Voters must hold Donald Trump and Mike Pence accountable for gross immigrant abuse

"The Trump administration is lying",.... opinion echo.

Maine Writer sub title: Nazi tactics on innocent immigrants.

Mr. Pence, where were your pro-life values when immigrant children needed protection? | Opinion Echo by Fabiola Santiago*, published in the Miami Herald

Six little words were all the United States needed to raze centuries of claims of moral leadership about family values. 

“We need to take away children,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions insisted in May 2018.

Remember the children when you vote in this election.

You, privileged American, may have tried to forget their brown skin torched by the sun and little bodies dehydrated and exhausted from the multi-country trek to the U.S. border. 

A perilous journey taken only to be torn from their immigrant parents at the doorstep of their shot at the humblest version of the American Dream.

Not even babies were spared.

“We need to take away children,” the aging former senator and xenophobe commanded.

And all the way down the chain — his deputy Rod J. Rosenstein, five Department of Justice prosecutors at the border, Border Patrol agents, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they fell in line and did the unthinkable.

They took some 2,600 children from their parents and sent them to faraway detention camps and foster-care facilities.

It was wholesale, horrific cruelty carried out by an administration denying that separating immigrant families was the intention of the new “zero tolerance” policy meant to deter immigrants from seeking refuge here from violence, death threats and poverty.

Two years later, we can confirm what we long suspected in a draft of a new 86-page report by the watchdog office of the Inspector General obtained by The New York Times.

The Trump administration was lying.

Separation wasn’t a byproduct of parents making the choice to pursue their asylum claims. It was direct, ordered punishment — and a way to send a message to others to stay away.

No child was too young to be separated from their parents, Rosenstein told prosecutors. He had escaped scrutiny but the report shows he aided and abetted Sessions.

The Inspector General's report isn’t the only sick revelation to come to light about Donald Trump’s heinous immigration policies as he faces re-election and, according to the latest polls, the prospect of losing to Democrat Joe Biden.

STERILIZATIONS IN DETENTION, ABUSE

In a whistleblower complaint filed with Homeland Security in September, a nurse who worked at an immigration detention center in Georgia said a doctor performed questionable hysterectomies on immigrant women, refused to test the detainees for COVID-19 and shredded medical records.

“The uterus collector,” the nurse called him.

A subsequent investigation by Associated Press found that Dr. Mahendra Amin performed at least eight gynecological procedures on immigrant women in ICE custody. Some said they didn’t understand what was happening or consent to the treatment.

How did the government react to the complaints?

ICE (Immigration-Deportation!) tried to deport one of the immigrant women speaking out; she had been through the unwanted removal of a Fallopian tube.

And so, in dribs and drabs of watchdog investigations and journalism, Americans are learning that our government is mirroring the behavior of rogue states and being condemned by international human-rights organizations.

In July, another report, this one obtained by the Miami Herald and written by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the federal agency tasked with oversight of immigrant children, revealed that the children have suffered abuse.

At least four Central American immigrant children reported being sexually abused by staff members at the privately run Homestead detention center for unaccompanied minors, now shut down.

That the violations happened in this community of refuge to generations of immigrants only adds to the tragedy.

Many other children also were hurt in detention.
And, just when you think you’ve seen enough, along comes another outrage.

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

Dozens of families separated at the border have filed claims against the U.S. government, some claiming that their children were sexually, physically or emotionally abused in federally funded foster care.

These children relive their traumas in nightmares.

IMMIGRATION ABSENT IN 2020 ELECTION

You ask: Why should we care at this point?

Besides for reasons of basic human decency, the politics that drove our shameful actions are still relevant, still with us.

Yet the topic of immigration, a cauldron of discord in 2016, during the years of “zero tolerance” abuses, has been largely absent from the fireworks of the 2020, election.

It’s round two for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rally cry and social engineering maneuvers to stop the growth of the Latino population in the United States. Only he hides now behind labels like Latinos for Trump and his followers are all to happy to give him cover.

Voters should hold Donald Trump accountable for the abuses committed on his watch.

But in a race only won by uniting coalitions of voters, immigration is an inconvenient subject for both political parties, too divisive.

