U.S. Coast Guard among the hard working American citizens who are working without paychecks

For First Time in Recent History, a US Military Service Is Working Without Pay Echo report from the Military.com news

Military.com | By Hope Hodge Seck

MaineWriter- It's time for Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to stop the shutdown!
Editor's note: Many readers have taken issue with the assertion that this is the first time that U.S. service members have not been paid due to an appropriations lapse. We did some historical digging of our own. While this is the 21st government shutdown since 1976, most have been very short, and others, such as the shutdown in 1995-1996 and the shutdown in 2013, were accompanied by legislation that protected military pay. 

However, there was a period in 1877 when the U.S. Army went unpaid after Congress adjourned without passing an appropriations bill. So we've added the word "recent" to the headline.

As Coast Guard paychecks went undelivered Tuesday as the result of an ongoing partial government shutdown, the service's top officer urged its members to stay the course.

In a public letter published Tuesday afternoon on his social media pages, Admiral Karl Schultz said the day's missed paycheck, to his knowledge, marked the first time in the history of the nation "that service members in a U.S. Armed Force have not been paid during a lapse in government appropriations."

The Coast Guard, the only military service to fall under the Department of Homeland Security, is also the only service with payroll affected by the shutdown, which began Dec. 22. 

Although, the U.S. Coast Guard was able to issue final paychecks for the year, further pay cannot be dispersed until a budget deal is reached or another appropriation agreement is made.

In all, some 55,000 Coast Guard active-duty, reserve and civilian members are going without pay; the number includes 42,000 active-duty service members.

Coast Guard civilians have been on furlough or working without pay since the shutdown began.

While some government employees affected by the shutdown have been furloughed, the Coast Guard continues to conduct operations around the world.

"Your senior leadership, including [DHS] Secretary [Kirstjen] Nielsen, remains fully engaged and we will maintain a steady flow of communications to keep you updated on developments," Schultz said in his letter. "I recognize the anxiety and uncertainty this situation places on you and your family, and we are working closely with service organizations on your behalf."

Schultz added that Coast Guard Mutual Assistance, the service's official military relief society, received a $15 million donation from USAA to support those in need. The American Red Cross will help distribute the funds, he said.

The Coast Guard Mutual Assistance Board is also offering increased interest-free loans to junior employees and junior enlisted service members.

"I am grateful for the outpouring of support across the country, particularly in local communities, for our men and women," Schultz said. "It is a direct reflection of the American public's sentiment towards their United States Coast Guard; they recognize the sacrifice that you and your family make in service to your country."

The Coast Guard, Schultz said, had already many times proven the ability to rise above adversity.

"Stay the course, stand the watch, and serve with pride," he wrote. "You are not, and will not, be forgotten."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

Immigration: Cruel ICE.gov ~ Newsday echo opinion

Newsday ~ a New York newspaper ~ an echo opinion, exposes some of the lies swirling about the Trump administration's immigration (aka "anti-immigration) policy.  Meanwhile, the asylum seekers are experiencing cruel receptions by ICE.gov.

Central American migrants cross into the United States at Tijuana, Mexico, on May 4. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials continued to receive asylum requests from mothers and children of a migrant caravan. Photo Credit: EPA-EFE/Rex/Shutterstock/Joebeth Terriquez

Editorial: For weeks, the fierce national focus on immigration has been dominated by tales of *lost!* children, accompanied by childish political manipulations.

As Congress nears its summer recess and members position themselves for primaries and the November general election, attempts to pass legislation have become frantic. 

But the bills in the House of Representatives push in opposite directions to satisfy drastically different constituencies. 

Meanwhile, the Senate is poised to do nothing, and both parties and President Donald Trump are muddying the waters with squabbles and cynical lies.

The *failed Donald Trump* administration recently has been assailed with two terrible accusations about how it has *mis* handled minors coming into the USA. The claim that the Department of Health and Human Services is separating children as young as 4 from their parents is true.

The federal government admits it lost track of 1,475 children last year, but that’s neither ominous nor a cause for blame, as critics have claimed. In testimony before a Senate subcommittee last month, the Department of Health and Human Services explained the difficulty in checking up on the more than 7,000 unaccompanied minors it had placed with sponsors between last October and the end of last year. The agency made one call in each case to the contact phone number supplied and left a message when no one answered. Of those attempts, 1,475 elicited no response. This is not out of the ordinary. The sponsors and other members of the families these minors are placed with often have questionable legal residency themselves, and they might fear contact with authorities.

What’s more, a call from the government can be the precursor to a minor immigrant’s asylum hearing, which can lead to deportation. Many minors and sponsors are more comfortable slipping into the shadows than responding to such calls. But when news of the “missing” kids broke recently, it sparked a Twitter hashtag, #whereareourchildren, based on the belief that children in federal custody cannot be found.

Nevertheless, there is a tragedy going on involving such children because of the new rules Trump put in place.

Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a policy to separate children and parents caught entering the country illegally. It’s purposely cruel because it is primarily designed to deter anyone from trying to come here without permission, including those seeking asylum, which cannot be applied for from outside the country. The rule is also based on a false analogy. Sessions argues that anyone arrested and incarcerated in any situation is separated from his or her children. But it’s not a crime to cross into the United States when seeking asylum.
Stunned by the backlash against children being separated from parents and placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Trump and other officials claimed the separations are demanded by an Obama-era law, which is false. There is no law calling for such separations, just the *failed Donald Trump* administration’s own new “zero tolerance” policy.

