GAZED

Category: politics

  • The Rise of U.S. Domestic Terror

    The Rise of U.S. Domestic Terror

    The Third Reich didn’t begin with supporters of a nationalist demagogue bombing places of worship, killing worshiping Jewish people, vandalizing Jewish property, targeting political opponents, running opponents over with a car, violently attacking ethnic minorities on trains and shooting them in grocery stores, it rose in prominence through hateful rhetoric. These acts of violence conducted by white supremacist supporters of a fuhrer didn’t occur in 1939, but since the 2016 Presidential election. Are people who want universal-healthcare meant to coddle the white supremacist brown shirts and their sympathizers in unity? Quiet tolerance in the face of state-sponsored, violent intolerance is consent for the dozens of lives taken by an ideology of hate.

    Radicalized  by self-proclaimed nationalist President Trump’s cabinet of nazis, affirmations calling the Charlottesville nazis “very fine people,” repeated incitement of violence with promises to pay their “legal fees,” scapegoating of the media as “the enemy of the American people,” repeated spats with political opponents , “sh*thole countries” comments, immigrant child internment-camps, scapegoating of all immigrants as “drug traffickers and rapists,” and anti-semitic rhetoric, the ideological vermin of this country have been emboldened to carry out domestic terror attacks against American minorities and political opponents.

    The tragic terrorist attacks on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania aren’t isolated, they follow a pattern of deathly attacks by avid conservative supporters of President Trump. While Trump didn’t pull the trigger, he created an environment where supremacists were emboldened to act on beliefs shared by the president. An environment built by “the second-amendment people” stopping 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, by all Mexicans being “drug-traffickers and rapists,” by Muslim bans, and a “very fine people” pat on the back to the neo-nazis who murdered Heather Heyes.

    The problem isn’t immigrants who commit crime at lower rates than native-born Americans, it’s not Muslims, or other minorities it’s the:

    Domestic Right-Wing Terrorist Attacks on Muslims, Jews, Minorities, and Democrats:

    This large rise in hate crimes post-2016 election is no coincidence. Trump’s scapegoating of immigrants (including legal immigrants), Muslims, anti-semitic dog-whistles (“America First”, attack ad against only Jews, “globalist” attacks) creation of an immigrant-children human rights crisis at the border, admiration of Hitler speeches, calling neo-nazis “very fine people,” 1970s housing discrimination, and appointment of white supremacists such as Stephen Miller, former Breitbart-owner Steve Bannon, Hungarian nazi Sebastian Gorka, and Sessions – man deemed too racist to pass a Reagan-era confirmation in the South, has radicalized right-wing terrorists.

    This all, on top of his incitement to violence of course, telling his supporters he’ll pay their legal fees, and that he’d like to punch a protestor himself.

    Trump of course, victim-blames the media and synagogue: “If the press was fair, I’d have a much different tone all the time. But I’m fighting the media, I’m fighting — the media is not being honest & I’m fighting that lack of honesty so I have to have that tone.

    When asked about gun laws, he said the synagogue should have had armed security and the gunman wouldn’t be able to do what he did. This callous comment completely ignoring the three officers that were shot, and not condemning the perpetrator. Trump’s thoughts and prayers provide zero solutions. An AR-15 was used in Aurora, Orlando, Parkland, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Waffle House, San Bernardino, Sutherland SPrings, and the Pittsburgh Synagogue, but we must uphold the right for Republicans to blast deer into a million pieces with weapons of war.

    Tolerance in the face of domestic-right-wing-terrorism and their party of sympathizers who can overlook the state-sponsored hate and incitement to violence, is consent. Hate isn’t just a differing opinion. The dichotomy has switched from ‘big versus small government,’ to either supporting a fascist regime and its hateful minions, or being a country for all Americans upholding the values that brought non-English speaking migrants fleeing religious persecution or poverty to the land of the free. We must not forget our own history, German immigrants once faced discrimination for their cultural differences.

    There have been more bombs sent to kill Americans from Trump supporters than from ISIS. This isn’t how it started in Germany in the 1930s, it’s several phases into the fascist agenda. The fascism alarms should be ringing when over 35,00 people signed a letter to President Trump from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish saying he won’t welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops “targeting” minorities.

    There’s no reason for right-wing extremists to be emboldened enough to target people for their faith and ethnicity 75 years after the Holocaust. Make racists afraid again – vote, protest, and stand up for vulnerable communities under attack.

  • The Paradox of Tolerance for Intolerance

    The Paradox of Tolerance for Intolerance

    The extremist side of child-drugging internment camps, Obama effigies, Roy Moore, sexual assault, and mocking the disabled doesn’t care about civility; what they want is compulsory compliance, and dissent silenced in their administration’s persistent crimes against humanity. There is something seriously wrong with a nation showing more concern for wealthy operatives of administration rampant with human rights violations being kicked out of restaurants than said human rights violations. There can be no civility — no silence — in the face of caged babies, Muslim bans, and SCOTUS-approved gerrymandering thanks to a stolen seat. Civil disobedience is free speech that fights against hate and injustice. Tolerance of intolerance only empowers the intolerant to carry out their crimes. There is no reasoning with people like Trump who think abused, caged immigrant children’s stories are “phony stories of sadness and grief.” 

    “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

    -Albert Einstein

    To Trump’s America, civility isn’t defined by the civil disobedience of publicly questioning public officials, it’s defined by complacently standing silently in the face of oppressors. Also, defined by sending death threats to a restaurant unaffiliated with the one who asked a neo-nazi operative to leave (after employees democratically voted.) Republican civility involves Trump’s White House adviser calling for journalists to be gunned down.

    We do not have to offer an olive branch to an administration that burnt down the tree. To an administration who’s made it its grounding philosophy to target immigrants , Muslims, the media, and Democrats while embracing nazis as “fine people” qualified enough to run our agencies and craft policy oppressing the lives of millions. The masters of spin have made the problem not the policies themselves, but the targeted groups not gleefully jumping into internment camps and embracing their oppressors.

    There exists a cognitive dissonance between what those more outraged by oppressive administration’s propaganda minister being asked to leave a restaurant, than children being beaten and drugged in concentration camps, consider “civil.”  Asking a customer to leave your restaurant is civil. Publicly confronting public officials by questioning their baby concentration camp policy is civil. What’s uncivil is the 45th President and his klan’s character, dehumanization of immigrants, and oppressive, unjust policies. We are asked to coddle an administration who has marginalized every non-white group in America for the sake of a ‘civility’ ideal severely lacking on the morally bankrupt right.

    It starts by silencing protest against police brutality by making the argument about the flag while calling players “sons of b-tches.” Their agenda involves making semantics the argument over the definition of concentration camps, instead of, the policy of jailing 3-month-old babies after ripping them from their breastfeeding mothers. It’s lambasting the “lugenpresse” for showing images illegally obtained of crying children, instead of blasting the policy of detaining immigrant children. 

    Respect is earned. We are expected to respect a man who’s mocked the disabled, called countries with majority brown citizens “sh-tholes,” called murderous neo-nazis in Charlottesville “fine people,” endorsed pedophile Roy Moore, bragged about sexual assault on tape, or called his daughter a “piece of ass.”

    A man who has called Mexicans rapists, was sued twice by the DOJ for housing discrimination against blacks, pardoned Arpaio, a barbaric, convicted racial profiler who ran concentration camps, attacked a Mexican judge for his ethnicity, enacted bill curbing legal immigration, retweeted neo-nazi false crime statistic reports about blacks, rolled out voter suppression commission, hired nazi Gorka and white supremacist Miller, threw out Latino names and hypothetical crimes they’d commit, described immigrants as invaders, constantly touts immigrant crime and claims “it’s not true” that immigrants are “better people” than others.

    Trump has encouraged his supporters to “rough up” protestors and they did cheerfully, he told cops to “rough up suspects,” and  “second amendment people” to get Hillary, made a thinly-veiled threat to Maxine Waters, and endorsed Greg Gianforte who body slammed a reporter.

    Republicans do not only support the most vile, racist, misogynist monster, but they claim false moral high-ground. Where was all this “civility”  talk when birther, “anti-PC,”  MAGAs: sent death threats to the Red Hen D.C., when a WH adviser affiliate called for journalists to be gunned down., when they were burning Obama effigies, started an “anti-Obama” campaign in Congress the night of his inauguration, called the Obamas monkeys, started the birther movement, used Seth Rich’s death to smear Hillary Clinton.

    They’re upset that a member of a racist administration destroying the environment, sabotaging healthcare, slashing the educational budget, and dividing America, can’t eat out in public. Well, guess who hasn’t been able to even breathe out in public since the fuhrer’s inauguration? America’s ethnic minorities. The U.S. citizens unlawfully detained by ICE-Gestapo.

    They’ve all suffered racist harassment from Trump conservatives after being emboldened by the President and even nazi-retweeting U.S. congressmen. When a white woman cited Trump while attacking a college-educated Latino man as a “rapist, animal, and drug dealer.” When a New York City lawyer berated and threatened two Spanish-speakers for holding a conversation in Spanish accusing them of being illegal welfare leeches. After he previously hunted down a man through the streets who he called the police for being an “ugly, f-cking foreigner.”    When a Hispanic woman was told to “go back to Mexico.” When a Trump supporter shot up a mosque in Quebec killing 6 people.When another set fire to a Florida mosque. Is it a mark of civility for hate crimes to have risen to a 5-year-high after the election of Trump?

