by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
When Donald Trump savagely attacked Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings over Twitter last week, his actual reason for doing so was that Cummings, the chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee, was not backing down in his requests and subpoenas for information on Trump, his administration, and his family. Just prior to Trump's tirade, in fact, Cummings had made moves to secure the private emails of Jared and Ivanka (Trump) Kushner who had reportedly been doing government business over those private accounts.
(Remember how enraged Republican members of Congress were at Hillary Clinton over the same allegations regarding her private email accounts? Hypocrisy runs deep and wide in the Trump White House and the GOP!)
Trump wanted some personal revenge on Rep. Cummings, and, if while doing so, he could stir up his white nationalist base, well that would just be gravy. Impugning the congressman's character while making him a target of extremists would be quite a twofer! In Trump's first volley at Cummings he attacked the congressman for being a "bully" toward the Border Patrol - before blowing a couple of racist dog whistles:
Trump went on to refer to Baltimore as a "rat and rodent infested mess."
The gauntlet had been thrown down, and Trump used his patriotic fervor for the activities of the Border Patrol as a wrapper for his racist harangue of Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore. He never intended for the Border Patrol and its activities to be his focus.
But events of the past couple of days have brought the crisis at our southern border back into the actual headlines.
It seems there is a secret group on Facebook with nearly ten thousand members that share violent and racist memes with its members, and at least a portion of the membership of that group belong to the US Border Patrol. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, questioned Kevin McAleenan, the acting Director of Homeland Security, at length on the matter last week in a congressional hearing.
One of the memes that had been shared by the group was a photoshopped image of Representative Ocasio-Cortez being violently raped, and she wanted McAleenan to understand that she felt racist and violent memes could have a dehumanizing impact on the people who viewed them, and her particular concern was with the Border Patrol agents who viewed such material - and how they could then become less humane toward immigrants who were trying to enter the United States.
McAleenan said he felt the posts were "unacceptable" and that he had ordered an investigation into the matter. Then he stated that he did not believe the Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) had a "dehumanizing culture."
Then yesterday we learned that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has had to go back to court to again try and stop family separations at the border. More than a year ago a federal judge had ordered the government to begin restricting the process of removing immigrant children from their parents. A few guidelines were established whereby children and their parents could be pulled apart, and one of those allowed the removal of a child if the parent(s) had a criminal history. An overreaching interpretation of that exception apparently led Border Patrol agents to remove children if parents had at least one traffic violation - or, in one case, a conviction of property damage totaling just five dollars.
The ACLU told a judge yesterday that more than 900 children have been taken from their parents at the border since the judge gave that preliminary guidance in June of 2018. Acting Director of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan told Congress as recently as last week that family separations are now "extremely rare." Nine hundred children - and their parents - would probably beg to differ.
(Would an American bank deny a white family a loan based on one minor traffic violation?)
Donald Trump, himself a bully who tends to get loud and obnoxious, argued that Elijah Cummings was a "brutal bully" who shouted and screamed at the "great"men and women of the border patrol about conditions along our southern border - and then he minimized those conditions. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed her concern that Border Patrol agents engaging a Facebook group which promoted racism and violence could, themselves, become dehumanized in the process - and that they would be more apt to treat new arrivals at the border as less than human. And, add to that mix actual data showing that children are still being taken from their parents at the border for little or no reason - and an ugly picture begins to emerge - much like the one in Dorian Gray's attic.
Our inhumanity is on display for the whole world to witness. It has nothing to do with rats and rodents in Baltimore - and everything to do with rats and rodents in the White House. Donald Trump is reflecting himself across the entire country, and it is an ugly damned image!
Donald John Trump is an abject failure as a human being, and he is trying to take our civilization down with him!
Citizen Journalist
When Donald Trump savagely attacked Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings over Twitter last week, his actual reason for doing so was that Cummings, the chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee, was not backing down in his requests and subpoenas for information on Trump, his administration, and his family. Just prior to Trump's tirade, in fact, Cummings had made moves to secure the private emails of Jared and Ivanka (Trump) Kushner who had reportedly been doing government business over those private accounts.
