Sunday, October 13, 2019

Little on the impeachment front last week, but that didn't mean nothing happened


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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