    There is no tolerating those who unlawfully lock brown children of asylum-seekers up while claiming “civility.” Republicans gleefully ignore these human-rights crises, even rejoice in them, and expect us to sit quietly without peaceful protest. We can’t hold hands and sing kumbaya with an administration who empowers an extrajudicial, authoritarian force who’s killed 97 migrants beaten and sexually abused children,and released them to abusers and trafficking rings. We can not stand by idly while Trump seeks to turn ICE’s de-facto practice of prolonged detainment – without legal counsel or due process – de-jure. We can’t coddle and serve the propaganda-artist gatekeepers who gaslight America while children are given psychotropic drugs, beaten, locked in solitary confinement nude, shivering in concrete cells. While the sick are neglected and chickenpox is spreading like a wildfire, all whilst the Red Cross is being denied access their detention centers.

    Silence in the face of oppression is complicitness. Compromise in the face of injustice is defeat against injustice. There is no compromising with the hypocritical “pro-life” crowd who take joy and show indifference to the suffering of innocent children at the hands of the U.S. government. This isn’t politics as usual. We can’t tell the oppressed to treat their oppressors with a respect they don’t hold for them. To a 10-year-old girl with Down Syndrome Trump’s former campaign manager says “womp womp,” Trump calls asylum-seekers crisis actors, and  Laura Ingraham says the abusive detention centers for children are “basically summer camps.” While Fox and Friends says, “Like it or not, these aren’t our kids. Show them compassion, but it’s not like he’s doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas” But it isn’t just top conservative figureheads, it’s the public. A public so blinded by their hatred and indoctrinated by Trump’s dehumanization of immigrants campaign

    These are the inhumane cretins we’re supposed to be civil with?

  • Abolish ICE: The Loss of 1,475 Children and Human Rights Violations

    Abolish ICE: The Loss of 1,475 Children and Human Rights Violations

    Declaring that children inhumanely separated from their asylum-seeking parents “are not innocent” is alarmingly on nazi, authoritarian levels, not on par with U.S. democratic values or the presidency. We are living through the second coming of Hitler with the Trump administration sanctioning state-violence against immigrants by planning  military concentration camps for children, (unlawfully) separating migrant children from parents, and facilitating egregious ICE abuse of detainees by allowing the destruction of it’s paper-trail. If you ever wondered how nazi ideology rose to prominence in 1940s-era Germany, this is how. This is the context for the “animals” comment – Trump’s routine dehumanization of immigrants has been militarized most recently culminating in the murder of 20-year-old, unarmed Guatemalan migrant Claudia Gonzalez and 1,475 lost migrant children as young as 53 weeks. Some of released to human-trafficking rings and others with convicted sexual assaulters. These draconian, morally abominable, unlawful policies serve as “deterrent” according to John Kelly.

    What did Trump have to say about his victims of family separation after backlash? “Phony stories of sadness and grief.” 

    When you dehumanize a people, it’s easy for the “family values,” “evangelical,” “pro-life” and even “Pizzagate” party to treat brown children as livestock. It’s easy to completely disregard their human rights, physically abuse them, and separate them as slave families were in the 18th century,  because of a legal status irrespective to their intrinsic human rights. Thus, 18-month-olds are easily ripped from their mothers screaming, the 4-month-old premature baby and her 16-year-old mother are left without medical care, the 16-year-old sexually abused, all without accountability. Losing 1,475 children – some to human trafficking, opening up military concentration camps, and shooting 20-year-old unarmed migrant Claudia Gonzalez. 

    “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

    -Nelson Mandela

    As a nazi propaganda minister once said, “Blame the other side that which you are guilty of,” — and that’s precisely what Trump is doing in response to outrage over his own policy. A policy announced at a press conference by Jeff Sessions. Separating children from parents isn’t only a mark of America’s institutionally depraved core, but it’s also not legal. Our due process law does not have the power to separate children for no reason unless there’s abuse. This is an unprecedented new policy from the Trump administration to punish asylum seekers.

    We’re rejecting migrants that are seeking asylum after fleeing death threats and violence – presenting themselves  to officials at the border, just as we did Jewish refugees during WW2 — Anne Frank was denied a Visa. FDR claimed this ethno-religious group fleeing genocide was a “threat to national security.” Sound familiar? That’s because the Trump administration runs on this brand of politics of fear. After much dehumanizing generalizations of Latinos as “drug-traffickers,” “rapists,” and animals, they recently lamented that America’s asylum laws are “dangerous loopholes” and placing “our communities at risk,”

    ICE Is Disproportionally Targetting Latinos in their Ethnic-Cleansing Campaign

    Pew Research estimates the number of unauthorized immigrants as follows: 1.6 million Central Americans, 1.5 million Asians, 0.6 million South Americans, and 0.5 Europeans/Canadians.

    Central America (1.6) and Asia(1.5) have similar numbers of illegal immigrants. Despite this, 97.2% of ICE’s deportations are of Latinos (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,etc.), while the number is only 0.5% for Asia (China, India, Philippines, South Korea, etc.) This makes it clear that this is about race. America’s Gestapo is actively engineering the racial makeup of this country as nazi Germany did through genocide.

    It’s also not about economic status of immigrant populations — poorer Asian and European countries are ignored.

    Populations of immigrants: China: 2,420,000, Philippines: 2,080,000, Vietnam: 1,410,000, Honduras: 600,000ICE Deportations: China: 525, Philippines: 182, Vietnam: 71, Honduras: 22,381

    Repeat it with me — ICE is a fascist, extrajudicial, terrorist organization with the sole purpose of purging Latinos from America while ignoring similar illegal immigrant populations of other races. It has zero accountability to due process, hence their rampant abuse of children, sexual assault, and carelessness in releasing children to abusers and trafficking rings. It unlawfully detains legal residents and terrorizes immigrant communities.

    Children As Young as 18 Months Are Being Separated

    What does Trump have to say about the crying 18-month old children of asylum seekers being ripped from their parents, the abused children?  “They’re not innocent.” The Charlottesville white supremacists however? “ Very fine people.” No word on the myriad of white mass shooters like the Florida one who’ve sported MAGA apparel online. We are officially living in the time of history future generations will look back on in bewilderment over how the country which fought against fascism, arrived at it.  Since October, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken 700 children from their parents.

    Under Trump’s new policy children as young as 18 months are put into government run shelters to serve as “a tough deterrent against illegal immigration according to John Kelly.  A 7-year-old was kept away from her asylum-seeking mother for several months in a Chicago jail. Whereas before, parents were processed with the child. This is absolutely reprehensible and undemocraticv.

    A person’s legal status does not negate their basic human rights and separating children from their guardians violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Asylum Statute, and the Due Process Clause. The U.S. government doesn’t have the power to conduct such inhumane, senseless actions unless there’s abuse. Trump hiding from these inhumane policies and blaming Democrats is ludicrous considering they’ve asked him to reverse his policy and Republicans control Congress.

    Rest easy though, John Kelly said “The children will be taken care of – put into foster care – or whatever.”

    1,475 Lost Children – Many Released to Human Traffickers

    Oh wait, 1,475 children have been lost track of by federal agencies with many being released to human traffickers by HHS. With a 2016 congressional committee report  finding that it failed to protect minors from traffickers and other abusers. These are crimes against humanity – but they’re the scapegoated minority so nothing will be done.

    Murder of Unarmed Migrants by Border Agents

    As if this wasn’t disturbing enough, our recently-militarized border patrol shot and killed 20-year-old unarmed Guatemalan migrant Claudia Gonzalez. This is the latest among the 97 fatal shootings of migrants by border agents. If these extrajudicial, senseless murders of brown people don’t count as ethnic-cleansing then I don’t know what does.

    Trump Administration is Opening Military Detainment Camps for Children

    After releasing children to traffickers, losing 1,475, and having open-season on immigrants the next phase are military detention camps according to the Trump administration. Here comes the concentration camp portion of republicans’ ethnic cleansing program. Right after cancelling Indian’s HB-1 visas, curbing legal immigration, and wanting to ban migration from “shithole countries.” The moral depravity bar has reached hell.

    ICE Records of Abuse Authorized for Destruction

    ICE will start destroying immigrant abuse records including “sexual assault and deaths in custody.  A paper trail for constitutional abuses will be destroyed.

    Records of the tens of thousands of children beaten, deprived of food and medical care by federal border agents will be destroyed. ICE-Gestapo left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and “dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice.” They’ve violated a 16-year-old girl, ran over a 17-year-old then beat him up, denied a pregnant minor medical attention, preceding a stillbirth.

    In response to this ACLU report detailing the countless abuses, DHS nazis which systematically enable physical, sexual, and psychological child abuse dismissed the complaints calling them “baseless allegations.” In response to these institutional crimes against humanity, the White House called them “fake news.”  Allegations which “span multiple years..states..different backgrounds.”

    The Legal Case for Abolishing ICE

    This has all gained mainstream attention after a long barbaric history of their heinous actions including prolonged detention, no due process that has culminated with thousands of  U.S. citizens deported, 7-year-old asylees jailed, 10-year-olds with cerebral palsy arrested at the hospital.

