Donald Trump and maga Republicans have a model for immigration reform but refuse to be create humane changes

Stop treating Houston immigrant families like criminals | Opinion
Echo opinion letter published in the Houston Chronicle

Immigration inequity:  Regarding “He is a handyman, not a criminal. Houston must face our immigration reality. | Editorial,” (Dec. 16)- a very sad 😟 report: This story highlights the inequities of current immigration enforcement — inequities most Americans already recognize as wrong. Houston Chronicle captured the issue perfectly when quoting the ICE spokesman: “ICE is targeting the worst of the worst criminal aliens, but all individuals who are in the country illegally are subject to arrest and removal.”

That single sentence reduces the complexity of our broken system to a cruel reality: a caring father of U.S. citizens is treated no differently than the “worst of the worst.😟” 

Such indiscriminate enforcement does not make Houston safer; rather, it destabilizes our community. Luis is not a hardened criminal. For his family’s sake, and for the good of our city, he deserves a path to legal residency.

For decades, both political parties failed to deliver humane immigration reforms. Yet the solution is not new. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, introduced nearly 20 years ago by Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy, 

this bill passed in the Senate in 2006, with bipartisan support and the backing from President George W. Bush. 

Sadly, it was defeated in the House, dismissed as “amnesty.”

After twenty years of stalemate, perhaps the moment has finally arrived for leaders from both political sides to revive that legislation and work together, instead of tearing the country apart. 

If today’s misguided policies ultimately force lawmakers to act, then maybe something good can come from this failure.

From Derris Murphy, in Houston, Texas

President Biden proudly appeared in support of American veterans during visits to war cemeteries in France

Echo report published in Yahoo.com by Josh Marcus:

President Joe Biden concluded his five-day state visit to France on Sunday, June 9, 2024, by touring an American cemetery home to 2,200 US soldiers who fought and died in World War I. (Aisne-Marne American Cemetery)

The president, who has used the visit to praise US alliances in Europe and reiterate support Ukraine in its war for Russia, laid a wreath at the chapel of Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France, outside of Paris.

“These soldiers were heroes, just as every American who has served this nation,” Biden said during the visit, adding, “The best way to avoid these kinds of battles in the future is to stay strong with our allies.”

Many observers saw the visit as a rebuke to Donald Trump, who skipped a planned 2018, visit to the cemetery and reportedly called the servicemen buried there “suckers” and “losers.”

Trump reportedly snubbed a planned commemoration at the cemetery for the 100th anniversary of WWI, fearing his hair would become disheveled in the rain, The Atlantic reported in 2020.

“At the time, he reportedly told those on the trip with him, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

Trump denied making the comments about the French cemetery.

John Kelly, a former Marine Corps general and Trump chief of staff, later told CNN Trump indeed mocked the dead American soldiers there.

'God help us': GeneralJohn Kelly issues scathing statement on Trump
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/10/02/john-kelly-donald-trump-exclusive-trump-us-service-members-veterans-tapper-pkg-lead-vpx.cnn

The alleged remarks echoed Trump’s past controversial remarks about Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who endured years of torture, about whom Trump said, “I like people who weren’t captured.”

Senataor John McCain's headstone in the US Naval academy cemetery in Annapolis (L'Heureux photo)

The Biden campaign, facing an extremely tight race against Trump in November, has sought to emphasize Trump’s comments about the military.

A recent campaign ad cuts footage of dead American servicemembers returning home in coffins with Trump’s past remarks about soldiers.

Elsewhere during the state visit, Biden commemorated the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France.

“They knew ... beyond any doubt that there are things that are worth fighting and dying for: Freedom is worth it,” Biden said of the soldiers. “Democracy is worth it. America’s worth it, the world is worth it, then, now and always.”

He also said the success of D-Day proved “the unbreakable unity of allies.”

Reports about Donald Trump calling veterans interred in cemeteries "suckers" and "losers"

Echo report published in Military Times by James LaPorta (AP)

DELRAY BEACH, FLa. — A new report details multiple instances of President Donald Trump making disparaging remarks about members of the U.S. military who have been captured or killed, including referring to the American war dead at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France in 2018, as “losers” and “suckers.”

Trump's disparaging "suckers and losers" description about veterans were first reported in The Atlantic. 

A senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press, including the 2018, cemetery comments.

Omaha Beach became a bloodbath on 6 June,1944

The defense officials said Trump made the comments as he begged off visiting the cemetery outside Paris during a meeting following his presidential daily briefing on the morning of Nov. 10, 2018.

Staffers from the National Security Council and the Secret Service told Trump that rainy weather made helicopter travel to the cemetery risky, but they could drive there. Trump responded by saying he didn’t want to visit the cemetery because it was “filled with losers,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The Trump White House blamed the canceled visit on poor weather at the time.

In another conversation on the trip, The Atlantic said, Trump referred to the 1,800 Marines who died in the World War I, battle of Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Trump also reiterated the White House explanation of why he didn’t visit the cemetery. “The helicopter could not fly,” he said, because of the rain and fog. “The Secret Service told me you can’t do it. ... They would never have been able to get the police and everybody else in line to have a president go through a very crowded, very congested area.”