It is against this hyperemotional backdrop that Congress is failing to settle the two baseline immigration disputes: increased border security, with or without a wall, and the fate of the 800,000 “Dreamers” brought here illegally by their parents who have no residency status and no other home.

Some Democrats want citizenship for the “Dreamers,” and no wall on our Southern border. Some Republicans want a huge wall and nothing for the “Dreamers.” But in an unusual twist, House centrists in both parties want to defy their wings and come up with a different approach. To do so, they are trying to use an obscure parliamentary procedure to force floor votes on several immigration options by banding together to overrule Speaker Paul Ryan.

Ryan will meet with his members Wednesday to try to re-establish order, but that may not be possible. Even if a bill were to pass, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he doesn’t see anything moving in his chamber, and the president is all over the map about what he would sign. That means the House fuss is about passing a bill to bolster election hopes, not changing the law to solve problems. And because any resolution is unlikely, East End farmers can’t get needed laborers and New York tech companies can’t get experienced talent.

A compromise is needed to satisfy demands for border security and for permanent status for “Dreamers.” (Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals aka -DACA), It must also maintain our US history of kind treatment of asylum-seekers, and of all people. Disseminating inflammatory lies may serve a purpose for certain politicians, on both sides of the aisle.

But it does not serve the nation.
By The Newsday Editorial Board

Ted Cruz must remove himself from the immigraton debate

"In an hour-long speech on a nearly empty Senate floor that ended when he could not gain permission to continue..."

Frankly, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, aka "Cruz to loose", a 2016 presidential candidate, infuriaties me, whenever he speaks about his anti immigration positions or, for that matter, anything else.

Senator Ted Cruz aka "Cruz to loose"

In fact, Senator "Cruz to loose" was born in Canada and his father was a Cuban immigrant. "Cruz to loose" can't possibly be so hypocritical as to oppose American immigration reform, when his parents were immigrants. But he does.

Nevetheless, Senator Ted Cruz is prosletizing about how immigraaiton reform is dangerous, regardless of who isn't listening.  

Cruz Lets Loose in Lonely Senate Floor Speech- reports The Texas Tribune

WASHINGTON -- Fresh off the campaign trail in Iowa, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz returned to the U.S. Capitol Monday to escalate his attacks against his party's leadership for not fighting hard enough against President Obama.

In an hour-long speech on a nearly empty Senate floor that ended when he could not gain permission to continue, the state's junior senator and presidential hopeful expanded his usual criticisms of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to include outgoing House Speaker John Boehner. Cruz also lambasted fellow Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, spoke of the recent lunar eclipse and boasted of a puzzling personal role in law enforcement.

"Speaker Boehner faced a conundrum," Cruz said of Boehner's abrupt decision to step down. "If he does what he and McConnell promised, which is funding all of Barack Obama’s priorities, he would have lost his job."

"And so what did he do?" Cruz asked. "He announced he’s resigning as speaker and resigning as a member of Congress."

He also took aim at his colleague from Texas, Majority Whip Cornyn.  Dozens of times, he questioned the integrity of "Republican leadership," a reference that includes Cornyn in his capacity as the second-ranking Senate Republican.

He specifically called out Cornyn, along with a handful of other senior Republican senators, for voting down a Cruz amendment targeting funding for Planned Parenthood and the Iran nuclear weapons deal via voice vote.

In contrast, Cruz cast himself and conservative senators and House members who frequently vote with him as the only elected members performing their jobs with the will of the American public in mind.

The speech lasted until his colleagues refused to extend his allotted time. Along the way, Cruz made several pop culture references — the Sunday night lunar eclipse, the movie "The Terminator" and the novel "Brave New World" — not an altogether unimaginable departure from his marathon 2013 speech two years ago which included a reading of "Green Eggs and Ham."

He also claimed the mantle of the badge:

"I'm an alumnus of the U.S. Department of Justice," he said. "I was an associate deputy attorney general. I spent much of my adult life working in law enforcement."

Cruz served in that position for six months, according to his online LinkedIn.

He held several positions in the George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign and administration, clerked in the federal judicial branch, represented Texas before the state and federal Supreme Courts for five and a half years and was a private practice attorney for nearly seven years.

A Cruz spokeswoman fleshed out the comment via email.

"Cruz's role in law enforcement as a prosecutor is proven over the course of more than a decade," Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier wrote. "As Texas' solicitor general and an attorney in private practice, he supervised and approved criminal appeals cases, and argued numerous criminal cases, including before the Supreme Court."

In other words, Senator Ted Cruz clearly speaks with a forked tonge.  He spews extremism and preaches his positions like a television evangelist, except he's not preaching the Bible. In fact, "Cruz to loose" is evangelizing about the world according to him.

Obviously, Senator Ted Cruz cannot be president of the United States or leader of the free world because (a) his immigration rhetoric is not based on supporting the American dream of upward mobility (b) certainly, his political speeches are uninspiring and (c) Cruz looks like a cardboard cut out poster, rather than a real human being. 

Senator Ted Cruz isn't qualified to be leader of the free world. His chaotic anti refugee positions are inconsistent with his own family's immigration history!  His positions on income redistribution, gun regulation Second Amendment reforms and aginst immigraton reforms have disqualified him to be President.

Therefore, Cruz must consider this cumulative information and, therefore, remoe himself from the presidential 2015 race.