I know,I know. She thinks she's got the best way to cream Donald Trump. So many lawsuits will bury him when he leaves office, he won't be able to breathe.
BUT meanwhile, every day some environmental protection, some civil right, some necessary social protection is being undone. Another of his allies is put forth to head a government agency. How many more until November 21? And what if he wins? And if he doesn''t, what if he resigns just before his presidency is over and Mike Pence exonerates him?
YIKES!!!
I know it's not anything she would deliberately do, but what if she's so convinced of her rightness and with her followers on short leashes (maybe a little Trump-like) and she is leading the country down the garden path to the destruction of its democracy.
Wjy o why can't she do what's RIGHT, not what she perceives will work. She is being amoral at best. By not following the law and holding impeachment hearings, she is making it okay for the next speaker to evade the law. In fact, she is taking McConnell one step further than he has gone.
What if the Senate doesn't go along? THEY will be the ones who can be held up to the light of day for going along with our gangster president.
Being open, honest and strong will win more than being slimy as she's being right now.
PLEASE, Nancy for us ordinary citizens, forget your rich, rich friends and go for impeachment. Be a DEMOCRAT!
It occurred to a friend of ours that Trump is benefitting with his base from these terrible migration issues, both the numbers of migrants he can demonize and with the idea of buildling a wall and with the horrible boiling over pot he can keep stirring. Anyone else notice this!?
People, you really ought to look at Hillary's foreign policy as secretary of state before you vote for her. There is a pile of destructive actions (to be polite). The most recent reported on is in Haiti. Before that there is Libya -- I'm not talking about Ben Ghazi -- as reported in two NY Times articles here and here and a video here. Googling Hillary Libya will get you many more critical articles. Then there is Honduras here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-needs-to-answer-for-her-actions-in-honduras-and-haiti/. there are plenty of other articles if you google Hillary Honduras. Then there's Mexico. Mexico's narcoquagmire owes at least some of its mess to Clinton's stands and actions. Here . is one article: http://fpif.org/hillary-clintons-dark-drug-war-legacy-mexico/ I know more about this because I live in Mexico and read about it and talk about it all the time. But this article is a good start, and again, googling will get you a lot more. Then there's her push for a no-fly zone over Syria, which was criticized for being unfeasible and was something Obama himself didn't want. Then of course there's her vote for war in Iraq.
When I watch her in debates and town hall meetings, she seems too confident, not introspective, deaf to cultural and local political issues, unaware that she is involved in decisions to take human lives. I just don't trust her to be president.
In the Atlantic Monthly today Jeffrey Goldberg writes about "talking to a senior administration official about Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister2 and leader of its seemingly endless provocations of the Palestinians, many of which have been brutal and bloody. Goldberg is no anti-Israeli writer, by the way, and his article seems to me a model of calm, non-hysterical journalism. He reports that the official said, "'The thing about Bibi is, he's a chickenshit.' "
Goldberg goes on to say that "relations between the Obama and Netanyahu governments have moved toward a full-blown crisis. The relationship between these...dual guarantors of the putatively 'unbreakable' bond between the US and Israel is now the worst it's ever been and stands to get significantly worse after the midterm elections."
Goldberg lays the blame mostly on Netanyahu who apparently ¨plans to speak directly to Congress and the American people should an Iran nuclear deal be reached." The administration expresses a "'red-hot anger at Bibi because of "his settlement policies on the West Bank and building policies in Jerusalem...."
These policies in Jerusalem which have led to Israel building housing for Jews past a previously agreed-to demarcation have resulted in Arab protests.
While I think that you could sense growing administration hostility, this article will surprise people, I think. And I think it's excellent that the administration is no longer willing to stand by while Netanhayu leads Israel into horrendous actions against Palestinians. You should read the whole piece. It appears at this point that the administration views Netanyahu as scared to start a war against Iran and most interested in maintaining his place as prime minister.
In no way would I argue that Netanyahu is a good and enlightened leader, but seeing him "as a national leader who acts as though he is mayor of Jerusalem, which is to say a no-vision small-timer who worries mainly about pleasing the hardest core of his constituency" I think points to a serious weakness in the administration's world view. There is rarely evidence that anyone in the administration sees leaders as having biographies and histories of their own, the understanding of which would vastly help US foreign policy. Does anyone know who Netanyahu's father was? How his father influenced him? How the death of his brother in combat with the Israeli army, how spending his teenage years in white, Jewish suburban Pennsylvania, his college years at MIT and post-college years working with Mitt Romney might have influenced him? I don't have a clue how you open someone like Netanyahu up to different possibilities. He's probably much more intransigent than Obama and Kerry realize. Our administration's cultural deafness continues to be a significant problem.
