Hurricane Irma is on its way to the U.S. mainland.It has battered the Caribbean, leaving the U.S. Virgin Islands “leveled,” according to Representative Stacey Plaskett, the island territory’s delegate to Congress.Plaskett told the New York Post, “Making the Virgin Islands whole will require a massive and coordinated effort spanning the course of many months, and indeed, years.”Puerto Rico also has a rough time of it. The hurricane killed at least three people there, and has left 1 million people without power and 56,000 without water, NBC News reports.President Trump downplayed the scale of the disaster, “Puerto Rico escaped. It could have been far worse.” Jenn Manes, a resident of the U.S. Virgin Islands, hasn’t been pleased with the administration’s response so far.“From what we are seeing, St. John and St. Thomas have been completely forgotten,” she said, according to the NY Post, “The United States Virgin Islands is just that — part of the United States. But right now, no one up north seems to remember that.”She continued, “Give us some help please. We have never needed you all more than we do right now. I cannot beg you enough. We are United States citizens. Please do not forget about us.”Although there has been no word on aid packages to the territories hit by Irma, late this week Congress did pass legislation giving aid to those affected by Hurricane Harvey.Against the wishes of House leader Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) met with President Trump to hash out the aid deal, the Atlantic reports.Ryan and McConnell were against the move because the aid package contains language that prevents a government shutdown and that lifts the U.S.’ debt ceiling for three months.The two Republican leaders hoped to add language to the law that pushed all debt ceiling talks until after next year’s election, in order to make it easier for Republicans to keep their majorities in Congress.Instead, the bill was passed as written, and Texas and Louisiana will receive $15.25 billion in aid.Irma is expected to make landfall this weekend. Hurricane Jose is expected to begin sweeping through the Caribbean this weekend as well, and Hurricane Katia could make landfall in Mexico not long...
This week, President Trump decided to end the DACA program.“Before we ask what is fair to illegal immigrants, we must also ask what is fair to American families, students, taxpayers and job seekers,” the president said.DACA is an Obama-era program that allows those brought to the United States illegally as children to live and work legally, without fear of deportation to their country of origin.There are about 800,000 DACA beneficiaries, known as Dreamers, currently; the vast majority of these (around 600,000) are of Mexican descent, The New York Times reports.The remaining 200,000 Dreamers are a diverse group. They come from everywhere from South Korea to Nigeria.In fact, according to a 2015 study by the Migration Policy Institute, the face of illegal immigration is changing.Since the turn of the millennium, illegal immigration from Mexico and South America countries has dropped significantly, while illegal immigration from Asia has grown by 202 percent.African illegal immigration has grown markedly as well — by 161 percent.Due to this increase, a Pew Research Center study found that there were around 575,000 illegal black immigrants in the U.S. in 2013.Of that number, about 60,000 were eligible for DACA when Obama announced the program in 2012, a study by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and the NYU Law Immigrants Rights Clinic found.It isn’t clear how many of these received DACA protection. The United States Citizen and Immigration Services only releases DACA acceptance figures for the 25 counties with the most DACA approvals.Jamaica, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago and the Dominican Republic are in the top 25 — 16,054 Dreamers were born in those countries. Around 4 percent of DACA applications come from black majority countries not in the top 25.Just who are these black Dreamers? Their stories are invariably American.The Nation spoke to Mwewa Sumbwe, a dreamer who was born in Zambia. She was brought to the United States in 2002, at the age of four.Her first impression about the United States was that people there didn’t know much about her country of origin. She started school in Maryland not long after arriving, and was placed in an ESL class.“I think the assumption was just that I [needed ESL because I] was coming from a different country. It was just so weird and insulting.”Zambia, colonized by the British Empire, has English as its official language.As with the young woman Senator Dick Durbin spoke about on the Senate floor this week, Sumbwe came to realize that she was undocumented when asked for her Social Security number.She didn’t have one, and said it was then that she “fully understood what it meant to be undocumented.”She had to be extra careful growing up.Her parents were always telling her not to do “stupid things,” specifically, “Don’t do stupid things because you’re black, and not only are you black, but your status will be affected.”Jonathan Green, one of the founders of immigration advocacy group the UndocuBlack Network, told the Nation that this is something black undocumented immigrants often hear. And it is something that he, as a black Dreamer, fears as well.“Yes, I’m worried about being deported, but I’m also a young person living in Baltimore,” Green said. “It doesn’t always matter that I’m an immigrant. I’m still faced with the consequences of being black.”“Statistically, I’m more likely to be picked up for anything,” he told Joy Reid on MSNBC. He, and other black undocumented immigrants, fear that what might start as a simple incident of racial profiling could end with them being banished to a country they’ve never been to.“The first thing people see is that I’m black,” Sumbwe said. “There’s already that negativity. The deeper aspect is you don’t even have documentation.”Because of this, Green said, black undocumented immigrants “are three times more likely to be deported and much more likely to be caught up in the criminal justice system because of their color.”This fact, Green believes, is “a result of white supremacist policies that impact black Americans.”Opal Tometi, BAJI’s executive director, took things a step further after the DACA decision was announced.“President Trump is yet again pandering to white supremacists over immigrant, black and poor communities,” Tometi said. Sumbwe’s fate, and Green’s, and the fates of all the rest of the country’s Dreamers are in Congress’ hands now. The House and Senate have until March 5, 2018 to pass legislation to keep the Dreamers in the country. Sumbwe is ready for whatever might happen.The government “doesn’t make us human,” she said. “We are human. We still exist. We are still powerful and resilient. I’m motivated to work even harder for immigrant and human rights in...
