Blest writes: "America�s horrific immigration policy has a body count, and it keeps piling up."
The Rio Grande. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
Three Children, Young Woman Found Dead Near US-Mexico Border
24 June 19
merica�s horrific immigration policy has a body count, and it keeps piling up.
According to the New York Times, the bodies of four people, �including what appeared to be the body of a migrant woman,� two infants and a toddler, were discovered on Sunday night at the edge of the Rio Grande near McAllen, TX. Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra said on Twitter late Sunday night that the bodies had been found, and later told the Times that the woman appeared to be the mother of some, but not all, of the children found with her.
BREAKING NEWS: Deputies are on scene by the river SE of the Anzalduas Park in Las Paloma Wildlife Management Area where Border Patrol agents located 4 deceased bodies. Bodies appear to be 2 infants, a toddler and 20yoa female. Deputies are awaiting FBI agents who will be leading. pic.twitter.com/2qPCYDjZBu
— Sheriff Eddie Guerra (@SheriffGuerra) June 24, 2019
Thus far, none of the four have been publicly identified by authorities; Guerra said that because the bodies had been found on federal land, the FBI would lead the investigation. Guerra also told the Times that the four didn�t drown, but that it was possible they had died of dehydration.
In 2018, more than 260 migrants died crossing the southern border. As the Times notes, these deaths are all too common, but �it is rare for officials to discover dead migrant children on the American side of the border, and rarer still for the bodies of three children to be found together at the same time.�
For years, Border Patrol agents have been accused of destroying water and other supplies left for migrants in arduous border-crossing conditions. (Border Patrol has said it does not condone such activities.) In January 2018, the Tuscon-based organizations No More Deaths and La Coalici�n de Derechos Humanos released a report claiming that they found 415 gallons of water vandalized in the Arizona desert over the course of nearly four years, before President Donald Trump even took office.
Since then, the government has cracked down even harder. Earlier this month, an Arizona jury couldn�t reach a verdict on the case of No More Deaths volunteer Scott David Warren, who was on trial for �harboring and conspiring to transport undocumented immigrants��i.e., providing food, water, and other supplies to undocumented people�a charge that carried a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
And as we�ve seen, things aren�t much better in federal custody, either. Last week, the Department of Justice argued in federal court that it wasn�t legally obligated to provide soap, toothbrushes, and beds for detained children in American custody. When asked about this on CNN, Vice President Mike Pence just chuckled and said it was �part of the appropriations process.�
These people are monsters.
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Volunteer to contact voters and assist in getting Bernie supporters out to vote in your state's primary. Spread the word to vote in person, request a copy of the ballot you submit, and keep that copy. The more massive the voter turnout for Bernie, the more difficult it will be for the 1%ers to pull off election fraud, also known as 'vote death by Diebold', as happened in Gov. Jeb Bush's Florida in 2000, as verified in the documentary, "The Uncounted".
In some states (for example, Colorado), these are the steps needed to get Bernie nominated as the state's Dem. presidential nominee:
1. register in a timely manner as a Dem., as needed to attend and effectively participate in the Democratic caucus in the precinct in which you reside
2. attend your precinct caucus, and seek election as a delegate or alternate to attend your counties' assembly as a del. or alt. for Bernie
3. be prepared, as a Bernie supporter, to be kept waiting outside of where the assembly is being held, for an egregious length of time, for no legit reason and, possibly, in bad weather, while Hillary Clinton supporters are seated inside.
Above point #3 is based on exactly what happened in Colorado's El Paso County Assembly in 2008, in Colorado Springs.
All Bernie has to do is what he's preached for decades because now America is ready to listen.
nuff said....
This may be a last chance before the Koch brothers "take-over" is complete. It is imperative that we unite behind Bernie Sanders. The groundswell of interest in him is reaching an historic intensity for this early in the campaign cycle.
Hillary, on the other hand, is one more corporate Democrat in the same neoliberal tradition as Bill. Business as usual, it won't matter what she says in her campaign any more than it did what Obama said. And she has yet to make any real commitment to breaking up the big banks and putting banksters in prison. Or a long list of other things I am sure I don't need to mention here in this company.
GO BERNIE GO!!
(This is the sub-group, within the party that for all intent and purpose appears to be working in lock-step with right-wing, conservative, corporate sponsored patsies intent on slicing up America for their own riches. It's they've been picking the party's candidates and dictating the absurd rules of play).
Long live the status quo! Long live the Monarchy! Long live the New American Century! - or is it now at a thousand years (again)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_From#The_Democratic_Leadership_Council
It was Al From who founded the DLC. The DLC came into existence after the 1984 presidential election, when Walter Mondale lost 49 states to Ronald Reagan. Democrats started paying attention to them after the 1988 election, when Dukakis lost 40 states to Bush and the Republicans had won five out of the previous six presidential elections.
I no longer support the DLC, but I do think they were needed back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By that time the party had lost five out of six presidential elections, four of them by 40 or more state landslide margins, two of those being 49 state wipeouts. It was clear that, by the late 1980s, too many Americans were unwilling to entrust the White House to the Democrats.