Anyway, you can read about the Israeli and Netanyahu's response to the US in the (leftish) Israeli newspaper Haaretz here.
August 18, 2014
This is not about Diego and Henry (yet) nor more about Freud and Netanyahu (yet), but it is about the continuing sin of racism in the US by Juan Cole, one of my favorite bloggers. It has some dramatic numbers about black arrests, etc. Inequality lives on.
Amurricans (or as a NY Times blogger called them/us, Amerks) exercising their rights:
Foto Ap
Go Rick Perry Go!
Below you can find my translation of pieces of an article by several news agencies: Notimex, ap and Reuters which appears in today's La Jornada.
First a slight Rick Perry detour.
Here is a photo of Rick Perry in glasses.
Perry may or may not need them, but I suspect this pair is purely cosmetic. There is no evidence of lense distortion of the eyes. Not even a tiny bit. They don't even magnify his eyes a bit the way glasses for presbyopia (older people's trouble seeing close--he surely needs some at 64. But he wouldn't want to wear THOSE in public). And you'll notice they are the um trendiest sort, the kind EVERYONE on TV is wearing. Maybe he got the idea from Sarah Palin.
On Sunday, Perry attended church at Clear Lake Evangelical Church in Iowa. Notice the church is in Iowa. In 2012 Perry soared and then crashed in Iowa. At this church, according to the Washington Post, "He came for redemption. . . . . Rick perry held his arms across his torso and swayed as the choir sang. . . . He bowed his head while the pastor preached about 'God's perfect plan of salvation.'"
The Washington Post says that the border crisis "gives Perry an animating issue placing him at the forefront of Republican politics." The article goes on, "After church. . . Perry spoke about the influx of young immigrants in front of about 100 conservative activists who sat rapt inside a hot and steamy airplane hangar here. When the governor said the words ´'securing the border,' he clenched his left fist, flexed his bicep and leaned his body forward. He paced side to side with a wireless microphone and no notes, bending his knees for emphasis. He looked like a Texas A&M football coach giving the aggies a pep talk.
. . . .
"'I will tell you this,' he added, his voice growing louder. 'If the federal government does not do its constitutional duty to secure the southern border of the United States, the state of Texas will do it!'"
"The activists rose to their feet and cheered. Perry had scored a touchdown."
This is one of those situations where if I didn't laugh I'd cry.
As I said, the following story is from a joint effort by news agencies in La Jornada. The translation is mine.
"Yesterday Rick Perry announced the deployment of a thousand soldiers in the National Gard on the frontier with Mexico to reinforce the security in the midst of a human crisis without precedent, in the face of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors, the majority coming from Central America.
"The governor, a possible aspirant [I wish this were a joke. Maybe a running character on Saturday Night Live if it still exists] for the Republican nomination for president, said that in recent months the security measures on the border had been seen to be overwhelmed by the arrival of some 57 thousand unaccompanied child migrants crossing into the US between October and June.
"The governor maintained that cartels and criminal gans were exploiting this situation in order to engage in trafficking in people and drugs.
"Perry said that the National Guard troups would work together with state agents from the Department of Public Security to guarantee security to all residents.
"The soldiers will also help to combat the drug cartels and to dissuade the foreign criminals from entering.
. . . .
"Perry, critical of the White House response to this crisis, said that the State has the responsibility to act in the face of 'the vain words and empty promises' of the federal government.
Democratic legislators accused Perry of militarizing the frontier. 'Militarization is the wrong reponse to the arrival of these children,' said Joaquín Castro, a Congressional representative [from San Antonio]I continue to hope that our state can give a measured more useful response than to send armed soldiers to welcome the children seeking refuge from the violence," he said.
The chief of police of Cameron County [the southeastern most county of Texas, across the border from Matamoros. It includes Brownsville] Omar Lucio said that he didn't know if the troops would arrive at that part of the border and asked what benefits it would bring in case it did. 'These people are trained for war, not for police work,' he asserted. . . 'I think the money would be better spent if it were given to agencies in charge of enforcing the law near the frontier.'
"More than 3 thousand agents of the Border Patrol operate in south Texas. Perry has asked Obama on many occasions to send the National Guard to the border. "
+ + + + + +
And just so you can get further acquainted with this man Rick Perry who is governor of Texas and apparently still hoping to run for President, listen to him at athe Conservative Political Action Conference of the United States this year in Washington DC.
