting community relationships.” Hodgson’s award leaves many of us scratching our heads wondering how high suicide rates, recidivism, and abuse of inmates merit an award with a description like this.
But a quick look at a few of the numerous recipients hints at the National Sheriff’s Association’s increasingly Trump-oriented and racist political agenda — which has nothing to do with public safety, respect for campaign law, treating inmates and the public fairly, or earning the public trust. While citizens keep asking — Why are there so many bad sheriffs? — the National Sheriff’s Association doles out sham awards to scofflaws and bigots — claiming that such men are the “best of law enforcement.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions selling Anglo-Saxon white supremacy at the 2018 National Sheriff’s Association winter meeting
We don’t think misconduct like the following should have earned any of these “award-winners” anything but scorn or jail time.
Ron Abernathy, from Alabama’s Tuscaloosa County, had a wrongful death problem at his jail and wants to deal with it by suing his critics.
The County Commission was not happy with overcrowding at the jail run by Jefferson County Alabama Sheriff (and NSA Board and Executive Committee member) Mike Hale and suggested that 300-500 low-level offenders might have to be released. Hale said he didn’t care: overcrowding be damned, inmates weren’t going anywhere.
Grady Judd, Sheriff in Polk County, Florida, is an open-carry, arm-every-teacher advocate known for his fondness for grandstanding. Judd was sued last year for conducting unconstitutional identity checks at emergency evacuation shelters during Hurricane Irma.
John Layton, Marion County, Indiana sheriff, is no stranger to controversy. The Indianapolis City Council authorized a quarter million dollar audit of the Sheriff’s Office by KPMG. His son, also a veteran Indianapolis police officer, was arrested for dealing cocaine in 2016. Citizens Against Marion County Sheriff John Layton has compiled a long list of questions and grievances. Apparently Sheriff Layton is not doing such a great job “building and maintaining trusting community relationships.”
In Hendricks County, Indiana, Sheriff Brett Clark replaced in-person jail visits with HomeWav, a video visitation service like Securus. Even when family members visit inmates at Clark’s jail, they can see one another only through a video screen, not directly.
We were relieved that Louis Ackal, head of Louisiana’s Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department and subject of a Fault Lines documentary (along with Hodgson) on jail abuses, didn’t go home with a Magnus Award. Ackal, who piled up civil rights and wrongful death lawsuits, charges of killing a handcuffed man, using excessive force on pregnant women, planting evidence, racism, corruption, calling a federal prosecutor a “son-of-a-bitch Jew bastard,” famously opined that black people “needed to be treated like animals.” What a relief the National Sheriff’s Association has some standards, albeit low ones.
Charles Parish, Louisiana Sheriff Greg Champagne, president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, pictured above at the 2018 NSA convention with FOX News Jeanine Pirro
But elsewhere in Louisiana the Magnum award winners were at it — abusing their communities’ trust and pocketbooks.
In Charles Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff Greg Champagne, and National Sheriffs’ Association president (pictured above at the 2018 NSA convention with FOX News’ Jeanine Pirro), took some of his deputies to Standing Rock in North Dakota to “observe” the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, allegedly on the public dime and ostensibly to curry favor with the petrochemical industry. The Center for Constitutional Rights sued for travel documents after filing public information requests and not getting them.
In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff Joseph P. Lopinto III‘s deputies were accused of excessive force in the death of Keveen Robinson in May. Lopinto, handpicked by Newell Normand to succeed him in July 2017, made it clear there would be few changes from Normand, including ongoing friction with the Latino community.
Continuing around the country, the Magnus awards reflected more of the same:
Hennepin County, Minnesota Sheriff Richard Stanek served on the National Sheriff’s Association board of directors and in 2012 was the chair of Minnesota’s Homeland Security Committee. In 2012 Stanek testified before Congress about Somali gangshe claimed had an astounding 125,000 members in Minnesota, the majority in Hennepin county. Stanek was one of 10 anti-immigrant sheriffs to meet with Trump last month at the White House.
Anoka County, Minnesota Sheriff (and NSA Board member) James Stuart is being sued by the ACLU for violating the rights of an undocumented woman who was illegally detained for ICE. Just like Tom Hodgson.
Dechutes County, Oregon Sheriff Shane Nelson‘s employees are the focus of several external investigations of misconduct by a public servant and firearms violations. One of his captains was indicted for embezzling public funds, and Nelson himself is the subject of two additional complaints. Nelson also allegedly harassed deputy Eric Kozowski, an employee who announced he was challenging Nelson in the sheriff’s race.
