He looked at some of the highlights and Donald Trump’s attempts to insert himself into the proceedings, as Trump is wont to do whenever he is not the center of attention.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
In an earlier post, I described how Department of Justice lawyer Sarah Fabian tried to defend the awful conditions that detained migrant children were being kept in, being denied soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, showers, beds, and cloth blankets tin very cold rooms with the lights permanently on, to an incredulous panel of three justice in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. There is now video of her exchanges with the justices and it is well worth watching as she tries to escape from the close questioning of the justices as to what children in captivity are entitled to.
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I watched the first of the two debates involving ten of the twenty people who qualified for it. Given the large number, the two-hour time allowed for an average of about ten minutes per candidate and each was given just one minute to respond to questions. So it was unreasonable to expect a detailed examination of candidate positions since they all largely agreed on how to respond to the issues that were raised, with the possible exception of John Delaney who seemed more like a Republican, touting his credentials as a businessman.
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After Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won a shock primary victory over long-time Democratic establishment incumbent Joe Crowley for the congressional seat in Queens, NY, the party leaders were determined not to let themselves be blindsided again. So when Tiffany Cabán, described as a “31 year old, Democratic Socialist, queer, Latinx public defender”, challenged the party machine candidate Melinda Katz for the position of district attorney on a progressive platform, they pulled out all the stops. And yet yesterday, Cabán won.
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Yet another damning report has been issued by a group of layers and doctors who had visited a large detention facility for children run by the CBP and described what they saw.
A two-year-old boy locked in detention wants to be held all the time. A few girls, ages 10 to 15, say they’ve been doing their best to feed and soothe the clingy toddler who was handed to them by a guard days ago. Lawyers warn that kids are taking care of kids, and there’s inadequate food, water and sanitation for the 250 infants, children and teens at the Border Patrol station.
…Three girls told attorneys they were trying to take care of the two-year-old boy, who had wet his pants and no diaper and was wearing a mucus-smeared shirt when the legal team encountered him.
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Over in the UK Boris Johnson, the man strongly favored to win the contest for the Conservative party leadership and thus take over from Theresa May as prime minister, has found himself in an awkward situation when neighbors called the police because they heard angry words and loud noises from the apartment where his girlfriend was living. Johnson is apparently estranged from his wife and was staying with her. The police came and then left without taking any action after being reassured that everything was fine.
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The knock against this candidate for the Democratic nomination has been that he lacks substance and a proven record and that he is merely coasting on his narrow loss to Ted Cruz in the Texas senate race. But he recently put forward on interesting idea and one that should be pushed even further than he envisages.
Beto O’Rourke on Monday called for Congress to enact a “war tax” any time the country goes to war, with the proceeds going to care for veterans of the conflict.
…If elected, O’Rourke said he would push Congress to enact a law creating a new trust fund for veterans’ health care for every war the U.S. fights. Each fund would be paired with a war tax, which O’Rourke’s campaign said would be “implemented on a progressive basis.”
He points out that Trump helped create the Iran crisis and that launching bombs and missiles against another country is an act of war and, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, reminds her that under the constitution, only the Congress has the power to declare war and that the president can only use military force in an emergency that calls for immediate defensive action, and that no one thinks that the situation with Iran fits that category.
“It’s like somebody setting fire to a basket full of paper and then putting it out. He helped create the crisis, and then he stopped the attacks,” Sanders said in an interview with “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on Saturday. The full interview will air on “Face the Nation” this Sunday.
Sanders accused Mr. Trump of thinking “that a war with Iran is something that might be good for this country.” When Brennan pointed out that the strike considered by Mr. Trump was “limited,” Sanders responded sarcastically.
“Oh, just a limited strike. Oh, well, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know that it’s okay to simply attack another country with bombs,” Sanders said, incredulously. “Just a limited strike? That’s an act of warfare.”
It is extraordinary how the media simply buys into the way that the administration and the war hawks frame these issues.
The Cuyahoga is a long and winding river that empties into Lake Erie after splitting the city of Cleveland into east and west sides. For the longest time, it was treated as a dump and industries along the river emptied their waste matter, even toxic material, into it. As a result, the river used to catch fire periodically. But the fire that erupted 50 years ago yesterday, though not the biggest, for some reason attracted national attention and turned the city into a laughing stock with comedians using it as a punch line. To this day, that is the first association that many people have with the city.
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The vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric of Donald Trump has mainstreamed the views of neo—Nazis and white supremacists and thus created a window for ordinary people to express in public discriminatory language against anyone whom they view as not belonging. The city of St. Cloud in Minnesota is one of those places that has been having problems with some of the white residents resenting recent Somali immigrants and abusing them in public.
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