Trumpers: Release Detained Immigrants In Sanctuary Cities As Political Retaliation (UPDATED)

(Photo of Stephen Miller: Jabin Botsford/ Washington Post)

 Just when you think they can stoop no lower --

White House officials have tried to pressure U.S. immigration authorities to release detainees onto the streets of “sanctuary cities” to retaliate against President Trump’s political adversaries, according to Department of Homeland Security officials and email messages reviewed by The Washington Post.

Trump administration officials have proposed transporting detained immigrants to sanctuary cities at least twice in the past six months — once in November, as a migrant caravan approached the U.S. southern border, and again in February, amid a standoff with Democrats over funding for Trump’s border wall.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco was among those the White House wanted to target, according to DHS officials. The administration also considered releasing detainees in other Democratic strongholds.  (our emphasis)

The vicious little scheme was proposed twice, once in November 2018 and again in February this year:

The White House told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the plan was intended to alleviate a shortage of detention space but also served to send a message to Democrats. The attempt at political retribution raised alarm within ICE, with a top official responding that it was rife with budgetary and liability concerns, and noting that “there are PR risks as well.”

After the White House pressed again in February, ICE’s legal department rejected the idea as inappropriate and rebuffed the administration.  (our emphasis)

As you might guess, the main proponent of the scheme was twisted, spray- on hair fascist Stephen "Dead Eyes" Miller who, if there's any justice left in the world, should some day be hauled into The Hague and tried for crimes against humanity.  The story would remain untold were it not for several whistleblowers at the Department of Homeland Security.  Thankfully, there are still some people with a conscience working there.  May they continue to resist the evil.

UPDATE:  Well, apparently the Very Stable Genius thinks the idea isn't so dead --

Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019

UPDATE II:  He's also telling his Customs and Border Protection head that he'll pardon him if he violates the law and blocks asylum seeking immigrants from entering the country.  He's unhinged.

There's a sociopath right there.

(h/t commenter donnah)

"They Told Us To Behave Or We'd Be There Forever"

Sickening accounts are emerging from some of the children who've been held apart from their parents for weeks as part of the Trump regime's late, unlamented "zero tolerance" immigration policy (shorter: we don't want your kind changing our culture).  While a federal court has ordered that the more than 2,500 children separated from their parents must be returned to them by July 26, the trauma already experienced by these children could be long- lasting.

Here are just a few accounts from some of the children who were held in "shelters" around the country.  Imagine if these were your children or grandchildren:

“I felt like a prisoner,” said Diogo De Olivera Filho, a 9-year-old from Brazil who spent five weeks at a shelter in Chicago, including three weeks in isolation after getting chickenpox. When he got lonely and left his quarantined room to see other kids, he said the shelter put up a gate to keep him in. “I felt like a dog,” he said.  [snip]

Most of the children were reluctant to talk about what they went through while they were detained. 

“I don’t want to remember,” said one 10-year-old, who recounted watching an out-of-control kindergartner get injected with something after he misbehaved in class.  [snip]

Sandy was reunited with her mother on July 5 after 55 days at Southwest Key Combes, a shelter in Harlingen, Tex., that was caring for about 60 kids. Some had been separated from their parents; some had crossed the border on their own. 

For Sandy, it was a place of sorrow, fear and scoldings. 

“They told us to behave,” she said, “or we’d be there forever.”  [snip]

Diogo De Olivera Filho, the 9-year-old from Brazil, said he was used to sleeping late but that habit quickly got him in trouble at Casa Guadalupe. 

“They told me, ‘If you keep doing that, you’re going to have to stay here until you’re 18,’ ” he said. 

If it looks like child abuse and talks like child abuse, then it is child abuse.

These abusive acts have been, and are continuing to be, committed in the name of the American government, in your name and my name.  Just as with the deadly negligence that's been the hallmark of the Trump regime's non- response to the Hurricane Maria disaster in Puerto Rico, for these criminals and villains empathy and humanity are reserved for children and families of a certain color and ethnicity.  That there will likely never be a reckoning for those responsible for these horrors makes this all the more hard to swallow.