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, “If the revelations reported in The Atlantic article are true, then they are yet another marker of how deeply President Trump and I disagree about the role of the President of the United States.”

“Duty, honor, country — those are the values that drive our service members,” he said in a statement Thursday night, adding that if he is elected president, “I will ensure that our American heroes know that I will have their back and honor their sacrifice — always.” Biden’s son Beau served in Iraq in 2008-09.

The Defense officials also confirmed to The AP, reporting in The Atlantic that Trump, on Memorial Day 2017, had gone with his chief of staff, John Kelly, to visit the Arlington Cemetery gravesite of Kelly’s son, Robert, who was killed in 2010, in Afghanistan, and said to Kelly: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

Maine Writer Juliana L'Heureux at Senator John McCain's headstone in the U.S. Naval Acadamy cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland God Bless John McCain (b. 1936- d. 2018).

The senior Marine Corps officer and The Atlantic, citing sources with firsthand knowledge, also reported that Trump said he didn’t want to support the August 2018, funeral of Republican Sen. John McCain, a decorated Navy veteran who spent years as a Vietnam prisoner of war, because he was a “loser.” The Atlantic also reported that Trump was angered that flags were flown at half-staff for McCain, saying: “What the f—- are we doing that for? Guy was a f—-ing loser.”

Trump acknowledged Thursday he was “never a fan” of McCain and disagreed with him,

President Biden tributes fallen soilders and blasts the Trump demeaning "losers" comment

A Furious Biden Calls Trump’s Reported Insults of Fallen Soldiers ‘Disgusting’. Echo report published in The New York Times 

By Thomas Kaplan and Katie Glueck.

Responding to a report that President Trump called soldiers killed in combat “losers,” Joe Biden used his outrage to draw a contrast with his opponent over leadership and decency.

Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee for president, lashed out at President Trump over reports that Mr. Trump had called American soldiers who died in combat “losers” and “suckers.”

With barely concealed fury, he said that Beau Biden “wasn’t a ‘sucker,’” adding, “The servicemen and women he served with, particularly those who did not come home, were not ‘losers.’”

WILMINGTON, Delaware — Joseph R. Biden Jr. strained to contain his disgust with President Trump on Friday over a report that Mr. Trump made extraordinarily disrespectful remarks about fallen soldiers.

Then, he turned to the coronavirus pandemic and the financial pain it had inflicted on millions of Americans. Trump, (said Mr. Biden), “just doesn’t care.”

And a day earlier, in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Biden presented himself as a unifying force determined to confront racial injustice — a very different message from the one Trump sent during his visit to the city two days earlier.

After Democrats spent their convention last month casting him as the candidate of empathy, Mr. Biden found himself with the opportunity to demonstrate that in real time.

Over two days, in Wisconsin, a key battleground state, Mr. Biden drew unmistakably sharp contrasts with Mr. Trump — not just about policy ideas or management competence, but also about showing respect and understanding Americans’ struggles.

In a fiery speech and a subsequent news conference, Mr. Biden expressed outrage over a report by The Atlantic that Mr. Trump had referred to American soldiers killed in combat during World War I as “losers” and “suckers” and had repeatedly shown disdain for military service at other points in his presidency. Mr. Trump and a number of his aides have denied the reporting, which cited multiple sources but did not name them.

“If what is written in The Atlantic is true, it’s disgusting,” Mr. Biden said in remarks he delivered in a Wilmington gymnasium a short drive from his home. “And it affirms what most of us believe to be true: that Donald Trump is not fit to do the job of president, to be the commander in chief.”

Ticking through a list of other well-documented instances in which Mr. Trump has dismissed the sacrifices of military veterans, including those of Senator John McCain, Mr. Biden continued, “President Trump has demonstrated he has no sense of service, no loyalty to any cause other than himself.”

Senator John McCain's headstone in the Naval Academy cemetery

Mr. Biden spoke in strikingly personal terms about the military service of his son Beau Biden, who served in the Iraq war and died in 2015, of brain cancer.

He called the report “absolutely damnable,” and he was unsparing in denouncing Mr. Trump’s behavior. “I’ve just never been as disappointed in my whole career with a leader that I’ve worked with, president or otherwise,” he said.

“It is sick,” Mr. Biden added. “It is deplorable. It is so un-American. It is so unpatriotic.”

Mr. Trump on Friday repeated his denial of the report. “It was a totally fake story, and that was confirmed by many people who were actually there,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “I’ve done more for the military than almost anybody else.”

Military veterans often lean Republican, and they supported Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton by a large margin in the 2016 election, according to exit polls. But in 2018 a number of the most prominent Democratic House candidates were veterans, and Mr. Biden, who has been endorsed by a long list of Republican national security experts, hopes to appeal to more voters with ties to the military.

