Please note that the poems and essays on this site are copyright and may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


Thursday 21 June 2018

Th'Emp Unrepentant | Murica 1938: the kids are alright - unless they aren't

.
 
#have a nice day #sunset on the Tonle Sap lake near the Kampong Phluk commune in Siem Reap, #Cambodia Photo Tang Chhin Sothy: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 June 2018

Donald Trump


epa editor's choice 20 June 2018: #DrugEnforcementAgency #jailcells #drugs #inmates #inspection #illegal #prisonreform #Manila #Philippines #epaphotos Photo epa-efe / Mark R. Cristino: image via epaphotos @epaphotos, 20 June 2018


#goodnight  Security guards stand on the runway in front of the Manhattan skyline, USA Photo Angela Weiss: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 June 2018
 

 #WorldCup Russia A #Lenin statue in front of a hotel in Nizhny Novgorod by AFP photographer @johaynz: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 June 2018


#migrants are checked at the port of Pozzallo, Sicily during a disembarkment following a rescue operation. Photo @GiovanniIsolino: image via Aurelia BAILLY @AureliaBAILLY, 20 June 2018


#Afghanistan An Afghan day labourer works in a coal yard at the market in Mazar-i-Sharif. Photo @Farshadusyan #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 20 June 2018


#Afghanistan An Afghan day labourer works in a coal yard at the market in Mazar-i-Sharif. Photo @Farshadusyan #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 20 June 2018
 
 #Kenya A man buys groceries in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi. Photo Simon Maina #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 20 June 2018

 
GAZA CITY - Palestinian youths play with rollerblades by walls covered with graffiti at the sea port in Gaza City Photo @MahmudHams  #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 20 June 2018


GAZA STRIP - Israeli planes hit 25 targets in response to Gaza rocket fire Photo @saidkhatib #AFP: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 20 June 2018

#Russia Women eat next to tombstones at the Shirokorechenskoe cemetery in Ekaterinburg, one of the host cities for the #WorldCup Photo @JG+AFP #AFP: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 20 June 2018


 #Mexico. View of the Ehecatl (pre-Columbian deity of wind) temple in the basement of a shopping center in Mexico City. #AFPphoto by @rschemidt: image via AFP Photo @AFPphoto, 20 June 2018

the kids are alright - unless they aren't


Akemi Vargas, 8, cries as she talks about being separated from her father during an immigration family separation protest in front of the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. District Court building in Phoenix. Child welfare agencies across America make wrenching decisions every day to separate children from their parents. But those agencies have ways of minimizing the trauma that aren’t being employed by the Trump administration at the Mexican border.: photo by Ross D. Franklin/AP, 18 June 2019

At least 3 tender age shelters set up for child migrants: Garance Burke and Martha Mendoza, AP, 19 June 2018

The Trump administration has set up at least three “tender age” shelters to detain babies and other young children who have been forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, The Associated Press has learned.
 
Doctors and lawyers who have visited the shelters in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley said the facilities were fine, clean and safe, but the children — who have no idea where their parents are — were hysterical, crying and acting out. Many of them are under age 5, and some are so young they have not yet learned to talk.
 
The government also plans to open a fourth shelter to house hundreds of young migrant children in Houston, where city leaders denounced the move Tuesday.
 
Since the White House announced its zero tolerance policy in early May, more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, resulting in an influx of young children requiring government care.
 
The government has already faced withering critiques over images of some of the children in cages inside U.S. Border Patrol processing stations. It faced renewed criticism for setting up new places to hold these toddlers, decades after orphanages were phased out over concerns about the lasting trauma to children.
 
“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which provides foster care and other child welfare services to migrant children. “Toddlers are being detained.”
 
By law, child migrants traveling alone must be sent to facilities run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services within three days of being detained. The agency then is responsible for placing the children in shelters or foster homes until they are united with a relative or sponsor in the community as they await immigration court hearings.
 
But U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement last month that the government would criminally prosecute everyone who crosses the U.S.-Mexico border illegally has led to the breakup of migrant families and sent a new group of hundreds of young children into the government’s care.
 
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the separation of families at the southern border, saying that he didn’t like the sight of children being removed from their families. But the president added that the “zero tolerance” policy will continue, and children will be held along with their parents in immigration detention while the parents are prosecuted. The order does not detail how children now in the government’s care will be reunited with their parents.
 
The United Nations, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers and religious groups have sharply criticized the family separation policy, calling it inhumane.
 
Not so, said Steven Wagner, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services.
 
“We have specialized facilities that are devoted to providing care to children with special needs and tender age children as we define as under 13 would fall into that category,” he said. “They’re not government facilities per se, and they have very well-trained clinicians, and those facilities meet state licensing standards for child welfare agencies, and they’re staffed by people who know how to deal with the needs — particularly of the younger children.”
 