In Texas, Rockwall County Sheriff Harold Eavenson recently signed a 287(g) agreement with ICE, and met with Trump to complain about state legislation he claimed would help Mexican cartels. Eavenson was angry when the U.S. Sentencing Commission reduced the sentences for 6,000 lower-level drug offenses, and both he and the National Sheriff’s Association blamed it on “the Obama administration’s attitude toward law enforcement.”
Michael D. Chapman, Magnus winner from Loudoun County, Virginia, was investigated in 2015 because he had allegedly “illegally obtained and published private e-mails of his Republican primary opponent and that he has illegally concealed the true source of campaign donations in his run for reelection.” In what Bristol County residents will recognize as a familiar defense, Chapman called the allegations politically-motivated “nonsense.” A fired detective sued Chapman for intimidation, Chapman also made a video for FAIR, an anti-immigrant hate group.
Like Tom Hodgson, Spokane County, Washington’s Ozzie Knezovich is a man drawn to simple answers for complex problems. In 2017 he blamed school shootings on the media, bad child-rearing — everything but the ease with which guns can be acquired. Knezovich was charged with violations of campaign laws for using his employees as props in campaign ads. Knezovich, like Hodgson, blamed Barak Obama for a supposed “war on cops.”
Sheriff Eric Severson, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, signed onto a 287(g) program with ICE, despite calls from over 10,000 members of his community to refrain from doing so. So much for “building and maintaining trusting community relationships.”
At the national level Democrats may be forgiven for doing little for DACA and TPS recipients or for immigration reform in general. But, in a majority Democratic state like Massachusetts, there is no excuse for the legislature dragging its heels on reasonable immigrant protections called for by the party’s own platform. House Speaker Robert DeLeo has repeatedly manipulated and maneuvered to shelve bills and limit votes on immigration, and now he’s trying to strip immigrant protection provisions from the FY2019 budget.
Of course we can’t blame it all on DeLeo — who now has exhausted every last cent of his political capital with progressives. House Democrats can’t — and shouldn’t — hide behind the Speaker forever. Ultimately they will be held to personal account. Too many members of the State House sound like Republicans in their willingness to “go along to get along” with cruel attacks on undocumented families. It’s simply hypocrisy for Massachusetts Democrats to chastise Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell for their lack of spine when they themselves are guilty of the same.
Last year I attended the Massachusetts Democratic convention in Worcester, at which a new party platform was drafted. Among the hollow declarations of resistance and highfalutin but ultimately meaningless verbiage added to the platform were planks calling for a living wage and sensible immigration polices.
It was left to groups like RaiseUp to fight to get living wages on the November ballot because Democrats themselves didn’t find it important enough. And even though the state party’s platform calls for immigrant protections, these proved to be hollow promises as well:
“Becoming a sanctuary state, where all immigrants and refugees feel welcome and safe in all communities of the Commonwealth.”
“Eliminating policies that make local and state officials responsible for the enforcement of national immigration laws.”
For many of us the MassDems platform has no value other than to document the hollowness of a party whose real-life politicians have no intention of standing by the party’s professed values.
Representatives, start acting like Democrats. Ultimately voters are going to look at your positions and voting record, not Speaker DeLeo’s. Do the right thing. Stand up for the principles we voted for last year. Stand up for some of the state’s most vulnerable people. Show some backbone. Defy the Speaker. Keep immigration protections in the budget.
Here in Massachusetts we have 38 days to register for the Massachusetts primaries, 58 days until we vote in them, 100 days to register for midterm elections, and 121 days until the fate of nation is sealed. But it’s been over a year and a half since the 2016 presidential election and we feel only the faintest of pulses from a Democratic Party led nationally by septuagenarians older on average than Brezhnev’s Politburo, with few new ideas and little backbone. This is a party desperately in need of major rehabilitation, not the slow-moving suicide in progress.
Despite a progressive insurgency, the DNC and DCCC still can’t bring themselves to give up the Big Money donors and slick top-down campaign machinery they’ve always counted on. Their direction hasn’t changed — today it’s even further to the right with campaigns featuring more veterans, more members of the security establishment, more prosecutors, and more tech wizards and hedge fund managers. Capitalism may not be working for most of the country, but it sure is for these Democrats. When Tammy Duckworth quipped that Alejandra Ocasio-Cortez represents only the Bronx, it spoke volumes about a party unwilling to confront the future, much less the present.