Mr. Biden’s condemnation of Mr. Trump came in a speech that was otherwise focused on the economy, an area that has been a source of political strength for the president, though the ravages of the pandemic have threatened his standing on the issue. In a national Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, likely voters were evenly split on whether Trump or Mr. Biden would do a better job handling the economy.

But Mr. Biden’s reaction to the president’s reported comments set the tone for his event, at which he also fielded questions from the news media. Asked about supporters of QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, Mr. Biden suggested they should seek treatment.

“I’ve been a big supporter of mental health,” he said. “I’d recommend the people who believe it maybe should take advantage while it still exists in the Affordable Care Act. It’s bizarre. Totally bizarre.”

Before Mr. Biden’s speech, the Labor Department provided a snapshot of the virus’s continuing economic toll. Job growth slowed in August, the department said, as the economy added 1.4 million jobs, fewer than in the previous three months. Payrolls remain more than 11 million jobs below their level before the pandemic. The unemployment rate declined to 8.4 percent, down from 14.7 percent in April.

“You can’t have an economic comeback when almost 1,000 Americans die each day from Covid,” Mr. Biden said in his speech, faulting the president over his handling of the virus and noting the economic damage it had inflicted on the American public.

“The painful truth is, we just have a candidate who just doesn’t see it,” Mr. Biden said. “He doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t understand. He just doesn’t care. He thinks if the stock market is up, then everything’s fine. If his wealthy friends and donors are doing well, then everything’s doing well.”

In response to the jobs report, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, Tim Murtaugh, said in a statement that Mr. Biden “hopes for economic ruin to buoy his political fortunes.”

“While the work is not finished,” he said, “Trump’s policies positioned us to fight through the coronavirus crisis and reopen faster than doomsayers like Biden predicted.” (Fake News!)😡

Thomas Kaplan reported from Wilmington, and Katie Glueck from New York.

Dump the Chump: Donald Trump has "chump" syndrome!

Definition of "chump": A stupid or foolish person.

An echo opinion published in Bakersfield.com, in California:

In his latest attempt at self-glorification, a coffee table book named "Letters to Trump," the former guy president goes out of his way to insult and demean a true America hero, the late Senator John McCain, who died nearly five years ago. What is Trump's problem?

Maine Writer- Juliana L'Heureux at the gravesite where Senator John McCain is buried in Annapolis at the U.S. Navy Academy, in Maryland. (L'Heureux photo)

Shame on Trump the chump! i.e., Trump the Chump (T the C)

In his latest attempt at self-glorification, a coffee table book named "Letters to Trump," the former president goes out of his way to insult and demean a true America hero, the late Sen. John McCain, who died nearly five years ago. What is Trump's problem?

He will never be regarded as a real hero! He will never receive the respect and honor that McCain so rightly deserves?

McCain served willingly and heroically in Vietnam while "Captain Bonespur" hid behind his daddy's store-bought medical excuses? What is Mr. Trump's problem? Is he so insecure that he has to show himself on computer-generated bubblegum cards doing and performing mighty deeds that he has never done and never will do?

McCain was the real deal. An honest-to-God, real-life Vietnam veteran who fought and suffered for his country. He faced and endured horrors that you cannot even begin to imagine. Where does Trump get the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to belittle this soldier? When the call came, he went. Trump hid behind his daddy's money.

Now Trump wants us to make him the commander in chief of our military again. ❓ If that wasn't such an insult to every serviceman and woman, it would almost be funny. Almost. 😓

— Michael Cariker, in Bakersfield California

A complete list of the former guy's Twitter insults published in The New York Times is at this link here.

Republicans should try the truth serum experiment - opinion echo

Ohio echo opinion published in the Cincinnati Enquirer: Truth serum for Republicans (Cincinnati.com) by Phil Heimlich

Unique experiment ~ conducted by the U.S. Department of Satire, Parody and Other Endangered Resources. 

Three leading members of the Republican Party were given a truth serum, which caused them to speak honestly and openly about the current political situation. Audio recordings were made of their comments, which have been transcribed below.

(WARNING: Satire can cause confusion, anger and outbursts of profanity among people who have an untreated humor deficiency or who suffer from degenerative partisan myopia.)

Satire serum response from Ohio Senator Rob Portman:

"I’ve got to find a way to sneak into the Capitol today without reporters seeing me. They have absolutely no conscience about asking me over and over why I have no conscience. How dare they describe me as spineless for not speaking out every time the president tells a little fib. Sure, I voted to impeach President Clinton for lying about sex, but Trump’s impeachment is different – all he did was offer a teeny-weeny bribe to the president of Ukraine – and for that they call me a hypocrite? Well, I resemble that remark. I’m not afraid to criticize the president. I have spoken out numerous times in a very loud whisper about his conduct. When Trump sided with Vladimir Putin against our intelligence agencies, I used tough words like 'inappropriate' to express my deeply held convictions. If I can just keep ducking into elevators or behind stairwells, they’ll be back to calling me a statesman again in no time."