Until now, however, it’s been unknown where they are. “In general we do not identify the locations of permanent unaccompanied alien children program facilities,” agency spokesman Kenneth Wolfe said.
 
The three Texas centers — in Combes, Raymondville and Brownsville — have been rapidly repurposed to serve needs of children, including some under 5. A fourth, planned for Houston, would house up to 240 children in a warehouse previously used for people displaced by Hurricane Harvey, Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
 
Turner said he met with officials from Austin-based Southwest Key Programs, the contractor that operates some of the child shelters, to ask them to reconsider their plans. 

A spokeswoman for Southwest Key didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
 
“And so there comes a point in time we draw a line, and for me, the line is with these children,” Turner said during a news conference Tuesday.
 
The order Trump signed Wednesday directs federal agencies to work with the Defense Department to prepare facilities to house detained families. During the surge of unaccompanied children crossing the border in 2014, HHS set up several temporary facilities at military bases.
 
The order also instructs federal agencies -- especially the Defense Department -- to begin to prepare facilities that could house the potentially thousands of families that will now be detained by the government.
 
On a practical level, the zero tolerance policy has overwhelmed the federal agency charged with caring for the new influx of children who tend to be much younger than teens who typically have been traveling to the U.S. alone. Some recent detainees are infants, taken from their mothers.
 
“The shelters aren’t the problem, it’s taking kids from their parents that’s the problem,” said Dr. Marsha Griffin, a South Texas pediatrician who has visited many of the shelters.
Other migrant children have been sent elsewhere. The largest foster agency handling young migrant children in the U.S. is Bethany Christian Services, whose 99 available foster beds in Michigan and Maryland are filled.
 
The group’s chief executive officer, Chris Palusky, said the youngest child separated from parents at the border is 8 months old. The average age of children in the organization’s care dropped from 14 to 7 years old in recent weeks, after the zero tolerance policy was adopted, Palusky said.
 
The youngest children, he said, are shell-shocked — crying themselves to sleep.
“Then they wake up from their naps and again they’re crying for their mom, asking: ‘Where’s my dad?’ ” he said. “They absolutely need their parents right now.”
 
Decades of study show early separations can cause permanent emotional damage, said Alicia Lieberman, who runs the Early Trauma Treatment Network at University of California, San Francisco.
 
“Children are biologically programmed to grow best in the care of a parent figure. When that bond is broken through long and unexpected separations with no set timeline for reunion, children respond at the deepest physiological and emotional levels,” Lieberman said.
 
“Their fear triggers a flood of stress hormones that disrupt neural circuits in the brain, create high levels of anxiety, make them more susceptible to physical and emotional illness, and damage their capacity to manage their emotions, trust people, and focus their attention on age-appropriate activities,” she added.
 
Parents separated from their children say when they’re able to talk with their kids, their pain is evident.
 
Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia’s 7-year-old son, Darwin, was taken from her a month ago, two days after they crossed the border seeking asylum.
 
“I only got to talk to him once, and he sounded so sad. My son never used to sound like that, he was such a dynamic boy,” said the immigrant from Guatemala. She said that during the call, an official with her son told her Darwin was “fine,” but she said she could hear son cry: “Mama! Mama! Mama!”
 
She sued the Trump administration on Tuesday.
 
Days after Sessions announced the zero-tolerance policy, the government issued a call for proposals from shelter and foster-care providers to provide services for the new influx of children taken from their families after journeying from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.
 
As children are separated from their families, law enforcement agents reclassify them from members of family units to “unaccompanied alien children.” Federal officials said Tuesday that since May, they have separated 2,342 children from their families, rendering them unaccompanied minors in the government’s care.
 
While Mexico is still the most common country of origin for families arrested at the border, in the last eight months Honduras has become the fastest-growing category as compared to fiscal year 2017.
 
At a press briefing Tuesday, reporters repeatedly asked for an age breakdown of the children who have been taken. Officials from both law enforcement and Health and Human Services said they didn’t know how many children were under age 5, under age 2, or even so little they’re non-verbal.
 
“The facilities that they have for the most part are not licensed for tender age children,” said Michelle Brane, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, who met with a 4-year-old girl in diapers in a warehouse in McAllen, Texas, where Border Patrol temporarily holds migrant families. “There is no model for how you house tons of little children in cots institutionally in our country. We don’t do orphanages, our child welfare has recognized that is an inappropriate setting for little children.”


