From: Munsup @SISCOM Seoh
Subject: FW: NYT Today’s Headlines; ‘American Is an Idea, Not a Race’; unhinged racism; “$#1%hole countries” by abagond; and more
- FW: NYT Today’s Headlines: (1) Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Words for Haiti and Africa
(2) A Senior Republican Senator Admonishes Trump: ‘American Is an Idea, Not a Race’ - FW: The Surprising Story Behind This Shocking Photo of Martin Luther King Jr. Under Attack
- FW: unhinged racism
- FW: Obama’s stern warning for Trump (Opinion)
- FW: “$#1%hole countries” by abagond
- FW: “Trump’s racist comments trigger international condemnation”
- FW: The #RacistinChief has done it again
- FW: PETITION: Tell Congress to pass the DREAM Act now
- FW: Join me? I just signed this petition: Tell Democrats: Skip Trump’s State of the Union.
- FW: Small Enough to Jail – an injustice against Asian Americans
From: New York Times
Subject: NYT Today’s Headlines: |
(1) Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Words for Haiti and Africa
(2) A Senior Republican Senator Admonishes Trump: ‘American Is an Idea, Not a Race’
Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Words for Haiti and Africa
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and THOMAS KAPLAN
President Trump demanded to know at a White House meeting why he should accept immigrants from Haiti and African countries rather than people from places like Norway.
A Senior Republican Senator Admonishes Trump: ‘American Is an Idea, Not a Race’
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
The president’s racially charged comments threaten an emerging agreement to project some undocumented immigrants, which risks bringing a government shutdown.
From: Margret Peters
Subject: The Surprising Story Behind This Shocking Photo of Martin Luther King Jr. Under Attack – news – att.net
Please read and share this story. So many stories focus on the struggle in the South. The struggle continues.
http://start.att.net/news/read/category/news/article/time-the_surprising_story_behind_this_shocking_photo_of-rtime#.Wltbvx1F4Yo.email
From: Michael Keegan; President, People For the American Way
Subject: unhinged racism
This is a long email, but I hope you’ll read it through. There are important updates to share below, but I have to address the most recent news first.
Once again, the top story in the country is our president’s unhinged racism.
This time, Trump ranted against protections for immigrants from “shithole countries” countries, referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations, while lamenting that we didn’t have more immigration from countries like Norway.
The reports came near the end of a week in which Trump’s ignorance and petulance were glaringly on display.
In response to the release of Fire and Fury, a book that seriously challenges his fitness for office and ability to do the job of president, Trump held a meeting with lawmakers from both sides to discuss immigration which was clearly nothing more than a PR stunt to convince the press that he was up for the job … afterwards, Trump talked about how the meeting and, more specifically, his performance in the meeting received great “reviews” by the press as “incredibly good,” and said that he’d received letters from news anchors calling it “one of the greatest meetings they’ve ever witnessed.”
And as the House of Representatives was gearing up to vote on the extension of government surveillance powers, Trump tweeted his disdain for the bill, which his White House actually supports, citing it as the basis for supposed Obama administration spying on the Trump campaign — itself another wild Trump claim that has never been backed up by any evidence.
Quite simply, what we are witnessing from this president is truly terrifying. But perhaps even more terrifying is that as Trump continues to shock the country by sinking to new lows, the loyalty of his core supporters seems unshakable. The sentiments expressed by Trump supporters last night and today around the Internet, in response to the “shithole” comments, all seem to hit the same notes:
- Trump is only saying what “REAL Americans” are all thinking…
- At least he’s honest, which is better than typical politicians…
- Trump is just telling the un-sugarcoated truth and shunning political correctness…
- Hillary would still have been way worse, and is guilty of worse…
- The immigrants from those countries are not contributors to the US — they only suck up tax-funded services and are hostile to our values…
We’re seeing the dangerous impact of a president that openly demonizes immigrants and communities of color — even the countries their ancestors came from … the policies of the Trump administration and the Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions are disastrous enough, but when the president is so reckless with his words, it emboldens and gives license to potentially violent racists and hatemongers.
We’ve already seen what happened in Charlottesville and elsewhere, and some might wonder how it is possible that Trump has not learned his lesson by now. But that’s the thing, Trump has learned … when the president disparages immigrants, calls Nazis “fine people,” or tweets Islamophobic propaganda from far-right hate groups, these are not gaffes or mistakes — they’re his true beliefs and his strategy.
