Thanks to Nicholas Kristof for writing these stories and for recognizing that the economic and social supports needed for the hero of the story should not depend on philanthropy and charity.
Nicholas Kristof wrote about an 8-year-old boy who won the New York State chess championship for his age group. He learned chess only a year earlier at his public school, PS 116, in Manhattan. He and his family, Nigerian refugees, were living in a homeless shelter. As a result of Kristof’s reporting, the family has been showered with gifts, including a rent-free apartment for a year and a GoFundMe collection of $200,000, plus scholarships for the boy, Tani, at elite private schools. The family accepted the home, is giving the money to help others, and turned down the scholarships because Tani likes PS 116.
From the first column:
“In a homeless shelter in Manhattan, an 8-year-old boy is walking to his room, carrying an awkward load in his arms, unfazed by screams from a troubled resident. The boy is a Nigerian refugee with an uncertain future, but he is beaming.
“He can’t stop grinning because the awkward load is a huge trophy, almost as big as he is. This homeless third grader has just won his category at the New York State chess championship…
“So we should all grin along with Tanitoluwa Adewumi, the newly crowned chess champion for kindergarten through third grade. He went undefeated at the state tournament last weekend, outwitting children from elite private schools with private chess tutors.
“I want to be the youngest grandmaster,” he told me.
“Tani’s family fled northern Nigeria in 2017, fearing attacks by Boko Haram terrorists on Christians such as themselves. “I don’t want to lose any loved ones,” his father, Kayode Adewumi, told me.
“So Tani, his parents and his older brother arrived in New York City a bit more than a year ago, and a pastor helped steer them to a homeless shelter. Tani began attending the local elementary school, P.S. 116, which has a part-time chess teacher who taught Tani’s class how to play.”
Knowing that his family had no money, the school waived the usual fees so that Tani could participate in the program.
From Kristof’s second column:
“Tanitoluwa Adewumi, age 8, skidded around the empty apartment, laughing excitedly, then leapt onto his dad’s back. “I have a home!” he said in wonderment. “I have a home!”
“A week ago, the boy was homeless, studying chess moves while lying on the floor of a shelter in Manhattan. Now Tani, as he is known, has a home, a six-figure bank account, scholarship offers from three elite private schools and an invitation to meet President Bill Clinton.
“I think I am still dreaming,” said Tani’s dad, Kayode Adewumi. “I hope I don’t wake up….”
“After my column about this hard-working family, a GoFundMe drive raised more than $200,000 for Tani, his parents and his brother. A half-dozen readers offered housing — in a couple of cases, palatial quarters. Immigration lawyers offered pro bono assistance to the Adewumis, who are in the country legally and seeking asylum. Three film companies are vying to make movies about Tani.
“Heartfelt thanks to all my readers for this generosity: I truly have the best readers…
“The Adewumis have decided that they will not spend a cent of the $200,000 GoFundMe money on themselves. They will take out a 10 percent tithe and donate it to their church, which helped them while they were homeless, and the rest will be channeled through a new Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation to help African immigrants who are struggling in the United States the way they were a week ago….
“I asked them how they could turn down every penny of such a huge sum….
“I’m a hardworking guy,” Mr. Adewumi explained. He has two jobs: He drives for Uber with a rented car and sells real estatethrough Brick & Mortar. Someone has now offered him a free car so that he can keep more of the money he makes driving, and Tani’s mom was just offered a job as a health care aide at a hospital…
“The family was tempted by the offers of full scholarships at top private schools. But Tani and his parents decided that while he might accept such a scholarship for middle school, he would be loyal and stick with the public elementary school, P.S. 116, that taught him chess and waived his fees for the chess club.
“This school showed confidence in Tanitoluwa,” his mom, Oluwatoyin Adewumi, told the P.S. 116 principal, Jane Hsu. “So we return the confidence.” And then, overcome with emotion, the mom and the principal hugged.
“There’s a risk that a triumph like this leaves the impression that charity is the solution rather than a way to fill gaps: Fundamentally we need comprehensive systems in place to support needy kids. We would never build a bridge or subway with volunteers and donations, so why entrust an even more urgent cause — homeless children — to charity?