There are no statues of King George III in the U.S. Capitol.There are no statues of General Cornwallis. There are no statues of King Alfonso, no statues of General Santa Ana, no statues of Hitler or Stalin or Emperor Hirohito or Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden.But there are statues of 12 men from a foreign power that tried its very best to destroy the United States.There are 12 statues of high ranking members of the Confederate States of America. This week, one member of the Senate, Cory Booker (D-NJ), and one member of the House, Barbara Lee (D-CA), introduced legislation to get rid of all 12.I just introduced the Confederate Monument Removal Act. Men who fought to preserve slavery shouldn't be honored in the US Capitol. pic.twitter.com/jwqxIPo474— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) September 7, 2017Both versions of the legislation are called the Confederate Monument Removal Act, and if passed, both would require that all 12 statues be removed from display in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection within 120 days.“In the wake of Charlottesville, it’s abundantly clear that much work remains to root out racism from our society,” Lee said, according to the Washington Post. “Confederate statues and monuments pay tribute to white supremacy and slavery in public spaces. These hateful symbols should have no place in our society, and they certainly should not be enshrined in the U.S. Capitol.” Booker echoed his colleague’s words.“The National Statuary Hall Collection is intended to honor America patriots who served, sacrificed or made tremendous contributions to our nation,” Booker said. “Those who committed treason against the United States of America and led our nation into its most painful and bloody war are not patriots and should not be afforded such a rare honor in this sacred space.”A few of the Confederate States of America officials with statues in the Capitol include:Jefferson Davis, the president of the CSA, who said in that role, “We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence.” General Robert E. Lee, who lead the CSA forces against the USA. After the war, Lee felt that Civil War monuments were a bad idea, “I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife.”Alexander Hamilton Stephens, vice president of the Confederate States of America. Of the CSA he said in a famous speech, “Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea … that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.”The National Statuary Gallery was created to honor “illustrious” Americans who served or sacrificed their lived for the United States.Because of this, proponents of the new bills say that the statues of those who founded the Confederate States and took up arms against the United States have no place there.The bills do, however, assign historical value to the statues and say that states ought to be allowed to claim them if they so chose. Any unclaimed statues would then be given to the Smithsonian for safe...
