Tag Archives: immigration

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) in Lee’s Summit – Press Q and A – August 25, 2018

25 Saturday Aug 2018

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In The New Yorker:

Will Anyone in the Trump Administration Ever Be Held Accountable for the Zero-Tolerance Policy?
By Jonathan Blitzer August 22, 2018

….I asked the current Administration official whether the outcry over family separation had caught the government by surprise. It had, the official said. “The expectation was that the kids would go to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, that the parents would get deported, and that no one would care.” Yet, when it became clear that the public did, the Administration chose not to change course.

Early this afternoon Senator Claire McCaskill (D) stopped by a coordinated campaign headquarters in Lee’s Summit in Eastern Jackson County to speak to and greet campaign volunteers, many who were later going out for door to door campaigning or phone banking on behalf of Democratic Party candidates. Close to a hundred volunteers were in attendance.

And, of course, outside in the parking lot were the usual opposition trackers and costumed actors. Don’t ask.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) – Lee’s Summit, Missouri – August 25, 2018.

Senator McCaskill spent about twenty minutes covering a wide range of issues important to working families in Missouri and giving a campaign update to the volunteers.

After speaking to the campaign volunteers Senator McCaskill took a few minutes to answer questions from the media:

Question: …Could you talk a little bit about the drought and your concerns about Missouri right now, [cross talk] [inaudible] can do about it?

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): Well [crosstalk], the, the, our agricultural community is getting a double whammy right now, um, a drought and tariffs. Uh, it is a crisis, um, that, frankly, I don’t, I’m not sure that the president really understands that many of these markets we’re losing, particularly soybeans in China are not going to be easily recoverable. I mean, this is something we’ve spent millions of dollars, working towards establishing a market for soybeans in China, and now they’re sourcing their beans somewhere else. Well, they’re not going to come back to American soybeans like that. Uh, it will be, um, a hangover that will dramatically affect our state for some time to come. Even if it gets fixed. And it doesn’t appear to me that it’s getting fixed anytime soon.

And, the drought, obviously, we’re going to be doing a lot of work that, to get, there are programs in place to help when we have drought or flood, and obviously, we’ll be monitoring those programs and making sure that those monies are getting out to the farmers, the crop insurance, the other things that they’re entitled to, on a timely basis.

Question: So, a lot of your Democratic colleague are calling for, uh, the delay of Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing. Where do you stand on that?

Senator McCaskill: I’m not sure that, uh, first of all, it, it’s not going to be delayed. Um, I’m trying to avoid all the political posturing on this nomination and keep my head down and figure it out based on his record, based on his opinions, on issues that I think are really important.

Dark money being at the top of the list. Um, I have begun to look at some of his opinions about dark money and I’m concerned. he wrote one opinion that said he wasn’t sure that we could constitutionally limit the ability of foreign countries to come in do issue advocacy. Well, if you notice those ads that are hiding as issue advocacy and they say call someone, that’s issue advocacy and I think most people would say those are political commercials.

So, I’m very worried about, um, what has happened with dark money and that’s going to be one of the focuses of my decision is, is his opinions and what he says in the hearings about dark money.

Question: And you met with him earlier this week [crosstalk][inaudible].

Senator McCaskill: Uh huh, I did.

Question: Is there anything else that stood out to you from talking with him?

Senator McCaskill: Well, we, we spent a lot of time on that. I’m not going to go into the details of the conversation, but we spent a lot of time on dark money.

Question: Senator, you said after the primary that your Supreme Court vote is not a political winner, that there are going to be people in the state that are mad at you either way. How, are you concerned that this could really effect your reelection, that this could be a, a big issue in the race, and depending on how you vote?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, as I said, and I do believe this, that there’s not a side to take that would be a political winner. Which I think in, it’s one of the nice things about representing a state like mine, you’re never going to make everybody happy with a vote. So what you try to do is the right thing. And be able to explain it. And so I’m going to make up my mind based on the concerns I have about constitutional decisions that have been made over the last decade and that could change with him on the court. And I will, uh, explain my vote to Missourians based on those issues and hope they understand.

Show Me Progress: Senator, based on reports, the administration, when they were dealing with immigrant families, they, the, the reports stated that they, they didn’t really make plans because they didn’t think anybody would care.

Senator McCaskill: You mean about separating [crosstalk] the children?

Show Me Progress: Separating the children.

Senator McCaskill: I don’t know that I’ve seen that report, but obviously that’s, um, that would be troubling. Because I think anybody would realize that pulling babies out of their parents’ arms is never a winner under any circumstances. And, I mean, I think we’ve got to secure peoples’ appearance at court, but there are plenty of ways to do, secure peoples’ appearance at court without separating children from their families.