Good grief. I hope you recognize what a fantasyland this man lives in with his followers.
And here are some pictures taken from La Jornada of kids.
A child at a demonstration in California. (Reuters)
An immigrant minor rests under a train in Arriaga, Chiapas, on his way to the US frontier (Foto: Alfredo Dominguez)
A child in a processing center in Texas. (foto AP)
Two small Central Americans play in a refuge in Tapachula [Mexico, I think.] (foto: Alfredo Dominguez)
These kids could be anyone's kids. They don't need a system that batters and bruises them.
La Jornada has been covering this migration story pretty extensively. Below you can find my translation of parts of La Jornada's David Brooks' column in La Jornada yesterday (July 19). This isn't so amusing or uplifting, but it is important reading.
"The influential comic Jon Stewart on his . . .show 'The Daily Show' gave examples of an almost obscene fear which could be seen in the political debate over the crisis of the exodus of migrant children. In the face of the question so many politicians were asking,'Why you couldn't just deport them,' he responded, "What the fuck is going on with them? We are talking about children.' And in response to the repeated rhetorical phrase of many politicians that "this is a nation of immigrants," he said, yes, "We have always been a nation of immigrants who hate the most recent immigrants."
"Washington, so as not to [seem inconsistent], continues to be overwhelmed by a debate which does not offer a solution to what everyone now calls a "humanitarian Crisis", let alone to its root causes. Meanwhile community service organizations, immigrant rights groups, lawyers, immigrant activists, religious groups and civil rights groups continue to help and defend the tens of thousands of childrn from Mexico and other nations of Central America who now find themselves distributed not only along the frontier, but in diverse places across the country.
. . . .
¨But although they are offered medical checkups and other urgent services at the beginning, the children can't count on long term assistance including treatment for trauma-caused conditions which many suffer, and it is here that organizations dedicated to bringing services to migrant communities find themselves burdened with the recently arrived. Although not all the communities where new shelters are being considered offer the migrants a welcome, others are opening their arms.
"In the city of New York where almost half of the city is made up of immigrants, the municipal authorities and social organizations are collaborating to develop a strategy to bring support to the more than three thousand minors who have arrived there and in other parts of the state (it is expected that another seven thousand will arrive in the next months). At the national level, there are approximately 100 shelters under federal government supervision.
"Although the government of Barack Obama promises that "the rights" of the minors will be respected, even if the rate of deportation [cases] is successfully accelerated, as [who? the President?] desires, this [increase in availability of lawyers?]has not happened, lawyers and civil rights activists say.*
"The immigration lawyer José Pertierra affirms that you can't guarantee the legal rights of migrants without a lawyer. He explained to La Jornada that at this time the children don't have a right to a lawyer. The problem is that a violation of immigrant law is a civil matter, not a criminal matter and as such there is no automatic right to a lawyer. . . . Furthermore, by law, a minor does not have the capacity to represent himself before a court.
"Pertierra offers the example of a Honduran girl of eight appearing before a judge who did all he could not to scare the child while he explained the process to which she would be submitted, that she would be subject to deportation and would have to present herself on a certain date to argue her case, none of which she understood. Having just arrived, after crossing Mexico, she was brought to the immigration authorities, was transferred to a center and from there to the outskirts of Washington. Then an unknown man in an unknown land explained the law to her. These scenes are repeated thousands of times around the country.
"Even worse, in some cases in which lawyers are presented to represent the minors, the federal government has tried to deny access to them.
"Because of this, the demand before a federal court presented recently by the ACLU and the National Center of Immigration Law to oblige the government to guarantee legal representation to these children is among 'the most important steps in practical terms at this point' says Pertierra.
"'It is incredible that the government has been categorically denying to children in custody in Nogales who are fleeing violence, access to lawyers,' says Jennifer Chang Newell, of the migrant project of the ACLU, shortly after a judge ruled that the federal government had to permit a group of Salvadoren children to be able to consult with their lawyers. However, the ruling is not so extensive for all minors in this exodus.
. . . . The religious activist Juan Carlos Ruiz of the group Nuevo Santuario declared in an action in front of Federal Government offices in New York, 'today the children of Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador -- like those of Gaza -- shout for protection and defense from all of us.'"
Brooks finishes by asking whether Obama who has done more to fortify the border than any president before him and who has deported more than any president before him will be remembered as "The Deporter in Chief" or whether he will have the courage "to face the anti-imigrant forces that have prevailed in recent years."
