“Family separation is the Democrats’ fault.”
“We are just following the law.”
“If the Democrats don’t like it, they can repeal it.”
“It is not happening.”
“It breaks my heart, but the Democrats did it.”
“It’s a good way to deter future immigration.”
From the Washington Post:
Trump team cannot get its story straight on separating migrant families
THE BIG IDEA: “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted last night. “Period.”
This formulation is striking because President Trump’s top domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, was quoted in Sunday’s New York Times touting the crackdown. “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry,” he said. “Period.”
DHS announced last week that around 2,000 children have been taken from their families during the six weeks since the policy went into effect, and officials acknowledge the number may be even higher.
More than a month after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Trump’s new “zero tolerance” policy to great fanfare, members of the administration continue to struggle with how to talk about it – alternating between defending the initiative as a necessary deterrent, distancing themselves, blaming Democrats, trying to use it as leverage for negotiations with Congress or denying that it exists at all.
On Sunday alone, which happened to be Father’s Day, here’s a taste of what current and former members of Trump’s team had to say about taking kids away from their undocumented parents:
“The policy is incredibly complicated, and it is one we need to do a better job of communicating,” said Marc Short, the president’s liaison to Capitol Hill, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “We’ve not talked about the history of how we got to this point.”
“Nobody likes seeing babies ripped from their mothers’ arms,” said Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “As a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has got a conscience… I will tell you that nobody likes this policy.” Then she blamed the legislative branch. “Congress passed a law that it is a crime,” Conway said. “This is a congressional law from many years ago. It is a crime to enter this country illegally. So if they don’t like that law, they should change it.”
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Sessions is “not giving the president the best advice” on how to handle this situation. “I know President Trump doesn’t like the children taken away from their parents,” he said. “Jeff is not giving the president the best advice!”
In a very rare statement, first lady Melania Trump (an immigrant herself) called for the government to show “heart” when enforcing the law. “Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”
“The first lady’s decision to step into the debate makes the silence of another Trump family member all the more telling,” notes columnist Karen Tumulty. “Where is Ivanka Trump, who is actually an official adviser to her father — and the one who claims that family issues are her portfolio?”
“I don’t think you have to justify it,” countered former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have a crisis on the southern border. … They are criminals when they come here illegally. … He has a zero-tolerance situation. He has drawn a line in the sand. I don’t think he’s going to back off from it.”
On Twitter, the president has continued to falsely blame Democrats for the separations. “I hate the children being taken away,” Trump insisted Friday on the White House lawn. “The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.”
But nonpartisan fact checkers agree that the recent surge in separations is the result of Trump’s order. He signed off on prosecuting all migrants who cross the border, including those with young children. Once they’re locked up, the administration declares the kids to be unaccompanied minors and turns them over to a division of the Department of Health and Human Services to care for. The White House has also begun interpreting a 1997 legal agreement and a 2008 bipartisan human trafficking bill as requiring the separation of families. Neither George W. Bush or Barack Obama took this posture.
Sessions, who continues to vigorously defend the policy he pushed for internally, freely acknowledges that Bush and Obama did not interpret the law the same way that Trump is doing now. “The previous administration wouldn’t prosecute illegal aliens who entered the country with children,” he said last Thursday in Fort Wayne, Ind. “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.” (Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended using religion to justify the policy. “I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law,” the White House press secretary told reporters that afternoon.)
“Senior Trump strategists” told my colleagues who cover the White House on Friday that Trump believes he can use these kids as bargaining chips to force Democrats to negotiate a broader deal, which might include money for the border wall he desperately wants and reductions in the number of legal immigrants who are allowed into the United States. “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table,” a White House official said. “If they aren’t going to cooperate, we are going to look to utilize the laws as hard as we can,” said a second White House official.
Remember that Trump also sought to use the “dreamers” as bargaining chips earlier this year. After ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protected undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, Trump blamed Democrats and dangled a DACA fix as he demanded massive concessions. Miller subsequently torpedoed a bipartisan compromise.
— What’s undeniable at this point is that the separations have created both escalating humanitarian and political problems for the president. Period.
— Former first lady Laura Bush compares what’s happening to Japanese internment in an op-ed for today’s Washington Post: “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart. Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned.
“Americans pride ourselves on being a moral nation … If we are truly that country, then it is our obligation to reunite these detained children with their parents — and to stop separating parents and children in the first place. … Recently, Colleen Kraft, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics, visited a shelter run by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. She reported that while there were beds, toys, crayons, a playground and diaper changes, the people working at the shelter had been instructed not to pick up or touch the children to comfort them. Imagine not being able to pick up a child who is not yet out of diapers.
“People on all sides agree that our immigration system isn’t working, but the injustice of zero tolerance is not the answer. I moved away from Washington almost a decade ago, but I know there are good people at all levels of government who can do better to fix this.”
It’s hard to overstate how rare it is for Mrs. Bush to weigh in on a policy matter this way. What’s especially striking is how clear she is on the cause. There’s none of the obfuscation or ambiguity about Congress needing to fix the problem that we’re hearing from others.
Father’s Day brings protests of separating migrant families
CHILDREN IN CAGES:
— Our Sean Sullivan got a brief tour of one facility in McAllen, Tex., on Sunday: “They divided the young children who had been separated from their parents, placing 20 or more in a concrete-floor cage and providing foil blankets, thin mattress pads, bottled water and food. The migrant children, some confused or expressionless, watched as uniformed officials led reporters on a brief tour … of a processing center and temporary detention facility. Some 1,100 undocumented individuals were being held, including nearly 200 unaccompanied minors, according to estimates. Detainees are being kept in bare-bones cells surrounded by tall metal fencing inside a sprawling facility with high ceilings.
“The facility resembled a large warehouse divided into cage-like structures housing different groups of people. The detainees had been sorted into groups — unaccompanied boys 17 and under; unaccompanied girls 17 and under; male heads of household with their families; and female heads of household with their families.
“Officials took away the shoelaces of the undocumented immigrants, fearful about the safety of those in custody. One woman fought back tears as she spoke to reporters. One child clutched a water bottle and a bag of chips. Several of the detainees wrapped themselves in the foil blankets as they sat on benches, the ground, or on modest mattress pads on the floor of the cells.”
— The AP’s Nomaan Merchant, who was also on the tour, adds: “Michelle Brane, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, met with a 16-year-old girl who had been taking care of a young girl for three days. The teen and others in their cage thought the girl was 2 years old. ‘She had to teach other kids in the cell to change her diaper,’ Brane said. Brane said that after an attorney started to ask questions, agents found the girl’s aunt and reunited the two. It turned out that the girl was actually 4 years old. Part of the problem was that she didn’t speak Spanish, but K’iche, a language indigenous to Guatemala. ‘She was so traumatized that she wasn’t talking,’ Brane said. ‘She was just curled up in a little ball.’