Our last president left the Democratic Party in virtual receivership, according to Donna Brazile. And the losing presidential candidate called in the DNC’s chits to literally turn it into her own presidential campaign. Today the very existence of the Poor People’s Campaign is a symptom of how badly Democrats have represented the working poor — or anyone a paycheck or two from sliding out of the middle class. Yet, while Democrats do little for the average American, Republicans are doing their worst.
In November we again have a choice between truly evil or lesser evil, oligarch or technocrat. We’ve been properly conditioned to always vote for the lesser evil. And the Democratic Party can always count on us. Liberals smugly argue that Conservatives vote against their own interests, but that’s not entirely true. In 2016 White America got exactly what it always wanted — Reconstruction 2.0. Whether trade, taxes, budget, infrastructure, medical care, or even their children’s lives or their own retirement, White America was willing to take any hit to unroll and unwind everything the Black Guy had tried to accomplish. Last year the Democratic Party leadership traveled down to Berryville, Virginia to specifically court the white middle class. We should all be watching midterm results in Berryville to see how this works out for them.
Liberals won’t admit that they also vote against their own interests by supporting massive military budgets, corporate bailouts, and helping dismantle the social safety net. And centrist Democrats apparently love trickle-down economics every bit as much as their kleptocratic Republican brethren. The “Better Deal” that Democrats announced in Berryville focuses on “pocketbook” issues and, just like Republicans, claims that what’s good for America’s corporations is also good for America’s workers. But progressives take issue with this neoliberal fable, increasingly questioning not only income inequality but the Capitalism behind it.
Each year, those of us who recall — that the Democratic Party was the party of the Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam, the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates in American history. carte blanche for the Patriot Act, Libya, Syria, Drone Tuesdays, and the biggest corporate bailout since the Great Depression — each year we remind centrist Democrats they’ve been hoodwinked. And each year they call us irresponsible dogmatists. But history and newspaper clippings don’t do them any favors.
Some things simply have to be abandoned and created anew. In software refactoring only gets you so far: sometimes you need a complete rewrite of the code. With a dumpy old house, add-ons and endless tinkering with electrical and structural problems often turn out to be more costly than bulldozing and rebuilding. Now, because of widespread dysfunction and corruption, many Democrats have begun to recognize that ICE must be abolished and rebuilt from the ground up. What they don’t see is that the same applies to their own party.
“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” — Proverbs 13:20
Sheriff Tom Hodgson often claims that everything he does is to keep us safe, but Hodgson’s job description is to run the county jail. Instead, the sheriff frequently steps outside his areas of responsibility and competence, neglecting official duties and leaving chaos, conflict, and mismanagement in his wake.
Hodgson is less interested in being a county sheriff than a xenophobic mouthpiece for far-right views. With his continual attacks on immigrants, that a Boston Globe editorial characterized as crossing the “line of decency,” Bristol County’s own Joe Arpaio wannabe frequently makes the Trump-like claim that more immigrants equals more crime.
At a state committee hearing last month State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz challenged Hodgson to prove it. For a moment the sheriff looked like a deer in the headlights, mumbling that he’d have to get back to her. And when he finally did, his numbers were not scientific studies but talking points from an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group.
But this is an old story. In 2011, Duval Patrick opposed the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to turn local lawmen into federal immigration officers. Hodgson thumbed his nose at the governor’s “moronic” stance and signed onto the DHS program anyway. Patrick then vetoed budget earmarks for Hodgson, and Hodgson responded by echoing right-wing conspiracy sites that Patrick (and Obama) were flying in plane-loads of illegal immigrants (and Muslim terrorists) into Massachusetts. And he threatened to shut down the Ash Street jail.
This is classic Hodgson – a martinet who once tried to shame prisoners on work release by literally placing them in chains. Who illegally charged them housing and medical fees. Who puts “his” inmates on food restrictions and limits contact to family members. Who presides over the county lockup with the worst suicide rate in the state. Who oversees a prison population three times the size the facility was designed to hold. Who advocates putting political adversaries like Somerville mayor Joe Curtatone in jail. Who, in his inauguration speech, promised to send inmates to build Donald J. Trump’s Great Wall.
Tom Hodgson was appointed Bristol County Sheriff by William Weld in 1997 to fill a retirement vacancy, and he’s been the incumbent ever since. Hodgson is the Massachusetts county sheriff with the greatest share of suicides at his jail, the Trump Wall sheriff, the chain gang sheriff, the Joe Arpaio wannabe who wants to arrest mayors of sanctuary cities. Hodgson has been accused of flouting a Massachusetts SJC ruling on ICE detentions, of political patronage schemes, and of abusing prisoners. Hodgson spends so much of his time on talk radio flogging dubious anti-immigration “facts” and conspiracy theories that it’s a miracle he ever clocks in at his day job. But most galling, the sheriff claims to speak for the people of Bristol County — when in fact much of the time Hodgson is out of the office representing a hate group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
And it seems everybody’s got a Tom Hodgson story.