“Tani thrived because everything fell into place: a good school, a dedicated chess teacher and devoted parents committed to taking their son to every chess practice. The challenge is to replicate that supportive environment for all the other Tanis out there with public services and private philanthropy alike….”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tani is one of the “worthy strivers” – one of those the rephormers are trying to “save”. His is an inspirational, feel good story. Now we can all be happy. See? Everything works out for the deserving. Those other kids at that same homeless shelter? Well, they’re not chess champions and probably won’t amount to anything, so who cares? They don’t have “devoted parents (who are “hardworking guys”) committed to taking them to chess practice” (much less a “dedicated teacher” – we all know how few of those there are).
The neoliberals and neocons at the top of the New Feudal Order in the United States love their Social Darwinism, and they compensate royally those court singers who tell that tale in books on pop psychology. When Darwin first published his theory, people at the top of the Western power structure disliked, of course, the notion that they were not created first and given absolute dominion over everything else, but they LOVED the notion of the Survival of the Fittest, as formulated by people like Spencer, for this they took to explain the actual dominion that they had, by the late nineteenth century, enforced throughout the world. The wholesale slaughter, enslavement, and subjugation of indigenous peoples throughout the globe was taken as proof that they, the white Europeans, were the fittest of peoples, and justification could be found in the notion that they were simply following the dictates of a nature “red in tooth and claw,” as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Jack London (borrowing Tennyson’s phrase) famously described it. Such Social Darwinism appealed, in particular, to those atop the emerging capitalist hierarchy. American robber baron John D. Rockefeller, for example, once told a Sunday school class,
“The growth of large business is merely a survival of the fittest. . . . The American Beauty rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grew up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God. ”
A person like Rockefeller, who aggressively exploited others to amass an enormous fortune, could and did argue that he was simply behaving in accordance with natural law. And so, of course, were all those o his class who were busily murdering and enslaving the indigenous peoples of earth.
But this, too, was a misunderstanding of Darwin. What the theory of Natural Selection said was not that the biggest, meanest, most ruthless of creatures would inevitably gain dominion but, rather, simply that traits leading to reproductive success would tend to be passed on. Natural selection is simply the differential survival and reproduction of organisms, and all those attributes that make for goodness, such as nurturing, hard work, cooperation, compassion for and generosity toward others, and concern for not fouling one’s own nest, also contribute to the survival of one’s genes. It’s time to throw over the Social Darwinist myth for a more nuanced theory of human evolution and cultural development that takes into account the ways in which such traits enabled us to flourish by working together to ensure the common good. Darwin himself was an incredibly gentle and generous fellow and NOT a Social Darwinist. It’s long past time for us to recognize that the ethic of exploitation, extirpation, genocide, and ecocide that has characterized Western culture in the past four centuries is not natural but is, rather, an aberration, for it is not in the evolutionary interests of any creature to destroy its own habitat and to run through, unsustainably, in a short time, the resources needed for its continued survival. We did not achieve our current dominance of the planet by treating most people as disposable but, rather, by working together toward common ends. It is shameful that in the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the history of the world, almost a third of our children live in poverty. The message of stories like that of Tanitoluwa Adewumi is not that charity works but that our current system isn’t even, except occasionally and by accident, a meritocracy. It’s shameful.
NYTimes reported Thurs Mar 28 that homeless children in US public schools hit a record last year, 1.36 million. Meanwhile, another billionaire joined the 75 billionaires already living in Manhattan by purchasing a $240mil penthouse condo, the most expensive single residence ever sold in America. Glamorous Hudson Yards also opened last week with a gala of celebrity attendees, the largest real estate development in US history now open for business, which received $6Billion in public tax subsidies through the 10-year construction phase, now done, so 1-bedroom condos there can be had for a mere $3million. “Progressive” Mayor Deblasio swept into office 6 yrs ago promising affordable housing to reduce the expulsion of the middle class from the city and to reduce homelessness in NYC, but today NYC houses a record 61,000 adults and children nightly in its homeless shelters. Any candidate for the 2020 Pres. election who does not support AOC’s call for a 70% income tax on the super-rich plus other aggressive policies for wealth/income redistribution is out of touch with the dreadful times we live in.