“Brane said she also saw officials at the facility scold a group of 5-year-olds for playing around in their cage, telling them to settle down. There are no toys or books. But one boy nearby wasn’t playing with the rest. According to Brane, he was quiet, clutching a piece of paper that was a photocopy of his mother’s ID card.”
— “[A]gents would not give many details about the process, saying only that families brought in together remain together until the parents go to court,” Politico’s Elana Schor adds from McAllen.
— Anne Chandler, executive director of the Houston office of the immigrant rights nonprofit Tahirih Justice Center, told Texas Monthly what she has heard from migrant parents: “Judging from the mothers and fathers I’ve spoken to and those my staff has spoken to, there are several different processes. Sometimes they will tell the parent, ‘We’re taking your child away.’ And when the parent asks, ‘When will we get them back?’ they say, ‘We can’t tell you that.’ … In other cases, we see no communication that the parent knows that their child is to be taken away. Instead, the officers say, ‘I’m going to take your child to get bathed.’ … I was talking to one mother, and she said, ‘Don’t take my child away,’ and the child started screaming and vomiting and crying hysterically, and she asked the officers, ‘Can I at least have five minutes to console her?’ They said no.”
From the president of FWD.us, a pro-immigration advocacy group:
— “‘I Can’t Go Without My Son,’ a Mother Pleaded as She Was Deported to Guatemala,” by the New York Times’s Miriam Jordan: “They’d had a plan: Elsa Johana Ortiz Enriquez packed up what little she had in Guatemala and traveled across Mexico with her 8-year-old son, Anthony. … ‘I am completely devastated,’ Ms. Ortiz, 25, said in one of a series of video interviews last week from her family home in Guatemala. Her eyes swollen from weeping and her voice subdued, she said she had no idea when or how she would see her son again.”
— A major Latino charity is facing a firestorm over its connection to the family separations. The Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey explores the moral quandary: “The $240 million-a-year Southwest Key organization has big contracts with the government to house immigrant minors in its two dozen low-security shelters in Texas, Arizona, and California, a population that in recent weeks has exploded with infants and children removed from their parents.”
— Jose Luis Garcia, a Mexican immigrant who has been a legal U.S. resident since the 1980s, spent Father’s Day in jail after he was arrested by immigration officials last week. “They are kidnapping people from their home, starting with my father, who has the legal status,” Garcia’s daughter, Natalie, said. (New York Times)
Congress remains at odds over family separation at border
IMMIGRATION WILL OCCUPY CONGRESS THIS WEEK:
— Trump will go to the Capitol on Tuesday to speak with GOP lawmakers ahead of votes in the House on two immigration bills.
— Two GOP senators, Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Susan Collins (Maine), sent a letter yesterday to Nielsen and HHS Secretary Alex Azar asking for clarification about why immigrant children are reportedly being separated from parents who are seeking asylum, despite denials that this is happening. “Secretary Nielsen recently appeared before the U.S. Senate and testified that immigrant parents and children who present themselves at U.S. ports of entry to request asylum will not be separated,” they write. “Despite Secretary Nielsen’s testimony, a number of media outlets have reported instances where parents and children seeking asylum at a port of entry have been separated. These accounts and others like them concern us.”
— Vulnerable House members who are already facing tough reelection fights this year are looking for ways to distance themselves. Rep. Erik Paulsen, who represents the affluent and well-educated suburbs west of the Twin Cities, is exactly the sort of Republican who could lose his seat because of backlash to Trump’s policy. What’s happening on the Southern border will likely not play very well with moms in Minnetonka. So it’s no surprise Paulsen tweeted strong opposition:
— Against a notable silence on the part of many Republicans who usually defend Trump, more Democratic lawmakers fanned out across the country on Sunday, visiting a detention center outside New York City and heading to Texas to inspect facilities where children have been detained. Shane Harris, David Weigel and Karoun Demirjian report: “In McAllen, Tex., where several Democratic lawmakers toured a facility, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas estimated that he saw about 100 children younger than 6. ‘It was orderly, but it was far from what I would call humane,’ he said. Seven Democratic members of Congress spent Sunday morning at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility in New Jersey, waiting nearly 90 minutes to view the facilities and visit five detained immigrants.”
Backgrounder: How We Got Here: The Disturbing Path that Leads to Child Prison Camps
Every Democratic member of congress, HOUSE AND SENATE should be on a plane this week to Texas requesting entry to these prison camps full of children. Every. Damn. One. Of. Them. They should call a local reporter in their district. They should get on a plane with him or her. Get press coverage. Fly to border. Demand entry. Take your cell phone. Film everything.
That this is not happening is disgustingly revealing.
Who’s gone so far?
The tally from USA Today: Yesterday, Father’s Day, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, led a group of Senate and House members on a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border to “further investigate” the policy that is separating migrant families. The processing center in McAllen was one of several stops.
Other lawmakers included Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont; Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island; Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin; Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Texas Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Vela.
Anyone keeping a master tally? Look at how small this list is. Pathetic.
It is VERY important that the propaganda that this is the Democrats’ fault — which the right wing politicians and media have been pushing — is called out directly as the lie that it is.
In my opinion, the best way to respond to this is to say that Republicans are holding thousands of children hostage and blaming the Democrats for not paying the ransom the Republicans are demanding for their lives — billions in taxpayer dollars for Trump’s favorite project — the wall that he promised America that Mexico would pay for.
The Trump administration is acting exactly like terrorists do. Trump can’t get what he wants via democratic means so he is holding these children ransom until the Democrats give him what he demands. Trump and his administration are saying that we are more than willing to sacrifice children and don’t think we won’t unless you give us everything we want that we can’t get via democratic means.
We can’t let the terrorists win. And holding children hostage to demand the ransom you can’t get through democratic means is exactly what terrorists do.
And every discussion of this should be framed as the Trump administration holding children hostage as terrorist do while the Republican Party says “we MUST negotiate with these terrorists and let then win.” That’s the bottom line.
And Democrats should tell the American people — today the Republicans are holding these children hostage to get what they can’t get via democratic means.
Tomorrow it will your child or your cousin’s child with pre-existing medical conditions who will be held hostage. The Trump administration will promise that no child will pre-existing conditions can get health insurance until the Democrats agree to end all Obamacare. Or until the Democrats agree to cut social security benefits and medicare.
Who will the Republicans take hostage next? And are their actions now a sign that they are willing to let their hostages suffer and even die if they don’t get what they want? Are Republicans the type of terrorists who will hurt their hostages if they don’t get all the ransom that they demand?
Is that the Trump definition of being “strong”. A Republican Party who will condone any threat to innocent children and be willing to carry out those threats to children’s lives as long as their great leader tells them they should because the Democrats won’t pay the ransom demanded?
This is the Trump definition of “negotiating”. Being willing to act so evilly that you assume that ethical people with the conscience you lack will pay what you demand to save children. Today’s Republican Party is condoning it.
I was happy to see Laura Bush, who stayed out of politics during her White House years, criticize Trump’s family separation policy. Where is the outrage from all those good Christians on the right? Even though they are “pro-life,” do they think this is appropriate treatment for children?
