Unfolding American Horror Stories, Just in Time for July 4
It’s a sad time to be an American, especially if you’ve followed the news over the past 24 hours. Seven reports of extraordinary urgency reflect the dreadful place the United States is becoming as we approach Independence Day.
The horribleness of it all has almost been overwhelming. Cruelty, hate, and a holiday celebration fit for a tin pot dictator.
Following are short takes on the trampling of the Constitution and the concept of the ‘land of the free’ as it stands today.
A congressional delegation visiting migrant detention facilities (the sanitized name for concentration camps) heard descriptions of “horrifying” conditions after refusing to agree to Border Patrol demands that they not speak with detainees.
https://twitter.com/RepJudyChu/status/1145779501080743939
Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania tweeted "conditions are far worse than we ever could have imagined... this is a human rights crisis...(Fifteen) women in their 50s- 60s sleeping in a small concrete cell, no running water. Weeks without showers. All of them separated from their families."
Despite orders not to bring cell phones into the facility, Rep. Joacquin Castro managed to smuggle out some photos, showing women packed into a cell as members of the delegation questioned them about their treatment.
US Border Patrol Chief of Operations Brian Hastings denied accusations about some immigrants in border detention facilities are forced to drink from toilets. "Drinking out of the toilet is completely untrue," said Hastings. He said there are "ample supplies" and that "a lot of our stations look like Costco."
The pushback on the congressional visit included a story about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “screaming” at officers. While I have no doubt AOC was upset, the breaking news about a 5’ 4” woman being mean to armed officers originated with the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli, the reporter who launched the now debunked prayer rugs at the border story.
A group of supporters of the President attempted to shout down the delegation during post-visit interviews and statements. It was the usual trash talk, accompanied by an almost unbelievable barrage of hate on social media.
https://twitter.com/KatzOnEarth/status/1145818386351439872
ProPublica revealed the existence of a private Border Patrol Facebook group with 9500 members (just under half the agency) featured violent or sexual discussions and memes relating Democrats (especially Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) along with commentary mocking migrants.
Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings…
...The Border Patrol Facebook group is the most recent example of some law enforcement personnel behaving badly in public and private digital spaces. An investigation by Reveal uncovered hundreds of active-duty and retired law enforcement officers who moved in extremist Facebook circles, including white supremacist and anti-government groups. A team of researchers calling themselves the Plain View Project recently released a hefty database of offensive Facebook posts made by current and ex-law enforcement officers.
And in early 2018, federal investigators found a raft of disturbing and racist text messages sent by Border Patrol agents in southern Arizona after searching the phone of Matthew Bowen, an agent charged with running down a Guatemalan migrant with a Ford F-150 pickup truck. The texts, which were revealed in a court filing in federal court in Tucson, described migrants as “guats,” “wild ass shitbags,” “beaners” and “subhuman.” The messages included repeated discussions about burning the migrants up.
https://twitter.com/charlesornstein/status/1145714515742470144
Perhaps the existence of this Facebook group had something to do with the “screaming story.” I’d feel like screaming if I saw the above illustration.
The posts have been turned over to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general, said US Border Patrol Chief of Operations Brian Hastings.
"In the last facility, I was not safe from the officers," she told CNN's Natasha Chen on her way into the Clint facility. Ocasio-Cortez grew frustrated during the tours, though it's unclear why she felt unsafe. She screamed at Border Patrol agents for trying to take selfies with her before she toured one facility, according to her spokesman Corbin Trent.
UPDATE: More of the Facebook posts have surfaced. Via ProPublica:
Recent posts shared with ProPublica include a meme using graphic language to mock CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s sexual orientation and a comment that referred to soccer star Megan Rapinoe as a man. A separate thread made fun of a video of a migrant man trying to carry a child through a rushing river in a plastic bag.
One poster wrote, “At least it’s already in a trash bag.”
Another wrote, “Sous-vide? Lol,” referring to a method of cooking in a bag.
Donald Trump responded to questions about the Facebook posts—which he claimed not to have seen—by saying, “So the Border Patrol, they’re patriots, they’re great people. They love our country. They know who’s coming in.”
These “great people” have been, since their inception as part of the Department of Labor, part of an organization with a documented history of vigilantism and associations with white supremacist groups, as reported in this excellent history at the Intercept. A snip:.
The patrol wasn’t a large agency at first — just a few hundred men during its early years — and its reach along a 2,000-mile line was limited. But over the years, its reported brutality grew as the number of agents it deployed increased. Border agents beat, shot, and hung migrants with regularity. Two patrollers, former Texas Rangers, tied the feet of one migrant and dragged him in and out of a river until he confessed to having entered the country illegally. Other patrollers were members of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, active in border towns from Texas to California. “Practically every other member” of El Paso’s National Guard “was in the Klan,” one military officer recalled, and many had joined the Border Patrol upon its establishment.
Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff reported for NBC News on a DHS Inspector General report from May warning conditions at the El Paso Border Patrol facility "were so bad that border agents were arming themselves against possible riots." DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan claimed Friday that media reports of poor conditions border station were "unsubstantiated."
"Inspectors noted during a May 7 tour," NBC News reports, "that only four showers were available for 756 immigrants, more than half of the immigrants were being held outside, and immigrants inside were being kept in cells maxed out at more than five times their capacity."
Over the weekend, a federal judge ordered CBP to permit health experts into detention facilities holding migrant children to ensure they're "safe and sanitary" and assess the children's medical needs. The order encompasses all facilities in the CBP's El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors, which are the subject of a lawsuit.
Washington DC’s July 4th celebration this has been turned into a political rally, featuring tanks and other military hardware, prime seating devoted only to loyalists (The Republican National Committee is handing out tickets), and the President speaking from the top of the stairs at the Lincoln Memorial, flanked by the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.
Fom CNN:
Trump later confirmed tanks would be present during remarks in the Oval Office.
"I'm going to be here and I'm going to say a few words and we're going to have planes going overhead, the best fighter jets in the world and other planes too and we're gonna have some tanks stationed outside," Trump said while also acknowledging that measures would need to be taken to protect infrastructure.
"You've got to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks so we have to put them in certain areas but we have the brand new Sherman tanks and we have the brand new Abrams tanks," Trump added.
While the US continues to operate the M1 Abrams tank the US military has not used World War II-era M4 Sherman tanks since the 1950s.
Following the patriotic festivities, according to President Trump, U.S. immigration officials will begin raids as part of a nationwide roundup of undocumented immigrants. Agents aim to round up about 2,000 people in 10 cities, including Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore. According to Huffington Post sources, ICE officials are still unprepared to deal with the logistics of detaining and deporting such a large number of immigrant families.
The President’s ramblings with the media on Monday gave a hint as to who might be the next occupants for the concentration camps, once he declares the immigration problem 'solved.'
Via the Guardian:
Donald Trump said he might “intercede” to “clean up” homelessness in San Francisco and Los Angeles, noting that world leaders “can’t be looking at that”.
In a conversation with the Fox News host Tucker Carlson broadcast Monday evening, Trump called the situation “disgraceful” and implied that it was making police officers unwell.
“I’m looking at it very seriously,” Trump said of homelessness, according to a Fox News summary of the Carlson interview. “They can’t be looking at scenes like you see in Los Angeles and San Francisco,” Trump said, referring to world leaders. “We’re looking at it very seriously. We may intercede,” he added.
Finally: sad, but true…
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1145693544910327814
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