Satire serum response from South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham:

"My greatest fear is that people can rise from the dead, because if my old pal John McCain ever comes back to life, he’ll kill me. I can hear him now: 'How can you suck up to that corrupt blowhard? You bootlicker – don’t you have any principles?'

Well, I have a simple answer to that question: NO.

Question for Senator Susan Collins:  What would Senator John McCain do? 

Listen, when you’re given a ride on Air Force One by the commander-in-chief, it’s a hell of a lot more fun than being a cranky, bitter old 'maverick.' And the ecstasy of 18 rounds on the links at Mar-a-Lago with the leader of the free world – it’s better than body-slamming Congressman Adam Schiff. Well, almost. I’m up for reelection next year and every time my special buddy in the White House sends out one of those catchy tweets to the base, I get shivers down my spine (not to mention lots of calls from the un-fake news at Fox). And when I come up with some creative excuse for one of Trump’s boneheaded foreign policy ideas to buy North Korea or move the White House permanently to Mar-a-Lago, he pats me on the head and says, 'Good job, Lindsey.' God bless America, it doesn’t get any better than that."

Satire Serum from Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan (#GymJordan):

"Did you see me at those hearings? My rope-a-dope* makes Muhammad Ali look like a punch-drunk loser with two left feet. I tied those witnesses up in pretzels like my opponents when I won the NCAA wrestling title. Donald Trump could get caught trading Ukraine to Putin for Hillary’s missing emails, and we’d let him off. They say when the facts are against you, argue the law; and when the law is against you, argue the facts – but when the facts and the law are against you, that’s when you call Jim Jordan. Just don’t call me consistent. I hope nobody at CNN finds those old news clips of me demanding the impeachment of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for – get this – withholding documents from Congress and failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. Back then, impeachment fit like my trademark rolled-up shirtsleeves – I called it 'the indispensable power that Congress has for holding government officials accountable to the American people.' But now that shirt does not fit and we must acquit."

Opinion of Phil Heimlich is a former assistant prosecutor, Cincinnati City councilman and Hamilton County commissioner, and currently a legal adviser to Republicans for the Rule of Law. @philheimlich

*...boxing tactic of pretending to be trapped against the ropes...

Why would Donald Trump put forth this terrible and unfair policy discriminating to children born to military families?

Where is Senator Ted Cruz?  He was born in Canada in a Canadian hospital and his birth was paid for by the Canadian health care system.  He should lead the opposition to this terrible policy primarily because his esteemed colleague the late Senator John McCain would have been subject to this unfair, cruel and totally unnecessary policy.  Americans must kick Donald Trump out of the Oval Office where he is directing horrific policies that are harming our citizens. Children have no control whatsoever about where they are born!  Moreover, military families have zero influence about where their spouses will receive orders to be stationed.

Opinion- Children of U.S. troops born overseas must now apply to become citizens? That's ridiculous!

Echo by E.J. Montini published in the Arizona Republic

The Trump administration has decided that children born to U.S. service members and government employees stationed overseas will no longer be automatically considered citizens of the United States.

Can you imagine anything more ridiculous? Sure.

But this is right up there among the most ridiculous and cruel.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) made the announcement Wednesday, saying that children born to service members and other government employees at military hospitals and other locales outside the country will no longer automatically be considered U.S. citizens. Instead, their parents will have to apply for naturalization.

Senator John McCain, US Navy veteran and presidential candidate (1936-2018)- born in Panama, while his father was serving in the US Military.

Arizona is home to thousands of full-time and part-time military personnel, many of whom eventually serve overseas.
Not only would this new citizenship rule be an unnecessary hassle for individuals serving their country, but it may have the effect of preventing the children of government employees and military personnel from becoming president of the United States, depending upon how the Constitution is interpreted.

Still citizens, but with limits?

The founders, under Article II, Section 1, said that in order to be president a person had to be 35 years old, to have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years, and be a “natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution.”

Since there are no longer any naturalized citizens who were around at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, military kids could be out.

If this rule were to have applied in 1936, a future U.S. senator named John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, might not have been eligible to run for president.

At least one member of Arizona's congressional delegation, himself a veteran, noticed this. Tweeting:

FYI under this situation Senator John McCain would not have been eligible to run for President. https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1166815383959085056 …

This, of course, makes no sense.

I know, not shocking.

What would be shocking is if Congress didn’t step in and figure out a solution.  Either that, or limiting the citizenship rights the children of those who serve could become U.S. policy.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

Historic tribalism was overcome by visionary leaders. "Who now?"

Does this history remind you of many Donald Trump voters in 2016? And the divisiveness has continued to the present. An "essay echo", published in the History News Network, written by Walter G. Moss, a professor emeritus of history at Eastern Michigan University and Contributing Editor of HNN.

Who will lead America out of the current political tribalism?  Senator John McCain's funeral was one step forward but who will take up a visionary standard to lead us?