* This paragraph puzzles me. In Spanish it reads, Aundque el govierno de Barack Obama promete que "los derechos" de los menores serán respetados, aun si se lograr acelerar como desea, el proceso para facilitar su deportacion, en los hechos esto no ha ocurrido, denuncian abogados y defensores de derechos civiles.
Focus first on the white man lying, beaten up, on the ground. Then focus on the black woman, armed, lying on top of him, protecting him. And the black child hit by the car the white guy was driving, but not seriously hurt. Then pan to the black men standing around him and the black crowd a bit further back.
What happened: a white guy driving a truck accidentally hit the black kid who reportedly dashed out into the street. A dozen black men beat him up. A black nurse who happened to be there wielded her gun as she threw herself on him to protect him.
Charlie LeDuff, a reporter now for a local Fox news station, has written an op-ed piece in the NY Times called "A Beating in Detroit" about this incident. You should read it. LeDuff walks the line between black and white, siding with neither particularly, but showing a lot of insight as he goes.
The article reminded me: racism isn't always obvious at first glance, and sometimes what is called racism isn't.
I'm sure I've mentioned that when I was a psychiatric social worker in southern Illinois, racism among the white staff was rampant. And it was acceptable among the whites. People believed that the views they held which I call racism were really an accurate measure of what blacks were. Being racist also was a way of drawing the white staff together, a badge of belonging. And it had been passed down from parent to child. It was deeply entrenched in people's very souls. But this shouldn't be surprising. Scratch the surface and you will find that pretty much all of us harbor a streak of racism, if unconsciously.
"Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply on the basis of their race and that some racial groups are superior to others. Racism and discrimination have been used as powerful weapons encouraging fear or hatred of others in times of conflict and war, and even during economic downturns."
The article continues:
"Racism is also a very touchy subject for some people, as issues concerning free speech and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights come into play. Some people argue that talking about supporting racial discrimination and prejudice is just words and that free speech should allow such views to be aired without restriction. Others point out that these words can lead to some very dire and serious consequences (the Nazi government policies being one example).
"[T]he American Anthropological Association says race is a powerful idea and an enduring concept, invented by society. It has also fostered inequality and discrimination for centuries, as well as influencing how we relate to other human beings."
Sometimes in the US at least, whites accuse blacks of being "reverse racists" and in some strange way manage to use this as a justification for continuing to hold their own beliefs.
As I said, everywhere you look, racism has a grip on hearts and minds. For a good global look at it, check out this post on Global Issues.
Here in Mexico, I'm always surprised to run into gringos who hold really terrible racist views about the Mexicans they live amongst. Yet I'm sure such people would deny that they had any negative, unfounded views.
Possibly some of ou white guys are starting to get all squinty eyed and grouchy at me for mostly discussing white racism. Well, I am white and don't think I can get all holier than thou about non-white folks. Most of the time, our prejudices don't seriously affect other people, and sometimes they are even a step or two towards understanding. When it comes to the twelve black guys who ganged up on the white driver, I don't know if that's racism or simply hatred of a symbol of the group that has most hurt them. A big point to bear in mind are the roles of power and the need for group membership play in racism. For it to be reverse racism there has to be a racism on the other side that is identified with putting people down and causing harm to them.
I sometimes think speech shouldn't be politically correct. Polite maybe, but not politically correct. When PC rules, it's easier to deny problems and hide from responsibility. On all sides. For instance, it wouldn't be PC for me to say how irritated it made me when a car driven by blacks in St. Louis would stop in the middle of a street to talk to someone and not move out of the way when he saw me.
There are all kinds of subtle (more or less) expressions and consequences of racism against blacks. For instance, statistics show unconscious biases among physicians can affect black vs. white treatment. This article offers one example and this one another. Ironically, the effort to avoid bias can also lead to problems. This article discusses actual genetic differences which affect health.
As you might guess, the situation was historically pretty bad, too. Here is an article which describes white vs. black medical treatment of soldiers in the Civil War.
Not the David Brooks of the NY Times, but the fearless* David Brooks of Mexico's La Jornada. Here is a translation of some of what he has to say in his column American Curios about the treatment Snowden and some people we don't hear about often in the US press -- people who have also sought to bring attention to the abuses of the NSA. President Obama said there were other ways Snowden could have brought attention to problems he saw. I'm not so sure. The translation is mine.
Almost everyone spoke about how they believed the official rhetoric of their country, in the mission of the United States as the world guardian of democracy, as a beacon of the hope for liberation, as an example for humanity.