Agreed!
This wealth has been stolen from the working class. Since 1973, productivity (the value created by American workers) has increased by 77 percent, while wages have increased by only 12.4 percent. So, a 64.6 percent increase in value produced has gone entirely to the ownership class.
More on wage stagnation: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Wealth has never been stolen form there working class. The working class has allowed itself to be pick pocketed with the help of the distractions and disuniting methods doled out generously for 50 years by the ruling elite.
But the ultimate status is a class of people – I include myself in them – who have far less of everything, including dignity.
While I’m thrilled that Tani is having his needs met, I am unimpressed that it had to come from charity and catalyzed, at that, by a columnist. This is a writer who is aware of those less globally fortunate, but is not sympathetic too much to public schools, teachers and the fight to stop our system from being privatized.
This is not. victory story nearly as much as it is a cautionary tale about a democracy sliding into oligarchy, smoothed over by a happy ending that manipulates and tugs at heart strings to distract from a much larger, endemic societal issue within the United States.
Plain and simple.
Is the result of automation? It is well known that the increase in productivity is primarily a function of technology beyond a certain point. It seems that the stat you quote is due to the replacing of manufacturing jobs with service sector jobs, most of which are lower pay. This is a function of outsourcing and automation. How can we create an economy based on the robot? Player Piano?
YUP. And it’s just going to get worse. I’ve even heard neolibs argue that the ownership class deserves these rewards because the automation was all a matter of their investments. Well, here’s the answer to that: we can figure out ways to make the system more equitable, or the rich can continue to push their toy until it breaks. Kurt, who is in heaven now, saw pretty far. But don’t worry, Roy. The machines will take care of us. https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/stories/my-experience-in-corporate-america/
I take no comfort in the idea of a machine taking care of us. I really loved my M Farmall. It felt so familiar and comfortable as I rode it across my uncle’s field, pulling a load of silage. How my uncle gloated when we beat the odds and chopped 25 loads one day, filling the entire silo. I have seen machines chop as much silage in half a hour as we did in a day. From a distance, that is. It is hard to develop a personal relationship with an agricultural implement in someone else’s field. I must admit to being fond of a good table saw, but I fear the Robert Frost poem about the cutoff saw. Out! Out!
You write so vividly and movingly, Roy. As perhaps you know, I am a woodworker myself, and that poem by Frost has always been one of my worst nightmares. I suppose that that’s what they would have waiting for me in Rm. 101, LOL. I have precisely zero faith in the benevolence of the machines. Lord help us.
TRUMPETEER: You called him a pendejo. What does that mean?
ME: Oh, that. That’s Spanish for “stable genius.”
I taught for thirty years in public schools where the majority of my students not only live in poverty but were Spanish speakers – Spanish was their primary language.
“Pendejo” in Spanish means “stupid” in English.
Calling Trump stupid is actually being nice because he is way below stupid. I mean, if calling someone stupid is equal to zero, then Trump is way below zero by a factor of 10,000.
H-m-m-m. The meaning of “pendejo” was understood to be a little cruder, in fact vulgar, in my largely Latino classroom. It was interesting to watch the kids faces before they knew whether I understood what this one student was saying.
Pendejo is Spanish for extraordinarily, unspeakably stupid. It’s “stupid” taken to another level altogether.
Pendajo is the Spanish equivalent of “dumb fk” or “dumb a.” And, yes, it is considered a vulgar expression. But it is my favored term, these days, for President Pinocchio, Don the Con, IQ 45, Vlad’s Agent Orange, The Dapper Don Trumpbalone, Trumpty Dumpty, Orange Lacquer Man, Donald “J for Jerk” Trumpet.
DT’s name keeps getting longer- I’m sure I missed a few:
Illegitimate President Pinocchio, Pendajo, Twitter Fingers, Don the Con, IQ 45, the King of Lies, Grab them by the Pussy, Vlad’s Agent Orange, the Dapper Don Trumpbalone, Trumpty Dumpty, Orange Lacquer Man, Donald “J for Jerk” Trumpet Mouth.