(Remember how enraged Republican members of Congress were at Hillary Clinton over the same allegations regarding her private email accounts? Hypocrisy runs deep and wide in the Trump White House and the GOP!)
Trump wanted some personal revenge on Rep. Cummings, and, if while doing so, he could stir up his white nationalist base, well that would just be gravy. Impugning the congressman's character while making him a target of extremists would be quite a twofer! In Trump's first volley at Cummings he attacked the congressman for being a "bully" toward the Border Patrol - before blowing a couple of racist dog whistles:
"Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA."
Trump went on to refer to Baltimore as a "rat and rodent infested mess."
The gauntlet had been thrown down, and Trump used his patriotic fervor for the activities of the Border Patrol as a wrapper for his racist harangue of Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore. He never intended for the Border Patrol and its activities to be his focus.
But events of the past couple of days have brought the crisis at our southern border back into the actual headlines.
It seems there is a secret group on Facebook with nearly ten thousand members that share violent and racist memes with its members, and at least a portion of the membership of that group belong to the US Border Patrol. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, questioned Kevin McAleenan, the acting Director of Homeland Security, at length on the matter last week in a congressional hearing.
One of the memes that had been shared by the group was a photoshopped image of Representative Ocasio-Cortez being violently raped, and she wanted McAleenan to understand that she felt racist and violent memes could have a dehumanizing impact on the people who viewed them, and her particular concern was with the Border Patrol agents who viewed such material - and how they could then become less humane toward immigrants who were trying to enter the United States.
McAleenan said he felt the posts were "unacceptable" and that he had ordered an investigation into the matter. Then he stated that he did not believe the Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) had a "dehumanizing culture."
Then yesterday we learned that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has had to go back to court to again try and stop family separations at the border. More than a year ago a federal judge had ordered the government to begin restricting the process of removing immigrant children from their parents. A few guidelines were established whereby children and their parents could be pulled apart, and one of those allowed the removal of a child if the parent(s) had a criminal history. An overreaching interpretation of that exception apparently led Border Patrol agents to remove children if parents had at least one traffic violation - or, in one case, a conviction of property damage totaling just five dollars.
The ACLU told a judge yesterday that more than 900 children have been taken from their parents at the border since the judge gave that preliminary guidance in June of 2018. Acting Director of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan told Congress as recently as last week that family separations are now "extremely rare." Nine hundred children - and their parents - would probably beg to differ.
(Would an American bank deny a white family a loan based on one minor traffic violation?)
Donald Trump, himself a bully who tends to get loud and obnoxious, argued that Elijah Cummings was a "brutal bully" who shouted and screamed at the "great"men and women of the border patrol about conditions along our southern border - and then he minimized those conditions. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed her concern that Border Patrol agents engaging a Facebook group which promoted racism and violence could, themselves, become dehumanized in the process - and that they would be more apt to treat new arrivals at the border as less than human. And, add to that mix actual data showing that children are still being taken from their parents at the border for little or no reason - and an ugly picture begins to emerge - much like the one in Dorian Gray's attic.
Our inhumanity is on display for the whole world to witness. It has nothing to do with rats and rodents in Baltimore - and everything to do with rats and rodents in the White House. Donald Trump is reflecting himself across the entire country, and it is an ugly damned image!
Donald John Trump is an abject failure as a human being, and he is trying to take our civilization down with him!
1 comment:
If Due Process of Law were alive and a vital part of the action in the crimes against humanity we call a crisis at the southern border then real justiciable standards would be used to determine the best interests of the children coming to America.
In Trump's America Lady Justice doesn't just turn a blind eye away from distractions, she is deaf and dumb as well. These immigrants, many if not most being lawful asylum seekers, do not readily have access to American courts. They may get tossed before an administrative judge where due process is transmuted into don't process. No State of the Union could or would turn infants, toddlers, or children of any age, let alone adults, into witnesses against themselves, require them to provide a defense to charges they cannot comprehend, before the judge alone, and without any access to competent counsel. But that is the true nature of the kangaroo courts of injustice operating as immigration courts along America's southern border in the year 2019.
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