    ICE should not only be abolished, but prosecuted for their unlawful prolonged detention of lawful residents and citizens, an egregious 97 killings along the border, separation of children, and appalling sexual abuse of detainees – many among them, children. This is an undemocratic, criminal, ethnic-cleansing organization operating above the law. Illegal immigration cases should go back to being dealt with by the courts as it was before the reprehensible undemocratic Patriot Act (2003.) This authoritarian force operates extrajudicially with zero accountability to due process – a breeding ground for abuses of power. We must prosecute these cruel, lawless officials and go back operating through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) an agency of the DOJ.

    We lived in a country pre-ICE for 2___ years. If those concerned with individual liberty look back on the 2003 Patriot Act and Iraq war in shame — this ethnic-cleansing organization established in 2003 should be no exception.

    These heinous, unlawful actions are of course no surprise coming from the Czar who campaigned and won on politics of fear by characterizing all Mexicans as “drug dealers, criminals, rapists,” who’s called white supremacists “fine people,” but immigrants “animals,” and Africa and El Salvador “shitholes.” When someone shows you who they are – by starting the birther movement, being sued by the DOJ for housing discrimination twice, calling hispanic Miss Universe “miss housekeeping,” and throwing out hispanic names and potential crimes they’d commit – believe them. It starts with rhetoric and ends in 1,475 lost children, with children at the hands of human traffickers, and military concentration camps.

    We must demand answers from Congress (202-224-3121), from ICE (1-866-DHS-2-ICE), and E. Scott Lloyd, the Director of The Office of Refugee Resettlement in DHS (202-401-9246) about #WhereAreTheChildren. We must support the institutions fighting for human rights by donating to the ACLU, and contacting the UN. These barbaric monsters must be held accountable for their systematic abuses of power.

  • Discrimination Against Bilingualism Goes Back to WWII

    Discrimination Against Bilingualism Goes Back to WWII

    A Trump-supporting New York attorney with a documented history of launching unhinged, racist tirades against strangers was recently caught on camera again verbally assaulting two bilingual people for speaking Spanish in public. Aaron Schlossberg berated an employee and a customer for conducting an order in Spanish saying, “Your staff is speaking Spanish to customers when they should be speaking English,” and, ”My guess is they’re not documented, so my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country.. I pay for their welfare; I pay for their ability to be here. The least they could do, the least they could do is speak English.” Such an unprofessional, racially biased individual can not uphold his oath as an attorney and must be disbarred.

    This stain on our legal system was immensely triggered over two bilingual women minding their business in a city with a 55.4% ethnic population, with the highest Latino population where, 49% speak more than one language, in the land of free of speech and no official language. Not only that, but he assumed all Spanish speakers are illegals. And in all his nazi legal expertise conceived that a woman at work was on welfare and that illegals can somehow collect it.

    The bigotry runs deep. This deranged cretin has also berated fellow Jews for being pro-Palestine and is a bilingual speaker himself. Apparently you can’t speak another language unless you’re paying him for biased, wrong-counsel.  And has also harassed another stranger raving, “What country are you from? I’m gonna call the police. You’re not a citizen, you’re an ugly f****** foreigner.”

    All these irrational conditions aside, the U.S. has no official language. This is not a dictatorship, so it’s not only socially but legally acceptable for two women to place a damn sandwich order in one of the the other 799 languages spoken in New York City.  Any  insecure, racist, xenophobic imbecile who lives in America and doesn’t want to hear other languages should go back to where they came from because this country was founded on the work of immigrants.

    Hopefully he doesn’t go through Greenpoint and encounters Polish speakers. Or through Williamsburg, Brooklyn where everything’s written in Yiddish and English is seldom spoken. Oh wait, it’s not about linguistic abilities, it’s about hating the scapegoat – brown people. Someone as depraved and pathetic as he is, can only gain a false sense of superiority through the biologically-meaningless virtue of skin color. One that runs with the blood of 6 million genocided jews persecuted by an immigrant-hating nazi like the one he donated $500 to.

    Nevertheless, this unabashed vitriol is never about linguistic ability, it’s about race. European languages and accents are romanticized not scorned while Latin ones are ridiculed. While Native Americans were once slaughtered for refusing to assimilate and their population, decimated. All for doing things like the “Ghost Dance” because cultural differences threatened the white psyche which was once an immigrant in this country. During the slave trade religious and cultural practices were banned against and a culture was erased.

    It looks like those who forget history, are doomed to side with the oppressors. This Jewish man not only has attacked other Jews, but also has the audacity to be a white supremacist whilst being part of the ethnic minority which was genocided on the basis of ethnicity. Just how

    The racist language police force quickly forget about 1920s-era anti-German sentiment marked by discrimination and violent attacks for practicing the German language. Their newspapers were run out of business, books burned, and German speakers threatened.

    Still, I digress. It was not enough for this lawyer to command people to cease their free speech, he also burst his superiority complex by making the claims that one, the women were illegal because they’re bilingual. Two, illegals can collect welfare. Finally, three, that illegals don’t pay taxes when they actually pay $13 billion a year in payroll taxes for benefits they can not receive – because they’re – wait for it – illegal. Such logical argumentation. Incredibly fit and mentally stable for the job in the country’s most diverse city.

    The reason our judicial system is so corrupt with an astonishing sentencing racial disparity is because of individuals like him. Those with such a clear racial bias can not uphold their oath as an attorney while calling someone an “ugly f****** foreigner” and stating Spanish-speakers are welfare-using illegals. This type of legal misconduct must be reprimanded before more New Yorkers are at the mercy of wrong counsel from a second-rate bigot.

  • America’s Gestapo: Redefining the Rule of Law

    America’s Gestapo: Redefining the Rule of Law

    A 7-year-old asylee girl being locked up by ICE for four months at a Chicago jail has become America’s  heralded “rule of law.” With the new Supreme Court ruling stating that immigrants, even permanent residents, and asylees, can be held indefinitely, internment camps have become the law of the land. As if the violation of human rights wasn’t already rampant within this terror organization full of prolonged detentions, lack of due process protections, and the wanton breaking up of families, this administration just launched a war against the 10-year-olds with cerebral palsy, the asylum refugee children, and the people showing up for green cards. So much for ‘bad hombres,’ this is the Gestapo of a fascist oligarchy (which, has pardoned actual concentration camp runner Arpaio.) ICE, a terror instilling, ethnic cleansing organization, must be defunded now.

    Standing against inhumane mass deportation, which operates by violating human rights and targets tax-paying, hardworking families seeking refuge from their homeland violence, does not mean being for open borders.  No one is for illegal immigration despite what alternative-facts media propaganda artists might say. Felons should be deported, tighter border control and immigration reform should be enacted. What people miss in this polarizing debate is the moral argument; that is, there is no plausible reason to leave children without their mothers literally on the side of the street. There’s no plausible reason to mass deport people already here who pose no economic or national security threat, much less arrest children indefinitely and illegally.

    President Trump’s actions (surprisingly) don’t match his rhetoric. He’s repeatedly vowed to focus on, “getting gang members out [and] drug lords out.” That “bad hombres” would be the target for deportation.  However, the reality is jarring and dystopian.

    Most recently, political asylum refugees fleeing violence from the Congo – a 39-year-old mother and her 7-year-old daughter – were arrested and separated. The 7-year-old has been held in a Chicago prison for the past three and a half months for no legitimate reason. There’s been zero evidence or accusation of abuse. This traumatic and unjust separation is in violation of due process protections according to the ACLU, who is taking the case up. These, are your “bad hombres.”

    Then there’s the 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who was detained while on an ambulance to an emergency surgery. These depraved, scoundrel of the earth literally staked outside of the 10-year-old girl’s room after surgery to send her back to a country she only resided in until she was 3-months-old. This lack of basic humanity is obscene. The lack of distinction between an adult crossing the border illegally and a child – a baby in this case – being brought here illegally without any jurisdiction, is egregious. This follows of a pattern of detaining asylum seekers.

    It’s not just the children who had no jurisdiction over coming here who are targets or just the asylum seekers, it’s also the green card applicants. ICE recently arrested a dad of four with zero criminal records as he went to finalize legal residency. And the mother married to a U.S. citizen, with no criminal record who was pursuing legal status who was arrested.

    There’s also the 43-year-old janitor at MIT whose three children are U.S. citizens and mother, a permanent resident who planned was going to sponsor him for a green card. He didn’t have a criminal record, ran a business, and paid taxes – a model American. But instead of focusing all our efforts on the criminals, they’re detaining children and hard-working, contributing members of society.

    Their malevolence knows no bounds – this Gestapo-like organization has even gone after Visa holders. A chemistry professor named Syed Ahmed Jamal was arrested outside his home while he was getting ready to take his daughter to school. Surely an “economically anxious” deplorable will be stepping in to take the job of a man holding degrees in molecular biosciences and pharmaceutical engineering. Isn’t this man the poster-child of Trump’s “merit-based” immigration system? I suppose he’s no Melania Trump, who immigrated to the U.S. under an “elite EB-1 program.. designed for renowned academic researchers, multinational business executives or those in other fields, such as Olympic athlete…”

    These are just a few of too many senseless, inhumane arrests being made in the name of an imaginary threat – the asylum seekers, the 10-year-old brought here as a baby with cerebral palsy, the green card applicants, the Visa holders,  and the quintessential hardworking immigrant doing the jobs nobody else will to provide for his family. (No, they don’t take jobs away.) All because there is no path to citizenship and the barriers for the poor, non-English speaking masses which Anglo-Saxon Americans’  poor ancestors fleeing persecution and famine didn’t face, simply exist now.

