6/18/18: What would a Monday (or any other day) be without a stupid presidential tweet? Not content with separating parents and children on the border, Trump decides to dive into the immigration controversy in Europe.
Trump worries about German crime rate!
I’m sure our allies in countries like Germany, France and Great Britain appreciate all his help:
The people
of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is
rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way
up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have
so strongly and violently changed their culture!
Sadly, those pesky “Fake News” folks at CNN do some “fake” checking of the “fake statistics” available from the “fake” German Federal Ministry of the Interior. According to the German police, who are probably just people dressed up in Halloween costumes and using “fake” German accents, crime was the lowest in Germany last year since 1992. The drop from 2016 to 2017 was 5.1%.
Meanwhile, you had to wonder why Trump wasn’t focused on crime at home. Hate crimes against Muslims in America rose 15% last year. Anti-Semitic incidents reached all-time highs. The total number of school shootings, since 2009, reached 288 by May 21. This compares with two school shootings in Canada, two in France, one in Germany and zero in Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom during that time.
I can’t find current murder rates for Germany, but the numbers for 2015 will suffice. In 2015 Germany had a murder rate of less than 0.9 per 100,000 people, down by almost a third in fifteen years.
By comparison the murder rate in the United States was 5.3 per 100,000 in 2016, which was roughly half the rate during a stretch that began in the late 60s and continued into the early 90s.
(I try to cite
reputable sources; but even reputable sources don’t always agree on numbers;
they do agree the U.S. murder rate is extremely high. See: 5/18/18.)
*
IN TERMS of the current tumult regarding separation of children from parents along the border, it’s safe to say the Trump administration says, “tomato,” and everyone else says, “You’re a bunch of heartless bastards.”
It is clear who came up with the new policy even if the president won’t admit it’s a new policy. In an interview with The New York Times last March, White House aide Stephen Miller was clear about the decision to start separating children from parents when families tried to enter the United States, illegally or even when claiming asylum.
“No nation,” he insisted,
…can have the policy that whole
classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement. It was a
simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy [emphasis
added, unless otherwise noted] for illegal entry, period. The message is that
no one is exempt from immigration law.
So: There it was. It was a simple decision, especially if, like Miller, you have no conscience whatsoever.
You had to wonder if what Miller really wanted to say wasn’t something like: “All you brown and black people fleeing dangerous conditions and coming to America’s doorstep should turn around and go back. Because frankly, the Statue of Liberty is a pile of green copper junk; and we don’t want your kind.”
Your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, the kind of people, including Russian Jews fleeing persecution, who first planted Miller’s family on our shores, and brought us Friedrich Trump in 1885, you can kiss off.
“It’s very biblical to enforce the law.”
A month later, Miller’s statement was followed by defense of the new policy of breaking up families from the lips of Attorney General Sessions. “If you don’t like that,” he said, “then don’t smuggle children over our border.”
Sessions, of course, famously quoted the Bible to justify this policy, which the Department of Justice announced and labeled as a “new zero-tolerance policy” on its website on April 6.
As for the Bible, backing him up, Mr. Sessions claimed:
Persons who violate the law of
our nation are subject to prosecution...I would cite you to the Apostle Paul
and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government
because God has ordained the government for his purposes. Orderly and lawful
processes are good in themselves...and protect the weak and it protects the
lawful.
Naturally, when asked about the Attorney General’s comments, on June 14, White House Press Secretary Pinocchio doubled down. “I can say that it’s very biblical to enforce the law. It’s repeated many times throughout the Bible,” she pointed out. Barraged by questions from reporters, who apparently wanted to express “fake outrage” at the separation of “fake little children” from “fake parents,” Sanders first insulted a CNN reporter for failing to understand short sentences. Then she clenched her jaw and asserted, “It’s a moral policy to enforce the law.”
Clearly, neither Sessions nor Sanders dared offer context for their “hey-it’s-in-the-Bible” defense. For example, the Roman government was rather hard on early Christians, often setting them on fire, legally, just to watch them melt. There was a time when “the divine right of kings” was accepted by all the crowned heads in Christendom because it was established in biblical text, including Romans 13:1. In the same way, our colonial forebearers cited Leviticus 20:27 when they hanged witches in Salem, Massachusetts.
It might be fun if Sanders, who considers herself an
honest-to-gosh Christian, would cite Leviticus 20:10 from the podium someday.
That verse makes adultery punishable by death. Subsequent verses make it clear
that a cool method of dispatching sinners involves pounding them with stones.
Next time Sanders cites the Bible to make a point, she might just as readily call on reporters to gather on the South Lawn, pockets filled with rocks, to await the next appearance of President Donald J. Trump.
As for this terrible separation of children and parents, which even Trump says he hates, there seems to be some confusion about who should get the blame. For some odd reason (probably moral cowardice), Trump continues to insist this policy is really the fault of Democrats. This he insists despite the fact that Democrats don’t control the White House, either house of Congress, nor did they appoint any of the agency heads carrying out this draconian policy.
You can argue that the policy is necessary if you want. But you can’t eat your cake and then deny you ate it when you have frosting smeared on your cheeks and crumbs down the front of your shirt.
Own it, President Trump. Don’t blame Democrats if you look
cruel and heartless. Because you are.
*
ON CAPITOL HILL, F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray and Inspector General Michael Horowitz testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans are miffed because they demanded an Inspector General’s investigation into F.B.I. handling of the Clinton email affair. And it lands with a thud.
While both Wray and Horowitz admit errors in judgment were made during the Clinton investigation, they say there is no evidence of political bias influencing the outcome. What about F.B.I. bias against Trump, possibly shaping the investigation into the Trump campaign? A Democratic senator wonders, “Is there a ‘witch hunt?’” Wray says again, there is no “witch hunt.”
Horowitz says there was no plot to harm the Trump campaign.
Hearing this, Trump can’t help himself. He’s like a man possessed by Twitter demons. He has to grab his iPhone and tweet: “Comey gave Strzok his marching orders. Mueller is Comey’s best friend. Witch Hunt!”
Trump has witches in mind more often than Cotton Mather.
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