I really don’t care to dignify or even acknowledge that last night’s spectacle was an actual State Of The Union address, but it was what we get. I thought I’d simply ignore all of it and all surrounding it, but of course I read this article in The Guardian because old civic duties habits die hard (this one’s not dead yet!), and I thought I’d bring it here because it’s not sharp or negative. It’s simply what happened. (And what, no doubt, we all expected, though I’m certain some expected far less from the Democrats in attendance.)
Amid Trump’s lies and xenophobic rants, people struggling to pay bills and make ends meet are unlikely to be moved
He wanted to give the king’s speech. Donald Trump entered the US House chamber on Tuesday like a medieval monarch, with Republicans lined up eager to touch his royal robes (or, in two cases, grab a selfie with him). But within moments, the illusion was shattered.
As the US president strolled by, soaking up adulation, Democratic representative Al Green of Texas held aloft a handwritten sign: “Black people aren’t apes!” – a reference to Trump recently sharing a racist video depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama.
When the first State of the Union address of Trump’s second term got under way, Republicans moved in on Green menacingly and tried to tear the sign away. But he persisted until being escorted out for the second year in a row. As he departed, there were more acrimonious exchanges with Republicans, a few of whom tried to start a chant of “USA! USA!”
(snip-embedded 3 minute video, on the page: “Donald Trump’s two-hour State of the Union address in 3 minutes – video”)
It was the first but not the last time that a person of color would take a stand during the wannabe autocrat’s record 107-minute speech while others remained silent or raucously egged him on. It was a night where Trump again sought to poison US politics and divide Americans along various fault lines, none more inflammatory than race.
The great salesman, sporting his familiar red tie and orange hue, began with a predictable pitch: “Our nation is back – bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.” In his telling, inflation, mortgage rates and gas prices are falling, while the stock market, oil production and foreign direct investment are booming along with construction and factory jobs.
Luckily for Trump’s speechwriter, the US men’s hockey team won Olympic gold two days earlier. The reality TV president hailed them in the press gallery, prompting applause and roars from both Democrats and Republicans. But while Republicans chanted “USA! USA!” with gusto, barely any Democrats did.
“We’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it,” Trump declared. While he didn’t mention his gilded ballroom, it was still a Pollyannish version of America that will not be recognized by people struggling to pay bills and make ends meet. Trump is not the man to offer: “I feel your pain.”
Republicans ritually stood and clapped and cheered all the same. Democrats, who last year waved protest signs that looked like Marty Supreme’s table tennis paddle, this time remained bolted to their seats and grunted, rolled their eyes, dropped their jaws, shook their heads, waved their hands or got bored and studied their phones.
Trump moved on to his beloved tariffs, calling the supreme court decision to kill his pet project “very unfortunate” and “disappointing” as four black-robed justices wore inscrutable expressions on the front row. Compared with last week’s White House tantrum, when he threw all toys and decorum out of the pram, this was Trump showing self-restraint worthy of a child refusing a second ice cream.
It didn’t last. As Trump riffed on crime, election integrity and transgender issues, he turned his fire on Democrats: “These people are crazy, I’m telling ya, they’re crazy. Boy, oh, boy, we’re lucky we have a country with people like this. Democrats are destroying our country, but we’ve stopped it just in the nick of time.”
He soon reminded everyone that, since the day he came down the golden escalator a decade ago and ranted about immigrants, race has always been at the heart of the Trumpist project. He gazed out at a chamber where Democrats – including the late Jesse Jackson’s son, Jonathan Jackson – somewhat resembled America in their diversity while Republicans presented a sea of white faces with only a handful of exceptions.
Trump announced a “war on fraud” led by vice-president JD Vance, citing a social services scam in Minnesota that he mendaciously and absurdly estimated to have cost $19bn. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born representative from Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American from Michigan, shouted: “That’s a lie!” and “You’re a liar!”
The president was just warming up. He went on a xenophobic rant: “The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here, to the USA.”
Omar shook her head, perhaps more in sorrow than in anger.
Trump challenged Democrats: “If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Democrats remained seated. Trump retorted: “You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up.”
It was rich from the man who sent a goon squad into Minneapolis that resulted in the needless deaths of two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who went unmentioned by the president (as did survivors of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein).
Omar, raising a hand to the side of her mouth to project her voice, yelled with piercing moral clarity: “You have killed Americans! You have killed Americans! You have killed Americans! You have killed Americans!”
Helpfully, Omar and Tlaib had set up a real-time factchecking service for the chamber. Trump boasted that he ended eight wars. Tlaib shouted: “It’s a lie! What are you talking about?”
Trump said: “No one cares more about protecting America’s youth – .” Tlaib interjected: “Then release the Epstein files!”
Trump vowed to halt insider trading by members of Congress. Mark Takano of California yelled: “How about you first!” Tlaib called out: “You’re the most corrupt president!”