Sadly, Houston is setting up another station for very young children and pregnant and nursing mothers in a vacant warehouse in downtown Houston. It will be the first residential center in the nation detaining such small children without their relatives or other foster parents. Shame on Texas! https://thinkprogress.org/a-new-holding-place-for-hundreds-of-immigrant-children-a-vacant-warehouse-in-houston-7c6f5ab1d321/
Retired Teacher: “Where is the outrage from all those good Christians on the right?”
These ‘good Christians’ only care about the fetus until it gets born. After that it is totally on its own to die from lack of decent food, guns on the street, cutting of CHIP funding and it is allowed to receive an inferior education. Getting that fetus born is the ONLY thing that matters. There is no ‘quality of life’, after all, the poor are inferior people. They are especially inferior if they are black or brown.
Laura Bush could have done a lot of good had she spoken up during her White House years. All those Iraqi kids we killed were every bit as important as these immigrant kids.
And all those Iraqi kids and their parents who died under Saddam Hussein’s regime while the world stood by and let it happen were every bit as important, too.
And every kid who died in Syria as we stood by and did nothing was every bit as important.
There is harm in doing and harm in not doing.
But what the Republicans in the US are doing now is intentionally harming children in order to use their plight as a bargaining tool. The Trump administration is saying that since we can’t get our wall built through democratic means (despite controlling both the Senate and House), we are now going to use terrorist tactics and if you don’t want us to keep hurting children, you’ll give us all that we want.
The Trump administration has taken those children hostage and demanded Democrats give in to their demands or they will continue to harm them and will never stop. That is UNPRECEDENTED.
Oy vey, you know the Iraq War wasn’t for humanitarian purposes, right? Its stated purpose was (the lie of) WMD. The U.S. didn’t care what Saddam did to his own people until he pissed off the Bush family. In fact, we contributed to the deaths of Iraqi children through our sanctions program, but it’s all okay because Madeleine Albright said the cost was “worth it”.
As for Syria, I don’t have the time to go into it in detail right now, but it’s a lot more complicated than “Assad’s a bad guy who’s harming his own people”. The alleged chemical attacks are very much in dispute. ISIS is considered to be a bigger problem, which attacking Assad will make worse. And that’s not to mention the Russian complications involved. I for one would rather not see WWIII any time soon, which too much meddling in Syria could bring about.
A view on the alleged Syrian chemical attacks: http://www.newsweek.com/now-mattis-admits-there-was-no-evidence-assad-using-poison-gas-his-people-801542
Another good piece on Syria: https://consortiumnews.com/2015/07/20/hidden-origins-of-syrias-civil-war/
“I for one would rather not see WWIII any time soon, which too much meddling in Syria could bring about….”
You do realize that is very similar to the WMD rationale for invading Iraq? “We would rather not see a madman with nuclear weapons.”
Just to be clear, I agree with most of your opinions, except for the big one — that somehow there is always a moral and an immoral choice and we can easily know in advance whether intervening or not intervening will cause the least harm in the longer term.
As much as I hate what the Iraq invasion did, I don’t think you can say right now that getting Saddam out and TRYING to make Iraq democratic was intended to harm children. The only reason Obama remained in Iraq was because he felt a moral obligation not to leave those children to the atrocities that happen in chaos. If the result had been like the Marshall Plan in Germany, deposing a murderous dictator could have made people’s lives better. (And I’m not saying mistakes weren’t made, just that the idea of intervening was not just something that only evil people wanted for evil reasons.)
But when the decision is to INTENTIONALLY take children from their parents for no other reason than a bargaining chip for a policy that is so bad that not even your own party that controls Congress wants it, then you have gone beyond what is normal to Trumpism. Which some of us knew was not just “business as usual” but the beginnings of fascism.
I think Mrs. Bush is largely apolitical. She is a former school librarian that cares about her husband and family. She said she and GW “forgot to vote in 2008” after they left the White House. Her condemnation of Trump is a new step for her. I don’t hold Mrs. Bush responsible for the catastrophic policies of her husband.
You can’t be “apolitical” and be married to the President of the United States. Silence is consent.
“I don’t think you can say right now that getting Saddam out and TRYING to make Iraq democratic was intended to harm children.”
No one said it was intended to harm children. It just wasn’t intended to help them either. The Iraq War had several causes, not one of which was remotely humanitarian.
“The only reason Obama remained in Iraq was because he felt a moral obligation not to leave those children to the atrocities that happen in chaos.”
Oh please. Yeah, Obama has deep love and concern for brown children. That’s why he droned so many of them (including a 16-year-old American citizen).
“…that somehow there is always a moral and an immoral choice and we can easily know in advance whether intervening or not intervening will cause the least harm in the longer term.”
Again, you’re assuming that our “intervening” is intended to be helpful, when, in fact, our intervening is intended to serve our own needs. It was abundantly clear even in 2001-2003 that invading Iraq would cause nothing but death and destruction. Many people warned about that at the time and everything that was warned came true. It was also clear that attacking Libya and ousting Gaddafi would have similar disastrous results, yet we did it anyway, and, sure enough, it’s been devastating. We’re headed down the same road in Syria, yet still people are refusing to hear the warnings. What’s that (apocryphal) Einstein quote about insanity?
NYCpsp, you do realize that under Bill Clinton the US led economic sanctions against Iraq in the 90s resulted in the deaths of over a half a million children. When asked if that result was acceptable, Clinton’s Secretary of State Madelaine Allbright replied that those deaths were “worth it”.
America has a selective memory about atrocities, and perhaps Mrs. Bush does too. The fact that #45 is talking “peace prize” is absurd. Obama didn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize either. The Norwegians were far too generous too early.
Duane,
I think you are missing my point. I’m not defending the Clinton sanctions nor what Madeleine Albright said.
But it is absurd — in my opinion — to say “our bombs killed German children so America should have stayed neutral in WW II and not concerned ourselves with what Hitler is doing.” Or do say “our dropping the atomic bomb killed innocent civilians and therefore we should have stayed out of WW II completely and let whatever happened, happened until it directly threatened us.” That may be a valid POV, but that does not mean that the people who disagreed with that POV and believed that America should intervene only did so in order to hurt children.
Someone could argue that Neville Chamberlain was correct to appease Hitler because Britain wasn’t threatened. But anyone who argued that people who disagreed with Chamberlain were all evil and just looking to hurt innocent German children to further their own goals would be wrong.
Clinton and Albright supported sanctions (instead of invading or bombing Iraq) because every choice was pretty crappy. I don’t think they looked for the choice that would hurt children because they figured if they hurt enough children then the far more moral Republicans would say “enough, we’ll agree to anything you want, just stop starving all those children.”
And that is my only point. Trump has made it absolutely clear that he is doing this to innocent children for the sole purpose of forcing Democrats hand to get them to agree to policies he knows he will not get without harming innocent children.
So I don’t understand your point. Are you saying that what Trump is doing is no different than what Clinton and Albright did?
