Abuse of Migrant Children 6-26-2018

26, June 2018                Abuse of Migrant Children

At the Shiloh Detention Center children are over-medicated turning them into zombies. They are forced to line up to receive their daily dose of pills. Those who refuse are verbally and physically abused. In addition to the extreme drowsiness, the children experience other major side effects includes extreme weight gain as much as 40 to 50 pounds, in a few months.

One Honduran child identified as D.M. in court filings, arrived at the secured Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in Virginia diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and remained locked up for more than a year. The guards routinely referred to the migrant children as “wetbacks,” and using Trump’s disgusting insults accused them of being rapists or having HIV.

Children who attempt to hurt themselves are handcuffed, have their chests and legs strapped to a chair and have a bag placed over their heads with small holes in it – for hours often soaking in their own urine and feces reminiscent of the appalling images of Abu Ghraib prisoners.

“I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” 6/25/2018

25, June 2018                         “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”

Donald Trump’s gross insensitivity seems to have rubbed off on Melania Trump.

The Sunday morning political pundits were mystified what message the First lady was trying to convey wearing a $39.00 jacket emblazoned with the message “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?”  

To wear such a jacket while visiting immigrant children was in extremely bad taste. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. The president tramples on people’s dignity all the time. For example, he expressed outrage when black athletes kneeled on one knee during the playing of the national anthem to protest the appalling treatment they have to endure by police officers and the public at large, - on a daily basis. Donald Trump and his national security advisor, John Bolton, wrap themselves in the American flag in a false sense of patriotism ignoring the inconvenient truth both used their wealth and influence to avoid the Vietnam draft.

Trump’s little hostages 6/23/2018

23, June 2018                                Trump’s little hostages

President Trump’s executive order rescinding his prior order separating children from their parents does nothing to address the crisis of thousands of families who have already been torn apart. Many parents have been deported and the likelihood of ever seeing their children again remains highly unlikely.  New asylum seekers and their children will be locked up together intensifying their misery.

More than 600 members of the United Methodist Church have filed a formal complaint against fellow church member, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, accusing him of child abuse, immorality and racial discrimination. Protesters followed him shouting, “Stop taking kids!” The audiotape released by ProPublica which captured the wailing sounds of children crying “Mama” and “Papi” from inside a detention center has intensified the outrage.  The immigrants are not “animals” as Trump likes to describe them but innocent victims of gang violence. One immigrant lost two children to gun violence before she crossed the border with her only remaining infant toddler. Not even the sight of devastated families and children in internment camps could move the party that once boasted family values and the protection of the unborn child. The silence of the Republican lambs is deafening!

The longer these children are separated from their parents the more likely they will suffer long-term physiological damage. Bed wetting physical and sexual abuse has already been reported. It is time to halt this inhumane policy NOW.

Child abuse at US-Mexico border 6/16/2018

16, June 2018                         Child abuse at US-Mexico border

Donald Trump's shameless administration has reached a new low.

Immigration enforcement agents have been ripping children away from their parents at the US-Mexico border and locking them up in cages. Reports of rampant abuse are rising and one immigrant parent committed suicide. 

We need to demand an immediate halt stop to this barbaric practice. Failure to do so will only encourage Donald Trump and his anti-Christ brigade to sink us further into a cesspool of moral depravity.

The heartlessness and cruelty are truly mind-boggling. In one case a baby was snatched from her mother while she was breastfeeding.

Our standing in the world has fallen precipitously. No longer are we champions of human rights but have descended into racist, bigoted uncaring society.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions not only publicly defended Trump’s cruel family separation policy but made the preposterous claim that his actions are justified by scripture. Really?

Perhaps we need to remind him what scripture really says about the poor, “Woe unto those who rob the poor of their right and make women and children their prey.” 

Gaza revisited 6/14/2018

14, June 2018                             Gaza revisited

Israeli soldiers have killed at least 119 Palestinians and wounded more than 13,000 since the Palestinians’ nonviolent Great March of Return protests began on March 30.

