You know, once we have a normal human as president again, I hope that, after they root out the rot at the DOJ, they aggressively prosecute every single one of these guards. They’re committing criminal child abuse, and they need to be charged, convicted, and imprisoned. Not just because they’re scum who shouldn’t be walking free, but to serve as a warning to the next set of assholes if we ever have such a piece of shit president again.
Cory Booker has a thread on Twitter (sorry I can’t search for it right now) describing how he went down to Harlingen (FAR South Texas, if I’m remembering correctly) and helped some people apply for asylum. Ninety percent of the replies to his post said things like he was breaking the law, undermining the president, and that he should be arrested. :smack:
This is the Cory Booker thing I referred to above. This is the first post. He explains what he did in subsequent posts.
Most of the replies are completely unhinged.
Anyhoo. You get the idea.
Thank you for your moderation.
I had assumed that there was not a problem with posting too many times in a thread. Thank you for pointing out this transgression.
I had also assumed that I was ranting about some folks out there in the world who have no problem with putting children in cages and denying them basic hygiene and medical attention. I hope that I have not insulted too many posters here with this. I will endeavor not to demonize these people in the future, and give them more respect.
The NYT reports about the facility at Clint, TX:
Makes you proud to be an American.
Brownshirts in search of a Hitler.
If everyone knew that a vote for Trump was a vote for torturing non-white children, do you think his vote count would go up, or down?
Probably up. Trump’s approval rating is at its highest ever. A significant percentage of Americans are monsters.
“Trump and His Aides Dismiss Reports of Disease and Hunger in Border Facilities”
Okay. Everybody’s making it all up. Nothingberder. Move on. Nothing to see.
I haven’t seen a word about how they are keeping track of the kids much less the parents. Are we going to have a reprise of last year’s crisis where nobody had records of who was who, who belonged to who, or who any of the contacts were. Supposedly around 70% to 80% of these kids have relatives or contacts within the United States that they could be immediately released to, or parents they could be reunited with. Given the obvious chaos and mismanagement at the border I have very little faith in the government’s record keeping systems.
I don’t think most Americans necessarily take delight in their suffering, though some obviously do. A more likely explanation is that people just don’t care - it’s apathy, which is in some ways worse. I think apathy and the inability to connect the suffering and negative experiences of others, be they migrants in a detention camp or young black men beat up by cops, has a lot to do with Trump’s rise. People have to somehow understand that someone else’s suffering ultimately endangers the rest of us all the same. But that’s not an easy lesson for people to absorb if they’re not exposed to the situation. For most people, it’s strictly about how well their doing and how they perceive the mood and sentiments of people around them. When that ultimately sours, then we’ll see opinions shift.
If they actually cared about what their Bible says that they claim is inerrant, even that wouldn’t matter, for they would heed these words of Deuteronomy, just for one of many for-instances:
But of course the word of their supposed Lord falls on deaf ears, as only 25% of white evangelicals think we have any responsibility towards refugees.
There are individual white evangelicals who are also Christians, but white evangelicalism as a movement parted company with Christianity somewhere along the way.
Good interview with a lawyer who has been regularly visiting migrant housing facilities:
"Q: Which part of this crisis is attributable to Bush/Obama policies, and what parts are the result of new Trump-era policy shifts?
A: The Trump administration’s conscious disregard for the rule of law results in migrants being detained in temporary facilities for far longer than 72 hours on a regular basis. The ICE processing facilities are crazy places that are front lines in a huge crisis. As an advocate, I realize that these facilities are not going to run perfectly all the time because the circumstances are challenging to say the least. But there’s no sense that the administration is even trying to uphold the spirit of those important protections, and that is different than previous administrations’ responses to challenging circumstances and very tough calls.
The Trump administration’s instructions to ICE officers as to how to determine whether parents are fit to retain custody of their kids continues to lead to unnecessary separations. I’ve met dozens of kids who were separated from their fathers during processing, with no reason given as to why they deemed the father unfit to retain custody. I’ve met many kids who were separated from their mothers because of some unclear but entirely surprising criminal stain on the mother’s record, potentially something related to a prior unlawful entry in the U.S. (something that also was rarely prosecuted under Bush or Obama)."
Thousands of migrant kids face indefinite government custody
:smack:
Never mind the permanent trauma of being separated suddenly from your parents and basically put in prison… indefinitely. Even if they were being housed in a luxury hotel, the separation trauma would still scar them for life.
“When they turn 18”??? The government snatched these kids from their parents, stuck them in what amounts to a prison, and they’re going to reach adulthood there?? WTF??
And this story has migrated off the front pages, because Dear Leader keeps creating new crises to upstage it.
Lord, I hate this timeline.
I know you and I disagree about impeachment, and that’s OK. But this would be my #1 choice of what to impeach him over. Just to force the Republicans in Congress to take a very public stand on this.
I don’t disagree about impeachment–just about WHEN. I want it to be effective. I used to have a boss who said, “You only get one chance to burn yourself up in front of the building-- so choose the right moment.” (It was the 70s when monks were doing this…)
It’s coming back into fashion (possibly NSFW images at the link, and I do not recommend or advocate such actions)
Yeah, I remember that - I’m old enough that I had to register for the draft while we were still fighting in Vietnam. (Still a few years younger than you, though. :D)
I’d been figuring it’s 2019 or never: once we’re into next year, having impeachment and the primaries going on at the same time would be messy, and besides, that close to the election, “why bother now?” becomes a legit question. And if Trump wins in 2020, it’s just going to come across as sour grapes, and on top of not getting him removed, it won’t affect his re-election since that’ll already have happened. It becomes an empty gesture.
So I just don’t see that there is another moment.
Hey! Once you pass 65, the years just blur together, amirite? 
I absolutely see your point. I think the moment is very close. I think Mueller thought he WAS giving us the moment yesterday. He dribbled it down court (slowly, I grant you) and passed it to the Dems under the basket. It’s up to them to make the slam dunk. (Basketball is the only sport I understand.) And I think Nancy got that when she said right after the hearings:
My emphasis.
Contrary to what some people are saying, I don’t think the Dems are being weak; I think they’re being smart. And strong. It takes strength and resolve to WAIT for the right moment and not just jump in because the crowd is screaming at you to DO SOMETHING–ANYTHING. I’m glad Nancy has the strength to resist pressure to act prematurely.
But you’re right: it has to happen before the election season gets fully underway.
I hope you’re right. I guess I see it as, what we already know about Trump/Russia is at least as strong as what we knew about Nixon when the Judiciary Committee voted articles of impeachment on Nixon. (Which as I’m sure you remember, happened before the release of the ‘smoking gun’ tape rendered the whole thing moot.) I just don’t see what we need from the courts that’s going to be such a game-breaker.
The other thing is, Trump/Russia is just one thing. Like I’ve said before, we could and should impeach him over babies in cages, because nothing remotely like this should be happening in America, he’s had a year to fix this, and conditions seem to be even more horrible now than we knew about last summer.