Trump our Dear Leader brings more worldwide shame

There he was, Our Dear Leader, shaking hands with their Dear Leader. No longer Little Rocket Man, Kim Jung-Un was now a world leader just like the president of the United States. Step one of the North Korean dictator’s victory. Step two?

“We will be stopping the war games, unless and until we see that the future negotiation is not going along as well as it should,” Our Dear Leader said during a press conference after the summit.

“We’ll be saving a tremendous amount of money. We fly in bombers [Anderson Air Force Base] in Guam. I said, when I first thought it, ‘Where are the bombers from? Guam. Six-and-a-half hours. That’s a long time for these big massive planes to be flying to South Korea to practice and then drop bombs all over the place. I know a lot about airplanes; it’s very expensive.”

You don’t say …

He knows a lot about airplanes … he tells so many more consequential lies we overlook the little ones. Any adult with a semi-valid high school diploma knows airplanes are expensive and military aircraft are the most expensive.

After that our Dear Leader then floated the idea of bringing U.S. troops completely off the Korean Peninsula and out of Japan. Their Dear Leader — and the Dear Leaders in China and Russia — must have shat themselves at the totally unexpected largesse of American promises and ruminations.

There were probably a few U.S. military leaders back home at the Pentagon that shat themselves as well. “What the [expletive deleted] is he doing,” could have been the exclamation heard round the Inner Ring.

That little escapade, with the fall out internally and with our Asian (and other) allies was just ten days ago. With a “normal” presidency we might still be talking about that, the ramifications are so significant. But then something else came to light.

Back on May 7 our little Minister of Injustice, the lying Jefferson Beauregard Sessions— “Did you speak to any Russians during the campaign?” “No” a month later, “Did you speak to any Russians during the campaign?” “Well yeah, but we didn’t talk about the campaign …” while talking to the Russians during the 2016 RNC in CLE — Anyway, Beauregard was out at the beach east of the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego giving a little speech about zero tolerance in which he was making it impossible for human beings coming from South of the Border to seek asylum in the U.S. and then arresting those who crossed illegally to seek asylum, charging them with crimes and if the refugees brought children — of any age — rip them away from the parents and throw all of them into separate jails, including baby jails and internment camps for children. Oh, and charge the parents with smuggling children — their children — across the border, as if the parents were planning something nefarious with the kids, like, send them to school.

The images have been horrific, kids in cages, babies sitting alone inside other cages, children watching as their parents are getting arrested; and then the ProPublica recording of children at one of these internment camps crying for their parents. It was gut wrenching listening to it. For more than a week Trump said he couldn’t end the policy he created, that it was the fault of the Democrats — despite the fact that the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the White House.

Once it was clear to Our Dear Leader the vast majority of Americans were horrified by what they saw and heard — and then started turning against him — he backtracked. Not even the exhortations of Trump TV could save him. Dear Leader made a big show of signing an executive order that stopped separating families and sent them to the internment camps together.

Turns out there is a little bump on this highway to hell for Dear Leader and Beauregard: The Flores settlement. It requires the feds to do two things with immigrants who ae minors: place children with a close relative or family friend “without unnecessary delay,” instead of keeping them in custody; put immigrant children that are in custody in the “least restrictive conditions” possible.

Despite the GOP’s best efforts to overturn the 1997 decision (Flores v. Reno) it isn’t going away anytime soon. The decision also gives immigration lawyers the absolute power to check on the conditions of children in immigration custody. Those lawyers in turn have the authority to force the government to change conditions to meet the requirements of Flores.

The horrors of Trump’s policy only begin there. In their glee to punish immigrants by taking away their children they never put a plan in place to reunite the families, or even track the parents with the children concurrently. This includes babies and toddlers that can’t speak and therefore can’t tell anyone, in Spanish or English, who their parents are. And since the parents weren’t told where their children were being jailed, they have no idea where to look to find them.

This was all done in secrecy. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon was the first lawmaker to be denied entry into one of the child internment facilities, a converted WalMart in Texas. Some press were eventually allowed to enter the facilities, but without cameras or other recording equipment.

Then ProPublica released the recording of the children crying for their parents. No one — with a soul — can listen to the recording without being sick.

It was after the nation, and the world, got a good listen to that recording when Trump signed that executive order, showing it to the cameras with that big, stupid, grin on his face.

So much else has happened, like video from New York City showing refugee girls being transported from one secret location to another. Mayor Bill DeBlasio then got in front of the cameras and asked, “How is it possible that none of us knew there were 239 kids right here in our own city?How is the federal government holding back that information from the people of this city?”

Indeed. Why all the secrecy? If there’s nothing to hide and no laws are being skirted or broken, why hide it? Probably because if the American people knew exactly what was going on, everything that is going on, they would object to this inhumane and illegal “Zero Tolerance” policy. Which some members of the administration claimed was not a policy, while others said it was.

Enter Rep. Barbara Lee of California, a representative who has been around the block a few times. She sent a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, asking that he send U.N. observers to investigate what is going on. According to U.N. guidelines, “… seeking asylum is not a criminal act, and that indefinite and mandatory forms of detention are prohibited under international law.”

Oops … just declaring people seeking asylum for abuse, both institutional and domestic, can no longer seek asylum doesn’t mean the refugees cannot seek asylum. It also states that “ … refugees should not be penalized for their illegal entry or stay. This recognizes that the seeking of asylum can require refugees to breach immigration rules. Prohibited penalties might include being charged with immigration or criminal offences relating to the seeking of asylum, or being arbitrarily detained purely on the basis of seeking asylum. Importantly, the Convention contains various safeguards against the expulsion of refugees. The principle of non- refoulement is so fundamental that no reservations or derogations may be made to it. It provides that no one shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee against his or her will, in any manner whatsoever, to a territory where he or she fears threats to life or freedom.”

Below is the letter Rep. Lee sent to the U.N. Secretary General.

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Lee sent a letter to António Guterres, United Nations Secretary General, requesting that the United Nations send humanitarian observers to the United States to investigate the Trump administration’s policy separating families on the border.

“I am appalled by the reports and images from detention facilities in Texas and other states along the border, where more than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents by border patrol agents…I urge you to send experts from relevant UN agencies to observe conditions in both Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) facilities both at the border and throughout the more than 17 states around the country that are now housing children who have been separated from their families.”

This spring, the Trump Administration instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. Parents have been separated from their children and prosecuted. Many children have been held in detention centers, raising concerns about their human rights and wellbeing. Since the beginning of May, over 2,300  children have been separated from their parents. No law current requires the separation of families.”

Lee will be at the border today to investigate the internment facilities. We could assume she will visit the ones in San Diego County. The U.N. already called upon the Trump Administration to stop separating families. It will get very interesting if the U.N. sends investigators. Think about that: the United Nations investigating the United States for human rights abuses. The Chinese and Russians must be loving this.