MAGA: Moscow’s Agent Governing America
I suspected all along that MAGA’s true meaning could never be Make America Great Again. Now I know what MAGA really means. Thank you for that.
And for all those who own MAGA hats, that think MAGA means Make America Great Again, I share this poem with you to hopefully make your brain work logically.
This poem is called “The Greatest Generation” because if America ever was Great, it has to be with that generation.
Fascists (and would-be fascists like Cheeto Trumpbalone) always appeal to return to some imagined preceding national golden age as a means for justifying extreme policies. Saddam Hussein’s rebuilding of Babylon, Hitler’s Aryan folkland, Mussolini’s evocations of Roman imperial glory.
I read that if minimum wage workers increased their wages on par with those that work on Wall St., the minimum wage would be over $33 dollars per hour. With the decline in unions, the 1% has continuously devalued the labor of workers while collecting huge bonuses and rigging laws that decrease their obligation to the common good.
Unfortunately, raising the minimum wage across the board hurts lots of small businesses and does not consider the cost of living. Small businesses are not uniformly raking in the big bucks and will go under without some consideration for the difference in circumstances. Big businesses, which in many cases have stolen the small business market, will still make a healthy living. So, we may end up severely damaging the job market where most people find employment and handing their businesses over to Amazonian type conglomerates. If you have ever required service on a purchase obtained from a big box or instruction on the use of a product, you know that your friendly, local retailer is more likely to be able to provide the personal service you need. The problem is much bigger than just a blanket raising of wages. Small businesses have felt the same stagnation in income that their workers have. We need other ways to draw money back into society, like anti-trust legislation and taxes that are designed to equalize the playing field. Otherwise we face an oligarchic Balkanization of this country where most of us are beholden to the will of corporate and/or individually controlled fiefdoms. Looking back at what we know about such arrangements, I don’t think many of us would have the luxury of worrying about our wages until we got desperate enough for a bloody revolt. I’m all for a living wage. Let’s just be careful in the way we achieve that goal. Perhaps I see our biggest problem in how to take power away from money. Bob’s explication of social Darwinism says much more eloquently what I would like to be able to say.
@retired teacher: Speduktr speaks the truth. The minimum wage works its evil against people on the bottom of the economic ladder. If a person is not worth $X, they will not be paid $X.
Charles, you are totally correct. The minimum wage should be eliminated and replaced with a basic liveable wage based on the cost of living for each state, region and/or city.
And the liveable wage should be the basic foundation and everything goes up from there. From there, pay climbs based on inflation and supply and demand. If you cannot find someone to work the counter at McDonald’s, you offer them more money and keep raising that offer until workers decide to apply for the job and stick around.
The more the job is worth, for instance, a McDonald’s counter person vs a professional college educated teacher vs an Aeronautical Engineer with a PhD in drone science, the more the worker gets paid.
The McDonald’s counter person starts out with the liveable wage.
The Teacher starts out earning three or four times the liveable wage.
That Aeronautical Engineer, if there is a demand for his job skills, gets paid two times what a teacher earns.
And to make sure that happens, Congress passes veto-proof legislation so the oligarchs can’t sabotage the system to increase their massive wealth and power.
I’m perfectly happy living in a 1,350 square foot three bedroom, two bath house but I do not think Bill Gates deserves to live in a 66,000 square foot house. Tax him at 90 percent and let him live in a 5,000 square foot house.
Somehow I don’t recognize what I was saying in your comment, Charles.
Charles et al. There have been several studies that have shown that raising the minimum wage does not have this simple effect of depressing jobs See this: https://www.businessforafairminimumwage.org/news/00135/research-shows-minimum-wage-increases-do-not-cause-job-loss
Every time there is a plea to raise the minimum wage, the rightwing raises a hullabaloo that raising wages will depress jobs, that teenagers will never be hired, that others will be laid off. Then the minimum wage is raised, and there is no loss of jobs. Maybe CEO salaries should be cut to raise wages.
These people never let facts interfere with their ideologies.
