Tag Archives: border

Donald Trump Just Issued Another Insane Rant About Mexico

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is a dumb person who is dumb. For a very long time that dumbness didn’t really come with consequences. He had his TV show and his hotels and a lot of fans in the Republican party. Sure, people knew he was a lunatic, but none of his corporate business partners really cared. That changed a few weeks ago when from his mouth biliously flowed some totally racist nonsense about Mexicans being rapists. Ever since the blow back from businesses newly ashamed of their association with Trump has been unflagging. Univision? Gone. Macy’s? Gone. NBC? Gone.

Today, Donald Trump issued a statement aimed presumably to stop the bleeding. It is insane and will not have the desired effect.

Read it! Or don’t. You don’t have to read it. Read it if you enjoy reading insane ramblings. Don’t read it if that isn’t your cup of tea.

Statement from Donald J. Trump:

I don’t see how there is any room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the statement I made on June 16th during my Presidential announcement speech. Here is what I said, and yet this statement is deliberately distorted by the media:

“When Mexico (meaning the Mexican Government) sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you (pointing to the audience). They’re not sending you (pointing again). They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs.They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people! But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.”

What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc. This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a 5 time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn’t want him in Mexico. This is merely one of thousands of similar incidents throughout the United States. In other words, the worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican government. The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this. Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world. On the other hand, many fabulous people come in from Mexico and our country is better for it. But these people are here legally, and are severely hurt by those coming in illegally. I am proud to say that I know many hard working Mexicans—many of them are working for and with me…and, just like our country, my organization is better for it.

The Mexican Government wants an open border as long as it’s a ONE WAY open border into the United States. Not only are they killing us at the border, but they are killing us on trade … and the country of Mexico is making billions of dollars in doing so.

I have great respect for Mexico and love their people and their peoples’ great spirit. The problem is, however, that their leaders are far smarter, more cunning, and better negotiators than ours. To the citizens of the United States, who I will represent far better than anyone else as President, the Mexican government is not our friend…and why should they be when the relationship is totally one sided in their favor on both illegal immigration and trade. I have pointed this out during my speeches and it is something Mexico doesn’t want me to say. In actuality, it was only after my significant rise in the polls that Univision, previously my friend, went ballistic. I believe that my examples of bad trade deals for the United States was of even more concern to the Mexican government than my talk of border security.

I have lost a lot during this Presidential run defending the people of the United States. I have always heard that it is very hard for a successful person to run for President. Macy’s, NBC, Serta and NASCAR have all taken the weak and very sad position of being politically correct even though they are wrong in terms of what is good for our country. Univision, because 70% of their business comes from Mexico, in my opinion, is being dictated to by the Mexican Government. The last thing Mexico wants is Donald Trump as President in that I will make great trade deals for the United States and will have an impenetrable border–only legally approved people will come through easily.

Interestingly, Univision has just announced they are attempting to go public despite very poor and even negative earnings, which is not a good situation for a successful IPO or high stock price—not to mention that I am currently suing them for breach of contract. Remember, Univision is the one who began this charade in the first place, and they are owned by one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest backers. After the speech was made, there were numerous compliments and indeed, many rave “reviews”—there was very little criticism. It wasn’t until a week after my announcement that people started to totally distort these very easy to understand words. If there was something stated incorrectly, it would have been brought up immediately and with great enthusiasm.

The issues I have addressed, and continue to address, are vital steps to Make America Great Again! Additionally, I would be the best jobs President that God ever created. Let’s get to work!

Continued – 

Donald Trump Just Issued Another Insane Rant About Mexico

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Rick Perry Kicks Off Presidential Campaign With a Rap-Country Song No One Needed to Hear

Mother Jones

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Two felony counts for abuse of power and coercion charges by an Austin grand jury aren’t the only new features of Rick Perry’s second run for the White House. His official launch today also debuted quite the campaign song, adding a little bit of country and a little bit of rap to his bid. The lyrics, captured by Buzzfeed, below:

Rick Perry supporter, let’s protect our border. To hell with anyone who don’t believe in the USA, Rick Perry all the way.