    Why target the most harmless, contributing members of society as a scapegoat instead of focusing limited resources on crime? Was arresting the dangerous mother married to a U.S. citizen and pursuing legal status the most effective use of time and resources?  Was locking a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy just as valuable as investigating a human smuggling ring or tracking down drug trafficking? Arrests are supposed to be made for the collective good of American society. What collective good does it serve in kicking out the most harmless, hard-working, and vulnerable?

    It serves the white supremacist collective good.  It’s all apart of a long-growing ethnic cleansing campaign – per Trump advisors such as Stephen Miller – that operates on the basis that immigrants as a monolith are an inherent threat. That all Mexicans are “rapists,” “drug traffickers.” That all “Haitians have AIDS,” and Africans come from “shitholes,” and by that measure should be barred from entering the land of poor, huddled immigrants.  A government hijacked by actual white supremacists and nazis (like Sebastian Gorka) is against all immigrants period – tremendous efforts are already being made to curb legal immigration.

    White supremacist agendas fueled by politics of fear and control do not care that illegal immigrants have lower incarceration rates and crime rates than native-born Americans. (People fleeing violence from economically stagnant countries actually come to the US in search of a better life for their families? Shocking!) They care about protecting white conservative interests in the face of an impending minority-majority, which so far they’ve done through gerrymandering. After all, conservative talking-head Rush Limbaugh said what they’re all thinking thereby proving this theory:

    “I would be willing right here to support an effort to grant permanent citizenship to whatever number of illegal immigrants there are in the country, tomorrow, if you will make as part of the deal they can’t vote for 15-25 years.”

    I wonder what’s there to fear about becoming a minority, could it have something to do with the way minorities are treated in this country?

    While such brute, senseless actions are nothing new, this administration is amping up their ability to violate basic human rights opening the way up for internment camps with the new Supreme Court ruling and conducting arrests outside of schools, in courthouses, in hospitals and homes like modern-day brown-shirts. It is heinous enough that even lawful residents and U.S. citizens have been incorrectly detained for months or years before being able to prove their legal status.

    Such actions perfectly conform to the 14 characteristics of fascism Trump has exhibited since his candidacy.  They’re the brown shirts of a kleptocracy that wants to control the media, wants police to “rough up” suspects, wants to end term limits, that wants the death penalty for non-violent drug offenses. The brown-shirts of a Wall-street deregulating, Muslim-ban creating, immigrant crime tracking misogynist who praises dictators.

    so bad that ICE spokesman resigned

    The war against immigrants has gotten so harrowingly abysmal that an  ICE spokeman resigned, saying he could “no longer spread falsehoods for the Trump administration.”  Fortunately, many are seeing through the fear-mongering: illegal immigration isn’t an all-time high epidemic – it’s net negative. In fact, legal immigration has soared. They have lower incarceration rates and crime rates than native-born Americans, and American cities with more illegal immigrants do not have a higher crime rate. They don’t “take” jobs in our full-employment economy. And they pay $13 billion a year in payroll taxes for benefits they can’t receive.We don’t need a 2,000 mile, 30-foot high, $30 billion wall.

    We must arrest criminals and strengthen the already secure border for the collective good of U.S. citizens, but there’s no economic or national security reason to target children, Visa holders, or green card applicants.

  • Gun Control Has Always Worked

    Gun Control Has Always Worked

    Since 2012 there have been 1,624 mass shootings in the U.S. We’re responsible for 31% of global mass shootings despite being 5% of the population, but guns are the only aspect of society we can’t seem to regulate. Since 1996, 167 of mass shooters’ weapons were obtained legally (49 were obtained illegally.) Somehow keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the violently mentally ill has become a partisan issue costing endless lives. Stricter gun laws have proven time and time again to work – from our 1930s machine gun ban to reforms around the world in Australia, Germany, and Canada. The shooters at Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Pulse, Las Vegas, and most recently, Parkland all bought guns legally, but the system isn’t failing us.When is enough, enough?

    We’re not safe at our schools, movie theaters, concerts.  The money generating death cult of the NRA is fueled by the politics of fear; Democrats don’t want to require universal background checks, those “crisis actors” want to take your guns. We can have laws against drugs, against machine guns but not the tools of death and destruction (not hunting) that easily fall into the wrong hands and are able to take 17 lives at a place of learning in minutes.

    After the deadly mass shooting in Parkland left 17 dead, gun control is pertinent. Yet the system shows no signs of doing literally anything to prevent mass shootings. It was only a year ago that Trump signed an executive order making it easier for those with mental illness obtain guns. And just last week, the Florida House rejected a ban on assault weapons thanks to the un-elected governor of Florida, NRA lobbyist Marlon Hammer. Our President after meeting with victims at a hospital threw a disco party and then pulled back support for universal gun background checks after meeting with the NRA. While our Senate will “skip the gun debate” and instead turn to a banking bill next week according to Majority Leader McConnell.

    “Criminals will obtain guns illegally anyway”

    When we have a higher rate of gun deaths than any other place in the middle east except Iraq and a gun homicide rate 25 times higher than other high-income countries, we’ve clearly forlorn our constitutional pact to  “well-regulated militia.” The system has failed us when the overwhelming majority of guns used in the past 19 mass shootings were bought legally, through a  background check despite criminal backgrounds or documented mental health issues. When the law can’t guarantee the pursuit of life and liberty to America’s children, the moral rot ingrained in the fabric of our hijacked system rises. Guns were legally given to the  San Bernardino, Parkland, the Texas church shooting, Las Vegas, and Pulse murderers, some among who had been reported to the FBI for threats, were convicted criminals and had alleged terrorist ties.

    Clearly, the majority of mass shooters are obtaining guns legally when their criminal background shouldn’t have allowed them to. Yet conservative gun fanatics believe we shouldn’t stop these depraved monsters where we can because extensive background checks will somehow repeal the second amendment. They point to an illegal weapon market as a basis to oppose stopping criminals from legally obtaining guns. If that logic follows, we shouldn’t have drug laws, and anti-machine-gun laws are useless. Why should guns be the only area not regulated? Oh, that’s right, because the NRA profit machine demands it at the sake of American lives.

    The Automatic Weapon Ban Worked

    In the 1920s and 1930s, Prohibition-era mobsters used portable machine guns to terrorize towns, which – like AR’s –  fired multiple rounds with the single pull of a trigger. Often times children and civilians were caught in the middle. President Roosevelt witnessed this as governor in his city, and in turn got Congress to pass the National Firearms Act of 1934. Since then, fully-automatic weapons have not been responsible for any of the last 81 mass shootings. A fully-automatic weapon ban worked then, and a ban of semi-automatic weapons – the weapon of choice in have been used in the country’s deadliest shootings, such as those in Newtown, Orlando, San Bernadino and Las Vegas, should work now.

    The Assault Weapon Ban Worked

    Guns do kill people – and taking the ones responsible for the past mass shootings out of the equation has been proven to drastically reduce the number of mass shootings in the U.S. Such was the case with the 1994-2004 automatic weapon ban. The federal Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Act banned “19 military-style assault weapons, assault weapons with specific combat features, “copy-cat” models, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds,”  according to Politico. During the ban period “the number of gun massacres plunged by 37 percent and gun massacre deaths, by 43 percent. After the ban massacres skyrocketed by 183%. Yes, we can prevent death from raining down on our schools, movie theaters, and concerts – it’s successfully been done before.

    Mental Illness is Not Solely to Blame

    Many are quick to blame shootings solely on mental illness as if America has a monopoly on it. (Less than 1% of firearm homicides are committed by a person diagnosed with a mental illness.) Nations around the world are not exempt from mental illness yet they’re not responsible for 31% of the world’s mass shootings. We are 5% of the world population. No other country has had close to 290 mass shootings since 2013, or any mass shootings for that matter after passing serious gun reform.

    Gun Control Worked Worldwide

    There were four mass shootings between 1987 and 1996 in Australia. Their legislature did not hesitate in passing gun reform requiring 28-day waiting period to obtain a weapon, a ban on semi-automatic weapons, and a national gun registry. There have been zero mass murders in the 20 years since while the U.S. has had 1,624 shootings just in the last 5 years.  In the UK there the 1996 mass murder in Scotland, prompted the government to ban all handguns, (in addition to the ones already banned in 1987), and there has only been one mass shooting since. After gun reform in Germany ,violent gun deaths fell to  0.12 per 100,000 people compared to the U.S.’ rate of 3.85 violent gun deaths. Comparatively, Canada has a rate of 0.5.

    Japan is the quintessential example on what to do about gun violence. The population of 127 million had just six gun deaths in 2014 compared to 33,599 in the US. That’s right Donald Trump, despite practically inventing video games, the country has virtually eradicated gun violence. Video game sales per person in Japan is $96.06, compared to the U.S.’ $63.45 in sales. Respectively gun deaths are 6 per 10,000,000 people per year and 1,016. It looks like the video games, or mental illness aren’t to solely blame for gun violence (given Japan’s high suicide rate.) This is because of the country’s strict gun control measures best summarized by Business Insider:

    “ If Japanese people want to own a gun, they must attend an all-day class, pass a written test, and achieve at least 95% accuracy during a shooting-range test. Then they have to pass a mental-health evaluation, which takes place at a hospital, and pass a background check, in which the government digs into their criminal record and interviews friends and family. They can only buy shotguns and air rifles — no handguns — and every three years they must retake the class and initial exam.”