I really wonder where the jobs are when small businesses, in many cases, are operating on wire thin margins. Yes, big box corps have decimated local businesses; they can pay more and can afford a higher minimum wage, but what local businesses can sustain is a different matter unless we address more than just the issue of minimum wage.
It is no wonder we are a throw away society. If something breaks, there is no one to repair it, or it is cheaper to buy a new one at the nearest big box. The local merchant who used to provide real service, including repairs, is gone. I try to patronize the few truly local businesses there are, but too often they have to charge far above what the big box does, so I do what I can. There is nothing like the service you get from people who are part of your community.
Sad that anyone has to be homeless. Shelters while they help, have, at times, rules which take dignity away. But it is good to see that, at least, they help the homeless.
I life in Texas and have been reading that some school kids are homeless, not entirely believing it. One day I say a young lady whom I had seen at school and then I understood that it it true. I did not stare at her but we both recognized each other and she gave me a little smile.
When we met in school again, she gave me a small acknowledgement and I returned it, thinking that the world can be hard on people. Without somewhere to do her work at night she is clearly at a disadvantage. She will also have to expend major energy just on getting along instead of on her work.
It caused me to take a different look on students, realizing that some of them are experiencing difficulties for which the word challenging do not properly fit.
An amazing story!
So happy Tani and family finally found a home and they are thriving. And so glad Tani is attending a PUBLIC SCHOOL.
Public Schools and Public School Teachers ROCK! And we do what we do because WE CARE, not for the glory.
This story is a testament to our Public Schools and Public School Teachers and all the good we DO … ALL THE TIME.
I love Public Schools & Public School Teachers!
PS 116 produced a chess champion. It seems just that Tani should stay at the school that has served him so well. I hope he goes on to do great things, and most of all I hope he has a happy, balanced life. We really do not need the 1% to cherry pick the “strivers.” Public schools produce many strivers each year, but they never get the limelight for doing so. Public schools are a public service, not a private corporation seeking a bigger ” market share.” Instead, the media focuses on the gang wars, bullying, and dropouts in public education while ignoring most the greatness in our public education systems.
Trump believes that citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras who are starving and fear for their lives will stop coming if their countries get less aid. This is Trump’s style…bully and these countries will cower in fear of the Orange Moron. This is a humanitarian crisis that is NOT helped by cutting aid. The US is largely responsible for the atrocities that occur in Central America and we should be working to make their economies better.
I spent three weeks in Guatemala and was warned to be very careful since pickpockets were everywhere. I was told to never go out at night. School buses for the wealthy had blackened windows and armed guards following the busses since there was a rising number of kidnappings for money.
This looks more and more like we are now a ‘one man government’. It is a sickening one.
………………..
Trump cuts aid to Central American countries as migrant crisis deepens
WASHINGTON/EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) – The U.S. government cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras on Saturday after President Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for sending migrants to the United States and threatened to shutter the U.S.-Mexico border.
A surge of asylum seekers from the three countries have sought to enter the United States across the southern border in recent days. On Friday, Trump accused the nations of having “set up” migrant caravans and sent them north.
Trump said there was a “very good likelihood” he would close the border this week if Mexico did not stop immigrants from reaching the United States. Frequent crossers of the border, including workers and students, worried about the disruption to their lives the president’s threatened shutdown could cause…
A State Department spokesman said in a statement it was carrying out Trump’s directive by ending aid programs to the three Central American nations, known as the Northern Triangle.
The department said it would “engage Congress in the process,” an apparent acknowledgement that it will need lawmakers’ approval to end funding that a Congressional aide estimated would total about $700 million…
But a border shutdown would disrupt tourism and U.S.-Mexico trade that totaled $612 billion last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A shutdown could lead to factory closures on both sides of the border, industry officials say, because the automobiles and medical sectors especially have woven international supply chains into their business models.