In July 2017, Senator John McCain told his Senate colleagues that their deliberations had become “more partisan, more tribal more of the time than any other time I remember.” Conservative columnist David Brooks started off 2018 with a column entitled “The Retreat to Tribalism.” During the last year The Atlantic featured two essays, “The Tragedy of President Trump's Tribalism”and “Can America Survive Tribalism?”

But, consider this historic quote: “A steadily degenerating confidence in the future which had reached the height of general alarm. . . . We are in a pitiful position.” The American Dream “appears to lie shattered.”  Those words are not from the present Trumpian times, when political rancor and divisiveness are rampant, and the president continues to attack his predecessor’s legacy and despoils our environment? Nope. The quotes are from Herbert Hoover, a popular historian before FDR took office in March 1933—as found in Robert Dallek’s biography of Franklin Roosevelt.

In addition, Dallek tells us there “was the deep cultural divide between urban and rural Americans, or modernists and fundamentalists, as they were described.”

Moreover, in 1932, “rural folks who aggressively supported ideas and traditions largely in harmony with their established way of life” felt threatened by the growing dominance of the big cities. 

Many of these same folks especially distrusted all the southern and eastern European immigrants who had come to the cities before the 1924 National Origins Act discriminated against them and Asians.

“The belief that these groups could never be turned into citizens who fully accepted Anglo-Saxon economic and political traditions” was widespread.

Beginning with 1920, the USA had elected three successive Republican presidents. In the 1928 presidential election, the Democratic candidate, the Catholic Governor of New York Al Smith, was crushed by the Republican Herbert Hoover. Dallek believes that the election signaled “the extent to which the country remained split between cities and towns, Catholics and Protestants, southern and Eastern Europeans and assimilated voters.” And he quotes a Southern newspaper editor who wrote that the election indicated that the nation’s “Anglo-Saxon stock” would not be “overturned and humiliated,” that the “small communities and rural regions” had “risen up in wrath” against the country’s “great cities.”

Remind you of many Trump voters in 2016? And the divisiveness has continued to the present.

In July 2017, Senator John McCain told his Senate colleagues that their deliberations had become “more partisan, more tribal more of the time than any other time I remember.” Conservative columnist David Brooks started off 2018 with a column entitled “The Retreat to Tribalism.”During the last year The Atlantic featured two essays, “The Tragedy of President Trump's Tribalism”and “Can America Survive Tribalism?”

The first Atlantic essay accuses DonaldTrump of operating “in a uniquely tribal fashion that has ominously, and even deliberately, widened” our political divisions. Instead of, the essay advocates, “policies that resist tribal separatism and balances the interests of all Americans.”

The second Atlantic essay reviews Amy Chua’s Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations(2018). Chua’s book explains how the changing demography of the USA has aroused fears among many white Americans that they are losing the dominance they once had—indeed, by 2045 demographers predictthey will be less than 50 percent of the U.S. population.

But now, as in 1932, Americans are unhappy with a Republican president’s performance. By late 1932, Dallek tells us that Hoover “became the butt of vaudeville comedians,” and that he “deepened the gulf between him and his critics by accusing them of ‘unpatriotic’ ” behavior. The same could be said for Trump if we substitute “late-night” for vaudeville. By late 1932, one of every four workers was unemployed. In the November election Roosevelt swept the Electoral College vote, 472 to 59.

In late 2018 unemployment is low, but there are many other reasons for voters’ dissatisfaction with Trump. According to an early September 2018 ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 63 percent of those polled thought that both Trump and the Republican Party were out of touch with the concerns of most people. Trump’s approval rating stood at 36 percent. This was the 10 points or more lower than presidents Obama, Clinton, and Reagan at a comparable time heading into their first midterm election.

As in 1932, so today, the American Dream seems shattered to many. In Chau’s book mentioned above, she insists that what we need is a new American vision that can unite our torn nation. She criticizes both the Right and Left for stoking the flames of tribalism. At the beginning of this year, I agreed with two conservative columnist David Brooks and Ross Douthat—both very critical of Trump—who also stated that we need such a new vision. But, unlike them, I suggested that two prominent Americans assassinated a half century ago, Martin Luther King, Jr.(MLK) and Robert Kennedy (RFK), offered us models for reconstructing our dream—in King’s words so that “we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

Although acknowledging King’s importance, Chua ends her book by quoting from another source that can provide inspiration for any imaginative reconstruction of our dream, Langston Hughes’s 1935 poem “Let America Be America Again.” 

Hughes wanted America “to be the dream the dreamers dreamed,” to be a “great strong land of love.” But it had to be more inclusive than in the past. It had to go beyond “dog eat dog,” it had to extend justice to poor whites, blacks, Native Americans, and immigrants. Hughes’s final stanza reads,

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain—

All, all the stretch of these great green states—

And make America again!

How appropriate that last stanza seems today! The first two lines speaking to the rot and lies of the present administration and the remaining ones to the need to undo all the environmental harm the Trump government has inflicted upon us. “And make America again” reminds us of the Trump mantra “Make America Great Again.”