    Gun Reform Now

    At 19 you should not be able to buy an AR-15 military assault-style weapon, much less with no waiting period or ammo restriction. AR-15’s were used in the Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Aurora, San Bernardino & Orlando shootings. No civilian should even be able to buy a semi-automatic weapon at all – they are weapons of war not for blowing deer’s brains off and protecting your home. Furthermore, bump-stocks – which capacitated the Las Vegas shooter with the ability to kill 58 people and injure 851 within the span of minutes by turning a semi automatic rifle into an automatic one, should be outlawed.

    This is just phase one of a much needed reform which  in no way infringes second amendment rights – not one public official has much less called for taking anyone’s guns away. It’s a baseless NRA soundbite designed to fear-monger and distort common sense gun regulation targeting criminals and the mentally unstable in order to keep profiting off the sale of weapons of war. Phase two is actually tightening background checks so that convicted criminals and those with suspicious, violent backgrounds reported multiple times to the FBI can’t get their hands on any weapon. We must also end the “gun show loophole” which allows for the private sales of guns without background checks.

    “”When you’re going to buy a gun, you put down your money but you don’t get to pick up your gun for several days because investigation is then made to make sure you’re not a felon..don’t have mental illness or anything. Then you can cocme back and get your gun. I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen to own guns for sporting, hunting or home defense. I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense.”

    – President Ronald Reagan

    The “Good Guy With a Gun” fallacy

    Contrary to popular belief, more guns don’t stop crime. Sadly, instead of addressing the root cause of the gun problem with preventive measures, the national conversation has turned to arming overworked, underpaid teachers to end up being killed by the shooter anyway or taken down by a confused SWAT team. Teachers are educators, not trained killers.  In fact, Trump’s proposal to arm teachers has been panned by experts as a “colossally stupid idea.”

    It’s absolutely ludicrous that we expect to train teachers a little better than the greatest American sniper in military history who was killed by a “bad guy” with a gun. To be trained superior to  six Secret Service agents who couldn’t save Reagan from being shot. Surely an overworked educator would have saved: Vegas: Orlando, a Texas church. Furthermore, the “right to carry” gun laws don’t suppress crime, but increase it by 15 percent. The “good guy with a gun” scenario has proven to be as disastrous as you’d expect. Recently, a Texas man disarmed a possible school shooter only to be shot by police. And an armed teacher in Georgia was arrested after he barricaded himself in a classroom and fired his handgun.

    If 63% of mass shooters were Hispanic men or Muslims the GOP would have been as quick to enact gun reform as they were to roll out an immigrant crime tracking database reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s. But since 63% of the last 184 mass shootings in the U.S. were white men, Trump can have a disco party while the Senate moves to a banking bill.

    “In 2016 there were 1.2 million violent crimes, or 23,077 a week. If that number held last week, the WH only found two crimes linked to immigrants in the country illegally, meaning native-born Americans committed the other 23,075.”

    In 2017 there were more than 300 gun murders in the US in February alone, in the entire year, only 22 serious crimes were committed by undocumented immigrants in the US.

    Putting up the Ten Commandments in public schools  selling bulletproof shields, and  banning backpacks will not prevent this. The only solution is common sense gun reform that has been proven to work both around the world and at home twice with the National Firearms Act and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.) These semi-automatic weapons ban should only function in conjunction with more extensive background checks, and an end to private gun sales loopholes. By our lack of responsiveness after countless shootings it’s evident this can only be done through an NRA political boycott. All those who value the sanctity of life, the pursuit of liberty and happiness must vote out those beholden to the NRA over human lives. Those who walk back on promises of universal background checks after meeting with the NRA, who’s son likes tweets smearing parkland shooting survivors. There’s no “fighting tyranny” by submitting to the oligarchy, by not votingfor progress, and life.

  • No Equality without Economic Justice

    No Equality without Economic Justice

    Why are people with the same economic interests so divided?  It’s not “economic anxiety”; a vote in Iowa is the equivalent of 5 California votes. The answer is grounded in American history spanning back 300 years when racial animosity was harnessed by elite landowners to destroy class solidarity and prevent rebellions. Divided, those with the same economic interests fell. This covert phenomenon rooted in the Reconstruction Era when the KKK emerged with lynchings because slaves were seen as competition to poor whites, culminated in major whole redistributions of wealth as experienced in the 1980s – through Nixon’s Southern strategy of white political realignment. Not much has changed as “economically anxious” coal-country Trump voters march on the streets chanting nazi mantras, call brown countries “sh*tholes,” and tell minorities to get out of ‘their’ countries. Convinced that it’s not the bipartisan iron triangle of excessive corporate influence, it’s not the crony oligarchy corrupting the democratic process running their economic prospects, it’s minorities as they’ve been indoctrinated. Thus, the white working class American votes out of resentment, against their best interests for the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation (they realigned) that pretends to care about said coal-country. While Democrats offer condescending rhetoric worthy of the “East-coast lib” caricature, tokenism, and identity politics over economic justice.

    “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

    During the Reconstruction Era, freed slaves were given “40 acres and a mule,” the first policy offering economic justice to African Americans in the form of land redistribution. But racist sentiment did not end with the 13th Amendment. Poor, non-land owning white men saw these policies being enacted and subsequently emerged the KKK. Equality of opportunity felt like oppression. Slaves were seen as competition too poor whites, and they became Southern Democrats (or modern-day Republicans), instead of standing in solidarity with other poor blacks. This, in short, is the history of racial class division, the source of the 1980s Southern strategy, and the 2016 election-winning Trump strategy targeting minorities.

    What does all of this well-curated racism mean? A skyrocketing wealth gap where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer as they fight over Muslim bans and border walls aiming to keep brown people out. It’s not the “swamp” ruining my economic prospects, it’s minorities. It’s not my grades ruining my chances of getting into college, it’s minorities. In this alternative-reality all brown people are threats to the in-group, the Muslim ban which bans zero of the countries that have caused terrorism in the US nor the one that caused 9/11 because Trump has business ties there, is good because screw refugees that have never caused a terrorist attack in the U.S. in the last 30 years in the US. A $35 billion safety-blanket of a wall rendered useless by net negative illegal-immigration, the fact that immigrants have a lower crime rate than native-born Americans, and half of illegals fly here and overstay Visas (meaning they’ve already been vetted) is good because it’s a monumental ‘screw you’ to more brown people.

    These are the real identity politics – the politics of fear, the politics of alternative facts raised as a modern-day Southern strategy to keep whites voting against their best interest, to keep them voting for their only interest under the imagined threat of immigrants.

    Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s revelation stands tall, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” And empty their pockets they have: with transfer of wealth tax cuts in the ‘80s were the poor were left behind and the top 1% saw their income triple, with the Bush tax cuts which raised unemployment to 6%, and finally the failing Kansas trickle-down experiment of 2012 which caused job growth and personal income to lag the US economy. Most recently the MAGA tax-cut which laid off almost 10,000 employees and closed 63 Walmart stores. They’ll vote against job creation, against the Obamacare they’re on because “Obama,” and vote for cuts to their own Social Security.Who knew corporate tax cuts didn’t increase demand/a need for more hiring?

    While Republican appeals to racism drew aggrieved racists to the GOP, the Democratic party ensured they had no incentive to leave. By pushing for their interpretation of social justice without economic reform, they’ve shed the New Deal-style agenda which successfully gave birth to a middle-class and watched it flourish. Democrats don’t have actual solutions to address the causes of poverty, the causes of bankruptcy-inducing healthcare, of widening inequality – they have band-aids. They simply pad problems with government money instead of offering progressive solutions directly addressing the root cause, as well as corruption. Instead of cracking down on price gouging and regulating the oil industry more strictly, they increase LIHEAP funding. Instead of Regulating pharmaceutical prices to lower the cost of American medicine, they throw money at each other. It’s all thanks to the unbreakable, bipartisan, iron triangle. Both parties take money from the same donors and pretend to care about working-class interests.

    This, again, is not to say racists crawled to a white supremacist, historically incompetent Fuhrer because of economic anxiety of course. The Democratic party is still light years better than Republicans in terms of the working class (which isn’t saying much.)

    Pretending like the Midwest was driven to such extremes because of “jobs” is complete bullcrap. Are the 95% of Democrat-voting black people wealthy elites? Are there are no working class democrats desperate for jobs? Are they not desperate for jobs? There are, but they’re not driven by racism – much less driven by racism to ‘empty their pockets’ for the exploited rich whose wealth will ‘trickle-down.’ Low income minorities did not elect Trump, “cultural” anxiety did. In fact, “views on immigration, Muslims drove white voters to Trump.”

    As many tokens hiding corporatist, centrist agendas the Democrats posture for 2020 with the promise of change, there can be no equality without economic justice. The same people who gave us brought you winning Hillary are now pushing big Wall Street money recipients who decline to prosecute fraudsters like Munich for 1,000 cases of mortgage fraud, Senators who vote against lower pharmaceutical prices. They’re doing this and expecting something other than a rehashing of the 2016 election.

    After the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Martin Luther King Jr. felt that the de-jure fight wasn’t over. The Reverend held a radical bastion of economic justice as the ultimate goal, and in the weeks before his assassination, he was advocating around an economic message for all people.  “Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?”He went on to start the Poor People’s Campaign in 1967 which demanded a progressive agenda based on jobs and higher wages.