We have so much work to do. But the good news is, we’re doing it … and this year we have the chance to rein in Trump Republicans’ assault on the American Way. 2018 can be the year we turn this all around.
Some updates:
VOTING RIGHTS
Trump’s sham ‘election integrity’ commission — the true goal of which was voter suppression — has been disbanded! This is a big win for PFAW members who were true leaders in exposing and fighting back against the commission’s voter suppression agenda.
Right-wing commission members have since told the press that they plan to continue the commission’s work in advisory roles with the Department of Homeland Security and the White House, however those claims that have not been substantiated. We will remain vigilant and be ready to fight back if we see DHS or other government bodies using the data collected by the commission or advancing the agenda of the commission’s infamous vote suppressors like co-chair Kris Kobach.
In other voting rights news, we saw two lower court decisions this week on an issue that is in front of the Supreme Court right now: partisan gerrymandering.
From the New York Times:
On Tuesday, three federal judges in North Carolina threw out the state’s congressional map because it was “motivated by invidious partisan intent.” On Wednesday, another panel of judges in Pennsylvania upheld that state’s map, with one arguing that such a political issue was none of the courts’ business.
A case about another voting rights issue was in the Supreme Court on Wednesday when the Court heard oral arguments in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, a challenge to Ohio’s aggressive voter roll purge process. This case is one to watch closely — the result could be a big win for protecting voters or it could spark a wave of purges by other states. It’s also one more reason to keep an eye on what happens with the data from Trump’s voter suppression commission, which could be potentially be used by states to purge voters from their rolls. Our affiliate PFAW Foundation filed a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request with the DOJ over the department’s rare reversal of its position in that case — something that was asked about specifically by Justice Sonya Sotomayor during Wednesday’s arguments.
Finally, of particular note in the fight to protect voting rights is our campaign to defeat one of Trump’s judicial nominees, Thomas Farr. Farr was the chief legal defender of North Carolina’s racist voter suppression law that was overturned in court due to its targeting African American voters with what the court called “surgical precision.” Farr also seems to have played a role in a voter intimidation campaign, aimed at Black voters, by then-Senator Jesse Helms — something Farr LIED about to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing last year. Stay tuned to PFAW for more about how you can help stop Farr’s confirmation.
RIGHT WING WATCH
In 2017, we had Roy Moore… but 2018 looks like it could be a record-breaking year in terms of the number of dangerously extreme far-right candidates. This is just one more reason that the work of PFAW’s Right Wing Watch to track and expose right-wing figures is so vital.
We already have rabidly anti-immigrant former-Sheriff Joe Arpaio running for Senate (to support Donald Trump) in Arizona. Arpaio abused prisoners and flagrantly violated court orders, for which he was convicted, before being pardoned by Trump. PFAW helped defeat Arpaio in his last election for sheriff with a Spanish-language ad by our Latinos Vote! campaign.
And Michele Bachmann is asking God whether or not she should seek Al Franken’s senate seat. Right Wing Watch broke that story, which got tremendous press pick up last week.
In addition, Right Wing Watch continues to cover the Right Wing’s most influential leaders, their bigoted motives, and their tactics. One good example is a recent post about right-wing leader Linda Harvey’s assertion that conservatives must “re-horrify people about the sin of homosexuality.”
For more, visit RightWingWatch.org, where you can also follow Right Wing Watch on social media and sign up for weekly “Best of the Blog” emails.
Thank you so much for all of your dedication and activism. With your continued support, 2018 is going to be a big year for progressives, and we can turn the tide against Trump Republicans’ attacks on our rights and values.
From: Eric Kramer
Subject: Obama’s stern warning for Trump (Opinion)
From: Thomas Scott
Subject: “$#1%hole countries” by abagond
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2018/01/12/shithole-countries/
“shithole countries”
Friday January 12th 2018 by abagond
New York Daily News, January 12th 2018.
“Shithole countries” is what the US president calls countries of Black and Brown people.
On January 11th 2018 President Trump said:
“Why do we want all these people from Africa here? They’re shithole countries … We should have more people from Norway.”
and:
“Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.”
“Shithole” is a vulgar term for anus.
Trump reportedly believes all Haitians have AIDS and that most if not all Nigerians live in huts.
The New York Times said Trump’s remarks were:
“the latest example of his penchant for racially tinged remarks denigrating immigrants”
The Daily Stormer, a racially-tinged neo-Nazi website:
“This is encouraging and refreshing, as it indicates Trump is more or less on the same page as us with regards to race and immigration.”