But Hughes did not urge us to restore an age of white dominance (as Trump does), but beckoned us forward, as MLK and RFK did, toward creating a more inclusive American vision. One that could inspire us all, whether we be white, black, or brown; male or female; young or old; rich or poor.

Our finest Americans have long pointed us in this direction. In his First Inaugural Address, occurring about a month before the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln told his “dissatisfied fellow-countrymen”: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” Instead he appealed to “the better angels of our nature.”

In his Second Inaugural Address, occurring about a month before the end of the Civil War,Lincoln said, “but let us judge not, that we be not judged. . . . With malice toward none, with charity for all . . . let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

A century after Lincoln, MLK expressed a similar spirit in his “I Have a Dream Speech”in which he held out a vision of a “day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”

In 1968, before he was assassinated, Robert Kennedy demonstrated (as aNewsweek article noted after his victory in an Indiana primary) that “in a painful era of racial polarization” one could still “bridge the chasm separating the gut elements of the traditional Democratic coalition. He swept the Negro vote while at the same time piling up big leads among backlashy white workingmen—the same group that whistled Dixie for Alabama's George Wallace in the primary four years ago.”

In recent decades there have been glimmers of hope that we can move more toward national unity and embrace a reimagined American Dream. In his2004 Keynote Address to the Democratic Convention,Barack Obama spoke against “those who are preparing to divide us” and urged us to remember that “we are all connected as one people.” Once he became president, he occasionally reminded us of the need for more civil political discourse. In 2010, for example, in a University of Michigan commencement address he toldthe graduates, “We can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question somebody’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism.”

Although the Trump candidacy and presidency has heighted political incivility, occasional hopeful rays continue to appear. The final words of Sen. John McCain and the funeral he planned for himself combined for one such powerful ray. In his last advice to the American people he stated, “We are 325 million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But, we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country, we’ll get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before.” To deliver eulogies at his funeral, he asked one former Republican president (George W. Bush) and one former Democrat president (Barack Obama). In The New Yorker, Susan Glasser wrote,“John McCain’s Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting [to Trumpism] Yet.”

Such words as those of Obama or McCain may seem fine, but 2018 is not, as 1932 was, a presidential election year. Unlike Hoover in late 1932, it is unlikely that Trump will soon vacate the presidency. But what does seem similar is our increasing disgust with our president and our yearning for new leadership that can help restore our fractured political body.

In a 1932 interview, FDR stated that what our country needed was “some one whose interests are not special but general, some one who can understand and treat the country as a whole. For . . . no interest, no class, no section, is either separate or supreme above the interests of all.” As Dallek writes, “If Roosevelt was to find the means to overcome the nation’s crisis, it would have to rest on shared support from every region and every ethnic, religious, and racial group.”

In his First Inaugural Address, he criticized “false leadership,” “self-seekers” who had “no vision.” But what vision did he have, and how did it differ from previous ones? He thought of himself as a liberal and progressive, but in a non-ideological, pragmatic, and imaginative sense, one open to compromise and experiment. In pursuit of the common good, which should be what a government pursues, he was prepared to defy the failed Republican bias against substantial government aid. 

Dallek tells us that in 1932 President Hoover thought that “Federal aid would be a disservice to the unemployed”; and “Roosevelt's New Deal reforms were giant steps in humanizing the American industrial system.”

It’s true that FDR did not please everyone. Many wealthy businessmen, conservative politicians, and the Hearst press, for example, thought him too leftist. But, overall, Roosevelt had a unifying vision – as indicated by his popularity with the American people. They elected him president four times, and generally approved of his policies; in the spring of 1941, for example, he had a 76 percent approval rating.

2018 is not 1932. But again most Americans are disgusted with a president’s behavior and ready to consider a revised and recharged American vision. Will it be forthcoming? Will it be inclusive enough? Who will provide it?

Korean War Marine veteran writes about current Commander in Chief

https://www.journaltribune.com/articles/letters-to-the-editor/commander-in-chief/

Salute to Senator John McCain - (He's a hero. Current CIC is not!)

Echo letter to the editor of the Biddeford Maine Journal Tribune:

I’m an old U.S. Marine who proudly served this wonderful country of ours, during and after the Korean War, and if I were a young Marine today, and had to salute the present Commander-in-Chief, after doing so I would throw up my guts in disgust.

People that think there is nothing lower than whale doo-doo, well think again.

I, with a tear in my eye, salute Senator John McCain for his heroism, patriotism, and true grit.

Senator McCain, all your brother and sister veterans know you are at peace in heaven, for you served your hell on earth in the Hanoi Hilton.

R.I.P., our hero.
Semper Fi,

Toby Koles, Saco, Maine

Trump world of lies

While Donald Trump played golf, the world heard the truth about him resonate during several world class eulogies, at the state funeral for Senator John McCain. 

Opinion echo published in The Meridian Star newspaper in Mississippi

Truth is truth; lies are lies

By Cokie Roberts and Steven V. Roberts

A small but significant line was crossed recently when the Washington Post's fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, called President Trump a liar for the first time.