Almost all remember that because of this, they added to the ranks of intelligence agencies, the armed forces, the Department of State, and the FBI. And they remember when, with this noble dedication,they denounced and revealed what looked like abuse, corruption or the violation of those ideals so often repeated by the representatives and leaders of the country. And they were expelled from their worlds and some were condemned as traitors.
Seven of them have been or are accused by the government of Barack Obama under the Law of Espionage and other laws for divulging "official secrets through the the media, more than twice the number of cases under all previous presidents combined. The government asserts that all these cases are strictly legal matters, not political, and reject the idea that the accused might be 'denouncers' or 'dissidents'. The government maintains that they are simple criminals who violated not only laws, but "public confidance". In effect, they are traitors.
Two of them are in headlines around the world: the soldier Bradley Manning, whose court martial is being held to determine criminal conviction for various charges, including five under the Law of Espionage. The other, Edward Snowden, who was just given political asylum in Russia, has so far managed to escape US authorities and charges under the same law.
Among the other five whistle blowers is Thomas Drake, a high ranking analyst with the NSA who expressed concerns to his superiors about the violations of the privacy of Americans on the part of the agency and later talked to a reporter about abuses and bad administrative practices in the NSA. In spite of the fact that the criminal case against him, under the Law of Espionage, was dismissed, he has been blacklisted....The former member of the Air Force and CIA analyst is now working in an Apple store.
John Kiriakou, a former CIA agent, was condemned to two and a half years in jail because he spoke to journalists, including one from the New York Times, giving them the names of two former colleagues who had employed torture tactics in interrogations. Stephen Jin-Woo, a State Department contractor, faced charges of leaking information to the journalist James Rosen, of Fox News (who, it was later revealed, was spied on by the FBI). Shamai Leibowitz, former FBI translater, leaked transcripts of telephone [interventions] of the Israeli Embassy in Washington in efforts to influence American public opinion. Jeffrey Sterling, former CIA agent was declared not guilty of leaking information about US plans to sabotage a nuclear plant in Iran to James Risen of the New York Times. Risen has refused to identify his source, and Obama's government has succeeded in getting a court to order him to do it or face prison.
....
Although authorities insist that they are only applying the law, critics suspect that it is really an effort to suppress the freedoms of expression and the press, and especially to suppress dissidence within official ranks.
Many remember that this Law of Espionage was employed initially as a political weapon against dissidents when it was passed in 1917, when the US entered World War I. It was used against socialists, anarchists, and pacifists that opposed the war, including among others Eugene Debs (who spent five years in jail).....and it was used to deport Emma Goldman and hundreds of foreigners who criticized war policy.
Perhaps for some in government, the biggest worry is if expressions such as the following multiply, resulting in "secrets" revealed:
"I have served in the military industrial complex for ten years, first as a soldier in Baghdad, and now as a defense contractor. When I entered, I believed in the cause. I was ignorant, naive and I was deceived. It has been shown that the narrative given by the State, which the mainstream media echoes, is false and criminal. We have become that which we thought we were fighting. Recent revelations by valiant journaalists about war crimes, including the dirty counterinsurgency wars, terrorism by drones, the suspension of due process, torture, massive surveillance... have shed light on the true nature of the US government... Some will say I am being irresponsible, impractical and irresponsible. Others will say I'm crazy. I have come to believe that the true craziness is not to do anything. While we are sitting in comfort, blind before the injustices of the world, nothing will change.... I was only a soldier, and now I am a low level administrator. However, I've always believed that if every soldier through down his rifle, war would end. Consequently, I throw down mine." This is the letter of resignation of Brandon Toy, administrator of a combat artillery vehicles project for a division of General Dynamics, one of the principle Pentagon contractors.
'Those who can give up an essential freedom for a bit of temporary security deserve neither security or freedom.' -- Benjamin Franklin
********************************
What I find compelling about this column is that it really makes me think about what would be a real threat to US security; what freedom of speech and the press really should entitle us to. I was a child in the 1950s and I remember my parents being truly frightened by McCarthyism. I am very glad they taught me that freedoms were most important for those who weren't in the complacent (or not complacent) mainstream.
*I call David Brooks fearless because he writes columns about what he perceives as problems in the US while working in the US.
To Barry has written an excellent essay on not just US-México relations, but on the regional issues confronting the US, México AND Canada. It is MUST reading. Here is the link. Please take the time for it and pass it on. Also look at NACLA, the North America Congress on Latin America at https://nacla.org. Our world is depending on informed people.
Mexico Bob For all of you with curiosity about Mexico this is a great blog by a guy married to a Mexican in Irapuato. Really, this kind of stuff is what people up north should be reading.
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