After taking questions from the media Senator McCaskill remained at the headquarters and continued to speak with and greet individual volunteers. Selfies are definitely a campaign ritual these days.

Immigration: Trump says jump; Hawley leaps into the muck

24 Friday Aug 2018

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Josh Hawley, we are frequently reminded, went to Stanford and Yale. He’s supposed to be a smart man. He also claims to be a religious man and as such is supposed to be compassionate toward those who are needy and persecuted.

As a consequence, Hawley faces a serious dilemma. He clearly believes he has to stick to Trump like a burr lest the deplorables be aroused – no matter how absurd, dishonest, cruel, or destructive Trump reveals himself to be. This dilemma is especially evident when it comes to Trump’s favorite hobby, keeping dark complexioned people from sh*****e countries out of the U.S.

It’s obvious that it’s a difficult slog. When Trump announces that we must deport immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers “with no Judges or Court Cases,” Hawley does his best to evade the issue. He has refused to tell us whether or not he supports constitutionally mandated due process for immigrants, a question that ought to be a no-brainer for a guy with his background. In the words of one of his primary opponents, Austen Petersen, “Josh Hawley is an ivy-league educated, constitutional lawyer, who is either constitutionally illiterate, or too much of a coward to admit what he knows is true. The 14th Amendment is clear.”

When it comes to family separation, an almost universally denounced policy, Hawlely  tried to deflect. A the Kansas City Star put it, he “stopped short of calling for the policy to end immediately and put the blame on McCaskill” (WTF!) Even Mr. Test-the-Wind Mumblecore himself, Roy Blunt, managed to do better than that.

Sad as it it, these efforts represent the extent of Hawley’s self-assertion – he’s mostly a good little Trump trooper. He calls for “securing the border and building the wall,” while blaming Claire McCaskill and by extension Democrats, for failing to fix a broken immigration system in a Congress totally dominated by risk-averse Republicans. Hawley evidently doesn’t seem to know that his fellow GOPers have refused again and again to consider bipartisan immigration efforts, including those in which McCaskill participated. As for that storied wall – the one that could cost billions and do little or nothing to protect the border, well, we all know baby knows better, but, hey, talk is cheap.

Seriously, though, isn’t it kind of sad to see a guy endorsed by that supposed moral arbiter, former Senator John Danforth, go along to get along? I guess Danforth’s hoping he’ll clean up good after the election. In case he can’t get it together, though, I offer the following list of what I have learned about immigration over the past couple of years. Perhaps, after he’s washed off the Trump filth, Hawley might find it informative:

  •  Conditions in the Central American Northern triangle and in the Middle East from which so many are fleeing are truly horrific.
  • That horrific situation is in many respects the result of past actions by the United States:
    • In the eighties the United States backed vicious right wing dictatorships in Central America and helped train death squads while we participated in or instigated civil wars that displaced thousands.
    • Later, the U.S.-led war on drugs “succeeded” in South America by pushing violent cartels north, into Central America.
    • Lax U.S. gun laws also factor into the levels of violence; an estimated 200,000 guns purchased in the U.S. are annually smuggled into Central America.
    • The violent MS-13 gang that Trump uses to scare his immigrant-averse base was, in the words of one writer, “made in America” and exported to back to Central America.
    • I’m pretty sure I don’t need to detail the role played by the U.S. in destabilizing the Middle East, an area from which another group of demonized immigrants hail?
  • Immigrants do not contribute to crime in the U.S. at a higher level than native born citizens.
  • The Washington Post notes that studies have shown that “states with larger shares of undocumented immigrants tended to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares in the years 1990 through 2014.”
  • Anecdotes about specific immigrant wrongdoers do not substantiate the assertion that an entire group is crime prone. Numbers tell the true story.
  • Immigrants do not “take” jobs from native-born Americans.
  • Currently, several industries are threatened by worker shortages that have resulted from the Trumpian anti-immigrant jihad (see here, here , here and here).
  • Legal immigrants pay taxes.
  • At least 50% of undocumented immigrants also pay state and federal income taxes and contribute to the Social Security trust funds – to the tune of billions of dollars.
  • The taxes paid by immigrants help makeup the shortfall in tax revenues and Social Security reserves in the U.S. where the birth rate has been slowing for decades.
  • Anti-immigrant sentiment has been highly racialized in response to political demagoguery – which has also encouraged already existing anti-immigrant, racist, hate groups.