He's cited the president for about 4,300 "false or misleading claims" since the inauguration, but as Kessler notes, "In many of those cases, it's not possible to tell whether Trump was intentionally fibbing or simply careless or wrong."

That all changed, writes Kessler, when the president's lawyer Michael Cohen pled guilty in federal court and provided "indisputable evidence that Trump lied" about his role in silencing two former girlfriends during the 2016 campaign.

"There's no question Trump lied – repeatedly, intentionally, over more than a year, enlisting top aides and advisers to further the deception," concluded the fact-checker.

Some ardent anti-Trumpers will tell Kessler, "What took you so long?" After all, as presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told the Toronto Star, "We've had presidents that have lied or misled the country, but we've never had a serial liar before. And that's what we're dealing with here."

Even Trump's own lawyers admit Brinkley's right, since they openly fear that if he talks to special counsel Robert Mueller, he'll lie under oath and commit perjury.

Moreover, many respected news outlets started using the L-word about Trump a long time ago. But Kessler is so careful and cautious that his shift marks another milestone in the increasingly determined and aggressive effort by the mainstream media to push back against the president and hold him accountable for his serial trashing of the truth.

As Marty Baron, Kessler's boss as editor of the Post, put it, "I think the public is looking for a press that stands for something, that stands for telling the truth, and will do it regardless of the pressures, and the people will support that."

That's an essential mission, but a very difficult one in the Age of Trump (aka "Trumpzism) – whose own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently proclaimed on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "Truth isn't truth."

Trump's incessant attacks on the media as the "enemy of the peopleare deliberately designed to undercut the ability of fact-checkers like Kessler to correct and counter the president. And those attacks work. Gallup reports that 62 percent of Americans think the news they get is "biased."

CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl recalls asking Trump why he assails the press so vociferously: "And he said, 'You want to know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.'"

Trump doesn't just demean and discredit the mainstream press; he also simply goes around it, broadcasting his own bombastic broadsides – at any hour, with no filter – on what can only be called TBN, the Trump Broadcasting Network. He boasts at having more than 100 million followers on various social media platforms. Even if that's an exaggeration, he was correct when he told Stahl right after the election that social media gives him "a tremendous forum ... I have a method of fighting back."

What makes Trump even more dangerous is that he's a very good liar. He never corrects himself, never apologizes, and keeps repeating the same fabrications over and over again. TV reporter Billy Bush recounts this off-camera conversation with Trump: "He says, 'Billy, look, look, you just tell them and they believe it. That's it, you just tell them and they believe it. They just do.'"

Scientists who study human cognition know Trump is on to something. Writing in Politico, Maria Konnikova summarizes the research in the field: "When we are in an environment headed by someone who lies so often, something frightening happens: We stop reacting to the liar as a liar. His lying becomes normalized. We might even become likely to lie ourselves."

Wait, it gets worse. "Here's the really bad news for all those fact-checkers and publications hoping to counter Trump's false claims," she writes. "Repetition of any kind, even to refute the statement in question ... perversely reinforces the very claim it means to debunk."

So should folks like Kessler and Baron give up? Should they abandon their mission of telling the truth?

Absolutely not.

They have to be fair to Trump, and meticulously accurate. The L-word should never be used carelessly, but only when there's "indisputable evidence" that the president is deliberately deceiving people.

But Giuliani is wrong. Truth is truth. Facts are facts. Lies are lies. And the public needs and deserves journalists who will help them understand that.

Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.

Los Angeles Times - Trump is a failed human being

If Trump remains a bully, John McCain's funeral won't be the last he isn't invited to

Echo opinion letter published in The Los Angeles Times:

To the editor: Well, what do you know? It seems the president (Drumpf!) may be human after all, as he is reportedly “deeply wounded” by having been excluded from Sen. John McCain’s funeral and other momentous events at which grace, decorum and compassion are called for.
What did President Trump expect? To continue without consequence bullying and humiliating people in his attempt to cover up his bottomless well of insecurities and feelings of inferiority, unconscious though they may be?

We reap what we sow, Mr. President. And even if he were familiar with this basic truth, he’d think it didn’t apply to him.

Carol P. Surface, Beverly Hills CA

MaineWriter- IMO, Donald Trump is a failed human being.  He can't muster the dignity to behave with decorum in the face of national tragedies, proven with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and in his callous call to the brave widow of the Green Beret La David Johnson: "Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter and also me and my husband," Jones-Johnson said (reported in The Washington Post)....Trump made comments that upset the widow. Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (Fla.) says Trump told Myeshia Johnson that her husband, Sgt. La David T. Johnson, “knew what he signed up for.” Appearing on MSNBC's “Morning Joe”, Wilson added that the widow was in tears after the call and lamented that Trump “didn't even remember his name.”

Echo Letter from Roanoke Virginia - another Donald Trump low

Echo from the The Roanoke Times in Virginia:

http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/letters/letter-a-new-low-for-even-the-trump-administration/article_37d867e5-cce8-541d-b060-8c4e18764042.html

Letter: A new low, for even the Trump administration

Kelly Sadler's remark that Sen. John McCain was "irrelevant because he would soon die" was an all-time low, even for the Trump administration. 

