The President is being slammed on parts of the Left for child cruelty. Specifically, he has been criticized for seeking to speed up deportation of Central American children crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. Granted, there’s a lot there to criticize. More recently he has asked for money to deal with the crisis, and the money is for everything from health care to transportation costs.
However, he is being slammed on the Right for causing this humanitarian crisis, and even for encouraging it. And he’s being berated for “lawlessness” because he is enforcing the law.
There’s an All In With Chris Hayes segment that explains this pretty well. There are all kinds of laws, some on the books from long before the Obama Administration, that spell out how unaccompanied minors crossing the border illegally are to be “processed” by the system, and the Obama Administration is following those laws. The Right, which perpetually rages that the President has become a “dictator,” wants him to seize dictatorial powers to break the law.
The children are fleeing violence in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and many are being sent here with “coyotes” by their families in the belief they would be allowed to stay. I emphasize this is a humanitarian crisis involving children. Over 57,000 migrant children have tried to cross the border this fiscal year.
And how does the Right want to respond? Deport them all, now, and bleep the law. No screening, no due process. We have no money even to take temporary care of these children, although Sen. Tom Coburn says we have plenty of money to fly them back home, on first class seats, no less. A number of communities have passed or are considering resolutions declaring that none of these children will be housed within city limits. (example)
However, having demonstrated they have no interest whatsoever in taking care of these children in any humane way, the wingnuts are slamming the President for not actually going to the border, as if that would make any difference. If he did go to the border they’d accuse him of using the crisis as a photo op.
Some of them are gleefully siting G.W. Bush’s failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina. But Bush’s failure was not that he didn’t go to New Orleans; it was that he was utterly oblivious to what was happening in New Orleans, and when finally did go there it was to congratulate his team, including the hapless Brownie, for their great work. And he continued to not respond to Katrina except for occasional photo op trips in which he got his picture taken wearing a toolbelt.
So no, this is not Obama’s Katrina. And Republicans had better hope Americans don’t get a close look at thousands of little children being sent back over the border, or worse, thousands of little bodies turning up in the desert.
See also Charles Blow.
These children aren’t illegal aliens, they are refugees from countries with devastated economies.
I can’t imagine being a parent, and sending my child(ren) to try to cross one, or more, border(s). That’s both gutsy AND desperate – probably more of the latter, than the former.
The border is yesterday’s Republican “Whine du Jour” – and they liked it so much, they’re putting it on their menu again today. And maybe tomorrow.
The President has asked for over $3 Billion to start to solve real problems with real solutions at our border with Mexico.
The Republicans, instead of helping, or offering alternatives, have decided to do their daily show which is a combination of Kabuki, Performance Art, and Theatre of the Absurd, blaming President Obama for any and every thing.
There’s no point to their show.
It’s kind of like political “Seinfeld” – minus the laughs.
The show is the point.
And whether the rabid bigoted loons in their base, stay tuned.
Regarding Bush and his tool belt…As someone who has spent over 40 years in the construction trades working as a carpenter… Working from the skyscrapers of Manhattan to the jungles of El Salvador.. Bush with his unblemished tool belt was a fucking joke. An offence to all the hard working men and women who built this country.
Bush with his unblemished tool belt.. and soft hands that did little else but pick up a phone, sign a few bills, and wield an artist’s brush.
OT, How Tea Party Tax Cuts are Turning Kansas into a Smoking Ruin.
On the topic of refugees and a humanitarian crises, but not on the southern border, I want to bring up what’s being ignored and denied in the western media..
“According to the United Nations, 110,000 Ukrainian refugees have gone to Russia since the start of the year and 54,000 more have left their homes and moved elsewhere in Ukraine.”
A whole lot of what’s happening looks like ethnic cleansing, the native Ukrainians in power going after Russian Ukrainians who are leaving everything and seeking relative safety wherever they can find it. The whole situation, which includes the murder of civilians is unreported and unnoticed.
The spotlight of global publicity and criticism might cause extreme elements in the new government to rethink violence against unarmed civilians but the global news blackout is a green light for continued abuse. Also unnoticed is growing rage on the part of Russian civilians against the US over the situation in Ukraine.
Conspiracy theories are unsupported but the silence from the US State department over the abuse of ethnic Russian civilians gives credibility to the blame they want to lay on the US. At some time in the not-too-distant future, we will want Russia to bring their influence to bear in our behalf and we shouldn’t be stunned when we get the middle finger.
“So no, this is not Obama’s Katrina”
If I remember correctly according to the right (FAUX, Rush, you know the drill) Katrina was the result of a bunch of lay-about niggras incapable of taking care of business and getting caught in one of the worst natural disasters of our time. Remember, what could Bush do to help them welfare recipients that won’t help themselves? What did Barbera say: “you know, they were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them” So now everything is O’bama’s Katrina, who gives a fuck, just another tea-tard talking point. I say better O’bama’s Katrina than O’bama’s IRAQ!
This is not the droid you are looking far.