The moral stain of this era in America will never be washed away or absolved.  But we can strike a  heavy blow against these monsters in November.

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the full article at the link.

The Washington Post has a good read about the fate of Roberto Beristain. Remember him? Seems a lot of people in the small town of Granger, IN, where he lived for decades, are having a problem remembering him, too:

The goofy red sign off State Road 23 still says “Eddie’s Steak Shed,” just as it always has. The thank-you plaques for sponsoring the county Little League are still in the front entrance, alongside 15 years’ worth of stickers honoring the steaks as the area’s best. 

But farther inside, most everything has changed in the year since the old owner was detained, then deported, as part of a crackdown on undocumented immigrants by a tough-talking new president. 

Roberto Beristain, a former dishwasher who worked until he could afford to buy the place, was gone. In his place were refurbished wood-paneled walls, a bar with a granite counter and a new pork chop entree. Even the name had been changed with something snappier, sleeker — Eddie’s was now simply, “The Shed.” 

“I love what you did to the place!” Heather Pepper, 47, exclaimed to the bartender on a recent night. “It looks so updated, and it still feels local.”

The town's original outrage that was felt at the cruelty of Beristain's deportation was superficial and fleeting; the ugliness underlying Americans' acceptance of the white supremacist Republican regime's treatment of innocent people remains strong.

Anne Applebaum discusses the corruption of the regime of kleptocrat Donald "Rump" Trump in the context of other so- called "populists," and why its effects are so pernicious:

Corruption and nepotism have both reached new levels in this White House, as everyone who knew Trump predicted, and as many who voted for him will ignore. Every time one of these stories breaks, there is a routine response: Is this what working-class Americans really wanted when they voted for an “anti-elitist”? Is this what the Midwest meant when it cheered calls to “drain the swamp”? But if history and precedent are any guide, then these abuses of power won’t matter to them at all. 

But the spectacular corruption of so-called anti-elitist elites has another effect in the longer term: It makes people cynical about politics altogether. I recently asked one of Orban’s opponents why the endless revelations of crooked contracts don’t create an overwhelming majority for the opposition. “Because voters now think everyone is corrupt,” he told me. “They’ve got used to it.” As the nepotism and the cronyism of this White House begin to sink in, Americans may not turn against Trump. They may turn against politics, or even democracy, altogether.

The Rump regime is rolling out its NRA- approved plans for school safety (more on that in a separate post), including that age- old method for deflecting and delaying -- a "commission to study the problem." This is the dangerous ninny who'll be in charge:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday night and stumbled in answering questions that journalist Lesley Stahl asked during a pointed interview. 

These are just some of the things that DeVos said — or couldn’t answer — during the interview: 

    - She couldn’t say whether the number of false accusations of sexual assault on school campuses is lower than the number of actual rapes or assaults. 

    - Arming teachers “should be an option” for states and communities, she said, even though she couldn’t “ever imagine” her first-grade teacher, Mrs. Zorhoff, having had a gun. 

    -“We have invested billions and billions and billions of dollars from the federal level, and we have seen zero results,” DeVos said — a statement Stahl challenged. 

    -“I hesitate to talk about all schools in general because schools are made up of individual students attending them.”

DeVos' main mission is to wreck public education in this country just as she did in Michigan. She's a soulless monster who is exposed every time she opens her lie- hole.*

Last but never least, Infidel has another strong link round- up that will introduce you to topics from anime to the composition of sand to speculation about Rump after 2018 (and much more). Always worth time to discover.

*BONUS: Speaking of DeVos, Andy Borowitz has the perfect headline:

Betsy DeVos Calls “60 Minutes” a Waste of a Half Hour

Today's Cartoon Twofer - Wretchedly Refusing

(click on image to enlarge)


(Tom Toles, Washington Post)


(Jim Morin, Miami Herald)

What's On The Agenda Today In Trump's America?

