July 3, 2018

Here's some love to warm your hearts

One of my mental health strategies, particularly in trying times, is to look for uplifting and inspiring things and share them. These photos struck me as particularly relevant in today’s climate. These animals live beyond any species boundaries or traditional ideas about who should get along with whom, and just love each other as fellow beings. Inspiring. And cuteness overload, as well!

https://animalencyclopedia.info/16-unusual-animal-friendships-you-wont-believe/

16 Unusual Animal Friendships

June 27, 2018

Rachel: Romero, head of ACLU, and Healey, Mass AG, both inspiring, positive and hopeful

So those of you watching Rachel heard Anthony Romero, ACLU director, and Maura Healey, AG for Mass, talking about all the legal action in the works. Healey is one of the 17 state AGs suing Trump, and of course the ACLU has a bunch of legal actions in the works. Rachel commented that they both sounded positive, and they both said they were, and both emphasized the importance of continuing to resist and not giving up.

I gotta say I felt better after listening to them.

It is heartwarming that 17 states came together in such a short time to organize a suit. THat is a lot of bureaucracy to navigate. ANd of course the ACLU is always inspiring.

June 26, 2018

RAchel: video from inside kid facility; Avenatti on now; he's representing employee who shot video

Avenatti going into details on his work with this. Way too much to type here. "This has no place in the world, let alone America." Avenatti calling for more whistle blowers to come forward. Says he has the staff to handle these separation cases, and now is taking on whistle blowers as well.

Video shows the same little girl who was crying in the photo on his twitter feed that went viral. THe woman who shot the video must have also taken that photo. Lots of the employees in these centers are very upset about what is happening.

June 25, 2018

Immigration lawyer: "They have been planning this for over a year. Chaos is the goal."

THis statement from Jonathan Ryan, executive director of Raices, an organisation providing legal services to immigrants along the Texas border, is noteworthy:

“They have been planning this for over a year. Yet, from what we’ve seen, there appears to be no real plan to reunite children and their parents. Chaos is the goal.” So what is the purpose behind creating chaos? Other than that is plays right into Putin's agenda. What else are they up to?

US immigration
'All I hear is my daughter, crying': a Salvadoran father's plight after separation at border. Guardian US

Arnovis Guidos Portillo was deported from US but his six-year-old daughter remains in custody.

“Papa, when are you getting me out of here?” asks the small voice on the telephone.

Arnovis Guidos Portillo holds his mobile phone away from his face as he struggles to hold back tears, but his six-year old daughter, Meybelin, can still be heard on speakerphone, asking when she will be released from custody in an American detention centre.

Though he knows it’s a lie, he tells her that she can’t return to El Salvador because the US government’s plane is broken; the truth is that he has no idea what will become of her.

“They’re going to bring you home soon,” he says. “They haven’t fixed the plane.”

Portillo, 26, was separated from Meybelin in McAllen, Texas, on 27 May – over three weeks after the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance policy”, mandating children of undocumented migrants would be removed from their parents. Since then, 2,575 have been separated from their parents.

He has spoken to her three times since he was deported to El Salvador on Thursday, but he has no answers to her questions.

snip

On Saturday, he finally got an answer, when an American lawyer, Jonathan Ryan, called to tell him that Maybelin was being held in a shelter in Phoenix, Arizona, run by the Texas-based non-profit Southwest Key Programs.

Ryan is the executive director of Raices, an organisation providing legal services to immigrants along the Texas border, and he told Portillo they had taken up Maybelin’s case.

According to Ryan, US officials have become more willing to refuse migrants their right to apply for asylum. “The Trump administration has devolved much of the authority in these individual cases to officers who are handling them. It’s all totally uncoordinated – people on the ground are making it up as they go along,” he said.

“They have been planning this for over a year. Yet, from what we’ve seen, there appears to be no real plan to reunite children and their parents. Chaos is the goal.”

With little government help, advocates and attorneys have stepped in to fill the void. Raices has received more than $17m since the administration started separating children from their parents, and a host of other legal aid organisations have taken on some of the more than 2,300 cases.