In response to worldwide condemnation of the slaughter and the murder of Palestinian Medic Razan al-Najjar, the Israeli military doctored a video in a crude attempt to smear her.

At the time of her death, Razan al-Najjar was helping evacuate wounded Palestinians at a protest near the separation fence between Israel and Gaza. At the time of her killing, she was wearing a white medical coat.

The heavily edited video falsely claims the slain medic was acting as a “human shield” for Hamas when she was shot dead by an Israeli sniper.

The IDF logic for her murder, killed with precision weaponry claims that even accidents are directed by God to occur only to bad people, so the victim’s murder was justified. Really? Using such twisted logic, do the Israelis imply 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust because they were bad people? Responding to the brutal Israeli occupation, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain said, “the world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity. People are not statistics.”

The G7 6/12/2018

12, June 2018                                         The G7

Is Donald Trump losing it? It appears that there was complete agreement at the conclusion of the G7 meeting. Trump professed to be pleased, calling the summit wonderful and rating his relationships with other leaders as ten out of ten (the G6 members rated it as a zero).
Yet barely ten minutes after the official communiqué was published, he abruptly changed his mind instructing his officials not to endorse the communiqué. He admonished Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister for making “false statements” and renewed his threat to impose tariffs on automobiles supposedly “flooding the U.S. Market!”

A flummoxed spokesman said Mr. Trudeau had said nothing at the news conference that would explain the thin skin Trump’s volatile outburst. The more mature members of the G7 had tiptoed around the radioactive Trump wary of his unpredictable behavior. His combination of bullying rhetoric and aggrieved victimhood is well-known. The ‘art of the deal’ maestro is rarely persuaded by facts.

Perhaps the most jarring moment during the meeting was Trump’s insistence that the ‘big bad wolf, Russia, be readmitted to the group that had excluded it in 2014 after its invasion of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. The drumbeat of Russia-Trump collusion seems to be getting louder. 

In contrast to the other members of the G6 who came well prepared Trump’s desk was bare. The Cirque du Soleil “knotty” performers who entertained the G7 leaders were not the only ones tying extricate themselves from the knots of the “US Spiderman”.

Traumatized 6/7/2018

7, June 2018                                            Traumatized

Since 2014, legal service providers like Human Rights Imitative have witnessed a steady pace of immigrants from the Northern Triangle: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras escaping mind-numbing violence.

Meanwhile, Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, followed through on his promise to separate immigrants from their children. Headlines and social media reported that more than 1,500 migrant children had vanished and parents would now be prosecuted as criminals. On a visit to McAllen Border Station processing center, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), witnessed hundreds of children sleeping on concrete floors in large cages made of fencing and wire nets.

Video footage of traumatized children has gone viral creating mounting outrage.

Many of these immigrant children are considered “unaccompanied” and shuttled through the same legal process as a child who crosses the border alone. The potential for sexual and physical abuse is enormous.

Due process is replaced by “group court sessions” to accelerate the process with lack of English adding to the confusion.

In some cases, children were carelessly turned over to labor and sex traffickers who posed as relatives. This administration continues to take a humanitarian crisis and treat it as a criminal justice problem. This results in children being ripped from their parents' arms and the parents placed in jail. This is neither necessary nor humane. A chronic shortage of legal help forces children to represent themselves in a Dicksonian style tragedy. This is an absolute travesty

Murder of a saint in Gaza 6/5/2018

5, June 2018                             Murder of a saint in Gaza

An Israeli Sniper killed 21-Year-Old Palestinian Medic Razan al-Najjar as she ran toward the border fence to provide medical aid to a wounded protester. Unconcerned that Israel has violated every norm of human behavior the US dutifully protected Israel vetoing a draft resolution urging protection of Palestinians on the same day  Medic Razan al-Najjar was murdered.

James Heenan, head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory stated there was no justification for the killing “Razan posed no threat to heavily-armed, well-protected Israeli forces.”

Najjar was taken to a hospital, where she died from her injuries. In total, the Israeli military has killed at least 119 Palestinians, wounded more than 13,000,  including 14 children as part of the brutal crackdown against the Palestinians’ demanding an end to the Israeli occupation.  A volunteer ambulance worker told the Associated Press that he and Najjar were planning to announce their engagement at the end of Ramadan.