I won’t back up, I don’t back down. I been raised up to stand my ground. Take my job, but not my gun. Tax my check till I ain’t got none. Cept for the good lord up above, I answer to no one.

Give me my right to vote, my right to tote. The weapon of my choice, don’t censor my voice.

As our own Kevin Drum recently asked, “Why do so many obvious losers think they can be president?”

Watch below:

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Rick Perry Kicks Off Presidential Campaign With a Rap-Country Song No One Needed to Hear

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Sen. Bob Menendez Was Just Charged With Bribery. Read the Indictment.

Mother Jones

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors indicted Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on charges of bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services fraud, and making false statements. Salomon Melgen, a top Menendez benefactor and Florida opthalmologist, was named as a co-conspirator in the 22-count indictment. The feds allege that Melgen provided Menendez with private airfare and free accommodations at the donor’s luxury resort in the Dominican Republic. In exchange, Menendez helped “influence the immigration visa proceedings of Melgen’s foreign girlfriends” and pressured the State Department, Customs and Border Patrol, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to protect the doctor’s business interests.

Menendez will hold a press conference in Newark on Wednesday night to address the allegations.

You can read the full indictment here:

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Sen. Bob Menendez Was Just Charged With Bribery. Read the Indictment.

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Obama’s Executive Action Will Protect 5 Million Undocumented Immigrants

Mother Jones

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On Thursday evening, President Barack Obama announced his hotly anticipated executive action on immigration, which will keep nearly 5 million undocumented residents from being deported. Even though the sweeping measure has elicited threats of retaliation from congressional Republicans, Obama said he moved forward because comprehensive immigration reform is unlikely to go anywhere in the GOP-dominated Congress next year.

“I know some of the critics of this action call it amnesty,” the president said in his speech. “Well, it’s not. Amnesty is the immigration system we have today—millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time. That’s the real amnesty—leaving this broken system the way it is.”

A year and a half ago, a bipartisan immigration bill passed in the Senate but died in the House. The bill likely had enough Republican and Democratic votes to pass in the House, but Speaker John Boehner, catering to his tea partiers, refused to bring the measure to the floor. If signed into law, the legislation would have provided legal status to about 11 million undocumented immigrants. Here’s a look at who benefits most from Obama’s executive action—and who has lost out, thanks in part to GOP obstructionism.

Winners
Undocumented parents of children who are US citizens or permanent residents: “Undocumented immigrants…see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart,” the president said. “It’s been this way for decades. And for decades, we haven’t done much about it.” His executive action will offer temporary legal status to the undocumented parents of children who are US citizens or permanent residents and allow them to apply for work permits—as long as they have lived in the United States for at least five years, pass a background check, and pay taxes.

DREAMers: The president’s move will broaden the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which had temporarily protected from deportation some 1.2 million young people who were brought into the country illegally as children—as long as they entered the country before June 15, 2007. Now, children who came to the United States before January 1, 2010, will be eligible to apply for deferred-action status. The so-called DREAMers (named after the proposed Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) can apply for employment visas, though there is no direct path for them to lawful permanent residence or citizenship. To the dismay of immigration activists, the executive action does not extend benefits to the hundreds of thousands of parents of DREAMers.

Families: Often US citizens and legal permanent residents are separated for long stretches of time from family members who are awaiting legal permanent resident status. The executive action will expand a waiver program that will reduce the time these families spend apart.

Noncriminal undocumented immigrants: Obama’s executive action shifts all of the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement resources toward deporting undocumented immigrants who are criminals—instead of deporting undocumented immigrants who pose no such threat. “We’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security,” Obama said. “Felons, not families.” The president’s order also guts an existing program called Secure Communities, which requires police to share arrestees’ fingerprints with federal immigration officials, who can use the information to deport suspects who are here illegally, even if they turn out to be innocent. The program will be replaced with another devoted to deporting only those convicted of criminal offenses.