Given the facts listed above, maybe Hawley ought to answer these questions next time he’s asked about one or another of Trump’s immigration tirades:

  • As professed a Christian doesn’t Hawley have a moral responsibility to generously respond to “the least of these,” which today’s Central American and Middle Eastern refugees surely are?
  • Wouldn’t Hawley, were he to be elected to a powerful national position, have an equally heavy moral responsibility to help clean up after foreign policy blunders and try to undo the harm we have done to these people?
  • Wouldn’t Hwley be endangering our future by catering to racial and cultural fears and ignoring the important role immigrants play in our economy and could continue to play if he were to to act in good faith to try to “fix” our immigration policy?
  • Does Hawley really want to be allied with white supremacists, neo-nazis and other hate groups?

How about it Josh Hawley?

Who’s the phoney, Farm Bureau? Hawley or McCaskill – or is it just plain old racism?

12 Sunday Aug 2018

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I was surprised by the decision of the Missouri Farm Bureau to endorse our lackadaisical Attorney General Josh Hawley in his run for the U.S. Senate. You might be surprised by my attitude since the Farm Bureau has for some time been reliably Republican, a position practically dictated by the perceived competition between out-state (GOP) and urban (Democratic) interests. But it’s true.

Remember when our Attorney General and GOP senatorial contender Hawley first tried out a little lame trash talk trash about Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill? He called the down-to-earth Missouri Democrat, one of the few Missouri pols to hold town halls – even during the height of the raucous Tea Party anti-Obamacare frenzy – a phony who was out of touch with Missouri voters. Rich B.S. indeed, as we have shown in an earlier post, coming from an elite Washington lawyer who, according to emails to colleagues, only returned to Missouri in 2011 to enter politics.

But more important to the question at hand, are farmers likely to get anything out of Hawley that’s good for them? Consider the question of Trump’s mindlessly escalating trade war which has triggered massive agricultural tariffs: Not good for Missouri Farmers, especially in the long run since Trump doesn’t seem to know how to find a way out now that he’s escalated the hostilities.

McCaskill has the backbone to call Trump out on an an impulsive and sloppy approach to the issue. Hawley, on the other hand, resolutely sticks to vague GOP talking-around-the-issue-points. Despite the looming potential for disaster for many Missouri farmers – if not this year, next – Hawley will just “trust” that the attention-addled reality TV-star and failed construction mogul Trump knows what he’s doing when it comes to economic theory and all will work out before there are too many bankruptcies in that out-state Missouri that loves to hear GOPers tell it like (they think) it is.

Nor do these highly flexible folks, such as our prim little Josh Hawley seem to want to stand up for the principles that they espoused so fervently during the Obama years: you know, that stuff about bailouts – bailouts that, incidentally saved our auto industry and which were repaid. But hey, a $12 billion in one-year farm bailouts to be  handed out right after a budget-busting, deficit-building tax cut for the wealthy – no big deal to folks like Hawley – who doesn’t seem to care about much more than fighting the far-right religious wars and pushing conservative evangelical orthodoxy down the throats of the rest of us. How’s that for phony?

So why has the Farm Bureau decided to go with Republican comfort food? even though it could end up killing them? Don’t despair. I think I may understand just what the real appeal of GOP – and Josh Hawley – right or wrong, weak or strong, might be.

In an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch today on why so many Trump supporters voted against the anti-union Proposition A,  a union man – after praising the ways his union gave  him a good life – and apparently unaware of Trump’s bad history with unions –  justified his support for Trump and, presumably, anti-union Trump supporters like Hawley, by appealing to the demographic fears that the “good old days” of white privilege will disappear if too many of those brown folks make it over the southern border:

“I like what Trump is doing for the country, though I don’t agree on all of his policies,” [ Scott] Long said. “If you want to be a citizen, you shouldn’t just walk across the Southern California border. … I like how Trump wants to close the border down.”

And, even more explicitly:

Dennis Brinkler, a union electrician who voted against the legislation, also cited immigration as a reason he’s supporting Trump and state Attorney General Josh Hawley, an anti-union Republican who is challenging Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, in November.

If you doubt that there’s an underlying racist theme there, the same article cited some union leaders who attributed union support for Republicans like Trump and Hawley explicitly to “protests of police shootings of unarmed black men” and fear of black protest against a repressive status quo:

“Some of the guys I represent in their 50s, it’s hard for them to grasp shutting down a highway because of an incident that may have happened with the police, and often that’s people on our side of the party,” White said, referring to protests in Ferguson after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer four years ago. “That’s hard for a lot of the old white guys to grasp.”