Because if so, I vehemently disagree. And, in my opinion, that false equivalency is truly dangerous. You are normalizing Trump. We live in dangerous times when good people like you believe that Trump’s actions are fine because “hey Clinton and Albright’s sanctions on Saddam hurt children so what Trump is doing is no different.”
What Trump is doing is not normal. You do not hold children hostage so you can push through a policy you want that you can’t get by democratic means. That is terrorism.
dienne77,
It’s hard for me to understand how you can stand by and watch Syrian children suffer and die and do nothing and believe you have the moral high ground over someone who wanted to intervene.
No one has the moral high ground because intervening and not intervening all cause children’s deaths.
But in the case of Trump, it is a policy specifically intended to harm children. Do you really not understand the difference?
NYCpsp,
First I’m talking economic sanctions that resulted in those half million dead. And that consequence was acceptable to those who promulgated that policy. It is not acceptable to me. And it has nothing to do with WW2, which is not a good analogy at all.
My main point being that both Dims and Rethugs have been responsible for millions of deaths of innocents. That may be acceptable to you, it is not acceptable to me and I am thoroughly ashamed of this country for its illegal wars of aggression and deadly belligerent foreign policy.
I agree that the T-rumps rationale for the separation of the child from his/her parents is an abomination. And you are correct that what he does isn’t normal. It’s the behavior of a narcissistic egotist. And no I am not “normalizing” that fat T-rump. Dead is dead and that has been the US foreign policy, killing and death and destruction for all of this century. So in one sense I am saying that Clinton/Allbright for all practical purposes are no different that the current president. . . nor any of the others since Reagan and even before.
Normalizing trump-smmmhhhhh. (my nice way of saying horse manure).
Global research reports that the US has killed more than 20 million people in 37 victim nations since World War II.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051
But we won’t hear that from the mainstream media in the US.
Thanks for that link, Lloyd!
And you are correct that we won’t hear that from the lame stream media. Most Americans have no clue to this country’s belligerent and deadly foreign policies that has killed and maimed so many and that has destroyed so much infrastructure of the various countries. Either that or they turn a blind eye to it and do what Georgie the Least suggested “Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” Can you say ostrich or monkey?
Duane: …” it is not acceptable to me and I am thoroughly ashamed of this country for its illegal wars of aggression and deadly belligerent foreign policy.”
I’m with you on this. I find the US policy of killing and destroying people in other countries to be an abomination. We should be using those trillions of tax dollars to help people, not destroy and kill. “STOP THE KILLING!!” I don’t see how any nation can call itself ‘Christian’ and continue to do this. Somehow, I don’t see Jesus blessing bombs and wishing them great success. Someday, hopefully, we Christians, Hindus, Muslims and all other religions, will learn to live in peace.
Imagine a future where people all over the world have enough to eat, live in decent houses, drink clean water and have jobs that pay enough to survive comfortably. Of course, all of this needs to be done in a clean environment…another thing that the GOP and Trump want to destroy. Profit, and more profits is not all that matters.
Generally, I concur with one fairly large caveat:
“Someday, hopefully, we Christians, Hindus, Muslims and all other religions, will learn to live in peace.”
What is missing from your thought, Carol?
Those of us who do not have a religious belief. Those of us who reject metaphysical answers to very human concerns. Humane answers to those human concerns, not some pie in the sky thinking.
Historically, non-believers have been persecuted as much if not more (at least in proportion to their numbers) than religious believers. Non-believers have been forced into silence throughout history as a condition of being able to stay alive. And that, I believe, is why there is no canon of “non-believer thought” as there are canons of god thought. (along with the classic burning non-orthodox books to prevent that “evil” from spreading)
Duane: Those who do not have any religious beliefs will be included in my thinking. We are all connected and we ALL need to live in peace with each other. Too often people fight for their ONE religion since they know it is the ONLY one that matters. This has caused suffering and pain all over the world.
Peace for all, including all non-believers. Welcome to the club. I do not belong to any religion. I tried for years and couldn’t accept what I was told. I do, however, have very strong beliefs as a spiritualist.
And I am not spiritually inclined. I believe in the innate capacity of humans to do good by/for one another. We have evolved to be social animals, at the same time we have evolved to be “tribal” animals who seek security in our own kind. The thing, for me, is that we have to expand our concept of “our own kind” to include everyone who understands that all human beings have inherent, unalienable rights to “life, liberty* and the pursuit of happiness.”
*Currently rereading Comte-Sponville’s “A Little Book on Philosophy”, more specifically his chapter on “Freedom”. It’s an interesting take on the concept of freedom/liberty with him emphasizing, from Locke, that without laws there is no freedom as all would live in a state of terror. Those, especially current day USA libertarians-followers of Friedman and Rand, whose mantra is “gubmint bad” don’t seem to realize that the government functions to maintain their liberty and freedom. So that a government agency like the EPA, while seeming to be “oppressive” in its mandates and regulations on the environment is actually helping to guarantee everyone’s freedom to breath non-polluted air, drink clean water, etc. . . . (I will be using this argument against the many libertarian friends that I have.)
Lloyd,
How many children died because the US stood by and did nothing? Or do those deaths like the Jews marched into gas chambers or babies in Syria not count against the US?
Are you saying it is more moral to stand by when innocent people are killed than to intervene to stop it because other innocent people will get killed? And who decides what action is moral or not? Who decides that babies who die in Syria as we stand by and do nothing aren’t on the US death count, but every civilian death that would happen if the US intervened to stop it would be?
And – most importantly — how does a discussion about the Trump administration using children as pawns for the SOLE reason of getting Trump’s wall built get sidetracked into a discussion about how evil the US is? The US is a bad country that has killed people. We are a bad country that condoned slavery. We are a bad country that rounded up Japanese citizens and put them into internment camps.
And we are a bad country that sometimes stands by and does nothing as millions of people die due to us NOT intervening.
The only reason to bring up past evils that the US and all other countries have done is to normalize what Trump is doing now.
And Duane, I am seriously shocked that you could possibly equate what Clinton and Albright did in Iraq with what Trump is doing here. That does normalize Trump. And an American President holding children hostage in order to get a policy passed is NOT normal.
NYC public school parent: “And an American President holding children hostage in order to get a policy passed is NOT normal.”
I agree, there is nothing ‘normal’ about Trump. He is working to destroy the environment, destroy public schools, wants to make the lives of poor people worse [does HUD really need to raise the rent of poverty level people and take away healing supplements in the winter?}, wants to update our nuclear weapons, signed a huge tax break for the wealthy and corporations, hates immigrants and has no problem taking healthcare away from millions of people.
However, our military dominates the world in the number of killings. We ship military materials to other countries and have the largest military in the world. This also is not normal. We are not ‘bringing democracy to the rest of the world’. We are killing and destroying. Trump wanted, and got, billions more for a bloated military. I’m not saying he is the only president at fault. This is the ‘American way’.