Twitter user Educating Liberals (@Education4Libs) said:
“Trump just has the balls to verbalize what all of us think.”
Mia Love was the only elected Republican, so far as I know, who immediately condemned Trump:
“This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation … The president must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned.”
She noted that his remarks were:
“unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values.”
Her parents come from Haiti.
Stephen Colbert on late-night television:
“Sir, they’re not [bleep] countries. For one, Donald Trump isn’t their president.”
The United Nations called Trump’s words “racist”. But they do not seem to be well-informed: they also called them “shocking”.
Memory lane: Donald Trump, on the very first day of his campaign for president, said:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. 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.”
White people in the US voted for Trump by a landslide. Not just the working class, not just rednecks who frequent bars, not just racist uncles, but across the board: rich and poor, well-educated and ill-educated, aunts, uncles and cousin Joeys. They chose him as their leader with their eyes wide open. The same goes for Republicans in Congress who continue to kiss up to him, and for Fox News which continues to lie for him.
Immigration: Trump’s comments make crystal clear that his concern for immigration has little to do with “making America safe” or anything like that, and has everything to do with racism. It is a dog-whistle issue just like “law and order” and “terrorism”. It dresses itself up as some Serious National Issue but it is just raw racial bigotry.
People from those “shithole countries” built the US for little or nothing – and gave their lives to defend it. How many soldiers buried at Arlington came from “shithole countries”? Colin Powell’s parents came from a “shithole country” – and while he was fighting in Vietnam, Trump was where? Fighting chlamydia.
From: Judy Burnette
Subject: “Trump’s racist comments trigger international condemnation” l World Socialist Web Site
[Former Mexican President Vicente Fox describes Donald Trump perfectly. This article pulls no punches as it reminds us of how we got to this point….]
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/01/13/inte-j13.html
Trump’s racist comments trigger international condemnation
By James Cogan on 13 January 2018
The already battered international standing of the US government has been dealt a further blow by the revelation that President Trump labeled some of the most oppressed and impoverished nations as “shithole countries.” Disgust and anger over the openly racist comments the US president made at a meeting with congressional leaders on Thursday have only been intensified by Trump’s belated and obviously dishonest attempts to deny that he said what has been reported by multiple sources, including some who were at the meeting.
The remarks were made at a White House conference with Democratic and Republican lawmakers on immigration policy. In response to a discussion on “temporary protected status,” which allows people from countries ravaged by natural disasters or war, such as Haiti and El Salvador, to live and work in the US, Trump said: “What do we want Haitians here for? Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shithole countries? We should have more people from places like Norway.”
Trump’s rant was leaked to the Washington Post and made public. International denunciations soon followed.
The United Nations human rights’ spokesperson, Rupert Colville, told a press conference: “There is no other word one can use but racist. You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘shitholes,’ whose entire populations are not white, are therefore not welcome.”
The government of Haiti, from which hundreds of thousands of people have migrated to the US to escape intractable poverty and political repression, issued a statement declaring that it “condemns in the strongest terms these abhorrent and obnoxious remarks.” The country’s ambassador to the US has demanded a public apology.
Other political leaders also felt obliged to issue statements. The president of El Salvador tweeted that Trump had “struck at the dignity of Salvadorians.” Last Monday, the Trump administration stripped over 250,000 people from El Salvador who have been living for decades in the US of their protected status, giving them 18 months to pack up and leave or be deported.
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, tweeted to Trump: “Your mouth is the foulest shithole in the world.” During the 2016 election, Trump slandered millions of Mexican immigrants to the US, asserting: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
The African National Congress government in South Africa labeled the remark as “extremely offensive.” The country’s media was full of denunciations and ridicule of Trump. One news outlet, the Daily Maverick, wrote that an event at the White House “is soon to include [Ku Klux Klan] hoods and tiki torches at this rate.”
The government of Botswana called the remarks “reprehensible and racist” and reportedly summoned the US ambassador to ascertain if the country was considered a “shithole” by Washington. Across Africa, Trump was condemned and the imperialist powers, including the United States, declared to be responsible for the continent’s legacy of poverty and backwardness.
Not surprisingly, there have been no strong statements of condemnation by European governments or by Japan or Australia. The policies of all the imperialist powers are discriminatory against people from the poorest regions of the world.
