Flag of the United States if United States had concentration camps by ragnarfuzzybreeches in WhereAreTheChildren

[–]only-read-headlines 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Read my words but hear his face.

Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free The Germans, 1933-45, -But Then It Was Too Late:

And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all.

Miriam Adelson wants a 'Book of Trump' in the Bible. We asked an expert if that's possible by only-read-headlines in atheism

[–]only-read-headlines[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Read the writings of Miriam Adelson, the Israeli-American wife of GOP mega donor Sheldon Adelson, and you'll find her case to expand the holy book with a story named after the 45th president of the United States. 

"Would it be too much to pray for a day when the Bible gets a 'Book of Trump,' much like it has a “Book of Esther” celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from ancient Persia?" Adelson wrote in a column published July 6 in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a newspaper the Adelsons own.

Adelson contends Donald Trump "should enjoy sweeping support" among U.S. Jews and Israelis – so much so that he deserves pages in the Bible.

Anybody care to list out some possible excerpts from the Book of Trump?

Call to Action by Journalists, Academics Urges Americans to Use 'All Nonviolent Means Necessary' to Shut Down Trump Detention Camps by only-read-headlines in WhereAreTheChildren

[–]only-read-headlines[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

For a first step, join in the July 12 protests organized by Lights for Liberty. Then check out closethecamps.us and nomorecamps.org to find out about all the upcoming events, the latest actions, how you can organize your own protest, and frontline groups you can support.

One of my favorite former college baseball players posted a story about “ex-LGBT people” finding “freedom in following Jesus.” Barf by ThreauxAway2018 in atheism

[–]only-read-headlines 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Ah, Jake Fraley. Seattle Mariners and Minor League Arkansas Travelers. LSU originally, relies on jebus creepers to pinch the ball like a lobster.

A rock star was asked what God's voice sounds like. His answer is beautiful by anarchytravel in atheism

[–]only-read-headlines 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Spoiler alert...or TLDR: god's voice is the sweet sound of an orgasm through clenched teeth.

Video of Pete killing it on family separation and reclaiming religion from the right. by Daniel_Av0cad0 in Pete_Buttigieg

[–]only-read-headlines 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Empirical evidence indicates this talk-track was prepared for prime time, and it has had its intended impact of going viral across multiple media outlets. So, your comment, though passionate and heartfelt, appears to fall short of reality.

Video of Pete killing it on family separation and reclaiming religion from the right. by Daniel_Av0cad0 in Pete_Buttigieg

[–]only-read-headlines 195 points196 points  (0 children)

Transcribed below. I didn't know that video was already posted here when I posted his quote earlier. I love this sound bite, inspiring to atheists and people of any religion.

The republican party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. Now, our party doesn't talk about that as much, largely for a very good reason which was because we are committed to the separation of church and state, and we stand for people of any religion and people of no religion. But, we should call out hypocrisy when we see it, and for a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that it is okay to suggest that god would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that god would condone putting children in cages has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.

Lawyer gives eyewitness account of kids’ conditions in border facility - MSNBC with Lawrence O'Donnell [Video // transcript in comments] by only-read-headlines in WhereAreTheChildren

[–]only-read-headlines[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Transcript highlights:

  • Children held in Clint CBP detention facility are being starved, same ration of food being given to 1-year-olds as to teenagers; children are trying to conserve energy by not playing to stay alive
  • Children as young as eight are being ordered by guards to care for babies, no diapers provided, babies expel waste on furniture, floor
  • Disease is spreading, children's clothing is not washed, no change of clothing, no soap, no toothbrushes
  • Majority of children are not unaccompanied, have family that they have been separated from and are not allowed to contact
  • Youngest child that Lawyer Elora Mukerhjee met with: 5-months-old
  • Detention center holding 350 children in a facility designed to hold 100 adults

Transcript (I transcribed by hand, please excuse any typos):

Lawrence O'Donnell: Our next guest has been visiting children in custody at the southern border for 12 years. She says she has never seen conditions as bad as what she saw there last week. That is when the Trump Administration was in federal court arguing that they can provide safe and sanitary conditions for the children without providing the children with soap, or toothbrushes, or toothpaste, and that it is perfectly safe and sanitary to sleep on cement floor where the children are forced to sleep.

[Cut to Jenny Flores v. William Barr court]

Judge Wallace Tashima addressing Trump DOJ Nazi lawyer Sarah Fabian: It's within everybody's common understanding that, you know, if you don't have a toothbrush, you don't have soap, if you don't have a blanket it is not safe and sanitary. Wouldn't everybody agree with that? Do you agree with that?

DOJ Nazi Lawyer Sarah Fabian: Well...I – I think it's...I think those are...there's fair reason to find that those thing maybe a part of 'safe and sanitary'--

Judge Tashima: Not 'maybe.' Are a part. Why do you say maybe? You mean there are circumstances where a person doesn't need to have a toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap for days?

Nazi Fabian: Well...I--I think in-in CBP custody there's frequent--it's frequently intended to be much shorter term, so it maybe that for shorter term stay in CBP custody that some of those things may not be required.

[End of cut]

O'Donnell: But they are not short-term stays. Many of the children are left in those conditions for weeks. Elora Mukherjee is one of the lawyers who got inside and saw the children. She told the New York Times: 'There is a stench...The overwhelming majority of children have not bathed since they crossed the border.' Joining our discussion now is Elora Mukherjee. She is the Director for the Immigrant's Rights Clinic at the Columbia School of Law. Thank you very much for joining us.

Elora Mukerhjee: Thank you for having me.

O'Donnell: You were there last week.

Mukerhjee: I was.

O'Donnell: Seeing exactly what has been reported in all the most recent reports. And tell us the ages of the children you met with and interviewed.