Highly skilled workers: Skilled workers who have had their legal permanent resident application approved often wait years to receive their visas. Obama’s order will allow these people to move and change jobs more easily.

Immigrants with pending cases: As part of the president’s executive action, the Justice Department will implement immigration court reforms to quickly process the massive backlog of cases.

Immigrant victims of crime: Obama is directing the Department of Labor to expand the number of visas available for victims of crimes and human trafficking.

The Border Patrol: Obama’s executive action shifts resources to the border, though it doesn’t specify how much more money will be flowing to Customs and Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement along the southern border. (The Senate bill would have allotted some $30 billion over 10 years to hiring at least 19,200 extra border patrol agents.)

Entrepreneurs: The executive action will make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs—who show a potential to create jobs in the United States and attract investment—to immigrate to the US, though there was no mention how the administration will achieve this.

Losers
Undocumented immigrants who have been here since 2011: The failed Senate immigration bill would have allowed immigrants without papers—and their children and spouses—to apply for provisional legal status, if they have been in the United States since the end of 2011. These immigrants could have eventually applied for citizenship.

Undocumented agricultural workers: Under the Senate bill, undocumented agricultural workers would have been eligible for legal immigrant status if they had worked at least 100 full days between 2010 and 2012. The bill would have created a path to citizenship for these farmworkers.

Ag workers with papers: The Senate bill would also have created a new temporary work visa called the W visa for farmworkers. The new program would have permitted these laborers to eventually apply for permanent resident status without an employer’s sponsorship. Less-skilled non-farmworkers could have also applied for a W visa.

Other types of legal immigrants: The Senate bill would have set up a new system that would grant visas to up to 250,000 foreigners a year. Foreign nationals would have accumulated points based on their skill level, education, and employment background. The new system would have cleared the current backlog of applicants for family-based or work visas.

Foreigners attending American universities: More foreigners graduating from American universities in the fields of science, math, and technology would have been able to apply for permanent visas.

Immigrant detainees: If the Senate bill had okayed by the House, unaccompanied minors, mentally disabled immigrants, and other vulnerable people going through the detention and deportation process would have been granted free legal representation. The bill would have limited the use of solitary confinement in immigrant detention facilities.

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Obama’s Executive Action Will Protect 5 Million Undocumented Immigrants

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Immigration, ISIS, and Ebola: A Perfect Right-Wing Storm

Mother Jones

Here is Republican congressman Tom Cotton, currently running for a Senate seat in Arkansas:

Groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in Mexico who have clearly shown they’re willing to expand outside the drug trade into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism.

And here is Republican congressman Duncan Hunter, currently running for reelection in California:

At least ten ISIS fighters have been caught coming across the border in Texas.

You will be unsurprised to learn that neither of these things is true. They were just invented out of whole cloth, much like Rep. Phil Gingrey’s fear that immigrant children might be bringing Ebola across the border. And I think we can expect more of it. The confluence of immigration, ISIS, and Ebola is like catnip to the Republican base. It appeals to their deepest fears. It demonstrates how feckless President Obama is. And it confirms that we need to be far more hawkish about national security. What’s not to like?

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Immigration, ISIS, and Ebola: A Perfect Right-Wing Storm

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This Mime Laughing With Refugee Children On The Run From ISIS Is Surreal, Beautiful, And Starkly Human

Mother Jones

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As ISIS raises its menacing black flags to the East of Kobane, a Syrian city on the northern border with Turkey where Kurds are battling ISIS and hordes of civilians are evacuating, a mime puts on a show for Syrian refugee children in a scene straight out of Life is Beautiful. The mime, like Robert Benigni as Guido with his son Joshua in a Nazi concentration camp, makes light of a war-torn zone and the ultra-violent killers practically right outside the door by making a few practical jokes.

