Not much occurred in regard to
the Trump impeachment hearings last week, but that doesn’t mean disturbing
things didn’t occur in Trump World. The national news media made a big deal out
of a shooting at a Pelham, New Hampshire church where a wedding was taking
place; two people—the bishop officiating the ceremony and the bride—suffered
superficial wounds after the members of the congregation tackled the shooter. What
was most peculiar about this was that the shooter was the stepson of the
church’s recently slain pastor, Luis Garcia—and the groom was the father of
Garcia’s killer, a “troubled” white teenager he was trying to help. More
astounding was the shocking degree of insensitivity shown by the church and its
membership in that it held the wedding on the same day as Garcia’s memorial
service—which likely was the emotional “spark” that led to the shooting—which
was subsequently canceled. Perhaps less “shocking” was that while the national
news media reported this incident, it was completely clueless about the
backstory, perhaps because since the slain pastor was Hispanic, it wasn’t
national newsworthy.
What else? Donald Trump held a
campaign rally in Minneapolis; Trump only received 28 percent of the vote in
the county the city is situated in, and even less within the city limits.
Protestors burned MAGA hats, which isn’t hard because those things feel like
they are made of tissue paper. The Prince estate was upset because Trump used
one of the late musician’s songs without permission. But the disturbing thing
about the whole event was the attitude of the Minneapolis police. The mayor had
ordered that no police officers would be allowed to attend the rally in
uniform, and the police union responded by providing T-shirts for police who
wished to advertise their support for Trump. What this tells us is that some
Minneapolis police officers were actively demonstrating their contempt for the community
they allegedly serve, and who pay their salaries. By the way, according to the
website Salary.com, if you have “0 years experience and a High School Diploma
or Tech Certificate, or equivalent degree, supervising 0 people and reporting
to a Supervisor (as opposed to a manager), your base salary will be between
$55,000 and $58,000 as a rookie cop, presumably after you were “trained.”
Meanwhile, acting DHS Secretary
Kevin McAleenan resigned; the “favorite” to replace him is the current USCIS
director Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican with extreme-right views, an
embarrassment to the Catholic Church that doesn’t need more, an anti-Hispanic
immigrant fanatic and another hypocritical Italian-American whose knowledge of
their own immigration history isn’t particularly honest. Cuccinelli recently put into place the “public
charge” rule that Stephen Miller was pushing but opposed by others, whose
purpose was to make it almost impossible for those who are not already well-off
to immigrate legally into this country. Never even when this was employed
during World War II was one’s ability to pay for health care a part of the
equation, but under the Miller/Cuccinelli rule, you can be perfectly healthy
and still be denied lawful immigration—and this in a country where it is
perfectly legal (thanks to the Republican killing of the ACA mandate) for a
U.S. citizen not to have health insurance regardless of their health status.
Despite the racist overtones of
this policy, only immigrant rights advocates really seem to “care.” As a Border
agent observed when he heard a female reporter talking excitedly to someone on
her phone about the conditions that migrant children were living in, he didn’t
see what the point was because “nobody really cares.” These people are escaping
horrible conditions that U.S. policy has had a hand in creating, yet these
people are little more than human vermin who have no “point.” One UCIS representative, Danielle Spooner,
told CNN that Cuccinelli’s original appointment made it “clear that the goal of this Administration
is to end immigration altogether. How better to do that then by appointing as
the leader of USCIS someone who knows nothing about immigration, adjustment of
status or naturalization, and whose sole purpose is to destroy the agency that
grants these benefits.” If he becomes head of DHS, this is akin to tasking Heinrich
Himmler to oversee the department’s crimes against humanity.
Cuccinelli’s probable appointment
would also be the last nail in the coffin of human decency in the Trump
administration. Last August in The
Atlantic Monthly, Elaina Plott wrote that “A former senior White House
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be frank, told me
that one of the chief challenges in staffing this administration has been
finding people whose fervor for hard-line immigration policies matches that of
the president, and whose résumé includes even one line of government
experience. Miller has thus found himself on an island at times in his attempt
to execute his more extreme visions for the nation’s immigration system,” and
that Miller often engaged in “screaming matches” with officials who did not
agree with his racist ideas. Cuccinelli, on the other hand, is Miller’s dream.
When Cuccinelli was a Virginia state senator he “introduced legislation that
would have allowed employers to fire those who didn’t speak English in the
workplace. Under his plan, those fired would have subsequently been ineligible
for unemployment benefits. At the time, state Senate Majority Leader Richard
Saslaw called it “the most mean-spirited piece of legislation I have seen in my
30 years down here.” Mitch McConnell has been on record as stating his distaste
for Cuccinelli and his wish that Trump not put his name forward as head of the
DHS, but we’ve heard that story before.
Overseas, we learn that thanks to
Trump’s foreign affairs “acumen”—including making friends with our enemies,
making enemies of our friends—North Korea is back to launching missiles, China
is backing-off on claims of “progress” in trade talks, Turkey is allowing
thousands of captured ISIS fighters to
escape to engage in activities like beheading journalists, and it is now proven
that Russia did commit war crimes by deliberately bombing hospitals in rebel-held
areas in Syria. There are some politicians like Rand Paul and Tulsi Gabbard are
all in on an isolationist America, but Trump’s nonsensical approach to foreign
and trade policy only weakens the U.S.—nobody knows what Trump really wants, he
changes his mind on whim, and nobody can take him seriously. All other world
leaders know is that Trump is both dangerous and easily manipulated to their
advantage.
Trump, meanwhile, has been
doubling-down on his support of Rudy Giuliani, now accused of colluding with
two Russian-born Ukrainian businessmen who besides helping him go down his
Biden rabbit hole, also seem to be a conduit to his own illicit business
activities in the Ukraine. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman tried to escape on “one-way”
tickets out of the country before being nabbed by federal agentsm and they are
charged with attempting to circumvent foreign campaign contributions,
apparently to a former Texas congressman, making false statements and
falsifying records. They are also accused of illegally donating $325,000 to the
pro-Trump Super PAC America First Action. Did I mention that Giuliani has
business interests in the Ukraine? Could it be his ties to these two men would
suggest that maybe his activities
should be investigated for corruption, and not the Bidens? Hunter Biden
recently announced he was ending his business affiliations in China, having
already done so in the Ukraine in order not to create a “conflict of interest”
problem for his father. Yet we see Trump children Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric all
currently having ongoing business interests overseas; Ivanka, as we know,
serves as “senior advisor,” or something, to her father. The hypocrisy is just
too much to take.
And that is the week that was in
Trump world, and with Congress coming back from recess this week, it could be
seen as a bit of a “slow” one.
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