    Although he went further in his calls for universal basic income, his message did not stray from the core truth – a man isn’t free if he can’t afford the basic necessities to survive. As Anatole France is quoted, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

    The only way to lower partisan divide is through an economic message; no gimmicks, no pure opposition campaigns, and no identity politics. To stand behind ideas the majority of Americans support. Fifty-eight percent  of Americans support single-payer, 88% oppose cuts to Social security, voters in red states want Medicaid expanded, 68% think the wealthy pay too little taxes, 64% support regulating greenhouse gas emissions,58%  support breaking up big banks, 63% support raising the minimum wage to $15.00, 53% support labor union law, 64% think corporations don’t pay their fair share.

  • Trump’s History of Racism, Before Decrying Immigration from “Shithole Countries”

    Trump’s History of Racism, Before Decrying Immigration from “Shithole Countries”

    “Being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.” As if it was possible to hit a new low, Donald Trump has managed it with a series of brazenly racist comments bypassing previous dog-whistles. In a meeting this past Thursday, as confirmed by Sen. Durbin and Sen. Graham, he expressed the desire to keep immigrants from “sh*thole countries” from entering the U.S. in favor of majority white countries “like Norway.” He did not lament the factual poverty and destabilization in those countries, he said he doesn’t want those people here. The hoods are off all over America and in the White House. Trump showed us who he was during the candidacy from the moment he launched a tirade against all Mexican immigrants by calling them rapists and drug traffickers, and America bought it. After all, he was telling it as every Fox News watching racist was thinking. Every racist whose huddled ancestors came to the U.S. poor, not speaking a word of English, and escaping persecution and/or a “sh*thole country.” Then genociding Native Americans and stealing their land of course. In fact, under  Trump’s new immigration rule, his own grandfather likely wouldn’t have gotten in.

    With a constant barrage of racist antics and political scandal, he’s created a desensitized space where derisively speaking about minorities is okay as long as skin color isn’t mentioned. The unconstitutional Muslim ban is okay because Muslim isn’t a race – nevermind that the countries on the ban are majority Arab. Wanting to ban immigrants from the entire continent of Africa and country of Haiti because they’re “sh*tholes” is fine because he didn’t say “Africans” or “Haitians.” Disparaging a continent full of black people is fine because much Africa suffers from poverty and corruption. Thus, saying Africans “live in huts” and Haitians “have aids” becomes alright.

    We’ve devolved to the point where explicitly stereotyping entire ethnic groups and countries full of them is acceptable, and not the dictionary definition of racism. Where wanting to prevent entire ethnic groups from entering the United States in favor of white Nordic countries is okay because the brown countries are ‘poor.’ Donald Trump didn’t state the fact that they were poor and destabilized, he decried letting people of color emigrating from them into the U.S. – and there lies the obvious problem.

    Arrogantly mocking their poverty and corruption like a sociopath isn’t so funny when it’s the natural result of centuries of Western colonialism and exploitation. It’s only hypocritical. America is a nation built by poor, non-English speaking masses escaping poverty or persecution. With the current administration’s agenda favoring wealthy, highly-educated, English-speaking immigrants, white-Americans would not be here nor would Trump. Their ancestors were “poor huddled masses yearning to be free.” Wealthy people moving here continuing their way of life didn’t create the famous “American Dream.” It was the poor Irish immigrants escaping famine and building the Transatlantic railroad alongside Chinese immigrants, it was the German immigrants who faced the same discrimination and hate crimes Latino immigrants do this century. During WWI they couldn’t even speak their language in schools, their last names were changed, and German Americans were beaten. The country has collectively revisioned history and said, “I’ve got mine, screw you.”

    Sixty-three million of us warned America. This egregious comment was not a new display of his character, he’s 71 years old. When you elect a notorious racist you get one. Here’s a history of his racist ideology, both verbatim, and through his heinous actions.

    -Defended actual neo-nazis: Trump defended killer Charlottesville nazis to David Duke and Richard Spencer’s delight, calling them “fine people” when it was a self-described neo-nazi march with people hailing Hitler and yelling “Jews will not replace us”

    -Sued twice by DOJ for housing discrimination against blacks

    -Pardoned Arpaio, a barbaric, convicted racial profiler who ran 120 degree concentration camps and let a prisoner give birth in handcuffs

    -Called Mexicans (NOT illegals) rapists and drug traffickers. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

    -Launched birtherism against the first black President lasting over 8 years; continues to obsessively legislate in spite of Obama.

    -Called Puerto Ricans going through a major natural disaster lazy. When people had no power, no fuel, no refrigeration, only one hospital operating, took eight days to adequately respond after relentlessly attacking the mayor & calling its people lazy.

    -He’s accused “millions” of voting illegally (and pointlessly?)  in blue states and when cited for proof pointed to the fact that Latino Americans were voting.

    –Endorsed child molestor Roy Moore who said America was great during slavery

    -He thinks all black people are on welfare: When meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus last Spring a member said regarding welfarerecipientss that “Not all,,are black,” and he replied “Really? Then what are they?”

    -Echoes white supremacist narratives:

    -“They’re trying to take away our history, our heritage.” He’s from New York and his family was not in the U.S. during the Civil War. He doesn’t mean Southern “heritage,” he means white.

    –Believes in gene superiority

    -Appointed a band of blatant white supremacists to his cabinet of deplorables:

    –Gorka, a member of a nazi organization in Hungary called Vitezi Rend

    –Sessions – a man too racist to pass a Reagan-era confirmation hearing in the South as Attorney General

    -Hired Stephen Miller, a white supremacist, friend of Richard Spencer, who wrote regularly for the Duke Chronicle, where he denied systemic racism, called multiculturalism “segregation,” He’s railed against immigrants from non-European countries “not assimilating.” In high school he complained about the school’s celebration of Cinco De Mayo, and criticized a visit by a Muslim leader, and tormented Spanish speakers, telling them to go back to their countries.

    Trump on Jewish people:

    –Used the dog-whistle “America First.” A WWII-era anti-Semitic, xenophobic mantra used to enforce 1940s quota laws against Jews during their ongoing persecution in Germany.

    -Shuttered the State Department’s anti-Semitism monitoring office

    -Deliberately took out the word “Jew” from Holocaust Remembrance Day remarks

    On Blacks:

    ” Black guys counting my money! I hate it.”

    -”I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not something they can control.”

    -He thinks all black people are on welfare: When meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus last Spring a member said regarding welfare recipients that “Not all…are black,” and he replied “Really? Then what are they?”

    -His pitch for the black vote to a crowd full of white people: “What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? What do you have to lose?You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”

    –“Sadly, because President Obama has done such a poor job as president, you won’t see another black president for generations!”

    –Retweeted neo-nazi false crime statistic reports saying that white victims are murdered by black people 81% of the time.

    On Muslims:

    -Has called for tracking them using a database, shutting down mosques, and banning Muslims altogether from entering the country.

    On Mexicans:

    -“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

    –“If you go to Fusion, you will see a story: About 80% of the women coming in, you know who owns Fusion? Univision! Go to Fusion and pick up the stories of rape. It’s unbelievable when you look at what’s going on. So all I’m doing is telling the truth,” Trump said. Lemon replied that the press stories are about women being raped, but not about criminals coming across the border. “Well, somebody’s doing the raping, Don! I mean somebody’s doing it! Who’s doing the raping? Who’s doing the raping?” he asked.

    – Called 1996 Latina Miss Universe “Miss Housekeeping”

    -Said federal Judge Fonzalo Curiel who was presiding over a Trump University lawsuit was unqualified to do his job because of an “inherent conflict of interest” due to his Mexican heritage

    –Wants to repeal the 14th amendment

    He’s not only wrong, he’s projecting. He claims Mexicans are rapists, but he has multiple lawsuits from women claiming sexual assault and multiple tapes where he proudly details his predatory behavior leading to assault have surfaced. He pushes the narrative of the tax-avoiding illegal, yet they pay more taxes than he does! 

    Legislative Nativism and Xenophobia: How Trump’s Curbing Legal Immigration

    Even more significant is his legislative nativism – he’s enacting white supremacist dreams of a white utopia and closing off immigration for minorities. While ending legal protections for Mexicans, Indians, Haitians, Salvadorans and more.  Which will cripple the economy. He’s deporting 200,000 Salvadorans who have been legally allowed to remain in the U.S. for over a decade back to the violence they escaped.  He’s deporting thousands of people who should be granted refugee status – who fled from the MS-13 lethal gang violence and sexual assault. To the “sh*thole” he doesn’t want any kind of immigration from.  Trump is a complete and utter disgrace to humanity. This is not how the leader of the free-world acts.

    The Sociopath in Chief is also ending a program allowing 59,000 Haitian refugees to live in the U.S.

    He’s curbing H-1B extensions which will lead to the deportation of thousands of skilled workers and a negative impact on the U.S. economy. Five-hundred thousand to 750,000 Indian visa holders could be kicked out. All because of his “hire American” plan which erroneously contends increased immigration takes jobs away from Americans.

    And such a view shows a lack of basic economic literacy.

    So much for Trump not being a racist xenophobe who only hates illegals, it turns out he doesn’t want legal immigration either. Like his white supremacist base, he wants a white ethnostate and is trying to ethnically engineer the flow of immigrants into this country.

    Proposing a skills-based immigration system thereby ending ‘chain immigration.’ This cuts back on family immigration by 85%, legal immigration by 50% over 10 years. Favoring ” applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy” per Nosferatu Stephen Miller. Limiting family-based migration to spouses and children.

