Saw an interview on TV concerning Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) and her suggestion that people who work directly for the President should be confronted in public (Here's a piece that provides details on that). The person being interviewed said it was difficult to blame Democratic constituents for being upset and wanting to lash out as there appears to be no one in power who's really on their side, who's willing to stand up to a president who seems to be out of control and who really couldn't care less about priorities that Democrats care deeply about. Case in point, the family separation policy on our Southern border.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wrote a bill in early June that addressed the family separations problem on the border with Mexico. It was specifically written to solve that particular problem. Not a single Republican Senator has signed onto the bill. The reason that was given was that they'd rather tackle the whole immigration problem all at once and deal with it all in one bill. Okay, so how has that worked out? The President supported a bill that failed by a spectacular margin, 121-301. It was negotiated by hard-line Republicans with slightly less hard-line Republicans and every one who was not a hard-line Republican rejected it. The President, instead of owning up to and taking responsibility for his failure, denied that he backed the failed bill.
Granted, the bill failed only a short time ago, but I haven't heard of any Republicans moving to sign the Feinstein bill. So the question of the moment is, if the US is headed toward being a Nazi Germany 2.0 or a Fourth Reich, will anyone in the Republican Party do anything about that?
A real problem that's been apparent for well over a week is that Trump's people never did anything to keep track of which parents went with which children. The government just never had any sort of plan to eventually put children back together with parents. The President is not happy that people are being so critical about his administration's dereliction of duty: "I hope the other side realizes that they better just take it easy." The statement doesn't come through live quite like that the threat of a Mafioso thug, but it sure reads that way in print! Trump then follows that statement with a look at some great economic statistics. Again, he inherited a good economy that was improving when he assumed office. If he did anything to improve it, I'm not sure what that could have been.
So what's the Department of Health and Human Services currently doing to address the problem of getting separated children back together with parents? Not much. "Instead, the administration is hoping Congress will fix the mess, despite its recent failure to pass immigration legislation." Very sadly,
How or whether families would be reunited wasn't much of a concern to the policymakers, according to administration officials and others with knowledge of the discussions who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
So how does the Republican Party generally view immigration? They appear to be awfully divided and unable to produce any results quickly.
So are there any happy stories? Any progress? Pleasantly, there are indeed some. Of course, the Guatemalan children interviewed here tell us of ghastly conditions while being imprisoned awaiting the resolution of their cases, but they did eventually all get reunited. It's also good to hear that the Philadelphia demonstration was far from alone. There were hundreds of thousands of people in 750 separate demonstrators around the country who thought the policy of the Trump Administration was a cruel and vicious one and who wanted it stopped, now!!!
Thousands in Washington waved signs: "I care, do you?" some read, referring to a jacket the first lady wore when visiting child migrants in Texas. Her jacket had "I really don't care, do U?" scrawled across the back, and that message has become a rallying cry for Saturday’s protesters.
"We care!" marchers shouted outside city hall in Dallas. Michelle Wentz, an organizer of the rally there, said opposition to the administration's "barbaric and inhumane" policy has seemed to cross political party lines. Marchers' signs read "Compassion not cruelty" and "November is coming."
The Texas Tribune says "Here's a list of organizations that are mobilizing to help immigrant children separated from their families"
PRAWN