The DLC helped the Democratic become attractive again to suburban voters. But in the Bush area, once suburban voters had come back to the Democratic Party, it was no relevant. And it was not relevant during the 2000s and later.
I made the same mistake voting for Kerry in 2004. Only now does his resemblance to a character in the old Pogo comic strip called "F. Olding Munney" dawn on me.
Bernie is a standard-bearer , and an example for those Democrats now in office - as well as the ones we need to elect to throw out the Republicans presently in Congress - that his message is ascendant and should be paid attention to and supported.
There are huge crowds showing up to see him in red states as well as blue, I think, because more and more Republican voters have figured out that the RNC line has not served them. That is as it should be, though there are no guarantees. I am simply saying that while you have a point, the way to get more Democrats elected to Congress is to support Bernie's example.
But the larger point that I made is that, even if he were to become President, especially with a GOP-controlled House and Senate, Sanders almost certainly would have to agree to compromises people here on this board would consider "betrayals" or "sellouts".
Obama ran a great campaign, but he turned his campaign over to the DNC after he won and the strangled the grass roots aspects of it. OFA became a top down organization that organized phome banks. Activists became frustrated and stopped attending. When is the last time you heard from OFA? DFA is still strong because they allow their membership a voice.
Bernie wants his supporters to march on Washington and demand the change he is fighting for.
an enthusiastic base will also have coat tails.
There is no excitement for anyone else...
Well I am glad that he is launching a movement. That is what is needed. But is this "movement" going to focus on school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and obscure municipal offices no one cares about? Is this "movement" going to focus on midterm elections? Is this "movement" going to focus on ballot initiatives? Is this "movement" going to create a new generation of progressive activists like the right did in the 1970s and 1980s?
Those are the infrastructures that need to be build. Very bad legislation is coming out of various state legislatures. I hate to use GOP terms, but the states are very much the "laboratory of democracy". I think there is too much of a focus on the presidency at the expense of boring, unsexy local offices no one cares about. And in those offices a lot of damage can occur.
Again what I fear is that, should Bernie become President, which I still highly doubt, people will have unrealistic expectations. And when he inevitably can't meet them, especially with a GOP controlled Congress, when he inevitably has to agree to compromises, people will come out here and call him a "sellout".
I met Bernie at a media convention in St Louis some year5s ago when he was still in the house. I hadn't given money to any politician since I resigned as a Republican precinct captain after talking with Reagan in 1980 and being scared to death with his ignorance. After talking with Bernie I've sent him money every year since then and also give to others like Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren.
Why don't you focus on electing the right people to Congress?
I agree 100% with focusing on lower offices. I think too many progressives focus on national politics at the expenses of local offices, state legislatures, and other positions.
Remember 2008, when Barack Obama was going to "transform America"? The only way in which he's lived up to the hype is via his healthcare initiative, which is good (which is why the GOP tried to blackmail the country with the threat of national debt default to stop it), but a long way from enough.
No matter how much oohing and ahhing Sanders can get out of liberal idealists looking for a new hero, what guarantee is there that he won't follow Obama's trajectory?
The penalties havent gotten big yet, but when they do the ACA will be even more unpopular..
1) No Republicans, not even Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, were going to support any bill whatsoever.
2) Obama couldn't even count on every Democrat supporting every part of the bill.
Against that backdrop, as I've asked people who bash Obama for not bringing the public option or single-payer, how were the votes going to materialize? Who would have changed their mind?
So far the ACA seems to be working well. I agree it's not perfect but is saving lives. Millions more people have access to healthcare who didn't before.
I agree that it's not perfect, but it at least curtails some of the worst abuses of the US healthcare system. It is saving lives.
Inevitably, unless there is a watershed election like 1932, Sanders is almost certainly not going to have the votes in either chamber of Congress to get his agenda passed in its purest form. That means that he is almost certainly going to have to make compromises that people here will view as "betrayals" and "sellouts".
It goes back to what I've said here repeatedly. People throw all their hopes onto one or two candidates, expecting that person to be some sort of "savoir", only to see those unrealistic expectations destroyed when they collide into the crosswinds of political reality. People expect one person to implement the politically impossible. And then they turn around and become despondent and depressed whenever it becomes blatantly obvious that said candidate can't even come close to meeting said expectations.
Bernie wont make that mistake....
Obama turned his campaign over to the DNC...a huge mistake...
What's your problem with Bernie Sanders... AND (what you are implying???) "electing the right people to Congress"?
...
You are not selling that snake-oil about Bernie being better in the US Senate, are you?
.
If Bernie won he would bring along some congress members too, and if he's thinking right he'd have Howard Dean doing his 50 state thing and stop the losses Obama started by naming Rahm to replace him. Rahm the ignorant sucks!
But this election is just one battle in a war that has been going on for 10,000 years, since the rise of the oligarchs (the kings and the priests) in the early centuries of the Agricultural Revolution. It will continue until either they are brought to heel or the world as we know it comes to an end.
Either way, whenever we stop fighting, they win. As Gar Alperovitz says, we are going to lose some battles, including some big ones. One might think that after ten thousand years we would have learned that the oligarchs are never going to roll over and concede defeat.
They'll just rig the electronic voting machines.