Trump is hardly the only bully. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were destroyed – by U.S. imperialism – long before he came to power. In fact, it was Trump’s predecessor, with a great deal of help from Trump’s opponent, who did the most damage to Honduras which is a very large part of the crisis at the southern border. It’s just that Trump’s predecessors were “civilized” about how they destroyed other countries. Trump has simply ripped off the blinders and made it unavoidable how barbaric U.S. foreign policy really is. I know a lot of people really don’t mind U.S. barbarism as long as it’s done in a “statesmanlike” way, but I happen to oppose oppression even when it’s done “nicely”.
When the Iranian Revolution took place and crowds were in the streets chanting “Death to America!” the people of the United States didn’t bother to ask themselves, “Why would so many people in that country have so low an opinion of the United States”? They chalked this up to “those crazy Muslims.” Of course, they knew nothing of how the Shah’s secret police, financed by the U.S., had terrorized the country, so that there was hardly a family there who had not had a loved one disappear in the middle of the night. Our press does nothing to tell the back story because people don’t want to hear it. And do people in the US have any idea how small these countries are? Honduras and El Salvador each have only a little over 6 million people. A little foreign aid goes a LOOOOONG way. Imagine: what if we spent some of the money that IQ45 wants to spend on his stupid wall on, instead, helping these countries economically?
Bob, why are you being so generous giving DT an IQ of 45?
He is able to shove cheeseburgers into his own mouth without assistance.
How do we know he doesn’t have help to eat his cheeseburgers. Who ties on his bib? Who holds the burger in front of his mouth until he bites?
When have we ever been allowed to watch Trump eat?
I bet Ivanka is his caretaker.
I imagine being a young person at a family gathering–on the 4th of July, perhaps–and there being an older, thick uncle in a bad suit and a toupee, the owner, perhaps, of a dog racing track, with reputed mob ties, who ogles the women and talks loudly and stupidly and tells racist jokes that no one thinks are funny and pontificates about how the country is being overtaken by immigrants and feminazis and goes on and on about how we need to make English the official language of the country and bar Muslims from entering the country. It’s like having THAT GUY–that excruciatingly disgusting, embarrassing guy whom no one in the family can stand to be around–be elected president. I utterly loathe this man. I detest everything he stands for. He is a blustering, crude, dishonest, uneducated, narcissistic, conniving, ignorant, classist, tasteless, stupid, racist, sexist, boor who loves fascist strongmen and wants to be just like them but who turns into a lap dog in the presence of the real thing. An utterly vile man, and an embarrassment to our country.
Bob Shepherd: “I detest everything he stands for. ” AMEN to that thought. I can’t stand to look at him and everything he says makes me emotionally ill.
Tell us how you really feel, Bob. One wonders what made him what he is. There is a tiny part of me that feels sorry for him. He is a man who has gone through life never really knowing what it is to love.
I have, at times, felt that way. He is obviously so deeply damaged.
I left out soulless and mean-spirited
I read an interview with the author that wrote a book on Trump that book approved. I’m sure this author had to sign one of those contracts that strips them of freedom of speech when it comes to anything Trump.
I wonder if Trump sued that author when he revealed that at family dinners, Trump did all the talking while his wife and children, and the author, only listened, and when Trump finished eating and left the table, that was the signal the meal was over even if you were still eating and it was expected by DT that you had to leave the table and follow him into the living room where he continued to pontificate about how great he was in every possible way.
In another interview with all of the authors that have written and published books about Trump, that included the one author that Trump allowed to follow him around and write a book that Trump, of course, had to approve before publication — and they all agreed that Trump had a very short attention span and the five authors imagined him getting bored easily in the Oval Office and taking many breaks to go out and jump up and down on a pogo stick in the Rose Garden.
It’s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump. It’s like they’re preparing to deal with a child — someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, in interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing. They’re freaking out. —anonymous NATO source
Speeches Limited to 4 Minutes to Keep Trump’s Attention
David Pakman Show
Published on May 18, 2017
–NATO tells heads of state who will be addressing President Trump at their upcoming summit to keep their speeches between two to four minutes in order to keep his attention
I think the other world leaders are also coached to repeat Trump’s name as many times as possible to keep his attention for that three to four minutes. Trump has no interest in any topic but him and how great he is.
He loves the Saudis because when he visited Riyadh, they projected his face on a very tall building.