What are the evil bastards up to now?

Rolling back protections for transgender students:

President Donald Trump’s administration announced on Wednesday that it will no longer bar schools from discriminating against transgender students, rescinding a policy put in place by the previous administration. [snip]

[Trump Press Secretary "Spicy" Sean] Spicer said Tuesday that the president considered transgender rights to be “a states’ rights issue and not one for the federal government.”  

“I find it obscene that Mr. Spicer would characterize the well-being, the health and the very safety of transgender young people as an issue of states’ rights,” responded Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. “The fact is that no child in America should have their rights subject to their zip code.”  

Providing the "freedom" of living without affordable health insurance:

As with their "socialized medicine" scary blabber when Medicare/ Medicaid was introduced 50 years ago, the far right has the same talking point:

Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need. Obamacare is Washington telling you what to buy regardless of your needs.

— Paul Ryan (@PRyan) February 21, 2017

Fortunately, we have things called "facts" and "history":

More than half a century later, Medicare hasn’t created a totalitarian dystopia. Instead, it has allowed generations of seniors to access the medical care they need, while sparing them the hardship and indignity of financial ruin. That’s arguably a huge increase in freedom, much like the Affordable Care Act seeks to deliver now.

Or, what she said:

Don't pretend ACA is like making everyone buy a car with a sunroof. It makes sure dealers can't sell you a car without brakes. https://t.co/K6rNwKJsUZ

— Deborah Roseman (@roseperson) February 22, 2017

Sending out the Trump Deportation Squad to terrorize immigrants:

The Department of Homeland Security Tuesday laid out the Trump administration's plans for aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, including a potentially massive expansion of the number of people detained and deported. [snip] 

The fundamental shift in US policy will likely continue to provoke fear in immigrant communities of a vast expansion of the government's use of its enforcement powers to potentially deport undocumented immigrants who have lived in their communities for years, and may have family members who are legal US residents or citizens.

Some of these "aggressive enforcement" actions sound more like the actions of sadists with axes to grind.

Remember, these are the same hypocrites who believe in "family values" and the "sanctity of life," at least before birth and only if you're of the Christian Caucasian persuasion.

Letting the fox "guard" the environmental chicken coop:

As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt, now the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, closely coordinated with major oil and gas producers, electric utilities and political groups with ties to the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch to roll back environmental regulations, according to over 6,000 pages of emails made public on Wednesday. 

The publication of the correspondence comes just days after Mr. Pruitt was sworn in to run the E.P.A., which is charged with reining in pollution and regulating public health. Senate Democrats tried last week to postpone a final vote until the emails could be made public, but Republicans beat back the delay and approved his confirmation on Friday largely along party lines.

Nice touch that the party- before- country Senate Republicans rushed ahead to confirm Pruitt before the emails could be introduced at his confirmation hearing, not that it would've changed the outcome.

All of this is churning while we wait for the truth to come out on the Rump- Putin connection (stay tuned for our next post). No wonder they're moving so fast.

BONUS:  Seth Meyers on Rump's wall and immigration policies --

A CLOSER LOOK at Trump's wall and immigration policies https://t.co/u2x7wp4gpW

— Seth Meyers (@sethmeyers) February 23, 2017

This Is What Fascism Looks Like (A Continuing Series)

It's been less than a week (!) since the installation of neo- fascist authoritarian Donald "Rump" Trump, and the scope of outrageous attacks on American democracy has been nothing less than jaw- dropping. From gag orders on Federal agencies, to drafting an order that would allow torture in re- opened "black site" prisons, to undermining Obamacare, to taking down climate change data from EPA's web site, to repeated lies about "massive voter fraud" in order to justify more voter suppression, and on and on, Rump's Russo- Republican regime is acting quickly before opposition can fully form (with some hand- wringing Democrats, it may never form -- check out the blowback Senate Dems are getting on their lame "tactics").