A retired Fall River cop recalls in a recent editorial that the sheriff wanted to patrol the streets of Fall River. That was a no-go. Fall River mayor Jasiel Correia tried an end-run around his own police department, inviting Hodgson to run the city jail and involving Rep. Paul Schmid in funding it. That too was a no-go.
In 2015 the sheriff deputized thirteen military recruiters. But as soon as they had been sworn-in, the Department of Defense launched an inquiry, sending a Naval petty officer to investigate. There were obvious questions about members of the armed forces performing law enforcement functions – since the Constitution specifically prohibits it. Hodgson’s reasoning: “We’re doing these things for the right reasons, certainly for the public’s protection and for our national security.” Great. But what about running the jail?
Recently the publicity hound sheriff played Dr. Phil when he offered up his deep psychological insights into Aaron Hernandez on TMZ, WLNE, WBZ and others. Viewers learned that Hodgson regarded himself as a “fatherly influence,” recommending the Bible and “Tuesdays with Morrie” to Hernandez.
Hodgon spends so much time out of the office, providing psychological counseling to celebrity prisoners, or trying to become one himself, that he is apparently unable to keep up with the paperwork. The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice had to file a lawsuit to obtain records related to the BCSO’s participation in federal ICE programs, but Hodgson violated the state’s public records law by failing to produce the documents. “Sheriff Hodgson appears to think he is above the law,” said Sophia Hall, Staff Attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee. “But as President Trump has learned, that is why we have courts.”
Since 2012 inmates in county lockups in Massachusetts are twice as likely to commit suicide as prisoners in state facilities. Of the 14 county lockups the worst offender is the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) facility. Since 2008 there have been 14 suicides at the BCSO jail, 50% more than Suffolk County and twice the number at Essex and Worcester facilities. The BCSO jail represents almost a quarter of all 65 county prison suicides from 2006 to 2016 but only 13% percent of the total county prison population. The BCSO lockup also spends the least amount of money per inmate of any facility in the state.
For all the bibles and the tough talk, the sheriff’s management style isn’t working – and it’s cruel. In 2013, when Aaron Brito committed suicide in Hodgson’s lockup, his mother received a call from an anonymous BCSO employee: “Your son died today. If you want more information today, call St. Luke’s Hospital.”
Tom Hodgson has had a contentious relationship with his corrections officers. Five officers were punished for speaking about labor negotiations with the sheriff and by 2008 Hodgson had spent $1 million on a losing case he took all the way to the Supreme Court. Hodgson also spent $3.7 million on other legal cases, making him far and away the most profligate legal spender of all county sheriffs. Before a new round of lawsuits in 2018, Hodgson had already flushed $4.7 million of taxpayer money down the drain. $1.3 million of that was handed over to “Special Deputy” attorney Bruce Assad and $1.3 million to attorney Ronald Lowenstein, another donor whose family was flagged in 2004 for giving more than the legally permitted campaign maximum.
Many of the sheriff’s employees or contractors are also donors. Filings with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance show a current quarter million dollar war chest and a history of $1.3 million in donations. Occupations from hundreds of entries in donor records include: corrections officer, canine officer, captain, warrant apprehension officer, internal affairs officer, deputy, chief, contractor, investigator, or simply BCSO. An audit of these records might lay to rest persistent accusations of patronage.
* * *
FAIR is probably the most influential anti-immigrant hate group in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by a Michigan ophthalmologist, John Tanton, functions as a lobbying group, and is deeply embedded in the Trump administration. MediaMatters notes that the mainstream media often uses FAIR’s “statistics” without realizing that it’s a hate group. The CATO Institute has slammed FAIR’s studies and statistics as “fatally flawed” and “sloppy.” The Southern Poverty Law Center lists FAIR and a number of other groups in the Tanton Network as hate groups. Yet many journalists just keep quoting FAIR’s “facts.”
* * *
In 2015 Tom Hodgson appeared with Dennis Michael Lynch at an Islamophobic venue in Stoughton which had previously hosted Dutch neo-fascist Geert Wilders. Lynch is an Islamophobe, a white supremacist, a supporter of the Constitutional Sheriff Movement and of sovereign citizen Cliven Bundy, about whom he made a film.