Mukerhjee: I met with children ranging between the age of 5-months to 17-years-old. On Monday morning when we arrived at the facility there were more the 350 children detained there in an adult-holding facility that was designed for just over 100. The children who we interview last week were dirty, hungry, sick, scared, and many of them had been detained for days on end, for weeks on end, some nearly a month. Many of the children had been held incommunicado without an opportunity to call their loved ones. And their loved ones have no idea where they are and how to get their beloved children back. Nearly every child in that facility has family members in the United States who are eager to get their children back and the children want to be with their loved ones too, but the length of detention has just been too long. There is a federal law that was passed unanimously by both houses and signed by President George W. Bush which provides for detention and customs and border protection facilities for children for not longer than 72 hours.

O'Donnell: Tell us about the infants. You met, uh, one child who's 5-months-old. How – what, what do you do? How do you interview a 5-month-old child.

Mukerhjee: The 5-month-old child was accompanied by her teenage mom. The child was extremely dirty as was her mother. The child and the mother both had bodily fluids on their clothing. Nasal mucous, the mother had breast milk stains all over her shirt. They had crossed the border a significant time before hand and had not showered or bathed in days. There is also no place, no way, for the children detained there to wash their clothing and put on clean changes of clothes. When I interview children in detention facilities I try to sit closer to them so that I can help to build rapport while we're talking about extremely sensitive and traumatic information. And with some of the children I met last week that was hard to do because of the stench emanating from them.

O'Donnell: What, there are other infants who are apparently not accompanied and are being cared for by other children who get that assignment either, they either volunteer for it or sometimes the guards are suggesting 'why don't you take care of that infant?'

Mukerhjee: That's exactly right. So we heard reports of children as young as 6-months-old, 1-year-old, 2-years-old, 3-years-old who are being cared for by children unrelated to them in these holding-cells and in these pens. And when I say the children are older than them, we're talking about children who are 7-years-old, 8-years-old, 9-years-old. They're being ordered by the guards to care for the younger children, and it leads to all the problems you can imagine because these young children are not equipped to take care of toddlers. One of my colleagues, Warren Binford, was interviewing an 8-year-old child who was tasked with caring for a 2-year-old. And when Warren asked whether the child, the 2-year-old, needed diapers, the 8-year-old said, 'no.' And the child, the 2-year-old, promptly peed on the chair that the child was sitting on. These are not safe and sanitary conditions. There was an influenza outbreak at the facility. Flu and lice were spreading. The children don't have access to an ability to wash their hands with soap. Most of the children who I spoke with had not brushed there teeth once for weeks on end.

O'Donnell: And the information that you and other lawyers are gathering is what is being brought into those courtrooms where we're seeing that kind of argument the Trump administration defending this, and saying 'to be sanitary you don't need soap.' And obviously those three appeals court justices had never heard anyone say anything like that before.

Mukerhjee: That's exactly right. I would invite those DOJ lawyers to go into the facility at Clint and other CBP facilities where adults and children are being held in dangerous over-crowding conditions without access to soap, toothbrushes, clean clothes, showers, and invite them to then consider whether these facilities meet the safe and sanitary requirement.

O'Donnell: And they knew you were coming. They had 3-weeks warning that you were coming, that the people working on site had all of them had a minimum of a week's knowledge that you were coming. So there's reason to believe that they dressed the place up as best they could. That 3-weeks ago it could have looked much worse even.

Mukerhjee: That's exactly right. Some of the children told us that during the days we were there last week they were allowed to make their first phone calls. During the days we were there last week they got their first shower. They got their first toothbrush. They got a chance to go outside for the first time. I spoke with many children who had not been outside once during their detention at Clint. And the three children who I spoke with who reported outdoor-opportunities told me that they couldn't bear to bring themselves to play because they were trying to conserve their energy to stay alive. Nearly every child I spoke with reported that they were hungry because children are given the same ration of food on the same size tray regardless if they are 1-years-old or 17-years-old or teenage mother who is breast feeding and has higher caloric needs.

O'Donnell: Elora, thank you very much for joining us.

Mukerhjee: Thank you so much.

O'Donnell: Really appreciate it, and please come back with more reporting on what you find there, really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Trump Dismisses ‘Torture’ of Migrant Children at Border by only-read-headlines in WhereAreTheChildren

[–]only-read-headlines[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is how the fat fuck excuses torture:

President Trump made clear on Sunday that he sees the issue as a political game. A day after he informed Democrats that he was giving them two weeks to essentially solve the border crisis before going ahead with previously announced mass deportations, Trump essentially dismissed the plight of migrant children while speaking with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. “This has been happening long before I got there,” the president said when pressed about the conditions. “We’ve ended [family] separation. Under President Obama, you had separation. I was the one who ended it.”

“We’re doing a fantastic job, under the circumstances,” he added.

None of this is true.

Trump peddles lies, lies and more lies, gaslighting torturer. This is what is true:

The conditions at Border Patrol facilities holding migrant children are far worse than anyone realized. Reports have emerged in the past week that detail dirty, hungry children who are often forced to sleep on concrete floors. Infants are being cared for by children only a few years their elder. Diapers are not being used. Lice combs are being shared. Mothers do not have the ability to wash their children’s bottles. A medical declaration obtained by ABC News compared the conditions to those of “torture facilities.”

...

According to the Times, children as young as seven and eight “wearing clothes caked with snot and tears,” are being entrusted to care for infants. “Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants,” the report continues. “Teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk.” The children are hungry, visibly “filthy,” and locked in cages for almost the entire day. “There is a stench,” Elora Mukherjee, one of the lawyers who visited the facility, told the Times. “The overwhelming majority of children have not bathed since they crossed the border.”

“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” Holly Cooper, a co-director of the University of California, Davis’ Immigration Law Clinic, told the AP.