    Thus far, he’s rescinded DACA, a program protecting 800,000 young, tax-paying professionals, army members, and college students with a 91% employment rate and no felonies or misdemeanors. (No it has never been ruled unconstitutional by any courts. It’s actually a lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion.) Leaving these economically contributing individuals in legal limbo.

    America became a world power by allowing poor, non-English speaking, unskilled workers with nothing but an American Dream. With the current administration’s agenda favoring wealthy, highly-educated, English-speaking immigrants, white-Americans would not be here nor would Trump. Their ancestors were “poor huddled masses yearning to be free.” Wealthy people moving here continuing their way of life didn’t create the famous “American Dream.” It was the poor Irish immigrants escaping famine and building the Transatlantic railroad alongside Chinese immigrants, it was the German immigrants who faced the same discrimination and hate crimes Latino immigrants do this century. During WWI they couldn’t even speak their language in schools, their last names were changed, and German Americans were beaten. The country has collectively revisioned history and said, “I’ve got mine, screw you.”

    The “Hire American” agenda propagates the myth that immigrants “take jobs away”

    These decisions function under the guise of the multi-billionaire professional con-artist putting disenchanted coal-miners to work.  Nevermind that we are already at “full employment with more job openings than at any point in history.”   The idea that there is a fixed amount of jobs available falls under the “lump of labor fallacy.”  As population increases so does total employment; foreign workers do not crowd-out employment.

    They aren’t taking anyone’s jobs away. The US economy is actually seeking 6.2 million jobs at a time when general unemployment is at a 16-year low, which is even lower among college-educated.  The majority of Dreamers are students, 17 percent pursue an advanced degree., and they tend to be employed in higher-skilled jobs. Among this college educated group the market is higher than full employment, so the talking-point that low-skilled white and black workers are being squeezed out of an economy higher than full-employment is yet another lie.  The idea that unemployed native-born Americans are substitutes for these highly-skilled jobs is xenophobic propaganda.

    Furthermore, curbing H-1B extensions will create a skilled worker shortage in America in core fields like science and technology. ” I mean those workers were brought in because of a shortage to begin with. To hire an immigrant US employers must first prove a lack of qualified or willing workers in the US” No amount of “MAGA” idiots without scientific or tech training will replace them. No amount of economically anxious MAGAs will gain a job by deporting 700,000 skilled people.

    While Trump and his “made in China” company continues to bring in foreign workers to Mar-A-Lago on his 92 $48 million golf trips courtesy of tax-payers, we must recall the voice of old conservatism:

    “Miss Liberty, like the many millions she’s welcomed to these shores, is of foreign birth.” -President Reagan

  • DACA Myths Debunked

    DACA Myths Debunked

    The Trump administration has expressed a desire to kick out 800,000 young, tax-paying professionals, army members, and college students with a 91% employment rate and no felonies or misdemeanors by rescinding DACA,  to fulfill a racist utopia. To kick out young adults who had no jurisdiction over coming here. While ignoring the facts: DACA has not been ruled unconstitutional by any courts, there’s zero correlation between illegal immigrants and surging crime, and the Dreamers provide an economic boost to a market already at full employment all while not being eligible for welfare or student aid. There’s clearly no plausible reason to end DACA in the name of national or economic security. But it’s easy to see why President “fine people on both sides” might want to do so after years of degrading, heinous, and slanderous language directed towards Latinos. 

    The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program allowed for people brought here illegally as children to receive a renewable two-year deference from deportation and obtain a work permit. 800,000 Dreamers. It was the culmination of 15 years of legal limbo after the 2001 DREAM Act – aiming to provide a path to full citizenship for those brought to the US illegally as children – failed to pass in the 2007 House. Then years later, failed to pass in the 2010 Senate. The executive action did not provide amnesty, immunity, or even a path to citizenship – yet Trump has launched an attack against it fueled solely by blatant xenophobic falsehoods reminiscent of 1940s Germany propaganda.

    Dreamers – The Model Minority (by Requirement)

    They are children who had no jurisdiction over their parents’ actions. They did not break the law. They must have been younger than 31 on June 15, 2012, and come when they were younger than 16, living here since 2007. In fact, 80% of Dreamers arrived when they were less than 10 years old.

    Immigration-status aside, they are law-abiding inhabitants.  To be eligible to the status, they must not have “convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor or three other misdemeanors, or otherwise pose a threat to national security.”

    Much of the fear-mongering and sensationalist debate on the right stems from the belief that all immigrants are bringing a crime wave when there is no data showing such a correlation.

    Illegal immigrants do not increase crime.

    Data only shows the opposite despite Sessions’ claims that it “contributed to a surge of unaccompanied minors on the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences.”:

    Illegal immigrants overall, do not reside in the US illegally because they are criminals in fear of vetting, they have been vetted – an estimated 66% overstay Visas. (Which to be technical, is not a criminal offense.) Contrary to popular belief, there’s also no path to citizenship much less a “line.”

    Illegal immigrants have lower incarceration rates and crime rates than native-born Americans and native-White Americans. So people fleeing violence from economically stagnant countries actually come to the US in search of a better life for their families – shocking!

    Illegal immigrants are 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives.

    Accordingly, “1.53 percent of all native-born adults (18-54) are incarcerated, compared with 0.85 percent of illegal immigrants in the same age range – including those incarcerated for immigration crimes and in immigration detention.”  That number drops to 0.50 percent when excluding them.  Furthermore, White, native-born Americans are incarcerated at a rate of 0.90 percent, illegal immigrants of every race and ethnicity are still less likely to be incarcerated, at a rate of 0.85 percent. Additionally, American cities with more illegal immigrants do not have a higher crime rate.

    Constitutionality of DACA

    Like any good propaganda minister, the Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions, used a series of easily fact-checkable lies about DACA to justify rescinding it.

    First and foremost, it is not “unilateral executive amnesty,” it does not provide amnesty or even a path to citizenship.  “Immigration amnesty is a blanket pardon to all the members of a defined class, such as the kind Ronald Reagan introduced in 1986. “

    He went on the say that DACA was an “unconstitutional exercise of authority.” That is another brazen lie. Arguments that it’s not constitutional are based on the United States v. Texas ruling on the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, not DACA. To which the court split its decision.

    Although over 100 law school professors proclaim that it’s a “lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” no court ruling on the constitutionality of the program has been issued on the matter. Presenting such a statement as fact shows that the real fake-news is coming from inside the (White) House.

    They do not “steal jobs,” they drive economic growth.

    Sessions has claimed that DACA, “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those jobs to go to illegal aliens.”

    There is again zero evidence pointing to that. And such a viewpoint shows a lack of basic economic literacy.

    Nevermind that we are already at “full employment with more job openings than at any point in history.” The idea that there is a fixed amount of jobs available falls under the “lump of labor fallacy.”  As population increases so does total employment; foreign workers do not crowd-out employment.

    They aren’t taking anyone’s jobs away. The US economy is actually seeking 6.2 million jobs  at a time when general unemployment is at a 16-year low, which is even lower among college-educated.  The majority of Dreamers are students, 17 percent pursue an advanced degree., and they tend to be employed in higher-skilled jobs. Among this college educated group the market is higher than full employment, so the talking-point that low-skilled white and black workers are being squeezed out of an economy higher than full-employment is yet another lie.  They idea that unemployed native-born Americans are substitutes for these highly-skilled jobs is xenophobic propaganda.

    We are at full employment and no one is being squeezed out of the job-market much less competing with 800,000 highly-skilled and educated Dreamers in it.

    DACA recipients actually fuel economic growth according to a myriad of studies. Again, this is essentially because high-skilled immigration does not crowd-out low-skilled native-workers nor compete with them, but only create new jobs and spending with their skills and education. In fact, within 5 years, ,GDP would shrink by $105 billion without DACA recipients. And by shrink by $380 billion without undocumented immigrants. Immigrants are also twice as likely than native-born Americans to start businesses.

    Evidently, there’s no plausible reason to end DACA in the name of national or economic security. Congress must stand up to protect these  800,000 young, tax-paying professionals, army members, and college students. They must protect these young adults with a 91% employment rate and no felonies or misdemeanor who had no jurisdiction over coming here.

    Congress must accept the facts: DACA has not been ruled unconstitutional by any courts it’s actually a lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion. (It was not amnesty like Reagan’s policy.)  Recipients had no jurisdiction over breaking the law, and they are mandated to be law-abiding inhabitants for the status and pose zero threat to national security. Illegal immigrants overall have lower crime and incarceration rates than native-born Americans (1.53 to 0.85%.)

    Dreamers provide an economic boost to a market already at full employment all while not being eligible for welfare or student aid.  The number of US jobs are not fixed because as population increases so does employment (see the lump of labor fallacy.) Therefore, foreign workers overall do not crowd-out employment much less at a time when the US economy is at full employment seeking 6.2 million jobs (highest since 2001), much less within the majority student and highly skilled Dreamer population where the market is higher than full employment. (Those economically anxious unemployed Americans and coal-miners are not competing with 800,000 highly-skilled and educated young people.)

    This is a bipartisan issue worth fighting for. Supporting the protection of these exemplary young people who had no jurisdiction over coming here does not mean being for open borders or amnesty. It means having the basic human decency and logic to do what is both morally and economically right.