That same year Hodgson appeared with a representative of the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) at the Fisherman’s Club in New Bedford. Despite the name, FAIR has little to do with reform. Instead, its goal is assuring White Anglo-Saxon dominance. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, FAIR has links to white supremacists and eugenicists. Its founder, John Tanton, wrote to one eugenicist: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”
In 2016 the Sheriff was one of three speakers at a “Patriots Unity Day” rally in Randolph. The second speaker was Jessica Vaughan, of the nativist organization Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Like FAIR, CIS was founded by John Tanton and publishes dubious statistics on immigration. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, CIS also maintains links to white supremacist and anti-semitic groups. CIS executive director Mark Krikorian quipped after the deadly 2010 Haitian earthquake: “My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough.” The third speaker was Raymond Hanna with the anti-Muslim hate group ACT for America, which also has white supremacist ties. In Arkansas ACT’s “March Against Shariah” events were organized by a Nazi and publicized on Stormfront.
In June this year the Sheriff appeared with Dan Stein and Michelle Malkin at an annual “Hold their feet to the fire” broadcast with anti-gay bigot Sandy Rios. Stein is executive director of FAIR, and characterizes America’s immigration laws as an effort “to retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance.” Stein describes Central American immigrants as engaged in “competitive breeding” and asks: “Should we be subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing those with high ones?” Malkin too has links to white supremacist groups, including VDARE, and to Islamophobic groups. Malkin opposes the 14th Amendment, which gave citizenship to slaves.
On October 19, 2017 the SouthCoast Chamber of Commerce hosted Bristol County sheriff Tom Hodgson and Helena DaSilva Hughes at the Wamsutta Club to discuss immigration. During his presentation the sheriff cited questionable statistics from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), claiming that illegal immigration costs taxpayers $116 billion a year. The CATO Institute calls FAIR’s new study “fatally flawed” and “even more sloppy” than their previous one.
According to FAIR’s 2011 annual report, that was the year the organization began cultivating sheriffs like Hodgson. “In 2011, we identified sheriffs who expressed concerns about illegal immigration.” FAIR staff “met with these sheriffs and their deputies, supplied them with a steady stream of information, established regular conference calls so they could share information and experiences, and invited them to come to Washington to meet with FAIR’s senior staff.” Since roughly that time Hodgson’s main job has been as a FAIR spokesman.
* * *
Not so focused on law and order as it claims to be, FAIR sees its true mission as the preservation of Anglo-Saxon civilization from rapacious hordes of brown non-English speakers. FAIR peddles white supremacy, eugenics, and dubious statistics on immigration. The following quotes from John Tanton — Hodgson’s colleague on the advisory board — betray FAIR’s chief preoccupations:
“As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?” (October 1986)
and
“I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” (December 1993)
FAIR’s current president, Dan Stein — with whom Tom Hodgson appeared at an event last June — likes to add a dash of anti-Irish conspiracy theory to his white supremacy:
“I blame ninety-eight percent of responsibility for this country’s immigration crisis on Ted Kennedy and his political allies, who decided some time back in 1958, earlier perhaps, that immigration was a great way to retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance and hubris, and the immigration laws from the 1920s were just this symbol of that, and it’s a form of revengism…” (August 1994)
In an interview with “Alt-Right” darling Tucker Carlson, Stein maintains that Latinx immigrants coming to the U.S. are godless, low-IQ haters:
“Immigrants don’t come all church-loving, freedom-loving, God-fearing … Many of them hate America, hate everything that the United States stands for. Talk to some of these Central Americans. […] Should we be subsidizing people with low IQs to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing those with high ones?” (October 1997)
For FAIR it’s not just about white culture, church, and the English language. As Stein’s quote above shows, like their goose-stepping cousins FAIR sees America threatened by inferior races. But here’s Tanton again:
“Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids? And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less? Who is going to break the bad news [to less intelligent individuals], and how will it be implemented?” (September 1996)
How, indeed, does FAIR want to see it implemented?
FAIR’s “final solution” is the preservation of “Anglo-Saxon dominance” by privileging white people through overtly racist immigration policies and the use of mass deportation and eugenics for ethnic cleansing.
Schemes like this didn’t work out so great for the Third Reich. And they’re not going to work for Tom Hodgson and his brownshirted buddies at FAIR.