But one action deserves particular opprobrium:  the restriction (essentially a ban) on Muslim refugees from entering the U.S. The leader of one group that stands with particular historic moral authority said what most Americans now believe about such an immoral action. Here's the executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect:

“The Statue of Liberty weeps over President Trump’s discrimination,” Steven Goldstein wrote in a statement on Facebook. “President Trump is beyond the wrong side of history. He is driving our nation off a moral cliff.”  [snip] 

“President Trump is now exacerbating the largest global refugee crisis in history,” Goldstein wrote on the center’s Facebook page. “His slamming America’s doors on the starving, the wounded and the abused is a grotesque blot on our nation’s history of freedom. The President’s actions are an embarrassment to the timeless vision of America as inscribed by Emma Lazarus to “give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” 

“Demonizing refugees and immigrants, and spending billions of taxpayer dollars to keep them out of our nation, will go down in American history as one of the most tragic deviations from our national conscience,” Goldstein concluded.  (our emphasis)

In additional white nationalist news, Rump has also directed that work begin on a wall on the Mexican border and threatened an assault on "sanctuary cities" with loss of Federal financial aid if they fail to cooperate in his deportation agenda.  Joining the Anne Frank Center in condemning Rump's vile discrimination were other religious leaders, including:

... Rev. Steven Martin of the National Council of Churches offered solidarity with the Muslim community as well as other immigrants who will likely be affected by Trump’s policies. 

“I cannot believe that state sponsored persecution against a class of Americans is taking place,” he said. “Even though I’ve been watching it grow, I cannot believe it.” 

Martin said that the National Council of Churches, which represents roughly 45 million Christians from 38 religious denominations across the U.S., supports sanctuary cities and condemns “any attempts to define terrorism as a product of any one religion,” as well as “any attempts to place a religious test upon refugees attempting to build their new lives in the United States.” 

“This is a big, big deal,” he added. “Today is the day for action.” (our emphasis)

It will turn out that every day from now on is a day for action.  The fact that they're coming at us fast and furious makes this all the more important to grasp and respond accordingly.

BONUS:

First they came for the Latinos, Muslims, women, gays, poor people, intellectuals and scientists and then it was Wednesday.

— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth) January 25, 2017

BONUS II:  If you didn't catch David Muir's interview of Rump on ABC, here's the transcript; Charles Pierce was rightfully horrified.

Today's Cartoon Twofer - Humpty Trumpty And "The Softening"

(click on images to enlarge)


(Steve Benson, via gocomics.com)


(Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)

New Trump, Same As The Old Trump

After his hastily- arranged photo op yesterday with Mexican sucker President Enrique Peña Nieto, neo- fascist deporter Donald "Rump" Trump (or our "Mexican" appellation for him, "Pauncho") made a long- awaited speech in Phoenix that was intended to clarify his and his campaign's contradictory and floundering immigration "policy."  For those in the media desperate for a "pivot" and a horserace, and those "independents" and Republicans who are looking for "cover" to support "Pauncho," we have a bulletin for you:  New Trump, Same As The Old Trump.

“Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation,” Trump said during what he billed as a major policy speech in Phoenix. “That is what it means to have laws and to have a country. Otherwise we don’t have a country.”  [snip] 

“The truth is, the central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants, or however many it may be.”  (our emphasis)

And "the wall?"

Also promised on the border: an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall,” bolstered by technology and paid for by Mexico.

He talked about the wall hours after meeting with with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City. Trump said in a joint press conference afterward the meeting that the two men hadn’t discussed payment for the wall. Peña Nieto later said he told Trump that Mexico refuses pay.

Trump apparently wasn’t convinced.