Drain the Trump Swamp ~ Vote Blue in 2018

But it should hardly come as a surprise, Trump himself said in 2015 that McCain was not a hero because he spent more than five years as a prisoner in North Vietnam. (Yeah, like McCain deliberately walked into captivity.)

But we know, and should be sickened, that this administration exemplifies disrespect and insensitivity. 

Yet, there is hope. Soon (in 2018!) we'll have an opportunity to drain the swamp of Trump and his minions, while we still have a swamp to drain.

Rodney A. Franklin, Thaxton, Virginia

Donald Trump will soon have US Military "taking a knee" - he must apologize

Thank you Myesha Johnson for standing up for all military families by responding to the terrible response by #DonaldTrump when he used inappropriate language in his bereavement call about your brave husband.

Donald Trump began his cowardly assault on the American military when he somehow received a draft deferment when he was elibible to be called to service in Vietnam. He had a bone spur. Okay, there were lots of "bone spur" deferments when it was time to go to Vietnam, perhaps the condition was epidemic. Nevertheless, rather than acknowledge this cowardly deferment, Donald Trump continues to show disrespect for the military.

Even worse, Donald Trump went on to criticize Senator John McCain, unnecessarily, during the 2016 election, for being captured during his Vietnam service. In fact, Senator McCain was captured when the jet he piloted was shot down by the North Vietnamese, who kept him in prison for 7 years. As a result, Senator McCain continues to suffer physical disabilities, related to his injuries. 

Unfortunately, there's even more to report. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump even denied the dignity due to the Gold Star family of US Army officer, Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq.  Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan was a United States Army officer. who was born in the United Arab Emirates to Pakistani parents. He moved to the U.S. with his family as a young boy. He was killed on June 6, 2004, in Baghdad, Iraq.

This unfortunate litany has reached another depth of degradation.  For some unbelievable reason, Donald Trump has created a feud with the widow of the US Army Sargent LaDavd Johnson, killed in the nation of Niger, because, during an ill planned bereavement call, he botched the condolence communications and caused even more grief.

If this serial disrespect doesn't stop (and must include an apology to Mrs. LaDavid Johnson), it's possible the US Military will begin to "take a knee", in opposition to Donald Trump's lack of character and incompetent leadership.

Widow Of U.S. Soldier Killed In Niger: Trump’s Call ‘Made Me Cry Even Worse’ Myeshia Johnson confirmed the president told her that her husband “knew what he signed up for.”~ from the Huffington Post by William Frej

Myeshia Johnson at the casket of her husband Sgt. LaDavid Johnson killed in Niger

This information was also reported in BBCNews: 

Myeshia Johnson: Widow of dead soldier hits out at Trump

The widow of a U.S. soldier killed in Niger said she was “hurt” when President Donald Trump told her in a phone call last week that her husband “knew what he signed up for.”

“He couldn’t remember my husband’s name,” Myeshia Johnson told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, referring to the presidential condolence call that ignited a weeklong controversy. “I heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband’s name.”

She said Trump told her that her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, “knew what he signed up for but it hurts anyways. And it made me cry because I was very angry at the tone in his voice and how he said it.”
The president’s call made her “very upset and hurt,” she said. “It made me cry even worse.”

Trump quickly shot back on Twitter, saying that his conversation with Johnson was “very respectful” and that he did say the fallen soldier’s name.

 Follow

Donald J. Trump 

✔@realDonaldTrump

I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!

8:30 AM - Oct 23, 2017

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Johnson’s death has been front and center in a controversy Trump himself created when he drew attention to the fact that he hadn’t phoned the immediate families of all service members who had been killed during his presidency and made the erroneous claim that his predecessors didn’t make such calls.

Trump did phone Johnson last week. Rep. Federica Wilson (D-Fla.), who was in the car with Johnson when Trump made the condolence call on Tuesday, was the first to speak out about the conversation:

“Sarcastically he said: ‘But you know he must have known what he signed up for,’” Wilson told NBC6. “How could you say that to a grieving widow? I couldn’t believe ... and he said it more than once. I said this man has no feelings for anyone. This is a young woman with child who is grieved to her soul.”

Johnson’s aunt, who was also in the car, backed Wilson up last week. Trump on Wednesday accused Wilson of fabricating what he said, claiming he had proof.

“Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated,” Johnson’s widow, who is pregnant, confirmed on Monday. “What she said was 100-percent correct. The phone was on speakerphone. Why would we fabricate something like that?”

She said she has nothing further to say to Trump.

#Myeshia_strong I totally believe her and Rep. Frederica Wilson.

Donald Trump owes the entire US Military an apology.

Rest in peace and my sincere condolences to the families of:

Staff Sargent Bryan Black

Staff Sargent Dustin Wright

Staff Sargent Jeremiah Johnson

Sargent LaDavid Johnson