“However, our military dominates the world in the number of killings.”
I have a friend who served in the military for 14 years and for nine of those years he served in special forces. He left the military years before Trump’s ascendancy to the throne of America’s first and foremost monster as a president. I think even Nixon and Reagan can rest easier in their graves because Trump is much worse than they ever were. In fact, people that demonize and continue to think horrible things about Nixon and Reagan would rather have them back in the White Houe to replace Trump.
Anyways, this friend told me that the U.S. Forces sends teams into an average of 130 countries every year in operations that most of those countries have no idea happened because they are in and out so fast. What are they doing in all those countries — handing out teddy bears and rations to starving children, I don’t think so?
The U.S. has more than 700 military bases around the world outside of the US and its territories. The U.S. has more aircraft carriers than the entire world combined. The US spends more money on its military every year than the next five countries combined. In fact, China is #2 for military spending and spends about $250 billion annually to the US’s $700 billion or more.
Lloyd: And when the US military isn’t actively involved, the US is. We supply a high percentage of the world’s military hardware. So there is even more killing done by the US if corporate profits are considered.
Correct, the US private sector is the largest weapons merchant in the world.
The U.S. was #1 in 2016 with $9.9 billion in global sales. Russia was #2 with 6.4 billion. Germany was #3, France #4 and China #5.
In fact, it has been documented that the U.S private sector weapons industry has even sold weapons made in the U.S. to countries listed by our State Department as our enemies.
This might surprise many but in 2003, it was reported that “U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld served on the board of a Swiss company that in 2000 sold light water nuclear reactors to the government of North Korea, which critics including Pentagon hardliners say could be used to produce nuclear weapons”
https://www.utne.com/community/rumsfeldcompanysoldnuclearweaponequipmenttonorthkorea
“The only reason to bring up past evils that the US and all other countries have done is to normalize what Trump is doing now.”
In your long winded out-of-control rant, you made a lot of allegations pointed at what I meant in a comment that I have no idea you are referring to.
If you are referring to the brief pull quote I used with a link to the source about the U.S. being responsible for killing 20 million people since WW II in, I think, 36 or 37 victim nations, here is my response.
If we don’t learn from history we learn nothing at all.
Trump is a monster and that is not meant as an insult to monsters since arguably vipers are monsters along with the extinct Allosaurus. Trump is so horrible that I can’t compare him to anything else without insulting a lesser monster like Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Kim, Mao, or Chiang Kai Shek.
Trump took this oath when he, with help from Russia and the Alt-Right misinformation machine, hijacked the presidency of the United States.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Trump lied when he took that oath (nothing new there since he lies everytime his twitter fingers twitch or his mouth opens and makes noise — if he burped it would be a lie) and that means he is a traitor of the worst kind and will replace Benedict Arnold in the history books as the worst traitor this country has ever known.
I will continue to remind others of the sins of this country’s leaders with a focus on what has happened since the end of World War II.
And true to my word, here are two example that continue to cause dea6ths and suffering today and into the future.
First, Nixon’s illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War that to this day continues to maim and kill innocent children and adults in those two countries because of the millions of buried cluster bombs still waiting for someone to step on one.
Second, there was all the Agent Orange sprayed on Vietnam that to this day is causing severe birth defects in children in Vietnam and the health of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens that fought in that war.
And what has the U.S. done to remediate those two horrible things that our leaders caused to happen: NOTHING!
NYCpsp,
Just got to your comment:
“And Duane, I am seriously shocked that you could possibly equate what Clinton and Albright did in Iraq with what Trump is doing here. That does normalize Trump. ”
I did not make that equation. The equation I made is that, as Lloyd’s posting of the number of deaths caused by US belligerent and deadly foreign policy, all US presidents have sanctioned that death and destruction. Nothing more.
I really don’t understand how that “normalizes (whatever that means) Trump”. Please explain what you mean by that phrase. Does it mean making excuses for? If so, I certainly haven’t done so. Does it mean. . . I can’t figure out what else it could mean, so again, please explain what you mean.
Trump always says that we are just as bad as North Korea or any dictatorship.
And Trump clearly wants to make it official that the U.S. is ruled by an all-powerful dictator for life with him sitting on that future Throne of Skulls” and his family inheriting that throne and the horrible power that comes with it when he’s gone.
Duane,
That’s a legitimate question – what do I mean about “normalizing” Trump?
What I mean (and I can’t speak for how others use it) is this: The subject of this post is about Trump’s policy on family separation. Not only is Trump intentionally choosing to separate children from their parents and putting them in detention centers, but he is doing so for the sole reason of forcing Democrats’ hand so that they will vote to approve his wall. Trump can’t get what he wants by democratic means, so he will use the children as pawns to get it. And even worse, he then places all the blame for the children’s detention on the democrats for not voting for fund his wall.
That is not normal. There have been Presidents who made foreign policy decisions that turned out to cause death and mayhem, but LBJ, Clinton and Obama did not intentionally try to cause harm to children for no other reason but that they hoped that the outrage that Americans felt about that harming of children would force politicians to pay the ransom demanded — voting for Trump’s policies so he’d stop harming children.
And instead of focusing on those unprecedented actions of what Trump is doing, it devolves into a discussion about how Presidents have always done evil things as if using children as political pawns was no different than the truly terrible collateral damage that resulted from foreign policy decisions that were intended to do something else. So what Trump is doing is not much different from the awful things that Clinton did.
It’s the same nonsense we heard that got us Trump. The same people who sit by feeling morally superior because they are certain that Hillary Clinton was the architect of policies that would kill tens of thousands of children in other places for the sole purpose of rewarding big business or whatever evil reason they had decided she would do it. So, they tell us, Trump using children as hostages is similar to whatever evil foreign policy that Clinton would have enacted that her haters are certain would have caused far more deaths than just sitting by watching those children and their families die slowly under truly repressive and murderous regimes.
It is not.
The decision to stand by and do nothing while a murderous dictator enacts policies that kill their own people is no more morally superior than the decision to intervene knowing that intervention will also cause harm. It is simply choosing what you personally feel is the lesser evil recognizing that both decisions have collateral damage. Not every politician is acting because they WANT evil done — many vote for a policy because to them, taking that position is the lesser evil in the long run. They are often wrong. But so are the people who stand by and do nothing.
I don’t object to your opinions on intervention – most of which I probably agree with. I think it is important to support or not support a politician based on what you personally believe does the least harm. But I do object to the characterization too many people make that those who make different foreign policy decisions are ALWAYS doing so for the most nefarious reasons because those that refuse to intervene have the moral high ground. Taking action is not always nefarious even when it causes harm. And standing by while some children die because you can’t be bothered to do anything because it might hurt other children isn’t always the moral high ground.
Obama didn’t keep troops in Iraq and send drones because he thought children’s lives were expendable. He stayed in Iraq because he was trying to do the least harm and withdrawing troops would have caused just as much harm.