There you  have it. Trump’s calling card: playing on white resentment and the old folks’ racial fears.

And you can bet that the oh-so-educated and refined  Hawley is going along with it, helping to demagogue the thinly disguised racism of Trump’s immigration policies. As the St. Louis American put it after Hawley defended Trump’s cruel and ill-considered immigration policies, particularly the forcible separation of children from parents seeking asylum in the U.S., an undeniable human rights violation carried out so incompetently that many of the children cannot be reunited with the parents:

[…] Hawley backed and defended Trump’s political play of using the forcible separation of children from their families to force Democrats to support the construction of his absurd border wall and pursuit of more punitive immigration policies. Hawley should return to whatever rock he crawled out from under and leave it to actual human beings with blood in their veins to enact public policy. Hawley is a representation of a new generation of Republicans willing to accede the party and its values to the disaster of the Trump administration.

I expect Hawley’s – probably more timid – dog whistles will increase over the next couple of months as Big Daddy Trump gets even more explicit about  his overt racism. Sadly, it looks like lots of Missourians are inclined to be responsive

* 1st word in title changed from “whose” to “who’s” (8/18, 4:35). Thanks to comment noting the original error.

On understanding what it is to be patriotic

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

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Civil disobedience.

This is a story about a patriot in Jefferson City, Missouri who acted in defense of everything good about America yesterday. She was arrested for her trouble.

Sue Gibson, in her own words:

I got to Jefferson City’s Independence Day parade location early Tuesday evening and walked along High Street looking for TV cameras and anyone I knew who might take pictures of my planned action.

The only news outlet I saw was KRCG, the Sinclair station, and I did not think they would air it.

I found no one to whom I felt comfortable disclosing.

A woman I encountered on the sidewalk complimented my t-shirt (I Stand with Missouri Women) and showed me her tattoo that read LIBERAL.

We chatted about how hard it is to live here as progressives.

I am thinking: This is wild. She might be a police spy, or am I just very lucky to have run onto her? I gave her both my personal contact card and my Indivisible card, and we parted.

The parade started with motorcycle cops in the lead and I let them get over a block away before even considering jumping in. I was right by the judges’ grandstand and after introducing the three judges, the announcer started talking about the parade theme: Diversity and how people come to America’s shores blah blah blah. And I thought: It has to be right now! So I jumped in and stopped the parade holding my sign Babies are in cages above my head.

I remember no sound. My experience was just everyone looking at me with their mouths hanging open. Two parade organizers came along in their golf cart. The woman said, OK. You’ve made your point. Will you let us have our parade now? I stood stationary. They conferred and decided to invite me to march in the parade with my sign so the parade could proceed.

Meanwhile, I see two cops approaching on foot. The first one gets there and agrees that I can join the parade. The second one isn’t having it; orders me out of the street. I don’t move. He snatches my sign, whirls me around and cuffs me. Starts pushing me toward the curb.

The crowd cheers my arrest. All they want is a parade to celebrate America. The organizers are visibly disturbed, shouting at the crowd: “What is wrong with you? Stop it!”

But kids will ask their parents what was that that happened today, and that is what I wanted. And the organizers were conflicted. That tension within individuals is what I hoped for as well.

The cops are taking me to their car on a side street and I see that woman I just met filming or photographing with her phone!!!!! She has my email address, so surely she will send it! How serendipitous is that?

Oh, a thing a cop said before they put me in the car: “She’s one of those.” (I had incurred a charge of failure to obey an officer on two different days recently with the Poor People’s Campaign.) The arresting officer said, “Yeah, I figured it out. I recognize her.” I dare not jaywalk from now on[.]

Then I spent time with two delightful women in the holding cell having great conversation about injustices. A holding cell is a terrific place to organize! I will be taking one of them to vote for her first time ever! She got released first, and by the time I got home, she had friended me on Facebook.

And the bail bondswoman was like-minded and thrilled with what I had done; took a photo of me with my sign to share with her mother and her one like-minded sibling. And gave me a discount!

Court date: August 8.
Charge: Failure to obey.

Sue Gibson’s sign (front and back):

What a badass – civil disobedience, getting arrested, and organizing in a holding cell. Is this a great country, or what?

Someone posted video of Sue Gibson’s arrest on a community social media page.

Some of the comments on the page:

Run her ass over!

Well that’s a little violent. I hope you’re not actually suggesting someone commit voluntary manslaughter.

Stay out of the road.