Reporters on the ground, including Jenan Moussa, have tweeted about ISIS’s “booby trapped cars” which exploded in Kobane, street fights, constant shelling and explosions, and the atmosphere of pure terror as night falls in Syria. But just outside the city, children watch and play along with a mime’s hand gestures, enraptured. In a second video, the mime plays with a puppet of a small child, and a member of his audience takes the puppet’s hand.

A screenshot of Kazim Kizil’s video of the mime and puppeteer in Kobane. Kazim Kizil/Facebook

The videos were posted by a Turkish Facebook user, Kazim Kizil, who has been watching and posting about the border area for several days. Kizil’s videos give a rare touching, lively insight into a land seized by blood, war, and terror.

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This Mime Laughing With Refugee Children On The Run From ISIS Is Surreal, Beautiful, And Starkly Human

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Coordinates: A Mountain to Honor Thoreau

A group of writers recently made the trek to the summit of an unnamed mountain for a minor act of civil disobedience: a ceremony to name it for Thoreau. Read original article:  Coordinates: A Mountain to Honor Thoreau ; ; ;

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Coordinates: A Mountain to Honor Thoreau

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Obama Plan Will Cut Out Grueling Journey For a Small Number of Central American Refugees

Mother Jones

Escaping rampant violence in parts of Central America, tens of thousands of child migrants made a treacherous journey up to the United States border this year. To help dissuade such a vulnerable population from taking such risky treks in the first place, Obama announced Tuesday that he plans to roll out a new program to allow children to apply for refugee status from their home countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.


70,000 Kids Will Show Up Alone at Our Border This Year. What Happens to Them?


What’s Next for the Children We Deport?


Map: These Are the Places Central American Child Migrants Are Fleeing


Are the Kids Showing Up at the Border Really Refugees?


Child Migrants Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island

The program is still in the planning stages, and it remains unclear how old the kids must be and what circumstances they must be caught in to successfully apply for asylum. But at least it’s a move in the right direction, says Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission. “They are laying the groundwork and designating an avenue—it’s a good starting off point,” she says.

White House spokesperson Shawn Turner told the New York Times that the initiative is meant to “provide a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey children are currently taking to join relatives in the United States.” The point made in the last part of this statement has caught the attention of human rights advocates including Brané, as it suggests that only children who already have a relative in the US will qualify for asylum under this new program, leaving out thousands who are trying to escape newly developing unrest and gang violence.

Advocates also worry about the number of applicants that will be granted asylum. The White House’s announcement projects that 4,000 people total from Latin America and the Caribbean could be granted refugee visas in fiscal year 2015. (Let’s not forget that region includes troubled countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti). The children who would be allowed to apply for refugee status from their home countries appear to be a subcategory of that 4,000. “That’s not even close to enough,” says Brané. “We saw 60,000 kids arrive from Central America this year.”

One study by the UN High Commissioner of Refugees revealed that 60 percent of recent child migrants interviewed expressed a targeted fear, like a death threat, which is the type of experience that can qualify you for asylum. If you use that statistic, that means 36,000 of the kids who crossed the border this year should qualify for refugee visas—nine times the total number Obama is promising.

But Brané says an even bigger concern with the program is its potential to eclipse or replace protections given to targeted migrants who arrive at the Mexico/US border. “A program like this is fine as a complementary approach,” she says, “but it cannot replace protection at the border; it should not impede access to asylum in the US.” Ironically, it’s the children whose lives are most threatened that could have the hardest time applying for refugee status from their home countries. “In some of these cases, kids have a threat against their lives,” says Brané. “They don’t have time to stand in line, file an application, come back later, stand in line again. They have to leave immediately.”

