Replies to post #280102 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[PegnVA]

BINGO!...There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal.
Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.

[fuagf]

Michael Avenatti: Michael Cohen About To Be “In A World Of Hurt” |

The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC

MSNBC
Published on May 22, 2018

Michael Cohen’s business partner Evgeny A. Freidman has reportedly flipped, agreeing to cooperate with state and federal prosecutors. Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael
Avenatti tells Ari Melber he believes other people will also flip on Michael Cohen and the pressure will lead to Cohen eventually turning on Trump. Avenatti also responds
to critics who claim he is stepping beyond his purview, saying he doesn’t have a “congressional mandate” and can comment on whatever he chooses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToaF957tICM

[fuagf]

"HE WAS KILLED!!!" Mike Pompeo GOES DOWN IN FLAMES Defending Trump's Unhinged Foreign Policy

Dose of Dissonance
Published on May 25, 2018

COMPILATION: Senators Tom Udall & Ed Markey destroy Trump lackey & Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and expose Trump's unhinged foreign policy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH-2QzIGsIU

See also:

The mind-boggling corruption of Trump Inc.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=140894196

Trump’s Manchurian Trade Policy
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=141126545

[fuagf]

Our Synagogue’s Custodian Is A Member Of Our Family - And ICE Just Deported Him

"There Is Only One Trump Scandal

[...]

I want to emphasize that not everything the administration is doing that I believe is bad is a scandal, which I am defining as official wrongdoing or corruption. The president’s ongoing immigration policy, an attempt to displace, through aggressive deportations of otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants, and the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, is a moral travesty but not necessarily a misuse of his official powers. Trump’s immigration policy is a reflection of his belief that these people from “shithole countries” are inferior, and therefore offer little to the United States. He is hardly the first president to pursue such a policy on such a basis; but a policy can be morally repugnant without being a scandal."

Aaron Brusso May 22, 2018 iStock

A week before the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer told him he was going to a detention facility, Armando, our synagogue’s custodian for two decades, had come in to work on President’s Day to be there for my family as we held a small service to celebrate my son’s upcoming bar mitzvah. Afterwards, as we ate lunch, Armando stood at a distance smiling. A week later, when I spoke to him in custody, he said through tears, “I have seen your son grow. I wanted to be there for the big celebration.”

My son, by happenstance of birth, is a United States citizen, and simply by reaching the age of 13 he becomes a full citizen of our religious community. Armando has worked and lived in this country more than twice as long as my son has been alive, has two boys of his own, no criminal record, steady employment and a community of hundreds of families who love him. Yet in an instant, he was taken away.

Like my son, I did absolutely nothing to earn or deserve my citizenship, it was gifted to me at birth because of a decision my great-grandparents made. I didn’t have to work for it, sacrifice for it, travel for it. It was given to me before I knew to dream of it, before I knew what dreams were. We enjoy tremendous privilege and access simply because we were born in the right place at the right time. Not so for Armando.

[...]

Armando came to this country nearly 30 years ago. In the 20 years he worked in our synagogue, he paid social security, Medicare, state and local taxes. As far as we were concerned he belonged in every way. But others apparently saw that differently.

[...]

The ICE officer, who the lawyer informed us had complete say over Armando’s fate, didn’t return the attorney’s call for days. A week after Armando entered ICE detention, I called the attorney to check in. “An hour ago, he was taken from the detention facility and is being moved,” the lawyer reported. “We don’t know where to. All they know is that he is in transit.” The only way Armando’s family knew any of this was because the attorney had reached out to ICE.

*

Later that day, Armando called his family from Tijuana, Mexico, his country of birth. He had been brought over the border and left without bank cards, cash, cell phone or ID. He was given no time to gather any belongings or to call his family to say goodbye. As Armando told his son, an ICE officer who escorted him with others to the border told the group, “You’ll all probably get kidnapped.” When I heard that, I thought about how carefully Armando cared for the families in our community and how unthinkable it would be for him to purposefully cause anyone discomfort or fear.

[...]

But didn’t he break the law by coming here? If we are a nation of laws then don’t we have to respect the law? Good people, people who love Armando have asked these questions. I think it’s important to make a distinction between procedural justice, the idea that the law should be applied equally, and substantive justice, the notion that law should produce good in the world. Right now we are applying the law strongly and across the board. But we also have to own the consequences of doing so. We are breaking up families that include U.S. citizens, depriving them of income and taking parents away from children. We are creating greater dependencies in our society and millions are vulnerable to this fate. Circumstances change. What begins with good intentions can end in cruelty. It is possible for a law to be both legal and cruel at the same time.

[...]

As I crossed back into the U.S. from Mexico, having left Armando behind, I handed over my passport to be scanned. For the first time I did so without pride. I was a citizen, but of what kind of country?

The irony is that in enforcing so callously the line between citizen and non-citizen, we don’t affirm, but actually cheapen, the meaning of citizenship. As citizens, we are all implicated in our country’s behavior. If human beings without our status can be treated, in our names, in such cruel and thoughtless ways, then of what value is our status?

The truth is that when Armando was taken, we didn’t just remove a father from his family and a member from a community, we deported a piece of our humanity as well.

The picture I can’t get out of my mind is of Armando and his son holding each other and saying goodbye through tears last week in Tijuauna. This past week I stood next to my son as he read from the Torah for the first time. Fathers have so many hopes for their sons.

I hope my son uses his unearned citizenship to make this country worthy again of people like Armando.

Rabbi Aaron Brusso is the spiritual leader of Bet Torah in Mt.Kisco, New York

https://forward.com/opinion/399614/our-synagogues-custodian-is-a-member-of-our-family-and-ice-just-deported/

There are many stories in Drumpfat's America. This is one of them. (Primary credit for that line to Jules Dassin’s The Naked City)