…when you serve your country, you are preserving not only the rights of your family and friends, but the rights of Americans who don’t always share your beliefs. These individuals are your country, your fellow citizens, not “morons,” and are entitled to express opinions. She harmed no one, she made her statement, and she knew her consequences. You may need someone to stand up like that for you some day.

…when you impede traffic, a parade, or any other flow of moving vehicles you are a moron she could have chosen a better way to show her beliefs/opinion

…although her protest may have stopped a parade celebrating freedom, she is free to make that choice. The fact that you resort to name callling says something about how her behavior affected you, not about her.

Since this is Independence Day, and you are celebrating it in the way you choose, because we are free, I think it’s terrific that this person made a choice to show her concern for immigrant children in a way that harmed none of you, but caused all of you to express your feelings as well. Happy Independence Day. We are free, and we have a duty to make sure we stay free. That means we are free to express our opinions.

Go, read all of the comments.

Previously:

Be the badass on the right (June 29, 2018)

Families Belong Together – Columbia, Missouri – June 30, 2018

01 Sunday Jul 2018

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On Saturday morning approximately 500 individuals attended the Families Belong Together rally and march which started in front of the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia, Missouri. The event was one of around 700 rallies and marches held across the country yesterday in opposition to Donald Trump’s (r) policies of separating immigrant children from their parents and placing them in concentration camps.

“Caring” – June 30, 2018

“How would you feel…?” – June 30, 2018

“Love resists” – June 30, 2018

Organizers from campaigns and the “No on Propisition A” (opposed to “right to get paid less”) campaign worked the crowd.

“Amnesty is not illegal” – June 30, 2018

“History will remember” – June 30, 2018

The jury is still out on that in Donald Trump’s (r) America.

Reverend Sarah Klaassen, Rock Bridge Christian Church, Columbia, Missouri – June 30, 2018

There were a number of speakers at the rally.

“Families belong together” – June 30, 2018

“Cruelty is not strength” – June 30, 2018

“Resist” – June 30, 2018

And then they marched.

Activism is about showing up, registering to vote, getting the vote out, and voting.

#resist

Previously:

That was so last century (June 30, 2018)

The triumph of privatization (June 30, 2018)

KC Rally for Muslims, Immigrants, & Refugees – Kansas City – June 29, 2018

30 Saturday Jun 2018

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Yesterday evening Muslim community and interfaith organizations held a KC Rally for Muslims, Immigrants, & Refugees by the J.C. Nichols Fountain at Mill Creek Park near the entrance to the Plaza in Kansas City. About 150 individuals showed up to demonstrate and to hear speakers including a poet, imams and a rabbi. All spoke of peace, love and justice.

There was a proactive Kansas City Police presence.

“Why should love stop at the borders?” – June 29, 2018

“No Muslim ban” – June 29, 2018

“I really do care. Do you” – June 29, 2018

“Friends and neighbors” – June 29, 2018

“No ban, no wall” – June 29, 2018

“Only love can drive hate out” – June 29, 2018

Poet.

About an hour into the rally a group of right wingnut anti-Muslim counter-protestors showed up. Wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “no immigrants, no Muslims, no refugees.”

The individual on the right is so badass they deserve another photo posting in our blog.

The badass on the right.

It was difficult to get decent images of this group, the good guys kept blocking the direct view with their signs.

Editorial comment.

His editor would cut the first line and the fourth line, then call it truth in advertising.

Diversity fail.

Celebrating diversity – June 29, 2018

It’s quite simple, really, if you single out a religious minority you’re a bigot. That’s it.

#resist

Previously:

No, we cannot (June 29, 2018)

Children understand (June 29, 2018)

As we are all (June 29, 2018)

Be the badass on the right (June 29, 2018)

Be the badass on the right

29 Friday Jun 2018

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This evening at the KC Rally for Muslims, Immigrants, & Refugees by the J.C. Nichols Fountain at Mill Creek Park near the entrance to the Plaza in Kansas City the first of the anti-Muslim counter protesters.

We will only be saved by millions of ordinary people acting every day as individuals with moral courage and heroism.

Previously:

No, we cannot (June 29, 2018)

Children understand (June 29, 2018)

As we are all (June 29, 2018)

As we are all

29 Friday Jun 2018

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This evening at the KC Rally for Muslims, Immigrants, & Refugees by the J.C. Nichols Fountain at Mill Creek Park near the entrance to the Plaza in Kansas City.

Legalize humanity #heretostay” – June 29, 2018

Our friends and neighbors, #heretostay.

Previously:

No, we cannot (June 29, 2018)

Children understand (June 29, 2018)