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Obama Plan Will Cut Out Grueling Journey For a Small Number of Central American Refugees

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Ukraine Claims it Has Captured Russian Soldiers

Mother Jones

Ukraine claims that it now has proof that Russian soldiers have been involved in fighting on Ukrainian soil:

Ukraine released video footage on Tuesday of what it said were 10 captured Russian soldiers, raising tensions as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arrived in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, for talks later in the day with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Petro O. Poroshenko.

….The release of the videos and the high-level talks came a day after Ukraine accused Russia of sending an armored column across the border, prompting Geoffrey R. Pyatt, the United States ambassador to Ukraine, to express alarm on Twitter. “The new columns of Russian tanks and armor crossing into Ukraine indicates a Russian-directed counteroffensive may be underway. #escalation,” he wrote.

….“Everything was a lie. There were no drills here,” one of the captured Russians, who identified himself as Sergey A. Smirnov, told a Ukrainian interrogator. He said he and other Russians from an airborne unit in Kostroma, in central Russia, had been sent on what was described initially as a military training exercise but later turned into a mission into Ukraine. After having their cellphones and identity documents taken away, they were sent into Ukraine on vehicles stripped of all markings, Mr. Smirnov said.

This kind of thing represents a cusp of some kind. If it’s true, Putin has to decide pretty quickly whether to gamble everything on an outright invasion, or whether to back off. If it turns out to be a Ukrainian invention, Putin has to decide whether to use it as a casus belli. These are dangerous times.

UPDATE: Apparently Russia has admitted the soldiers are theirs:

Sources in Moscow have admitted that a number of men captured inside Ukraine were indeed serving Russian soldiers, but said they crossed the border by mistake….”The soldiers really did participate in a patrol of a section of the Russian-Ukrainian border, crossed it by accident on an unmarked section, and as far as we understand showed no resistance to the armed forces of Ukraine when they were detained,” a source in Russia’s defence ministry told the RIA Novosti agency.

Uh huh. I suppose Putin will now claim that detaining the soldiers is an act of war unless they’re immediately released.

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Ukraine Claims it Has Captured Russian Soldiers

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Another GOP Candidate Says Migrant Kids Might Have Ebola. (They Don’t.)

Mother Jones

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Arizona Speaker of the House Andy Tobin is the latest Republican politician to suggest migrants from Central America might bring the Ebola virus with them to the United States. Tobin, who is seeking the GOP nomination for the state’s 1st Congressional District in Tuesday’s primary, made the connection in an interview published in the Tucson Weekly on Thursday.

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) started the GOP Ebola fearmongering trend last month when he wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stating that “reports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning.” In August, Reps. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) leveled the same charge.

Although allegations of disease-ridden migrants are common throughout history, vaccination rates in Central America are higher than in Texas. And Ebola, which is difficult to contract, is not found in Central America. But Tobin was undeterred.

Per the Weekly:

…Tobin says he’s hearing about worries from constituents that the recent wave of undocumented youth from Central America could cause an Ebola outbreak in the United States.

“Anything’s now possible,” Tobin said last week. “So if you were to say the Ebola virus has now entered (the country), I don’t think anyone would be surprised.”

Tobin acknowledged that Ebola has been limited to outbreaks in Africa, “to the extent that they’re really aware of that. I think there is a reason we should be concerned about it and say, ‘Hey, can you assure us the people crossing the border are not from the Middle East?’…So I use that as an example, that the public would not be surprised to hear about the next calamity at the border.”

But even if there were lots of people crossing the border from the Middle East, they still wouldn’t be bringing Ebola, because Ebola is still confined to sub-Saharan West Africa. Here’s a useful map:

Central America is on the left. Google Maps

Fortunately for Tobin, though, the bar for misinformed comments on migrants is high in Arizona’s 1st District. State Rep. Adam Kwasman, Tobin’s chief rival for the nomination, became a late-night punch line in July when he protested a YMCA camp bus he mistakenly believed was filled with undocumented youths.

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Another GOP Candidate Says Migrant Kids Might Have Ebola. (They Don’t.)

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