  • Bernie Sanders Myths Debunked

    Bernie Sanders Myths Debunked

    Nearing 2018, Clinton loyalists have taken it upon themselves to slander the most liked politician in America (who stands for the most statistically favorable issues.) Choosing to rehash the June 2016 primaries with slanderous narratives about Sanders while “Queen Hillary” drinks chardonnay in the woods, goes on a book blame tour, and turns down the Women’s Convention. All, has given rise to brazen North-Korea style propaganda outlets such as Verrit – the left’s own Breitbart. Thus, putting the proverbial nail in the coffin on a center-left already much indistinguishable from the right. At such a turbulent, pivotal time in American history post-election stress is best alleviated by pushing ‘Bernie tax-returns’ myths, not by fighting for healthcare, Puerto Rico, and real issues.

    This perpetual smear campaign against progressives by the elite is nothing new. The party establishment has been gatekeeping against populist insurrection since the late 1800’s, when unchecked capitalism-turned-cronyism had robber barons and party bosses annihilating the middle-class. To our own shrinking middle-class, rich TV pundits say, ‘don’t support your best interests.’ Debate-question-leaking media outlets do their best mental gymnastics to convince people single-payer tax hikes aren’t actually less expensive than premiums. They have them rallying against their best interests, and for corrupt politicians who oppose a $15 minimum wage (which doesn’t even match inflation), restoring Glass-Steagall, vote for interventionist regime change wars, and give secret speeches to Wall Street.

    It’s a cycle that will never break until politicians no longer have incentive to be beholden to anyone but their constituents. Just follow the money; corporations own politicians, Clinton-donors own the media, and undemocratic superdelegates are not a thing of the past. Nothing will change until the common factor is taken out of the equation and Citizens United is repealed. Until then, we’ve got to stand up for the truth and hold our representatives accountable. Which is why it’s important to fact-check the pettiest, most ludicrous claims from centrists.

    “Bernie made Hillary lose the election”

    Clintonites content that running a primary, opposition campaign.. against an opponent..in an election somehow made Hillary Clinton lose the general election. Among Russia, Barack Obama, Comey, sexism, self-hating women who voted “for the boys,” the Clinton-run media, voter suppression, the DNC which colluded with her, the Electoral College for not letting her know Wisconsin had electoral votes, Anthony Weiner who are also to blame of course. Pay no mind to the fact that a court conceded the DNC had the right to rig the 2016 primary against Sanders. Or that the left-wing media is run by Clinton Foundation donors, Hillary will find a way to victimize herself.

    The logic follows that Bernie Sanders made Queen Hillary look bad by comparison by contrasting her neo-liberal policies and history, with his own progressive history and vision for America. Bernie Sanders was a detriment to her in the general because he exhumed corruption in a broken system and factually outlined policy differences between the two candidates. Because logic. I mean he “promised ponies,” Clinton mocked, ponies which happen to be the where the numbers are at might I add.

    –Fifty-eight percent  of Americans support single-payer, 88% oppose cuts to Social Security, voters in red states want Medicaid expanded, 68% think the wealthy pay too little taxes, 64% support regulating greenhouse gas emissions,58%  support breaking up big banks, 63% support raising the minimum wage to $15.00, 53% support labor union law, 64% think corporations don’t pay their fair share.

    Did Donald Trump not face competition and relentless attacks from 16 other Republicans and the entire mainstream media? The entire idea that a primary candidate, running a campaign is to blame for a general election loss, is laughable, and drips of bitterness. Her loss was foreseeable to anyone who understands her polling numbers were scraping by within the margin of error. (While they showed Sanders handedly defeating Trump by at least 10 points.) To anyone who understands that centrism lost democrats sixty-nine House seats and 13 Senate seats. That (faux) populism won over a disenchanted electorate – many who had previously voted for Obama. Who else had a populist, working-class message and wasn’t absolutely lying about it? Sanders, who made economic inequality the platform of his campaign, would have obliterated policy-outline-free Trump. Centrism, is why she lost, not the only remaining beacon of honesty and integrity in Washington which her history pales in comparison to.

    Let’s blame the “damned emails” guy who wholeheartedly campaigned for her and has unwaveringly remained one of Trump’s toughest critics. Sadly, politics is not a gentleman’s nor an honest man’s sport.

    Gun Control

    Hillary propagated the narrative that Bernie Sanders ‘has been largely a very reliable supporter of the NRA,’ during the election. That is an outright lie. He has a D- rating from the NRA, supports increased gun control, wants instant background checks, and wants to eliminate the gun-show loophole. It’s literally on his website: he’s  “voted in favor of a nationwide ban on assault weapons, a nationwide ban on high-capacity magazines of over ten rounds, and nationwide expanded background checks that address unsafe loopholes.”

    Sanders has only been criticized for not blaming manufacturers for crimes committed with their product. Should car manufacturers be blamed if someone runs you over with their car? It a completely illogical attack. He’s voted for the Brady Bill when it finally called for instant background checks and supported it holding retailers who knowingly sold weapons to criminals accountable not when it punished those who sold weapons to those who passed background checks and later used them in crimes. It’s called nuance.

    Abortion

    He’s most recently been ostracized for endorsing Omaha mayoral candidate Heath Mello, a Democrat who co-sponsored a bill that requiring doctors to merely inform women of their right to an ultrasound prior to an abortion. Not mandating them to receive one. The Senator with a lifetime pro-choice record, who’s strong proponent of women’s healthcare – from contraceptives to voting no on restricting UN funding for population control policies – has been dubbed a misogynist republican. All for endorsing a Democratic candidate who supported a bill which inform women of their right to an ultrasound. The center-left is absolutely deranged.

    Bernie Bros Narrative

    Per Wikileaks, during the Democratic primary the Clinton campaign coordinated with columnists using identity politics to undermine Bernie Sanders through fabricated race and gender narratives. See Hillary’s heinously condescending remarks on women who didn’t vote for her because their “fathers and husbands and boyfriends and male employers not to vote for “the girl.” How sadly out of touch. She still can’t grapple with the fact that she lost to one of the most disliked candidates in history because she herself was one of the most disliked candidates in history.

    Data Shows High Favorability from Minorities Towards Bernie and Decreasing Favorability Against Democrats:

    This entire idea that leftists are nothing but straight white males is also a fabricated narrative attempting to whitewash the millions like us. In a leap of logic, it labors to label a diverse movement as ‘racist’ for being “too white” completely ignoring the real numbers. On top of remaining the most popular politician in America across the polling board (from Harvard to Fox), he is viewed favorably by 73% of African-American voters, and 68% of Hispanics. These are trajectionary election winning numbers. Furthermore, the data often shows these groups choosing that they “don’t know enough to rate,” which hits the nail on the head on why Bernie lost against the name-brand Clinton political

    Machine. All while surveys show a 38% favorability with the Democratic party across the board and “fewer black women saying that the Democratic Party ‘best represents’ their interests.”

    The mere need for debunking shows the extensive mental devastation the corporatist mainstream media has left behind.

    Could it be that economic inequality is decimating the middle-class as the wealth gap grows between minorities and Caucasian workers? African American women earn 64 cents and Hispanic women 55 cents for every dollar made by a white male. Despite what pundits might say, brown people are smart enough to think for themselves. They’re seeing past the corporatist Democrats identity-politics-entrenched bromides, and looking for real economic justice and the undertaking of corruption.

    Paid propagandists try as they might, to convince us tokenism is a measure of progressiveness while their candidates sell us wars, bail out banks, vote against lowering pharmaceutical prices, and decline to prosecute mortgage fraud criminals. This is their version of social justice. True equality, as democratic socialist Martin Luther King Jr. advocated, requires economic equality, which Democrats no longer pretend to address. (Per the ongoing DNC progressive purge.)

    “He Hasn’t Accomplished Anything”

    The center left loves pushing the soundbyte that Bernie was not an effective legislator. Nevermind that he was christened the “amendment king” from 1995-2007 when he “passed 17 amendments by a recorded roll call vote — more than any other member in the House.” Or that in the current Congress, he ranks fourth in the number of roll call amendments passed.

    Of course, that pales in comparison to Hillary’s tremendous Iraq war and its subsequent hundreds of thousands child casualties. Or her great feat in making Honduras the murder capital of the world after her 2009 Honduran coup d’état.

    Tax Returns

    This is the laziest attack of them all. Bernie released his tax returns in April 2016 and they showed he made just $205,000 in income. According to all his financial disclosures he’s one of the poorest people in Congress. Calls for his tax returns only happened after the Sanders campaign called on her to release her secret Wall Street speech transcripts. I’m not even sure what the angle is in this attack. Hillary has made $13 million in Wall Street speeches but let’s attack the guy making $205,000 a year.

    The power of these relentless attacks crumbles against Sanders consistent fight for the majority of Americans – even those who’ve fallen victim to centrist propaganda. They’ve chosen to ostracize him and purge progressives from the DNC because as Sanders put it back in May, “They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.” The reason Democrats don’t mind losing political clout by ostracizing his base and his widely favorable ideas, is because it’s their duty to protect the interests of their campaign financiers.

    If they want to win, they must reject centrism which doesn’t win anymore as evidenced by the 2016 election. (Did Trump win by pivoting?) They must wholly embrace progressive policies (which is is where the electorate numbers are at), policies with majority support that will even court the most deep-red Trump counties. Democrats must embrace the fact that the parties have been moving apart for the last 40 years, and few and fewer moderates get elected. Centrism failed Democrats for the past 8 years, and Bernie-style-politics is the dying party’s last hope. Bernie Sanders now has higher favorability ratings than Hillary Clinton among her own voters for crying out loud.