None


Aerials of a tent city for immigrant children in Texas, many of whom have been separated from their parents under a new "zero tolerance" policy by the Trump administration: Photo Mike Blake: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 20 June 2018



Aerials of a tent city for immigrant children in Texas, many of whom have been separated from their parents under a new "zero tolerance" policy by the Trump administration: Photo Mike Blake: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 20 June 2018



Aerials of a tent city for immigrant children in Texas, many of whom have been separated from their parents under a new "zero tolerance" policy by the Trump administration: Photo Mike Blake: image via Reuters Pictures @reuterspictures, 20 June 2018



I hope the kids are ok: tweet via Elon MuskVerified account @elonmusk, 18 June 2018

 O jeez so what's everybody on about when a super cool and Totally Ultra Maybe-Down-But-Not-Really-Political kid entrepreneur worth a cool $21.2 bn who wants to turn Earth and several adjacent celestial bodies into a self driving #CarWreck made of nutty Tech Gizmos that are really neat and fun and awesome and Help Not and Do Much Harm to everything in the Galaxy X-cept his bank account hopes the kids are OK you should know the kids are OK now because he said he hopes so and he's like even richer than The Emp but on the other hand as Carlitos the Whacky Missing Marx Brother once put it, "...: tweet via I'mJustOutHereTryingToManifestMyDreams @I'mJustOutHere, 20 June 2018



I had a dream i made out with @elonmusk in his tesla: tweet via fuck me in your tesla @slutforelon

 
We were sitting in his tesla and he was caressing my legs while I expressed my concern for him working so hard. “You never stop, do you?” I asked. “Never” he said as he leaned in and we locked lips: tweet via fuck me in your tesla @slutforelon

Video board above the arena here at the Trump rally describes the president's Twitter account as "your source for real news": image via Ben Jacobs @bencjacobs, 20 June 2018


This is an unorthodox use of the acronym LGBT: image via Ben Jacobs @bencjacobs, 20 June 2018


NFL themed shirt at Trump rally: image via Ben Jacobs @bencjacobs, 20 June 2018


#trumpfashion: image via Ben Jacobs @bencjacobs, 20 June 2018


 Fear the split screen.: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 20 June 2018

  
Taken during Trump meeting w GOP leaders on #immigration furor. She knows she’s being photographed. #AvertedGlance #FamilySeparation: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 20 June 2018

  
In short supply. Especially after ICE changed policy to chain ALL out-bound immigrant deportees, not just convicted criminals. Prep for flight to Honduras. Photo @jbmoorephoto #HumanRights #immigrationcrisis.: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 20 June 2018  


And now the mother has a face. As it should be. (Still no info, however, on individual or collective fate.) Photo @jbmoorephoto  via @cnn #migrantcrisis #FamilySeparation: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 18 June 2018 

 
This is the *parallel universe* shot from @WhiteHouse yesterday. @PressSec, @SecNielsen and Customs/Border Commish @cbp_mcaleenan can't understand why reporters can't understand it's the law to split families; put them in cages. Photo @alexwongcw @gettyimages: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 19 June 2018
 
 
Perhaps @erinschaaf captures something deeper here. Occurs to us everything with Trump comes down to family separation.: image via Reading The Pictures @ReadingThePix, 18 June 2018 

Gloves-Off Dictator Cement-Butt-Thicc Murican Fascist Bumbo Chickmagnet Tinyhands Demagogue Emp, In Actu: Not only not sorry... but gulp, uh-oh

President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn., Wednesday, June 20, 2018.: photo by Susan Walsh/AP, 20 June 2018 
 
At raucous rally, Trump touts hawkish immigration plans: Jill Colvin and Jonathan Lemire, Associated Press, 20 June 2018

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Hours after reversing himself to end the forced separations of migrant families, President Donald Trump returned to the warm embrace of his supporters at a raucous rally Wednesday to defend his hard-line immigration policies while unleashing a torrent of grievances about the media and those investigating him.

Trump downplayed the crisis that has threatened to envelop the White House amid days of heart-wrenching images of children being pulled from their immigrant parents along the nation’s southern border. He made only a brief mention of his decision to sign an executive order after spending days insisting, wrongly, that his administration had no choice but to separate families apprehended at the border because of federal law and a court decision.

“We’re going to keep families together and the border is going to be just as tough as it’s been,” Trump told the cheering crowd in Duluth.

Seemingly motivated to promote his hawkish immigration bona fides after his about-face on forced separations, the president denounced his political opponents and those who make unauthorized border crossings, suggesting that the money used to care for those immigrants could be better spent on the nation’s rural communities and inner cities.



“Democrats put illegal immigrants before they put American citizens. What the hell is going on?” asked Trump, prompting the crowd to chant “Build the wall!”