The more Trump talked, the less he said. He had gone into the address with an approval rating of 39% positive and 60% negative, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, lower than any past president delivering his first State of the Union address. Over an hour and 47 minutes, he offered little to change that equation. The longest State of the Union speech in history was also one of the most inconsequential.
It was small wonder that Omar, Tlaib and several other Democrats walked out before the end. As for Green, his seat remained empty too save for a handwritten cardboard sign that simply and defiantly said: “Al Green.”
A 5-year-old girl detained in Dilley drew herself and her family trapped in a cage.Credit: Courtesy / Eric Lee
A 9-year-old girl detained in Dilley’s South Texas Family Residential Center says she wants to die, according to family attorney Eric Lee, who recently went viral when a protest erupted inside the facility as he tried to visit his clients.
“The 9-year-old has expressed that she wishes she was no longer alive,” Lee said in a Wednesday phone interview with the Current.
Lee said the mother conveyed her child’s alarming wish to him in a recent a phone call from within the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility an hour southwest of San Antonio, which houses over 1,400 people, including hundreds of children.
Lee represents a family of five, consisting of the 9-year-old along with 5-year-old twin sisters, a 16-year old brother, an 18-year-old sister and her mother. All are Egyptian citizens, and all have had birthdays inside the facility. The minors are not named in this article to protect their identities.
The family, which immigrated from Kuwait, has been detained in Dilley for eight months for what Lee calls “political retribution” from the Trump administration for the alleged crimes of the family’s patriarch, Mohamed Soliman. Soliman became a suspect in an anti-Semitic attack in Boulder, Colorado last June using Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower.
The attack left seven people injured. One 82-year-old woman died from injuries relating to the attack 24 days later. Soliman received 12 counts of federal hate crime and 118 state criminal charges.
When the attack occurred, Soliman had been estranged from the family for at least a year, living in his car over an hour away and working as an Uber driver, according to Lee. Soliman only saw his family once a week at most, the attorney added, saying they had no knowledge of his plans. The family has spoken out condemning the attack and the mother, Hayam El Gamal, is now seeking a divorce.
Over the months of detainment, their mental health has deteriorated, Lee said.
On a previous visit, the 9-year old daughter gave Lee a picture she drew inside Dilley. The drawing is of the Colorado house she hasn’t seen in the months she’s been in detention.
A 9-year-old child detained in Dilley for months drew this picture of her one-time home.Credit: Courtesy / Eric Lee
One of the five-year-old twins also gave Lee a drawing, which depicts her and her family in a cage. She told Lee that she had a dream that she was trying to run away from a wild animal.
“But she’s stuck in a cage and can’t get out,” Lee said.
The family’s younger kids also have begun skipping meals, “which they hadn’t been doing before,” Lee added.
People detained at the Dilley site have complained that the food inside sometimes is served with bugs, worms and mold. Lee described the water there as “putrid.”
The 16-year-old boy at one point suffered from appendicitis and was told to simply take a pain reliever before collapsing and being rushed to the hospital.
“He could have died,” Lee said.
But, if deported, the family could face certain death in Egypt, Lee claims, for cooperating with the FBI and speaking out against their patriarch.
The Detroit attorney says after months of detention, the Soliman family’s optimism began to rapidly decline in January.
“They really believed that the immigration judge was going to give them a fair hearing after he granted them bond in September,” Lee said. “And so they were hopeful, they were hopeful that they were going to be released through that process, and they weren’t.”
Meanwhile, even the older siblings have shown signs of worsening mental health, despite attempting to hold it together for their family, the attorney added.
“[T]he 16 year old, who’s been kind of, you know, rock solid, taking on the role of man of the house — his attitude has really begun to change,” Lee said. “And that goes for all of them.”
The oldest daughter, Habiba Soliman, was separated from her family once she turned 18 as punishment for talking to the press, Lee asserted. Separated from her family, she’s also been denied religious exemptions, he added.
“They’ve been calling me less in the last week or so, which I think is because they’re just sort of despondent and depressed,” Lee said of his clients. “That’s been the goal from the start, to ruin these children’s lives. And they didn’t do anything.”
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who wrote the fiery opinion releasing 5-year-old Minneapolis boy Liam Conejo Ramos from the same facility, will consider the family’s third habeas case, but Lee doesn’t know when.
“It’s a deplorable situation. There’s really no silver lining,” Lee added.
It is a fact that most mass shooters are males, mostly white males. But right wing media are so desperate to slander and smear trans people the same way it was tried to before the internet with other media against gay people. The know what they are creating is false but they don’t care because they know that others will believe it and repeat it everywhere. It is a sickness and curse to want to create that much hate and chaos against the most vulnerable communities in society. Hugs
ICE nearly kills another child by mistreatment and ignoring their worsening health and healthcare needs. This is so familiar if you remember history. Lack of food, no healthcare, no humanity. Hugs
Children cry, thinking their parents will be taken if ICE follows them home. All because they are brown skinned. Is this the USA? Hugs
A 5-year-old girl detained in Dilley drew herself and her family trapped in a cage.Credit: Courtesy / Eric Lee
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