The morally challenged U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, said the resolution was “one-sided.” It’s a pity Haley has abandoned her Sikh religious traditions of speaking truth to power to pander to the Gestapo behavior of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).  By its actions, the US is complicit in Razan al-Najjar’s murder.

Presidential Pardons & Dinesh D’Souza 6-3-2018

3, June 2018                        Presidential Pardons & Dinesh D’Souza

Donald Trump’s latest verbal grenade is symptomatic with his earlier anti-democratic tirades. The Ten Commandments, which he has violated throughout his life has been replaced by a new, 11 commandment, “look after they self”.

His recent presidential pardons, includes Indian-American Dinesh D’Souza.

The thoroughly disgraced D’Souza was indicted by fellow Indian-American, Preet Bharara in 2014 for using “straw donors” to funnel $20,000 to Wendy Long’s 2012 US Senate campaign in New York. D’Souza pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house and five years’ probation, along with a $30,000 fine. Following his full pardon, the “caged” D’Souza fired back a nasty tweet at his tormentor, Preet Bharara.

It is puzzling to understand why D'Souza is so infatuated with America and western 'civilization' in general that he would like to export the American “democratic model” to other nations.

I urge D'Souza to turn the pages of history and reflect on the sordid pattern of US foreign policy decisions which have resulted in so much loss of life to advance 'American interests'.

A few examples-the 1953 CIA coup replacing the popular government of Mossadegh with the demonic Shah of Iran, the repressive 16-year rule of Jafaar Nimeiry of Sudan, the coup in Chile where thousands of civilians disappeared, the coup in Indonesia resulting in 1,000,000 deaths, the contra war in Nicaragua, the secret expansion of the Vietnam war into neighboring Cambodia and Laos, the looting of the Philippines by our 'ally' Ferdinand Marcos. The massive ethnic cleaning of Palestine, the siege of Gaza. .  These crimes against humanity make a mockery of US claims to support democratic regimes. I hope D’Souza has learned an important lesson from his indictment and resists the temptation to seek power and influence and ingratiate himself with Donald Trump and instead works for peace, truth and justice.

Presidential Pardons & Dinesh D’Souza 6/3/2018

3, June 2018                        Presidential Pardons & Dinesh D’Souza

Donald Trump’s latest verbal grenade is symptomatic with his earlier anti-democratic tirades. The Ten Commandments, which he has violated throughout his life has been replaced by a new, 11 commandment, “look after they self”.

His recent presidential pardons, includes Indian-American Dinesh D’Souza.

The thoroughly disgraced D’Souza was indicted by fellow Indian-American, Preet Bharara in 2014 for using “straw donors” to funnel $20,000 to Wendy Long’s 2012 US Senate campaign in New York. D’Souza pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house and five years’ probation, along with a $30,000 fine. Following his full pardon, the “caged” D’Souza fired back a nasty tweet at his tormentor, Preet Bharara.

It is puzzling to understand why D'Souza is so infatuated with America and western 'civilization' in general that he would like to export the American “democratic model” to other nations.

I urge D'Souza to turn the pages of history and reflect on the sordid pattern of US foreign policy decisions which have resulted in so much loss of life to advance 'American interests'.

A few examples-the 1953 CIA coup replacing the popular government of Mossadegh with the demonic Shah of Iran, the repressive 16-year rule of Jafaar Nimeiry of Sudan, the coup in Chile where thousands of civilians disappeared, the coup in Indonesia resulting in 1,000,000 deaths, the contra war in Nicaragua, the secret expansion of the Vietnam war into neighboring Cambodia and Laos, the looting of the Philippines by our 'ally' Ferdinand Marcos. The massive ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the siege of Gaza. These crimes against humanity make a mockery of US claims to support democratic regimes. I hope D’Souza has learned an important lesson from his indictment and resists the temptation to seek power and influence and ingratiate himself with Donald Trump and instead works for peace, truth, and justice.