He even invoked his campaign kickoff speech, held three years ago this week, in which he declared that Mexico “wasn’t sending their best” in terms of migrants crossing into the U.S. That wasn’t the only throwback moment at the rally, featuring a packed arena festooned with American flags and approximately 8,000 people responding in chants to many of Trump’s cues.

He fumed over what he deemed “dishonest” coverage of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He raved about the economy and his tough new tariffs meant to create fair trade. And he erroneously suggested that a recent Department of Justice watchdog report into the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe proved his innocence in the special counsel’s Russia investigation while covering up Clinton’s guilt.

“Have you been seeing this whole scam? Do you believe what you’re seeing — how that no matter what she did, no matter how many crimes she committed, which were numerous, they wanted her to be innocent,” Trump said. “But with me, nothing. No collusion, no nothing. They wanted to put us in trouble.”

The crowd responded with a “Lock her up!” chant. Trump simply shook his head.

Again attacking the special counsel probe as a “witch hunt,” Trump went on to blast the media for focusing on the recent immigration crisis at the expense of covering what he contends is bias against him at the FBI. He also accused the media of providing one-sided reports about his Singapore summit with Kim.

“We had a great meeting. We had great chemistry,” said Trump, who predicted that Kim “will turn that country into a great successful country.”

“These people,” said Trump, gesturing to the media at the back of the arena, “say, ‘He’s given away so much.’ You know what I gave up? A meeting.”

The Duluth rally was Trump’s first in a blue state since taking office. He narrowly lost Minnesota in 2016. And with the industrial and upper Midwest looming large for Trump’s re-election hopes, the president vowed to spend more time there before 2020.

“You know, I hate to bring this up, but we came this close to winning the state of Minnesota,” the president said. “And in 2½ years, it’s going to be really easy, I think.”

Trump was in Minnesota to back Pete Stauber, a Republican congressional candidate running in a traditionally Democratic district. Home of the Iron Range, Minnesota is a place where Trump’s tariffs on foreign steel could play especially well. While economists wince and farmers brace for blowback, the crowd cheered when tariffs were mentioned on Wednesday. Trump also held a small roundtable with representatives from the mining industry and local leaders before the rally.

At the Emprally 16 Tons o' Hate! Yay Iron Ranger! Big Ass Ore Trucks In Every Murican Stripmine Tailings Pit Mooncrater Driveway!

Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Pete Stauber 

President Donald Trump gives a thumbs as he shares the stage with Pete Stauber, right, a Republican congressional candidate running in a traditionally Democratic district, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., left, during a rally at AMSOIL Arena in Duluth, Minn., Wednesday, June 20, 2018.: photo by Susan Walsh/AP, 20 June 2018 

Trump brought Stauber to the stage and offered an enthusiastic endorsement. But he made no mention of the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton. It pits former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Trump critic running for his old job, against Jeff Johnson, the state GOP’s endorsed candidate who has been stronger in his support of the president.

Energized by the roaring crowd in his first rally since the Singapore summit, Trump soaked in the applause and caustically dismissed a few protesters who tried to interrupt. He beamed as the crowd chanted “Space Force!” in response to his plan to create a new branch of the military to safeguard the cosmos. And he leaned hard into his self-appointed role as champion of the working class and defender of traditional American values, but also mocked the idea that his opponents — whether liberals or media executives — were always called “the elite.”

“The elite! Why are they elite?” Trump wondered. “I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president and they didn’t.”

Donald Trump

2 comments:

TC said...

Stan Ridgway: Lonely Town | Elysium Remastered (2014)

They all say that it's a lonely town
They all say that it's a lonely town

Wide open spaces––empty rooms
If the weather holds out, you can get there by noon
Shadows crawl on the highway line
Don't rush, you've got time

Pull into a donut shop
And get a cup of mud
Ask for directions from a plumber outside
He says "don't go there, bud"

'Cause they all say
That it's a lonely town
And they all say
That it's a drag
And they all know
Those people in a lonely town
All those people are
Lonely and mad

Now I've got my foot on the gas
As I'm crossin the midwest county line
And I think about those mosquitos on my windshield
How they don't give a damn about Christmas-time

And as the passing trucks all flash their lights
Just as I top the hill
I'll remember two green eyes and some flowers
Dyin' on a windowsill

They all say
That it's a lonely town
And they all say
That it's a drag
They all know
Those people in a lonely town
And all those people
Are lonely and mad
They're just lonely and mad
Out here in a lonely town

from MOSQUITOS 1989

TC said...

Ask for directions to the trumprally
He says "don't go there, bud"
And all those people
Are lonely and mad
And they all say
That it's a drag
They all know
But they go anyway
Those people at the trumprally