But by equating those kind of policy choices by Obama or Clinton with what Trump has done normalizes it. And it is NOT the same. The innuendo that it is does great harm to our democracy.
Here is my issue NYCpsp with what you say as in “. . . but LBJ, Clinton and Obama did not intentionally try to cause harm to children for no other reason. . . ”
I cannot, and no one else can discern intentionality. To do so requires getting into the head of another person, and that is an impossibility. Now if you show me a credible source wherein T-rump explicitly states that his intention is to harm, cause harm to children then I’ll accept what you say.
I find a lot of people from both sides of the political aisle, even the education reform wars that attempt to discern motive or even claim to know the motives of someone. I do it, for example, Eva Moskowitz is in it for the money. Now considering the massive war chest she has built up, her salary and compensation (in comparison to public education administrators) one might easily come to conclude what I did. How true it is in Eva’s mind (yeah, she has one, a devious one at that) for/to herself is another story.
I look at actions and the results of those actions. And I agree that T-rumps actions through the immigration policies result in harm to innocents and is therefore reprehensible and should be condemned.
“I look at actions and the results of actions”.
I don’t understand what this means. The US joined with England and Russia to fight Hitler and that resulted in tens of thousands (or is it hundreds of thousands) deaths. Does that make FDR just as evil as Hitler? And would FDR be given a pass if he simply let Hitler take over without trying to stop him because stopping him would cause a lot of deaths?
And do the “results of actions” also include the results of INaction?
It is true that LBJ caused many deaths. It is also true that the US Presidents who did nothing as Saddam Hussein killed Kurds should not necessarily be considered morally superior to LBJ. If the decision to act or not act will result in deaths no matter what, does that mean we should never act?
If you completely ignore motives, then what is the difference between Stalin, Pol Pot, Trump, FDR, Truman and LBJ? Is it just that Trump hasn’t killed as many people so he is the best of all of them?
NYCpsp,
“Does that make FDR just as evil as Hitler? And would FDR be given a pass if he simply let Hitler take over without trying to stop him because stopping him would cause a lot of deaths?”
The “that” being US joining England and Russia (and many other countries) in fighting against Hitler? I don’t see how, nor what it has to do with the discussion. As to the second question: I don’t know.
Historical hypotheticals mean nothing to me.
What I sense in your responses it that the US should have the responsibility for policing the world. That is a very common and very disturbing (at least in my mind) acceptance of the “America, shining beacon on the hill” meme, i.e., American Exceptionalism at its finest (actually worse). And I take exception to that thought/meme/propaganda. It smacks of hubris and arrogance in determining that other countries cannot determine and control their own destinies.
And reaching back 80 years to the example of Hitler and his regime, an amazing evil at that seems ludicrous. Why not pick Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Idi Amin, South Africa (which the US government supported for decades and did nothing to stem the atrocities of that regime). So the US gets to pick and choose when and where it decides to intervene in the world. Sorry, but I can’t agree with that line of thinking.
“If you completely ignore motives, then what is the difference between Stalin, Pol Pot, Trump, FDR, Truman and LBJ?”
For the dead, absolutely no difference. You see I do not believe that those mentioned had evil intentions in their own minds. Now, we human’s are quite good at deceiving ourselves and others, but again, I’d say that all of those thought they were “doing the right and necessary thing” to further what they believed to be a righteous cause. Where does that leave the intention aspect?
“Is it just that Trump hasn’t killed as many people so he is the best of all of them?”
No, not at all. Now, one, as a human being, should hope that he will not kill anywhere near as many, actually no more fellow humans by his actions as President of the United States. Unfortunately, I don’t see the death toll by the US foreign policy lessening. At the same time it seems a strange question to ask..
Yes, we’ve gone far from the original topic, whatever it was. 🙂
Duane,
I know we have veered far from the topic but I thank you for your comprehensive replies.
I agree with almost all of your excellent points about the US not being the world’s policeman, etc. And I also agree with Lloyd and you that there have been some US leaders whose actions led to many deaths and you are right to condemn them.
I just think that sometimes – once in a while – it is possible to understand the motive to intervene and it is actually the morally responsible thing to do. If I understand you correctly, I believe you understand that motive with regards to WW II.
I think I have said many times that the decision to intervene or not intervene is hard to judge when either way we are condemning people to a horrible fate. I don’t know how you feel about Clinton’s policies in Herzegovina and Bosnia and the Dayton Accords. But it does seem as if sometimes intervention can (arguably) make things better over a longer term.
And I absolutely acknowledge that it is impossible to be consistent on this but I think there are many people who are inconsistent. For example, there was a lot of criticism about the Iraq sanctions as a response to Saddam causing great harm to the people of Iraq — but was that their position with economic sanctions against South Africa under apartheid? Do they condemn any economic sanctions against Israel, too? Someone always suffers no matter what America does.
Intellectually, I understand that you are saying it is no different to victims whether they die because Assad bombed them or they were collateral damage from an outside country trying to stop Assad. But I do not understand where that leaves us as a wealthy, influential country. It’s absolutely true that as a country we ignore the plight of many suffering people all over the world. But does that mean that when one group’s suffering does get our attention, that it is always wrong to try to intervene to stop it?
I agree with you that there is an argument to be made that it is, but I don’t agree that in ALL cases, any politician who believes otherwise is acting immorally or necessarily causing more deaths than would happen without intervention.
First, since when does Trump “follow the law”?
And second, for all the half-baked explanations and cherry-picked Bible passages that (laughably) support it, the whole thing of blaming the democrats for the abuse of children is a well-known ploy of the mob.
That is, accept the mob’s “protection,” or I’ll burn down your store; and BTW, if you don’t, what happens to your store will be YOUR FAULT, because you didn’t accept my protection. Pay up, or die by your own hand. If you remember, they did the same thing to Obama: Bend to our will, or we’ll shut down the government.
What better evidence do Trump supporters need to understand that our R-Congress and President are mob-slime who have made a gutter out of our government?
Thank you for this. It is very important that what the Republicans are doing is presented in exactly this way.
The Republicans can’t win using democratic means. So they use mob tactics and terrorist tactics and then blame the democrats for the destruction they caused because the Democrats didn’t pay the ransom they demanded.
NYC public school parent: I know people are tired of the Nazi analogy, but everything Trump does, and the way he thinks, is straight out of the Nazi Totalitarian playbook.
Also, what is it about caging children like criminals that resonates with “Make America Great Again”? And BTW, as long as he is in office, we should put a big bag over the head of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, and white out the words.
Illegal immigration is a crime in basically the same way speeding is a crime. I guess the next time we all get pulled over we should expect to have our kids removed from our custody.
BTW, every single border agent, judge, detention guard, social service worker, etc. who is actively participating in this is at fault too. “I was just following orders” is not an excuse. In particular, I would like to see some media outlets investigate the non-profit agency/agencies that are managing these human warehouses – how much are these “non-profits” profiting?
EXACTLY, in reference to your last paragraph, Dienne.