“Mexico will pay for the wall,” he said during his speech. “100 percent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall.”  (our emphasis)

In short, you could replay yesterday's shouty, hateful Phoenix speech and it would be the same as any speech on immigration Rump's given in the past year, and as the late, great Molly Ivins would have said, "probably sounded better in the original German."

We could go on about what audience Rump is attempting to con at this particular moment, but Norman Ornstein sussed it out perfectly for us:

Most effusive praise for Trump speech? David Duke and Ann Coulter. What more do you need to know?

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) September 1, 2016

BONUS:  Charles Pierce has a great piece on the sniveling media and Rump.

(Photo:  President Pena Nieto and Pauncho yesterday.)

Tweet Of The Day - He'll Know It When He Reads It

Kellyanne Conway on MSNBC says you “have to listen to his speech tomorrow to find out” Trump’s immigration policies

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) August 30, 2016

That goes for Trump, too.  https://t.co/g9vMn68APC

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) August 30, 2016

As he reads it off the teleprompter...

Today's Cartoon - Trump Immigration Speech Preview

Here's your exclusive preview of the speech on "illegal immigration" neo- fascist white nationalist Donald "Rump" Trump will be reading off his teleprompter this Wednesday (you're welcome):

(click on image to enlarge)



(Stuart Carlson, via gocomics.com)

Today's Cartoon - We Can Only Hope

(click on image to enlarge)

(Jack Ohman, The Sacramento Bee)

George Will Aghast Trump Isn't More Subtle About His Deportation Policy

(click on image to enlarge)

(Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Republican establishment hack George F. "Effing" Will is in Official Panic Mode:

It has come to this: The GOP, formerly the party of Lincoln and ostensibly the party of liberty and limited government, is being defined by clamors for a mass roundup and deportation of millions of human beings. To will an end is to will the means for the end, so the Republican clamors are also for the requisite expansion of government’s size and coercive powers.

Most of Donald Trump’s normally loquacious rivals are swaggeringly eager to confront Vladimir Putin but are too invertebrate — Lindsey Graham is an honorable exception — to voice robust disgust with Trump and the spirit of, the police measures necessary for and the cruelties that would accompany his policy. The policy is: “They’ve got to go.”  [snip]

About 900,000 of America’s Hispanic citizens reach voting age each year. In 2012, less than half of eligible Hispanics voted, but Republicans have figured out how to increase Hispanic turnout.  (our emphasis)

Will rightly makes note of the "invertebrate" Republicans running against Trump, but apparently has sensibilities too delicate to note the other "invertebrates" who have led the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party to this pass.  One such "invertebrate" would be George "Effing" Will who, along with the vast majority of right-wing media, has fed hateful nonsense to the yahoos for decades.  Nonsense about immigration.  Nonsense about climate change.  Nonsense about Obamacare.  Nonsense about "voter fraud."  Nonsense about the Iran nuclear deal.  And on and on. For that, George "Effing" Will and his fellow fantasy bullshit artists deserve a great deal of credit.  (As Matt Taibbi notes below, "America has been trending stupid for a long time. Now the stupid wants out of its cage, and Trump is urging it on.")

It's important to note that Will makes his argument against Trump's deportation policy in terms of "expansion of government's size and coercive power" and the electoral effect of firing up Hispanic Americans against Republicans.  Passing attention is paid to the "cruelties."  Also, if you go to the link and read his full op/ ed, he's perfectly happy to talk about "anchor babies" "birthright citizenship" once the clamor (and election?) has passed by.  Punctilious asshole. 

Trump and his far- right- wing nativist/ know-nothing/ fear- engorged claque has found a Petri dish in that part of the American political spectrum in which it has thrived and will continue to thrive.  The biggest problem for Will and his fellow establishment Republicans is that Trump is a blaring horn, whereas they would prefer a dog whistle. 