Flattery will get his attention e rey time.
Lloyd Lofthouse: “That’s why he so prefers TV as his first news source— information comes in easily digestible sound bites. I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life.”
——-Tony Schwartz, co-author “The Art of the Deal”
David Pakman Show
Published on Feb 2, 2017
Yeah, and get this: Fox News held a discussion of these aid cuts while below ran the banner “Trump cuts U.S. aid to 3 Mexican countries.”
Racist morons. Think of what the billions that Trump’s wall would cost would do to help the economies of those countries!!!
Three Mexican countries — interesting. Maybe they exist side by side like the multiverse theory and Trump let slipped with another secret the public wasn’t supposed to know, that there is a way to travel between all of these different planes and dimensions.
I wonder how many immigrants seeking asylum from the violence that was created in their countries by previous administrations are being sent to one of these other Mexicos that doesn’t exist in our dimension.
Whoop. Whoop.
Fox News apologizes for graphic referring to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras as “3 Mexican countries”
And we can place a safe bet that if no one can stop Trump through the courts and/or legislation through Congress, that 8-year-old boy and his family would have been deported back to their country of origin to be murdered shortly after they had arrived, and still might end up being swept away and vanish by an ICE raid.
The pope is right about saying Trump is ‘not Christian’. Are all Catholics listening to the pope? I’d love to see Trump become a prisoner with walls surrounding him. He’d also have no revolting iPhone.
………………………….
Pope Francis Warns Trump About Walls After Morocco Visit
Urging compassion for migrants, the pope said those who close borders “will become prisoners of the walls that they build.”
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis, putting President Trump on notice, warned on Sunday that those who close borders “will become prisoners of the walls that they build.”
The remarks came as the pope was returning from a visit to Morocco, where he worked to further his priorities of supporting migrants and establishing closer relations between the Roman Catholic Church and moderate Islam.
Mr. Trump threatened Friday to seal off the border with Mexico and moved to cut aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to punish them for failing to stop a surge in migrant crossings into the United States.
Francis, who suggested in 2016 that Mr. Trump was “not Christian” for his belief in building walls, rather than bridges, was also asked aboard the papal airplane about the Spanish government’s efforts to keep out migrants, many of whom depart from Morocco…
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/world/europe/pope-francis-trump-morocco.html
The Koch brothers are Catholics and they do not approve of this Catholic Pope, because this Pope’s agenda does not support their agenda to turn the world into a dystopian nightmare for everyone but the members of their ALEC organization.
“Koch Brothers’ Latest Target: Pope Francis”
“Better known for their high-dollar political spending, the billionaire Koch brothers have also poured millions into Catholic University’s business school to promote a free-market orthodoxy sharply at odds with the teachings of Pope Francis.”
https://prospect.org/article/koch-brothers%e2%80%99-latest-target-pope-francis
“Closing the border would be a profit-making operation,” the president said three days ago.
Huh? People won’t be able to get to work. Supplies and produce from Mexico won’t cross over. The Orange Moron should explain in detail how this border closing will be profit-making. One more lie on top of thousands.
Why has turnover been so enormous in the Trump misadministration? Because it’s incredibly exhausting to be forced to try to defend the insane positions that the most ignorant president in our history continually takes on the issues. Sarah (“Miss Communications”) Huckster-bee has a gift for this, truly, but even she often just resorts to “I’m not going to talk about that,” “that’s not what he meant,” or “we’ve been over this”–all of which are go-to comments for her.
Donald Trump: 2 + 2 is 5.
Republican Party: Yup. 5.
Sarah “Miss Communications” Huckster-bee: We’ve been over this. What the president meant, obviously, is that it is in the neighborhood of 5.
Donald Trump: 2 and 2 equals 5. Am I right? 5, OK?
Sarah Huckster-bee: Look, we’ve already talked about this. I’m not going to comment on it further.
William Barr: After reviewing the relevant arithmetic, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence is not sufficient to conclude that 2 + 2 = 4. Legal restrictions may prevent the Department of Justice from being able to release the relevant addition table, but I will err on the side of transparency.