“Just following orders” &, for the centers themselves, definitely $$$$ makers for some well-connected fiends…er, friends…of the Trump administration.
Reblogged this on NANMYKEL.COM and commented:
The facts…
Didn’t see this before I posted my comment:
“— A major Latino charity is facing a firestorm over its connection to the family separations. The Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey explores the moral quandary: “The $240 million-a-year Southwest Key organization has big contracts with the government to house immigrant minors in its two dozen low-security shelters in Texas, Arizona, and California, a population that in recent weeks has exploded with infants and children removed from their parents.””
Please don’t refer to this organization as a “charity”. They are blood-sucking leeches (apologies to actual leeches) taking that kind of money to inflict this kind of harm. There is no “moral quandary” here. What they’re doing is simply flat-out wrong.
Hear Trump’s video of what he thinks. It’s the Democrats fault because the Republicans don’t have the power to make a change. BS.
……..
Trump doubles down on family separation policy
BY JORDAN FABIAN – 06/18/18 10:22 AM EDT
Trump Tweet: Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country. Has anyone been looking at the Crime taking place south of the border. It is historic, with some countries the most dangerous places in the world. Not going to happen in the U.S.
6:50 AM – 18 Jun 2018
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/392757-trump-doubles-down-on-family-separation-policy?userid=305211
What I can’t fathom is that Trump is calling undocumented immigrants the “worst criminals on earth” when he won’t even speak out against the actual criminal treatment of these families, or speak out against the criminal Kim Jong Un and his treatment of his own people, or the active genocide in Myanmar, etc.
Up is down and dow is up. AND, a lot of Trump supporters will fall for his lies hook, line, and sinker.
. Joe Kennedy III
✔
@RepJoeKennedy
Arrived in Tornillo TX where first tent city for kids has gone up. Was refused entrance by HHS. Given amount of misinformation and conflicting info coming from Trump Admin, it’s critical that Congress and American public know exactly how these children are treated by our system.
2:55 PM – Jun 17, 2018
kidnapping charges should be filed….along with extortion charges. This is simply child abuse. Taking children across state lines and away from their parents is criminal. When will our elected officials start draining the swamp!
I called every single member of the Utah congressional delegation last week. I talked to actual aides in three of the six offices.
ALL of those claimed that they were doing what they could to stop these separations, and that they found them disturbing.
NOT ONE has said a word about it in public.
They are all Republicans.
I stand corrected. One of the delegation has just spoken out about this abuse. Her parents are immigrants.
Diane, please delete those two previous comments I left where the link to the YouTube video failed.
It’s easy to find on YouTube. The video is from Inequality Media and it is called “Trump’s 10 Steps for Turning Lies into Truths.”
Trump’s lies about the Democratic being responsible for what is happening to those children is part of his process to turn lies into truths.
Where did Trump learn how to do this? From his favorite book, according to his first wife or was that his second wife or was that from his own mouth?
“Donald Trump ‘kept book of Adolf Hitler’s speeches in his bedside cabinet’
“In a 1990 interview, the billionaire businessman admitted to owning Nazi leader’s ‘Mein Kampf’ …”
Marie Brenner, the article’s author, wrote: “Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, ‘My New Order’, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-adolf-hitler-books-bedside-cabinet-ex-wife-ivana-trump-vanity-fair-1990-a7639041.html
It is obvious that Trump’s role model is Adolf Hitler and Hitler’s loyal minions. This helps explain why Trump loves Putin, Kim, and other brutal dictators. IT is also well known that Trump loves chaos.
Lloyd: [The first video link worked fine for me.]
This came from the WH today. Lies, lies and lies add up to a Trump truth.
…….
America’s crisis at the border
The harshest family separation policy is that too many Americans have been permanently separated from loved ones because of crime spilling across our border. Juan Pina lost his daughter after she was brutally assaulted and killed by an illegal alien. Jamiel Shaw, Sr. was permanently separated from his son, murdered by a gang member who was in the United States illegally.
Illegal immigration along our Southwest border surged 230 percent in April compared to last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. This statistic reveals the lack of an orderly and fair process to manage the escalating flow of illegal immigrants. That flawed system creates both a humanitarian and a national security crisis at our border.
The crime and illegal drugs flooding our country because of open border policies and enforcement loopholes must stop. Yet Congressional Democrats have repeatedly voted against common sense immigration legislation, such as Kate’s Law, that would make our communities safer. In 2017, 174 House Democrats voted against legislation that would have helped ensure aliens associated with a gang are not admitted into the United States.
There should be a TV game show with this title: “Trump’s Truth or Lies”
Cars, houses, vacations and cash prizes for the contestants who have the most correct answers.
.. nowhere in the world have humans evolved beyond instrumentalising religion to justify tyranny. “.. Mankind has used all sorts of beliefs to justify killing a neighbor who disagrees. This is still happening and mankind doesn’t evolve very much. I say, “Stop the killing’ and stop the abuse of those who are not able to defend themselves. This is an abomination on mankind. Christ wanted children to come to him for love, not to be placed in a steel cage away from their parents. There is no excuse for justifying this by quoting a bible verse.
……………………..
Trump is creating his American caliphate, and democracy has no defence | Nesrine Malik..The Guardian
…“To those of us who grew up in the Arab world, where Islam is often invoked by “secular” regimes in order to stem political opposition, and who are accustomed to this charade of piety, there is something chilling yet comforting in observing the authoritarian evolution of the Trump administration. There is a reason why some of those regimes will not do away with blasphemy laws, so handy are they in purging political opponents. It is chilling to see religion used this way in a supposedly sophisticated, liberal democracy, and in particular this element of it, which reduces politics to mere compliance. But it is comforting, in a macabre way, to have it proved that nowhere in the world have humans evolved beyond instrumentalising religion to justify tyranny. The most bewildering thing about US dictator creep isn’t that it’s happening: it’s that it is happening with such predictability.
The terror of the Trump doctrine is not in its innovation but in its imitation. The last few months are a testament to the fact that history is not past, that the passage of time does not necessarily imply progress. The words Sessions quoted were used in the 1840s and 50s to justify slavery. When abolitionists argued that slavery was cruel, and that separating families was a violation of religious ethics, they were met with the argument of religious compliance with the law.”…
https://gu.com/p/8zdvx/sbl
This is absolutely heartbreaking. These children are wailing and sobbing while calling for their “mama’ or “papa’. Listen to it to feel the cruelty that Trump wants.
…………………………
Listen to Children Who’ve Just Been Separated From Their Parents at the Border
The desperate sobbing of 10 Central American children, separated from their parents one day last week by immigration authorities at the border, makes for excruciating listening. Many of them sound like they’re crying so hard, they can barely breathe. They scream “Mami” and “Papá” over and over again, as if those are the only words they know.
The baritone voice of a Border Patrol agent booms above the crying. “Well, we have an orchestra here,” he jokes. “What’s missing is a conductor.”..