What’s clear, however, from what we now know is that the party of bible-quoting Sessions, the party with the claim to being pro-life, supports the abuser of children.

“I couldn’t be more proud to serve as vice president to a president who stands without apology for the sanctity of human life. I’m pro-life, I don’t apologize for it,” Vice President Mike Pence said during his debate with Sen. Kamala Harris.

His words ring hollow to the core.

Mr. Vice President, where were your pro-life values when immigrant children needed protection?

The children, targeted to punish the adults, have changed who we are as a nation.

“Let’s be clear: A society is judged based on how it treats its children,” she said. “A society is judged based on how it treats the least among us. And we will be judged harshly. History will judge us harshly because of what this Administration has done.”

Senator Harris- She wins the morality play, Mr. Vice President.

The United States bid goodbye to family values when we failed to protect young, defenseless immigrant children in need. And their mothers, too.

Senator Harris predicted this would happen in an impassioned call to end the family separation policy on the Senate floor in 2018.

* Award-winning columnist Fabiola Santiago has been writing about all things Miami since 1980, when the Mariel boatlift became her first front-page story. A Cuban refugee child of the Freedom Flights, she’s also the author of essays, short fiction, and the novel “Reclaiming Paris.”

More echo editorials support the justifiable impeachment of Donald Trump

Another case for impeachment | Editorial in Florida's Tampa Bay Times:  The House has enough reason to justify the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

With reluctance, we conclude the U.S. House of Representatives has enough reason to justify the impeachment of President Donald Trump. We harbor no illusions that the president’s impeachment by the House will lead to his removal from office by the Senate. 

Nevertheless, we hope the impeachment process and a trial in the Senate will give voters a more complete picture of Trump’s (bad) conduct, because they will deliver the ultimate judgment on his performance in November.

The House Judiciary Committee wisely limited the impeachment charges to abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. They focus exclusively on Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine and his efforts to undermine the House’s impeachment inquiry. The fundamental facts presented by the House through witness testimony and documents are not in dispute by the president or his key supporters.

At Trump’s direction, this summer the administration bottled up $391 million that Congress had approved for military and security assistance to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Trump kept brushing aside efforts by the president of Ukraine to arrange a meeting at the White House. Ukraine, under the shadow and constant threat from Russia, was desperate for the financial assistance and the public display of support.

The rough transcript of the July 25, telephone call between Trump and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky makes clear what Trump wanted as a “favor’’, (though!) He wanted Ukraine to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a key Democratic opponent, and into work Biden’s son had performed for a Ukraine gas company. 

Moreover, Trump also continued to press for an investigation into the discredited claim that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, even though the nation’s intelligence community and Congress concluded Russia was behind the interference.

Trump contends the July telephone call was “perfect’’ and there was no quid pro quo. But documents and testimony by former and current Trump administration officials show a direct connection. The evidence is clear: The president withheld financial assistance and public support in an attempt to force Ukraine to announce investigations of a political rival and to advance a false narrative about interference in the 2016, election.

By itself, this attempt to extract personal political favors from a foreign country in return for American support merits impeachment. That effort undermined America’s national security, because it put Ukraine’s fragile democracy at greater risk. 

Trump put his own political interests ahead of America’s foreign policy.
Trump’s supporters essentially argue no harm, no foul. They point out that the financial assistance eventually was released to Ukraine and that the investigations Trump sought never were announced. But the financial aid was released in September only after the administration got wind of a whistleblower’s complaint and congressional committees had announced investigations. The persistent attacks on the anonymous whistleblower by the president and his supporters ring hollow. The House confirmed through documents and public testimony virtually all of the whistleblower’s initial concerns.

While the president insists he has done nothing wrong, he has obstructed the House’s efforts to get at the truth. The administration refuses to supply documents and instructed current and former officials not to testify before the House Intelligence Committee. Those who have testified drew criticism and were intimidated by the president and his supporters. This is a direct affront to the separation of powers and a co-equal branch of government established by the U.S. Constitution. Trump’s defiance left the House leadership with little choice but to pursue impeachment.