Trumpnado And The Remoras

Republican front-runner Donald "Rump" Trump's demagogic and racist assault on immigrant families has, as the New York Times notes, given the "talented," "well-qualified," and "strong" field of Republicans running for President an opportunity:

You could say the front-running Mr. Trump has put his opponents in a bind. Or you could say he has given them a gift: the opportunity to be specific in return about what they would do to fix the immigration mess. And to be forthright in rejecting his despicable proposals. Because his plan is so naked — in its scapegoating of immigrants, its barely subtextual racism, its immense cruelty in seeking to reduce millions of people to poverty and hopelessness — it gives his opponents the chance for a very clear moral decision. They can stand up for better values, and against the collective punishment of millions of innocent Americans-in-waiting.

Haha no:

But as Mr. Trump swells in the polls, his diminished opponents are following in his wake, like remoras on a shark. Several have shuffled onto the anti-birthright-citizenship bus, including Rick Santorum, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ben Carson and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who once fought for smart bipartisan immigration reform, wants to repeal birthright citizenship. As does Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a birthright citizen himself. As for Mr. Trump’s other restrictionist proposals, several are firmly lodged again in the playbook of a Republican Party that briefly tried to reform itself after the Mitt Romney debacle. Some candidates are even willing to try to trump Mr. Trump in xenophobia: Mr. Carson is talking about using armed military drones at the border. That’s right — bombing Arizona.

But here's the real underlying problem for the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party:

But they're only responding to their electorate. Look, for instance, at this 2011 Pew Research Center poll, which made clear in its question that ending birthright citizenship would entail amending the Constitution. Thirty-nine percent of Americans overall said that's what we should do to make sure the children of unauthorized immigrants couldn't become citizens. Forty-seven percent of Republicans, and 57 percent of Tea Partiers, agreed.

So it may not be a clear majority of Republican voters, but it's plenty of them, and probably a majority of those committed enough to vote in the primaries. If the candidates are looking at the reception Donald Trump is getting for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and thinking they ought to get some of that action for themselves, that wouldn't be surprising. Within the next few days, polls testing this question will start being released, and I'd be shocked if at least some of them don't show a majority of Republicans supporting an end to birthright citizenship.  (our emphasis)

That's right!  You're dealing with nearly a majority of Republicans who reject birthright citizenship (see:  14th Amendment).  The same self- satisfied, rage- stoked "constitutional conservatives" who believe in the sanctity of the Constitution but don't have a clue what it says (and when they find out, they're agin' it!).  You have a significant portion of the population (see above) that, as Charles Pierce would say, plays with their toes.  At the same time, you have people who have been deemed by the corporate media to be "serious" contenders for the Presidency who are so clearly lacking in character, spine and -- what's that Ron Fournier- admired quality again?  Leadership! -- that they not only refuse to take on Rump, but are actually parroting his position.  Some Commanders- in- Chief there!

Meanwhile, Democrats have your video cameras rolling to capture all of the nativist, racist pandering for those short attention span voters!

Trump's Immigration Plan: Kick 'Em All Out!

Billionaire buffoon and raging id of the Republican Party Donald "Rump" Trump is unveiling his immigration policy:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says that undocumented immigrants "have to go," and he has vowed to undo President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The comments underscore how Trump, who has regularly stoked controversy with comments on illegal immigration and border security, is running a very conservative campaign centered on the issues -- and one that puts him to the right of some of his key primary opponents. On Sunday, Trump released a position paper on immigration and border security that called on Mexico to pay for a wall on the southern border of the United States and force the "mandatory return of all criminal aliens" to their home countries.

He also against "birthright citizenship," which means he takes issue with the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states in Section 1: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."  That Constitution -- it's for losers! You're fired!

But Rump thinks he's "number one with the Hispanics." Actually, we're sure they think he's "Number 2," if you get what we mean and we think you do.

UPDATE:  Rump's "plan" is being well-received by right-wing media and by racist know- nothings (i.e., The Republican Base).  Watch his poll numbers tick up.

UPDATE II:  Koch brothers puppet dummy Gov. Scott Walker says, "Me, too!"