* * *
Tom Hodgson has spent the majority of his life in law enforcement and took only a few criminal justice classes in college before dropping out. But by the frequency with which he offers up his views, he is an expert on everything — 911, Criminal Justice reform, the second amendment, the Constitution, the psychology of Aaron Hernandez, the Iran deal, Islam, drug abuse, Obama, the military, religion as therapy — and Immigration.
Among members of the Hodgson’s right-wing echo chamber: Howie Carr, Chris Resendes (a former employee of the Sheriff), John Keller, NRATV, Fox and Friends, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, and Lou Dobbs.
Some of Hodgson’s like-minded friends: Dan Rea, Rick Wiles, Robert Spencer, Sandy Rios, Tom Roten, Jessica Vaughan, Dennis Michael Lynch, ACT America, FAIR, CIS, NumbersUSA, VDARE.
* * *
Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson’s passion is badmouthing immigrants, though his day job is running a county jail. But Hodgson is less interested in being a county sheriff than a mouthpiece for far-right views. His continual attacks on immigrants prompted the Boston Globe to accuse him of crossing the “line of decency,”
Last year Hodgson joined the national advisory board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). This formalized a long relationship with the organization. FAIR, CIS, and several sisters organizations were founded by fellow advisory council member John Tanton, a white supremacist who believes in applying eugenics to controlling non-white population.
In July 2017 the Center for New Community published a report, “Crossing the Line: U.S. Sheriffs Colluding with Anti-Immigrant Movement,” which described Hodgson’s relationship with FAIR starting around 2011.
FAIR’s 2011 Annual Report describes a strategy of identifying “sheriffs who expressed concerns about illegal immigration.” FAIR “met with these sheriffs and their deputies, supplied them with a steady stream of information, established regular conference calls so they could share information and experiences, and invited them to come to Washington to meet with FAIR’s senior staff.”
New Community reported that FAIR seemed to capitalize upon blurry lines between sheriffs’ official duties and their work for FAIR:
“Despite Hodgson’s endorsement, FAIR’s recruitment event did draw some scrutiny. When inviting sheriffs, FAIR used materials suggesting the event was sanctioned by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program (HIDTA), a U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) program. FAIR’s flyer for the event featured HIDTA’s official logo and stated that participants’ travel and lodging costs “may be covered by your agency’s HIDTA funding.’ ONDCP officials sternly rebuked that claim. ‘In no way is the ‘border school’ sanctioned, co-hosted, or endorsed by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program,’ Rafael Lemaitre, ONDCP’s associate director for public affairs, told the Southern Poverty Law Center. ‘Any use of the program’s logo to imply support for this conference is unacceptable, and the local HIDTA director has asked for this to be corrected as soon as possible,’ Lemaitre added. ‘Additionally, at no time have any HIDTA training funds been requested or been approved for use in association with this conference.”
In 2014 Hodgson, Brock Cordeiro, and Linda Ross used Bristol County Sheriff’s Office letterhead and email addresses to organize a meeting in Washington, DC, to support Senators Jeff Sessions and David Vitter in promoting anti-immigrant policies.
It is not known whether Hodgson himself spent Massachusetts taxpayer money on these activities or on travel to Washington. Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) data shows no travel expenses paid by his campaign, and public information requests for the Sheriff’s travel records have been ignored since May 23, 2018.
In recent weeks it has become clear that the Sheriff’s views on immigration deeply influence how the Bristol County House of Correction operates.
In May 2018, an ICE detainee described in detail the medical neglect he received at the Bristol County House of Correction. In June 2018 Tom Hodgson was sued by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice and Latham and Watkins LLP for violating the rights of an ICE detainee and thumbing his nose at the Supreme Judicial Court’s Lunn Ruling. That same month Freedom for Immigrants released its National Report on Abuse Motivated by Hate, which focuses on bias- and hate-motivated abuse in ICE detention facilities. Bristol County was mentioned in the report several times. Aída Chávez reported on the Bristol County abuses in the Intercept. According to the report, detainees were abused physically and verbally, prodded to battle in gladiator-style fights and were called “gorillas” and “baboons.”
In 2017 the New Bedford Standard Times reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies FAIR as a hate group, and that the Anti-Defamation League considers it an “extreme anti-immigrant group.” The Standard-Times asked Sheriff Hodgson for comment and he waved the notion of racism away: “I’ve never run into anybody that’s even hinted at that kind of thing.” The newspaper asked FAIR executive director Bob Danes for comment and quoted a statement from the organization’s website: “immigration policy should not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, gender, or nationality.”
