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After Tax Cuts for Richest, House GOP Unveils $5.4 Trillion Attack on Nation’s Safety Net

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With the nation’s attention rightly fixated on President Donald Trump’s horrific treatment of immigrant children, House Republicans on Tuesday quietly unveiled their 2019 budget proposal that calls for $537 billion in cuts to Medicare, $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, and four billion in cuts to Social Security over the next decade in an effort to pay for their deficit-exploding tax cuts for the wealthy.

“It’s morally bankrupt, patently absurd, and grossly un-American,” the advocacy group Patriotic Millionaires said of the GOP’s budget proposal, which calls for $5.4 trillion in spending cuts from major domestic programs.

Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), argued in a statement that the Republican proposal demonstrates clearly shows the “House majority’s fiscal priorities haven’t changed.”   [Read more…]

Listen to Children Who’ve Just Been Separated From Their Parents at the Border | Video Worth Watching

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Yes, folks, this is still happening. Prepare to have your heart ripped out. ProPublica received an audio recording of children from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility. According to ProPubilca:

The person who made the recording asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. That person gave the audio to Jennifer Harbury, a well-known civil rights attorney who has lived and worked for four decades in the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas border with Mexico. Harbury provided it to ProPublica. She said the person who recorded it was a client who “heard the children’s weeping and crying, and was devastated by it.”

The person estimated that the children on the recording are between 4 and 10 years old. It appeared that they had been at the detention center for less than 24 hours, so their distress at having been separated from their parents was still raw. Consulate officials tried to comfort them with snacks and toys. But the children were inconsolable.

The Washington Examiner notes that HHS reports holding around 11,500 children at the moment, but at the current rate of prosecutions and separations, that figure will climb to around 30,000 by August.   [Read more…]

My Heroes in Matters of Diversity; A Shout Out to Community-Based Block Program

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Dear Community-Based Block Program,

You all are so special to me.

I’ve come to love and appreciate you because I dream of a society, ours, that values its diversity and you are as diverse a group as I can imagine.

When I looked at you a little while ago at the Jackie Robinson YMCA, decked out in your finery, you were about the most beautiful sight I’ve ever laid my eyes on, just a hugging and pecking each other on the cheek and smiling and talking with your bodies and your hands, your love for each other aglow.

And you personified a little of everybody, gays, lesbians, bi, non-hearing, blind, skin tones from ivory to ebony, ethnicities aplenty: Mexican American; Latino; Chicano; Chicana; Filipino; Vietnamese American; Bi-racial; Native American; Afghanian American; African American; African; European American; Honduran American…   [Read more…]

Inner Thoughts of a Wanna Be Dictator

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By Lauren Botuck

Within a minute I knew
he is really good
His enemies die
the way that they should

He is special and smart
just like me!
Will he tell me his secrets?
will he let me see?   [Read more…]

‘We Have No Idea When Or If Mother And Child Will Be Reunited’ | One of the Detention Facilities is Here in El Cajon | More Video Worth Watching

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All In’s Chris Hayes speaks with Rep. Beta O’Rourke (D-TX) who visited several immigration facilities in McAllen, Texas this week and tells Chris Hayes what he saw.

Also, one of the detention facilities for the children is here in El Cajon. Chris Hayes speaks with MSNBC’s Gadi Schwartz reporting from outside the facility.
  [Read more…]

Do Not Ever Question the Fuhrer’s Orders

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Complacency is our enemy. Anyone that does not embrace the @realDonaldTrump agenda of making America great again will be making a mistake. – Ronna McDaniel, Republican Chair, June 13, 2018

Beachtung !   BEACHTUNG !   BEACHTUNG JEDER !

Manner in der schlange hier druben …..!
(and be marched to the slave-laborer’s barracks)

Frauen und kinder schlange hier ….!
(and proceed directly to the crematoria) …   [Read more…]

Rich People Follies: A Refund for Issa, the Billionaire Ballot Measure, and a Badass Convention Center

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When Congressman Darrell Issa announced his retirement on January 10, speculation began over what would become of his million-plus dollar campaign war chest.