The European Union is seeking to seal its borders to block refugees from Africa and the Middle East, leading to thousands of people losing their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Immigration to Japan is effectively impossible from most countries. Australia maintains a black list of dozens of states whose citizens are routinely denied even tourist visas. While they may not be officially labeled as “shithole countries,” that is how their populations are treated.
In much of the world, however, officials of the Trump administration have been left to desperately try and contain the diplomatic fallout. The State Department and embassies have issued reassurances that the United States values its relations with African and Central and South American countries.
The damage nevertheless extends internationally, as indicated by the announcement by the White House yesterday that Trump is canceling a February visit to the United Kingdom. There is no doubt he would have been met by even larger demonstrations than were expected due to the popular revulsion in Britain over his comments. In fact, wherever in the world Trump travels, the American ruling class faces the prospect of its head of state being greeted by mass opposition to his presence.
After less than one year in office, Trump is arguably more reviled than “weapons of mass destruction” fabricator and war criminal George W. Bush. The American president is viewed by billions of people as an unstable warmonger, racist and liar. In the American working class, one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse on the planet, growing opposition to Trump’s racist immigration policies and fascistic outlook is intersecting with mounting anger over falling living standards, failing infrastructure and police-state repression.
The reaction of the American political and media establishment to Trump’s remarks has had an air of despair. There is a degree of recognition in the capitalist class and its representatives that, with the Trump administration, the protracted loss of US authority and credibility, on both the world arena and at home, has reached a breaking point.
Summing up the sentiment in the corridors of power, Idaho Republican Mike Simpson told the Associated Press: “This a big deal. America’s influence and power in the world has really been about our ability to persuade because of our leadership, and he’s just destroying that.”
At the same time, the condemnations of Trump are laced with hypocrisy, especially on the part of the Democratic Party and its supporters. In the final analysis, Trump simply gave crude expression to how the Obama administration viewed and treated migrants from the nations that have been labeled as “shithole countries.”
Under Obama, at least 2.5 million people were deported—at least 1,000 per day—particularly from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. If Hillary Clinton had been elected in 2016, the brutal persecution of so-called “illegal” immigrants would have continued unabated.
The aim of the recriminations against Trump in the American establishment is to try and present the current president as a mere aberration, a blemish on an otherwise healthy and democratic body politic. Every effort is being made to promote the conception that if a new figure was installed in the White House, things would return to “normal.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Trump is the product of a decades-long process, characterised by a steep decline in the global economic position of American capitalism and the immense growth of class antagonisms and social inequality within the US.
The Cold War lies and propaganda that US imperialism stood for “liberty,” “democracy” and “human rights” have been thoroughly exposed over the past 25 years. Washington engages in intrigues or outright invasions of countries and inflicts death and destruction so American banks and corporations can plunder resources and dominate markets. Within the US, the living standards of the working class have been devastated to protect and increase the wealth of a tiny proportion of the population—the capitalist class and its upper-middle class periphery.
It is within the degenerated political environment produced by these processes that Trump was able—through demagogic appeals to the immense alienation of sections of the population, and the political vacuum left by the right-wing, anti-working class policies of the Democrats—to win the presidency. His administration has proceeded to pursue the interests of the capitalist oligarchy through massive corporate tax cuts at home and stepped-up militarist intrigues internationally.
Trump is the noxious expression of the decline and decay of American capitalism and its ruling class. The presence at the pinnacle of state power of an outright racist, who gives open and crude expression to the reactionary content of US foreign and domestic policy, undermines the ability of American imperialism to cloak its aggression and plunder around the world in the mantle of “democracy” and “human rights.”
Anti-immigrant xenophobia, racism and nationalism are the inevitable corollary to militarism and deepening attacks on the working class. In every country, it is how the capitalist class is seeking to divide and disorientate the masses and defend its ownership and control over society’s wealth and productive capacity.
The response of the working class to racism and chauvinism must therefore be developed in complete opposition to the capitalist system and all its political parties and defenders. In the United States and around the world, it must be answered with the fight for the international unity of the working class in the common struggle for world socialism.
From: Nancy Treviño, Reform Immigration FOR America
Subject: The #RacistinChief has done it again
Yesterday, President Trump lowered the bar even further. During a discussion in the Oval Office with members of Congress about a potential immigration deal, he referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “s—hole countries.”
Once again he’s reaffirmed his anti-immigrant sentiments rooted in white supremacy. These comments are not only racist, but reject the American values many of us hold close to our hearts. Our families and our country deserve better than a racist-in-chief whose ethnic cleansing policies continue tearing families apart. We must denounce his hateful words and stand up to his hate.