Being the president of the United States is a hard job. Being the president's press secretary seems even harder.Sean Spicer didn't last a year, ceding the stage to current White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.Sanders recently appeared on The View with her father, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, to discuss President Trump's relationship with the media, the Arpaio pardon and more.The ladies of the table weren't here to play. Sara Haines asked about fake news and the president's adversarial relationship with the press.Sanders took a page out of her boss' book and said that there was blame "on both sides." But more on the side of the press, which she said needs to do better at presenting "facts and not opinion."Joy Behar had something ready for that, bringing up a Politifact report that found 95 percent of the president's statements are lies."Is the media supposed to not report on the fact that 95 percent of what he says is a lie?” Behar asked point blank."You ... are pushing a false narrative," Sanders replied. Host Sunny Hostin brought the receipts, pointing out that all Politifact had done was look at things the president had said."I completely disagree with the fact that what you're saying is that only five percent of that is true. I know that that is simply not accurate," Sanders said before appealing to people's patriotism. "He is the president ... we have to get behind him."Behar wasn't playing that. “I feel for you,” she said to Sanders. “I feel sorry for you that you have to go out and defend those lies every day.”The ladies also asked their guests about Trump and women. The president famously once seemed to brag about sexually assaulting women.Given this, Behar asked Huckabee, “How can you let your daughter defend him?”“He's also empowered a lot of women,” Huckabee said, pointing to his daughter as one of these women, before adding, “People say, oh, he's a racist, but he's been on this show many times.”How coming on a show that has two black people on it makes you not racists, Huckabee failed to comment on.For her part, Sanders said, “I think he's an equal opportunity president. He hits men just as hard. Women want equal opportunity and this president certainly gives it to them.”Which is why the Trump administration pays women 63 cents for every dollar a man makes for doing the same job, and why the administration recently got rid of an Obama-era rule meant to end the wage gap.When Huckabee said that his Christian heart tells him that Trump “does look at people with intrinsic worth and value,” Behar and Whoopi Goldberg spontaneously cracked up laughing.Circling back to the media, Sanders said that the media's "false narratives" are “frankly, inhibiting [Trump’s] ability to succeed." Goldberg immediately spoke up, noting that Trump himself was guilty of a long and drawn-out "false narrative," referencing the "birther" theory he spun against Barack Obama. “Where was President Obama born and is he an American citizen?” Goldberg pointedly asked Sanders, who tried to laugh it off. Whoopi wouldn't let it go.In the end, Goldberg had an idea for fixing America's political troubles: “You also have to get somebody in the office who recognizes what the truth...
Last year, on Mary J. Blige's online talk show, she sat down for a one-on-one with 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.In an new interview with Variety, Blige defended her decision to serenade Clinton with a rendition of "American Skin" by Bruce Springsteen. When the trailer for the episode dropped, many bloggers criticized her for doing so."That was going to be my first female president, so I’m going hard for people to hear her voice and see her other than a politician,” she said. “They took one piece of the song and played it everywhere. And then they felt stupid afterwards, [because] the interview was great. That’s the problem — people take a piece of something that they don’t understand and pick at it and tease it.”Watch as Mary J. Blige sings to Clinton below:Blige expressed just how disappointed she is in the Trump administration, and in the way things turned out in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.“We used to be a country that people looked at and respected,” she said. “Now we’re a country that people look at and judge. The integrity of the United States is lost. Is this a reflection of who we are? Look at who our leader is.”She also suggested that Clinton run for president in 2020.“I mean, if I was her, I would because she’s strong,” said Blige. “She’s done it. You see everything she had to take that wasn’t fair.”Clinton has yet to announce a bid. If she does run, however, it seems she'll have Blige's...
On Tuesday night, the Charlottesville, Virginia city council unanimously voted to remove a second Confederate monument from a public park in the wake of the tragic and violent events that unfolded at the "Unite the Right" rally, that took place in the city in August.The Associated Press reports that the vote was for the removal of the General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson statue that currently stands in the city's Emancipation Park.Jackson was, of course, a general for the Confederate States of America. He was known for his daring tactics, which often took the Union by surprise. His death during the war led to a strategy vacuum for the CSA that the USA was quick to capitalize on.The council vote also included a measure to hasten the relocation of the statue of General Robert E. Lee, that was at the center of the rally, according to NBC News.Earlier this year, when city officials voted to move the statue, members of the alt-right, and Confederate States of America sympathizers angry over the decision, organized the "Unite the Right" rally.After protester Heather Heyer was killed during the rally, city officials covered both statues with black fabric; they remain shrouded.The city voted to move the statues rather than to remove them completely, because lawsuits have stopped all previous attempts to destroy them. These lawsuits used the Virginia Code, a set of state laws, to defend the statues. The Virginia Code contains language that prohibits the removal of certain war memorials.One city council member, Bob Fenwick, suggested that if the monuments cannot be destroyed, that they ought to be placed in a museum instead."If people stop and think, we have no statues, that I know of, to George Washington in Charlottesville, and yet none of us have forgotten his history," Fenwick told NBC. "So this argument that we have to keep it to preserve history, to me, is irrelevant."Vice Mayor, Wes Bellamy, stated that he felt the statues had little to do with history, but given that they were built almost a century after the Civil War was over, that they are actually "20th century testaments to a fictionalized, glorified narrative of the rightness of the Southern cause in that war, when the actual cause was an insurrection against the United States of America promoting the right of southern states to perpetuate the institution of slavery."Charlottesville isn't alone in its struggle over Confederate States of America monuments.The demand to have monuments representing Confederate soldiers pulled down has swept the country following the "Unite the Right" rally.We reported mid-August how in Durham, North Carolina protesters destroyed a statue of an unknown Confederate soldier. The University of Texas quietly removed four Confederate statues in the middle of the night. In Dallas, a group of black locals formed to keep Confederate statues standing in their...