Besides Tom Hodgson’s amateur psychoanalysis of Aaron Hernandez, no other topic interests him as much as immigration. Hodgson has left quite the trail of commentary. Anyone interested can view these videos featuring Hodgson’s “expert” views on immigrants or these videos demonstrating the sort of racist propaganda FAIR disseminates.
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Hodgson’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance filings show he is a member of the Constitutional Sheriff’s Association:
Here, then, is the assortment of racists, xenophobes, Islamophobes, birthers, gay-bashers, conspiracy nuts, and white supremacists who serve on the national advisory board with Tom Hodgson.
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Lou Barletta – as mayor of Hazelton, PA, signed anti-immigration legislation in 2006 that was declared illegal a year later
Sharon Barnes – apparently no DACA supporter, who wrote recently: “It is our country. They and their parents need to be kicked out […] strengthen our laws and get rid of the locusts.”
Gerda Bikales – who shudders at bilingual education and regards Spanish as a ghetto language: ”I don’t think Yiddish or Italian represented a threat to the union. But we are now setting ourselves up for an entrenched language ghetto.”
William Chip – who would like to repeal the 14th Amendment
Donald A. Collins – who has published a number of recent articles on the extremist white national VDARE website
Dino Drudi – another Massachusetts zealot Mr. Hodgson probably knows; they sound alike
Bob Eggle – whose son Kris, a park ranger, was killed by drug dealers on the US-Mexico border
Robert Gillespie – a proponent of population control in developing countries
Otis Graham – the first director of John Tanton’s Center for Immigration Studies, and a man the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says has extensive contacts with American white supremacists
But documents stored in George Washington University’s Gelman Library by Otis Graham, a close friend of Tanton who helped him launch and run FAIR in the 1980s and who currently serves as a board member at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), make the point about Tanton’s interest in race one more time. Most instructive is a Tanton plan in the files to create what he called a “League for European-American Defense, Education and Research” or, to use Tanton’s acronym, LEADERs. In a 1993 cover memo attached to his LEADERs plan, Tanton, who is white, wrote to Graham: “For a decade or more, I have been musing about the drift in our society back toward organization along group lines, all the while realizing that there was no group for me – no legitimate group that I could join to further or defend my own particular social, cultural or linguistic interests.”
A serial creator of organizations, Tanton, who by then had already funded and founded an array of anti-immigration groups that included FAIR and CIS, added that “with the establishment of several national organizations behind me, I need to pick my targets carefully and in a way that reinforces what has gone before.” The plan makes clear that Tanton saw LEADERs as bolstering his anti-immigration work.
The document offers an argument as to why LEADERs, which is clearly a “European-American” (read: white) version of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, is needed: “[T[here is currently no socially acceptable umbrella organization to which persons of European ancestry can belong to defend and promote their common interests. Absent such an organization in a highly organized society, European-Americans will continue to see their history rewritten, their character and accomplishments denigrated, and their faults magnified. They will steadily lose ground and position to other groups… . For those not resigned to this gradual or not so gradual decline, a new organization tailored to the needs and interests of European-Americans as a group is essential.”
Joseph Guzzardi – listed as a member of white nationalist group VDARE’s “editorial collective”
Carol Joyal – a frightened suburbanite with odd notions of how immigrants parent their children and whose review of The Camp of the Saints terms it a “prophecy” of the Third World destruction of the West; everyone else just called the book racist
Richard Lamm – former Colorado governor who said that “new cultures” in the U.S. are “diluting what we are and who we are.”
Once again, here’s what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about Lamb, FAIR, and their connections to the Pioneer Fund:
Probably the best-known evidence of FAIR’s extremism is its acceptance of funds from a notorious, New York City-based hate group, the Pioneer Fund. In the mid-1980s, when FAIR’s budgets were still in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the group reached out to Pioneer Fund, which was established in 1937 to promote the racial stock of the original colonists, finance studies of race and intelligence, and foster policies of “racial betterment.” […]
The Pioneer Fund liked what it saw and, between 1985 and 1994, disbursed about $1.2 million to FAIR. In 1997, when the Phoenix New Times confronted Tanton about the matter, he “claimed ignorance about the Pioneer Fund’s connection to numerous researchers seemingly intent on proving the inferiority of blacks, as well as its unsavory ties to Nazism.” […]
One of FAIR’s long-time leaders, and a personal hero to Tanton, is the late Garrett Hardin, a committed eugenicist and for years a professor of human ecology at the University of California. Hardin, who died in 2003, was himself a Pioneer Fund grantee, using the fund’s money to expand his 1968 essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” In it, Hardin wrote, “Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.” […]
Hardin wasn’t alone. A current FAIR board member, three-time Democratic governor of Colorado Richard Lamm, sounded a similar theme in 1984, while still governor, saying “terminally ill people have a duty to die and get out of the way.”