Here are two ways to fight back right now:
- Sign this petition to demand Trump apologize for his racist remarks.
- Share your reaction to President Trump’s hateful comment about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations using #RacistinChief.
Stand with the thousands of people who have been fighting to demand a solution for immigrants. Together, we will let Trump know that our love for our families, our community, and our country will always Trump hate.
P.S. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to catch the latest on the DREAM Act fight, and text JUSTICE to 69866 to keep updated by text message with opportunities to take action.
From: Katie O’Connell; Digital Communications Coordinator, People For the American Way
Subject: PETITION: Tell Congress to pass the DREAM Act now>>
Sign now to demand Congress passes the DREAM Act!
It has been 131 long days since Trump ended the DACA program, upending the lives of hundreds of thousands of DREAMers and their families across the country. Trump has also ended protected status for Haitian and Salvadoran immigrants, another part of his all-out anti-immigrant assault.
This is no longer an immigration policy debate… passing the DREAM Act is a moral imperative for Congress.
Sign the petition NOW to demand your legislators pass the DREAM Act>>
Every single member of Congress needs to decide which side they are on: the side of divisiveness, racism, white supremacy, and hate or the side of American values of freedom and equality for all. The DREAM Act as it exists is a bipartisan bill, and there is no reason for Republicans to be wasting time and playing politics with young peoples’ lives.
This fight is about who we are as a country. It’s about our values. And it’s about every person who could be deported from their home because of the nativists and white supremacists in the White House and Congress.
From: Munsup @SISCOM
Subject: Join me? I just signed this petition: Tell Democrats: Skip Trump’s State of the Union.
On Jan. 30, Trump will deliver his State of the Union address. If Democrats attend, they will be standing up for a racist and turning their backs on everyone he threatens. Not a single one of them should attend.
Here’s the link to sign CREDO’s petition urging them to do the right thing:
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/No_SOTU?sp_ref=377836848.4.185352.e.595824.2&referring_akid=26815.1004336.QbwMq8&source=mailto_sp
From: S. B. Woo; President and a volunteer for the past 18 years, 80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc,
Subject: Small Enough to Jail – an injustice against Asian-Americans
Small Enough to Jail –An Outrageous Injustice Against An Asian-American Bank
(If you own a business, view the documentary & worry!)
Abacus Bank, a small bank operated by the Sung family in NYC, was the only U.S. bank to be charged after the Great Recession of 2008.
The bank ultimately prevailed, but it took all they had to fight against the unfair accusations.
The story was recorded in a documentary by Steve James, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail. It was Broadcast on PBS Frontline in 2017. The prosecutor spent 5 years and reportedly $10 million on prosecuting the bank for larceny. In the end, the bank and all its employees were found not guilty on all 80 charges. Deservedly, the documentary is now shortlisted for an Oscar.
Click here to watch it. I was enraged by the injustice but inspired by how one of the daughters, who was a lawyer, quit her job to help her father in his hour of need. It was such a touching illustration of our Asian-American family values. I was also elated to learn that, at the end, the good guys won.
This documentary deserves an Oscar to show that justice still prevails in the U.S., at least in this case. The Oscar will greatly publicize worldwide the immense injustice caused by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.
The Misdeeds of Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.
- No sense of justice: He accommodates the strong and takes campaign money from their attorneys:
Excerpts from Cyrus Vance Jr. – Wikipedia “Vance also drew controversy for deciding not to press criminal charges against public figures accused of crimes, including Harvey Weinstein, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump Jr., after which he received campaign contributions from their attorneys.” - Adding insult to injury to a weak minority:
Another excerpt from Cyrus Vance Jr. – Wikipedia: “In an effort at grandstanding, Vance’s office orchestrated a show by parading ex-employees of the bank in a chain, handcuffed to each other, in front of reporters. Nevertheless, Cyrus Vance stated in an interview that the decision to exhibit the non-violent ex-employees was due to “security issues.” Click here to watch the documentary. How humiliating! Vance was humiliating powerless citizens to advance his political career. How cruel!
Please forward to your friends in NYC so that his constituents will know about his misdeeds. He was a good D.A. back in 2010, when first elected. However, power corrupts, he seemingly has become callous and careless. Will the people of Manhattan County still want him, if and when “Small Enough to Jail” wins an Oscar? This could exemplify the immense power for good of arts.
DONATE
http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/index.php
End of MPEN e-Newsletter