As you may have heard, North Korea has very powerful nuclear weapons now.PBS Newshour reports that the Hermit Kingdom's newest nuke is roughly five times more powerful than the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, which leveled that city and killed at least 100,000 people.Although it is not clear if North Korea has a weapon that could reach the United States, it now has a weapon that could destroy Seoul, the capital and largest city in South Korea.As no peace treaty was signed at the conclusion of the Korean War, North and South Korea (along with South Korea's ally, the United States) are technically still at war.President Donald Trump has issued tough statements to North Korea, saying at one point that if North Korea continued to test nuclear weapons, it would be "met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," CNN reports.Cooler heads are calling for dialogue, hoping to avoid World War III.One of these cooler heads is surprisingly, former Chicago Bull, Dennis Rodman.Many people are fascinated with Dennis Rodman’s peculiar close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and countless outlets have asked him about their friendship. Kim is a basketball fan, and watched Rodman and the Bulls win several NBA championships as a child.Rodman has made several trips to North Korea, and has become friends with the dictator.This time, however, the plot thickens. Now, the former Bull has explicitly said he wants to get President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in the same room.Rodman recently appeared on Good Morning Britain, where he offered to play mediator between Trump and Kim Jong-Un in order to “straighten things out for everyone to get along.”“If the president tries to reach out to Kim, I think there would be a great possibility that things would happen,” Rodman noted. “If they could sit down and have some kind of mutual conversation and try and start some dialogue, that could open the door just a little bit.”Hosts Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan scrambled to understand why the U.S. should be open to meeting with Jong-un given that his regime has been condemned as a “dictatorship.” Rodman suggested that things are more nuanced than they look on the outside, noting that Kim didn't establish the current North Korean state, but that he was given charge of it after the deaths of his father and grandfather (who was the first leader of North Korea).Rodman feels he is uniquely suited to bringing peace to the peninsula, given that he also has met Trump, having appeared on his reality TV series, Celebrity Apprentice, in 2013. The chances of Trump actually taking Rodman up on his offer are slim to none, as Trump’s North Korea relationship stance is: “talking is not the answer.”Still Rodman isn't deterred. He says he will return to North Korea, and that he hopes he can help "everyone to get along...
With an exclamation point and parenthetical shade to Obama, President Trump took to Twitter this morning with an announcement:Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
Following Tuesday's press conference when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), 45 took to Twitter on Wednesday to say, "Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit the issue!"The Obama-era program, which protected nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation, was implemented by executive order when a divided Congress failed to propose a resolution on immigration reform. Following Tuesday's announcement by the Trump Administration to end DACA, the former President took to Facebook with a detailed rebuttal addressing Jeff Sessions' claim that DACA makes born and naturalized citizens vulnerable. Trump's Tweet seems to imply that he too might be willing to implement an executive order if Congress fails to act.At this rate, who knows where any of us will be in the next 6...
One Georgia school teacher is definitely not about that MAGA life!The Associated Press reports that a River Ridge High School teacher informed two students that their “Make America Great Again” t-shirts were not appropriate for the classroom.A video circulating online shows the math teacher telling the students that the shirts weren’t allowed, "just like you cannot wear a swastika to school."In the video, the teacher further explained that her comparison it wasn’t about Trump himself, but rather due to her belief that the slogan has been adopted by “the neo-Nazis.”The teacher's name has not been released. Responses to the video were swift, with many claiming that the students’ free speech rights were violated.The Cherokee County School District apologized for the teacher’s actions, deeming them inappropriate. “Her actions were wrong, as the ‘Make America Great Again’ shirts worn by the students are not a violation of our School District dress code,” district spokeswoman Barbara Jacoby told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “Superintendent of Schools Dr. Brian V. Hightower is deeply sorry that this incident happened in one of our schools,” Jacoby continued. “It does not reflect his expectation that all students be treated equally and respectfully by our employees.”Jacoby confirmed that the students will not face discipline for wearing the shirts, but also noted that the district cannot discuss any disciplinary action against a...