K.C. McAlpin – an Islamophobe who wants to ban Muslims for ideological reasons: “Congress has used that power in the past to ban the immigration of Communist Party and National Socialist (Nazi) party members who were deemed to be threats to our national security. This case is no different.”
Robert D. Park – formerly with the Border Patrol, founder of the “Article IV – Section 4 Foundation,” a group which maintains that a Constitutional provision provides justification for defending the U.S. from “invasion”
Randy Pullen – former chairman of the Arizona GOP and old white expert on Black Lives Matter: “Yes black lives matter. The best way to end the slaughter of young black men is to take guns away from blacks as they are the main killers.”
Alan Simpson – Reagan-era immigration bill sponsor
John Philip Sousa IV – great grandson of the famous Sousa, nutty birther, and friend of Joe Arpaio
John Tanton – read this and this and this profile of this prolific white nationalist, racist, and eugenicist
Alan N. Weeden – member of the family who owns the Weeden Foundation, a major donor to white supremacist initiatives, and proponent of Secure ID schemes
In some not-so-distant dystopia Americans will educate their children like Elon Musk, abandoning the language arts to make more time for robotic flamethrowers. Or they will live in a state like West Virginia, where the Department of Education was just abolished. It’s safe to say that most Americans will spend more time checking their messages than reading poetry — especially the old classics.
One of my favorite bloggers — himself an old classic — is the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff. Besides his many political and philosophical writings, Wolff knows and loves poetry. He recently quoted Dylan Thomas to echo his thoughts about our receding democracy. I confess I hadn’t read “Do not go gentle into that good night” for more than thirty years, but it echoed my own feelings as well. The poem expresses the sadness that most of us “of an age” will fail to achieve what we so dearly hoped for in our youth.
For me, Thomas’ poem both forgives and curses the wise men who couldn’t figure life out, the good men who didn’t do enough good in it, the wild men who tried vainly to hang on its fleeting joys, and the serious men blind to its realities. Thomas asks his dying father, who has come to a point where he can survey the landscape of his own life, to “curse, bless” him with his fierce tears as he passes into “that good night.”
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Despite the compassionate end of an old man’s unrealized dreams and days, there is no other way to live than by refusing to abandon his dreams. Although we are now witnessing the dimming of our own democratic ideals, what choice do we have but to rage and fight?
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— Dylan Thomas (1952)
Ceri Richards, Twelve Lithographs for Six Poems by Dylan Thomas
Hundreds of Democratic primary winners are waiting for November. Many are first-timers, younger and browner, offering the party new ideas, a different future, and inspiring forgotten constituencies and new voters. They include gubernatorial, congressional, senatorial, and state candidates. Many of them have very little national exposure.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump keeps staging campaign rallies throughout the country. The other day he made a stop in Duluth, Minnesota — a state where he only narrowly lost in 2016, and a city where he received an old fashioned ass-whupping, where the StarTribune summarized Trump’s visit as a “potent mix of hubris, divisiveness and victimhood that has come to mark his rallies, energizing his supporters and appalling his opponents.” Trump had come to improve his odds in 2020 — and to troll Democrats.
Sometimes being appalled is enough to generate an idea. So here’s one that occurred to me:
From this second until November Democrats must dog Trump’s rallies. Every city he visits. Every cheeseburger stand. While Trump goes about selling his personal brand at the expense of his own party, Democrats should start selling the Democratic Party at rallies visually similar to Trump’s. A changing roster of Democratic primary winners would appear at rallies delivering a simple, consistent message to the American public — “America, you have a choice!” Or “This is the real face of America!”
To be sure, Democratic midterm winners represent different political views. The point of a campaign like this would be to slam Trump’s policies and to celebrate a party that actually cares about people. It could combine candidate appearances with voter registration, fundraising, and local interviews. It would be simple, celebratory, and unabashedly confrontational. A campaign like this could potentially bring progressive and centrist Democrats together without papering over our very real differences. And it would signal that the Democratic Party has finally gotten up off its behind to take their messsage directly to the people.
Midterm elections are in 128 days. Democrats can’t send their own autocrat on tour, but they sure could start reminding voters of the stark choices before us right now — and the diverse roster of Democratic candidates who stand ready to make all the difference in November.