The timing and circumstances are not ideal. Less than a year from the election, one option would have been to leave Trump’s conduct to the judgment of the voters. Congress also could have waited for the courts to decide whether key witnesses, such as acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton, must comply with congressional subpoenas to testify -– or whether the White House can assert a broad claim of executive privilege. But those cases could take months or years to make it through the courts, and Congress has a constitutional obligation to hold a president’s corrupt actions in check.

It would be better if the impeachment had bipartisan support in Congress and among the voters. Unfortunately, the voters and Congress remain sharply divided along partisan lines. The House’s judgment also has been diminished by some Democrats who were eager to find any fault with Trump the moment he was elected. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserves credit for resisting earlier calls for impeachment and insisting on a narrow approach now.

Given the clear evidence about Trump’s actions and his obstruction of the House investigation, a reasonable case for impeachment has been made. A Senate trial conducted in a bipartisan fashion that includes cooperation from the president and key administration witnesses would provide further clarity. 

Ultimately, the voters will deliver the final verdict on this president in November, and they deserve the facts.

Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are Times Chairman and CEO Paul Tash, Editor of Editorials Tim Nickens, and editorial writers Elizabeth Djinis, John Hill and Jim Verhulst. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news

Donald Trump cannot get away with being ignorant about the consequences of his horrible behavior

https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-trump-s-gop-defenders-need-to-recognize-the-clear/article_bd70bdbb-cf2a-5d17-a0c1-74aa87905f51.html
Opinion echo editorial published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, in Missouri and in Southern Illinois.

"The US president’s unpredictability is dangerous in an increasingly unstable world." Kevin Rafferty, published in the South China Morning Post. 

Illustration by Craig Stephens- His greedy and dangerous mission is to remake the world in his own image

ST. LOUIS- Donald Trump either deliberately chooses not to acknowledge the supremacy of federal law or is shockingly ignorant of the limitations it imposes on him. His recent Twitter barrages, coupled with statements to reporters and supporters, reflect the thoughts of someone who believes laws and the Constitution are for suckers and losers. He soon could be in for a very rude awakening.

By now, Americans are well-acquainted with details of the whistleblower complaint about his July 25, phone call with Ukraine’s president, during which a discussion of U.S. military assistance prompted Trump’s request for “a favor” involving the collection of dirt against Trump’s top political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. The president’s closest advisers now face potentially huge personal legal bills as a House impeachment inquiry threatens to envelop them. Among them are Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

The nation is on edge, largely because Trump’s base includes well-armed gun fanatics, white supremacists and devotees who take his words as divinely inspired guidance. So when Trump tweets a warning that his removal would provoke “a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal,” the implications are deadly serious.

“I have visited nations ravaged by civil war ...,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., responded on Twitter. “This is beyond repugnant.” Kinzinger is a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Illustration published in The New York Times

Trump suggests Rep. Adam Schiff should be tried for treason for remarks critical of Trump made while Schiff chaired a House Intelligence Committee meeting last week. He refers to the whistleblower, whose anonymity is protected by federal law, as a traitor and spy.  (Maine Writer: But, guess what? It's Donald Trump who will eventually be tried and convicted for committing treason while his disingenuous pal, Russia's Vladimir Putin, smiles with pride at his accomplishment.)

Trump told reporters that the White House is looking into the whistleblower’s identity and background. 

Moreover, Trump openly questioned in a tweet why he, as president, is not “entitled to interview & learn everything about” the whistleblower. The promise under federal law of anonymity is what allows government employees to step forward with credible allegations of waste, fraud and abuse without fear of retaliation.

Kinzinger is hardly the only Republican to challenge the president. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, normally a staunch Trump defender, has defended the whistleblower’s credibility and publicly split with Trump about protecting the person’s anonymity. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has used all kinds of innovative maneuvers in the past to thwart Democrats, has stated that he would not attempt to block a full Senate trial if House proceedings yield an indictment of Trump.

Those Republicans who choose to ignore the president’s abuses and defend his antics — including Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri — seem not to fully grasp the stakes. Trump is telling far right extremists to gird themselves for civil war. 

If this isn’t a step too far, where do his defenders draw the line?