In early March, nearly $180,000 in refunds were made to donors–including the Koch Brothers–who earmarked contributions for his 2018 general election campaign. Republican party organizations in San Diego and Orange counties received $5,000 each, and $2000 went to his endorsed candidate in the 49th Congressional District, Diane Harkey.

Now we know what recipient Issa has in mind for the rest of the money: himself.   [Read more…]

One Woman Who Knew Her Rights Forced Border Patrol Off a Greyhound Bus

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By Mitra Ebadolahi, Border Litigation Project Staff Attorney / ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties

On June 7, Tiana Smalls, whose Facebook profile describes her as owner of Fire Flower Beauty Company, was riding a Greyhound bus from Bakersfield, California to Las Vegas, Nevada. As the bus approached an agricultural checkpoint at the Nevada state line, Ms. Smalls said the driver made an unusual announcement: “We are being boarded by Border Patrol. Please be prepared to show your documentation upon request.” 

Ms. Smalls immediately reacted. According to a description she posted on Facebook, she stood up and loudly said, “This is a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. You don’t have to show them *shit*!!!” She then used Google Translate to repeat her message in Spanish, reassuring the Spanish-speaking woman sitting beside her and probably countless other fellow passengers. 

Border Patrol agents boarded the bus and started to ask the passengers for their “documentation.” Ms. Smalls stood up again and shouted, “You have NO RIGHT to ask me for anything! This is harassment and racial profiling! We are not within 100 miles of a border so [these agents] have no legal right or jurisdiction here!”    [Read more…]

Rep. Pramila Jayapal: Mothers Didn’t Even Get To Say Bye To Kids | Video Worth Watching

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Another update on the Department of Justice policy of taking children away from their parents when taken into custody at the border: All In’s Chris Hayes speaks with Pramila Jayapal (D-WA7) who reports on her visit with 174 women being held in a Federal prison in Washington state. None of the women had yet even had a “Credible Fear” hearing.   [Read more…]

From the Ministry of Truth: Singapore Summit Video | Video Worth Watching

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Who do you think promulgated this video, Trump or Kim Jung-un? If your first impression is that this is a North Korean propaganda video, you are not alone. Seeing the White House icon with WH.GOV beneath it is pretty damn chilling. And the propaganda machine is fueled with our taxes.   [Read more…]

Third Time’s the Charm for Cheesecake Factory Janitors’ Wage Claims

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Also: Dead Men Don’t Talk in National City, the Dotard and the Billionaire Class, and the Democratic Party’s New Free Speech Zone

Remember the days when corporations in California avoided responsibility for breaking labor laws by blaming contractors, who all-to-often disappeared when investigations were complete?

An investigation initiated by San Diego’s Employee Rights Center, a nonprofit that assists low-wage workers without union representation, led to a ruling by the  Labor Commissioner’s Office holding the Cheesecake Factory restaurants in Southern California and its janitorial subcontractors liable for $4.57 million in minimum wages, overtime, liquidated damages, waiting time penalties, and meal and rest period premiums.   [Read more…]

Thoughts on the Midterms: Defeats for Big Money and Democrats’ November Hopes Somehow Survive

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Thud!  What’s that sound?  It’s the unceremonious crash landing of tens of millions of dollars of Charter Schools Association money in the Governor’s race backing Antonio Villaraigosa.  

Never has such an obscene amount of money been spent on a bad cause with so little to show for it.  The good news here is that their efforts to turn the November election into a proxy war between the billionaire boys club and California’s educators failed miserably.  

Now, rather than having to watch the tragic irony of a multimillion-dollar crusade against teachers’ unions standing in for our Governor’s race in California while elsewhere in the red states teachers are turning the tide against decades of austerity budgeting brought to us by the GOP, we can watch a Democrat cruise to victory against the Trump-endorsed Republican.   [Read more…]

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