An audio recording obtained by ProPublica adds real-life sounds of suffering to a contentious policy debate that has so far been short on input from those with the most at stake: immigrant children….
from ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/children-separated-from-parents-border-patrol-cbp-trump-immigration-policy
This is child abuse. Have they been hotlined?
This is cruel and unusual punishment.
Abuse of power. Lying. 1940s scapegoating.
This is a hate crime. Actions against an individual because of race, ethnicity, religion…
Slander and libel against democrats.
“Texas border agents tell migrant moms they’ll bathe their kids. Instead, they separate them” Houston Chronicle
Baths?…Sound familiar? Showers? this administration is sick.
And their tactics comes right out of Hitler’s playbook used by this president routinely: Hitler’s “Big Lie” (see articles in NYTimes – – and article in St. Louis Post Dispatch where columnist cites:
Hitler knew it more than 90 years ago, writing, “All this was inspired by the principle — which is quite true in itself — that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
“It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”
https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/columnists/kevin-horrigan/horrigan-adolf-donald-and-the-art-of-the-big-lie/article_832b88d4-544a-5501-b545-436585ebd9e8.html
This is a crime against humanity. How sad that Trump, who is a perpetual liar, says that the problem is Democrats. Trump obviously doesn’t remember that the GOP is in control of both the House and Senate. [Maybe Fox hasn’t told him this yet.]
Trump: “It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder Security and Crime. Tell them to start thinking about the people devastated by Crime coming from illegal immigration. Change the laws!”
Nielsen is a liar, just like Trump. [He only picks the best!!]
……………..
5 ways Kirstjen Nielsen’s press conference on family separation was a total disaster, CNN
After Nielsen claimed, repeatedly, that she had not seen the widely circulated photos of children being kept in cages, she then said that the photos were being selectively chosen to tell only one side of the story.
Here’s her quote:
“I think that they reflect the focus of those who post such pictures and narratives. The narratives we don’t see are the narratives of the crime, of the opioids, of the smugglers, of who are people killed by gang members, of American children who are recruited and then when they lose the drugs they’re tased and beaten.”
Check out this story on CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/politics/kirstjen-nielsen-press-conference/index.html
I do not have the words for someone like Ann Coulter. She looks pretty on the outside but has nothing on the inside.
……………………
‘Do not fall for it, Mr President’: Outrage as Ann Coulter says ‘weeping and crying’ immigrant children in detention centers are ‘CHILD ACTORS’
Coulter’s comment on a Fox News panel Sunday has been met with widespread outrage as social media users call her ‘heartless’ for suggesting that the children are faking their anguish.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5858633/Ann-Coulter-warns-Trump-weeping-crying-immigrant-children-child-actors.html?ito=email_share_article-top
Most Read Articles:
Wrapped in thermal blankets and crammed inside chain-link-fenced cages: New footage shows illegal immigrants including young children marching into a Texas detention center where 1,100 people are now being kept in cramped conditions
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5858211/VIDEO-chain-link-fenced-cages-illegal-immigrants-including-children-crammed-detention-center.html?ito=email_share_article-top_most-read-articles
This is smart strategy on Trump’s part. Immigration is a top issue with many working-class folks. Liberals’ outpouring of compassion reinforces t the Trumpsters’ view that liberals care about immigrants more than their fellow citizens.
People need to see the horrors that are being committed against these people. This is a human atrocity against humanity. There was an audio of little children crying for their mama and papa that was made yesterday when they were separated from their parents.
……………..
Watch the U.S. Turn Away Asylum Seekers at the Border
Jun 18, 2018
Video by The Atlantic
“The [narcos] threatened to kill every last person in our house—even the dog,” says Wayner Berduo, a young Guatemalan asylum seeker at the U.S.-Mexican border, in a new documentary from The Atlantic. Berduo says he lost his left eye and the use of his right arm in a violent attack late last year. Like thousands of Central American families, the Berduos say they’re seeking legal protection in the U.S. because of gang violence at home.
But now, the Trump administration is taking steps to prevent them from finding safety in the U.S. On June 11, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled that the U.S. would no longer accept gang violence or domestic abuse as valid reasons for asylum. Meanwhile, citing lack of space, U.S. agents have started to turn back asylum seekers at ports of entry in recent weeks, leaving throngs of hopefuls at bridges all along the border. Critics say “slow-walking” asylum applicants is just one more measure meant to discourage Central Americans from entering the country.
Repeatedly turned away by U.S. border guards, the Berduo family spent days sleeping on the ground next to the international bridge—trapped in a kind of purgatory that spans the Rio Grande.
Author: Jeremy Raff
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/563084/us-border/
About This Series
Original short documentaries produced by The Atlantic
It doesn’t get more disgusting than this account of small children wailing for their mothers or fathers and the staff has been instructed to “not touch”. Who runs these disgusting [money making] enterprises?
……………………
WaPo: Antar Davidson was in that predicament as an employee of a federal contractor. He quit his job as an instructor of capoeira, the Brazilian martial art, at Estrella del Norte, a shelter in Tucson for migrant children run by Southwest Key Programs, an organization based in Austin.
Antar Davidson quit his job at a Tucson facility for migrant children last week. He said he felt “uneasy about the morality of many practices happening at the facility.” (Alexandra Queen)
Davidson said the shelter had a policy against allowing children to hug each other. A no-touch policy is particularly harmful to children caught in a painful ordeal such as the one engendered by Trump.
“There was an organization-wide policy that the kids were meant not to touch each other,” he said in an interview with the Federal Insider. “It was something that was always pressed very hard on the kids — ‘no touch, no touch’ … always constantly being reminded that they weren’t allowed to touch each other.”
That’s in line with what The Post reported after Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, went to a South Texas detention facility: “But the first child who caught the prominent pediatrician’s attention during a recent visit was anything but happy. Inside a room dedicated to toddlers was a little girl no older than 2, screaming and pounding her fists on a mat. One woman tried to give her toys and books to calm her down, but even that shelter worker seemed frustrated … because as much as she wanted to console the little girl, she couldn’t touch, hold or pick her up to let her know everything would be all right. That was the rule, Kraft said she was told: They’re not allowed to touch the children.”
” ‘The really devastating thing was that we all knew what was going on with this child. We all knew what the problem was,’ Kraft said. ‘She didn’t have her mother, and none of us can fix that.’ ”
Devastated by his experience, Davidson quit Estrella del Norte last week after less than four months on the job.
“I can no longer in good conscience work with Southwest Key Programs … ” his resignation letter said. “I am feeling uneasy about the morality of many practices happening at the facility … the direction the organizations is taking is one I no longer want to be a part of.”…
AP: …The United Nations, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers and religious groups have sharply criticized the policy, calling it inhumane.
Not so, said Steven Wagner, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We have specialized facilities that are devoted to providing care to children with special needs and tender age children as we define as under 13 would fall into that category,” he said. “They’re not government facilities per se, and they have very well-trained clinicians, and those facilities meet state licensing standards for child welfare agencies, and they’re staffed by people who know how to deal with the needs — particularly of the younger children.”…