MOre:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/24/all-i-hear-is-my-daughter-crying-salvadoran-father-yearns-to-see-his-child-again?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=279053&subid=20993289&CMP=GT_US_collection

June 25, 2018

Did you catch this tweet to the left from Michael Avenatti about not overplaying their hand?

https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/1010346270848774144

"If the left is not careful, they will overplay their hand on the border issue and squander the goodwill that America feels towards these families. Now is NOT the time to try and leverage this in an effort to solve all of the important immigration issues. Reunite families first."

He is very much a strategic thinker.

June 25, 2018

Portland clothing firm sells out "I really care" jackets; all proceeds going to refugee advocacy

US clothing firm takes swipe at Melania Trump with 'I really care' charity jacket

Wildfang company in Oregon to sell jacket for $98 with all proceeds going to Texas-based refugee advocacy group

A US clothing company is taking a sartorial swipe at Melania Trump, selling jackets bearing the slogan “I really care, don’t you?” in response to the “I really don’t care” jacket the first lady wore to visit migrant children separated from their parents.

All proceeds from the jackets, selling for $98, will be donated to a Texas-based refugee and immigrant advocacy group, said Emma McIlroy, chief executive of the Wildfang clothing company in Portland, Oregon.

The first lady’s visit on Thursday to a Texas shelter housing migrant children was overshadowed by the jacket she wore with the words: “I really don’t care, do u?” scrawled in white brush strokes on the back. The jacket prompted a maelstrom on social media.
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Trump’s spokeswoman said the jacket had no hidden message but President Donald Trump tweeted that it referred to “fake news”.

Wildfang had its version of the jacket, with its slogan on the back, for sale online the same day as the first lady’s visit, McIlroy said.

“I thought, ‘Why don’t we make the opposite jacket? Why don’t we make the jacket that does good in the world?’” she said.

The first batch of 100 military-style jackets sold out in an hour and a second batch sold just as quickly. The small, five-year-old clothing company is now taking requests for t-shirts and other emblazoned jackets, McIlroy said.

“I think it’s just incredibly hopeful and refreshing,” she said.

snip

With sale of its jackets, Wildfang was more than halfway through its goal of raising $50,000 for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (Raices) in San Antonio, Texas, McIlroy said.

More: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/23/melania-trump-jacket-firm-i-really-care-charity-oregon

June 23, 2018

CHris Hayes: Mueller asks judge in Manafort trial if jurors can be asked to fill out questionare

asking where they get their news, among other things, figuring if it's Fox, they are biased. Just now reported.

June 21, 2018

Wondering if Babygate might be a carefully crafted distraction from Russiagate?

Interesting timing with what's happening with Manafort and Cohen. He who shall not be named is an expert at creating distractions, whether intentional or otherwise, with help from GOP who have a huge investment in diverting from the Russia probe focus.

Edited to add: I did NOT say by himself. SOMEONE, or someones, planned this and it has totally distracted everyone from the Russia probe. The timing is suspicious. A lot of the GOP is complicit in Russiagate. This is a great distraction for them, and . this plays right into Putin's strategy of sowing discord. Someone had to plan it.

June 20, 2018

Did you see RAchel end in tears over breaking news on what they're doing with the babies?

She couldn't say what it was because she kept breaking up every time she tried; she had to hand it off to Lawrence - it was right at the end of her show. Lawrence is picking it up but has not yet said what was causing Rachel such distress about the babies; he is also covering where are the girls. I have seen Rachel upset before but never in tears, literally, and to the point where she could not speak.

Lawrence said detention centers is not accurate; his guests saying they are jails.

Lawrence now talking about possibility of Melania coming to visit one of these centers. There is a questions of whether she could even get in.

I keep thinking of dystopian novels - Brave New World, 1984, Handmaid's Tale.

June 20, 2018

Rachel: Flood of governors won't send Natl Guard troops to border; bringing home ones there now.

On RAchel now: Flood of governors from both parties refusing to send National Guard troops to border and recalling ones there now.