The Trump administration has made no secret of its antipathy for immigrants, embodied by campaign-hyped plans for a border wall, an endless stream of dark anti-immigrant rhetoric, and ICE raids that swept up workers in factories and farms last year. But the Trump business empire has taken a completely different approach to immigration, hiring undocumented workers to bolster its rank and file when financially convenient.

New reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times reveals just how quickly the Trump Organization will dump its immigrant workers, too, if it’s deemed a savvy business decision: The Trump Winery, a vineyard in Virginia owned by the president’s son, Eric Trump, fired a group of seven undocumented workers earlier this week, immediately after the grueling harvest season.

The decision to time the firings directly after the busiest season was strategic and deliberate, according to Anibal Romero, a lawyer who’s currently representing one of the workers fired from Trump winery. “Getting rid of them at that point could have caused problems for the wine,” Romero told the New York Times.

Romero, who has represented around 40 undocumented clients who’ve worked under the Trump Organization umbrella, said the company acted opportunistically, believing it could rely on cheap, expendable labor despite the president’s hardline anti-immigrant policies and brash rhetoric.
Romero told the Times:

These workers have been there for many years...It’s sad to hear about their firing. But many of them have been able to move on and get better paying jobs. At first when you hear about them, you feel bad. But then you realize that maybe it wasn’t the best environment to work in.

This isn’t the first time a glaring contradiction between the president’s immigration policy and his empire's business strategy has come to light. Last year, the Washington Post revealed how the Trump Organization used a roving manual labor crew comprised largely of undocumented workers for nearly two decades. The crew, reportedly nicknamed “Los Picapiedras” (Spanish for “The Flintstones”), had a hand in various labor projects throughout the Trump orbit, performing masonry and construction work at properties around the country.

The president’s disdain for undocumented immigrants is seemingly selective, and makes for better headlines when bellowed before a rabid audience and snapping cameras. Even the First Lady, Melania Trump, a self-styled example of decorum and manners in a White House bereft of them, earned U.S. citizenship through rather dubious means, and got her own parents citizenship through so-called "chain migration"—policies which allow citizens to acquire residency for relatives—which her husband has decried on Twitter.

When anti-immigrant fervor suits the president’s rhetorical agenda, he’ll shout it from any campaign rally stage. But when it comes to his company’s bottom line or his third wife, he looks the other way.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trump-winery-fires-seven-undocumented-215328208.html

Just two quick examples. Dumbass Warren said she wouldn’t feel safer in her Church with armed security. Referring of course to the armed hero in Texas who k**led the armed intruder entering and murdering two parishioners at the Texas church. Yea right, she never goes anywhere with armed security.
Not to be outdone in the stupid department Biden said he would replace coal miners jobs, which avg. $100,000 a yr. by teaching the miners how to code. Good one Joe, seeing as how Pennsylvania is coal country.
Meanwhile the President just protects are embassies and has are forces k**l a leading terrorist. When Trump draws a line in the sand you better listen. Unlike Obama. Don’t stand behind the coward when he draws a line. You might get run over when he runs away.

(What the Republicans are doing with this impeachment process is no different than what the South did during Jim Crow: a Negro bound hand and foot committed suicide, he was not lynched by the KKK accused men. A little too dramatic, but not by much. Trump has lynched the nation of Law with his obstruction of justice and attack on a Free Press, bound its democratic institutions and Constitution...and the GOP turns a blind eye.)

Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) on Monday broke down why he believes it is essential that key witnesses be allowed to testify in the Senate’s impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

“For Americans to have confidence in the impeachment process, the Senate must conduct a full, fair and complete trial with all relevant evidence regarding the president’s conduct,” Jones wrote in an editorial for The Washington Post. 

“I fear, however, that we are headed toward a trial that is not intended to find the whole t***h,” he added. “For the sake of the country, this must change.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed to work “in total coordination with the White House counsel’s office” in Trump’s trial, the date of which is still unknown. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided to delay sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

Jones noted how the Trump administration had repeatedly stonewalled the impeachment process by refusing to hand over relevant documents and denying the testimony of figures with “firsthand knowledge of the facts.”

“The evidence we do have may be sufficient to make a judgment, but it is clearly incomplete,” he wrote, suggesting the testimony of former national security adviser John Bolton, among others, “could help fill those gaps.”

“These questions need to be answered now, not later in Bolton’s upcoming book,” he added, after listing just some of the queries that the former top Trump aide should be asked under oath.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/doug-jones-trump-senate-trial-editorial-084638946.html

President Trump has claimed repeatedly that he had the welfare of the United States in mind when he withheld military aid to Ukraine and pressured its president to investigate the Bidens. The impeachment inquiry yielded a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise, much of it surrounding the involvement of Rudy Giuliani, who as Trump’s personal lawyer probably shouldn’t have been wheeling and dealing with Ukrainian officials regarding matters related to U.S. national security.

On Sunday, The New York Times published a sprawling account of the administration’s belabored efforts to hold up the $391 million in military aid Congress approved to send to Ukraine. It included a telling anecdote highlighting the absurdity of Giuliani’s involvement:

“[Acting White House Chief of Staff] Mulvaney is said by associates to have stepped out of the room whenever Mr. Trump would talk with Mr. Giuliani to preserve Mr. Trump’s attorney-client privilege, leaving him with limited knowledge about their efforts regarding Ukraine. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he learned of the substance of Mr. Trump’s July 25 call weeks after the fact.”

It’s bizarre enough that Trump essentially deputized his personal lawyer to carry out U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine. Even more concerning is that his dealings were shielded from actual government officials under the guise of attorney-client privilege. It’s hard to argue this was done for any reason other than a below-board drive to advance Trump’s personal interests. Otherwise, why would Mulvaney — who was deeply involved in the effort to withhold the aid, as the Times’ report reminds us, and ostensibly working to achieve the same objectives — be asked to leave?

The privileged conversation between Trump and Giuliani wasn’t the only new information in the Times‘ report indicating Trump may not have had the purest of intentions when he decided to block the aid. Also detailed is the fierce opposition to the move from lawmakers, the Pentagon, and Trump’s own Cabinet officials. According to The Times, in late August, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and then-National Security Adviser John Bolton met with Trump in the Oval Office to produce a “united front” in convincing him to release the aid.

“This is in America’s interest,” said Bolton.

“This defense relationship, we have gotten some really good benefits from it,” added Esper.

Trump didn’t budge.

The report also outlines the enormous logistical burden of withholding the aid, which had already been approved by Congress and the Pentagon. The administration, particularly the Office of Management and Budget, sparred with the Pentagon throughout the summer over the aid, at the same time working to fashion a legal rationale for the president to circumvent Congress’ authority to allocate it. The Times even notes that a “veteran budget official who raised questions about the legal justification was pushed aside.”

Reversing course and releasing the aid never seemed to be an option, and the president never provided officials with an actual reason he wanted to withhold the aid. He probably told Giuliani, though. Unfortunately, those conversations were privileged.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/oh-look-more-evidence-trump-184721156.html

"They end up not coming to school because they fall through the cracks."
Oct 17 2019,
One student in the Chicago school where Marcella Cadena teaches lives in a homeless shelter that only lets people in or out every hour, on the hour. And sometimes, the child can't make it out in time — and misses class.
“Now they’re coming to school late and missing 30 minutes of instruction if they don’t make it out by 7 a.m. because they don’t have control over where they’re living,” said 4th-grade teacher Cadena, one of the 25,000 teachers in the Chicago Public Schools who went on strike Thursday.
The striking teachers in Chicago are making an unusual demand: that the country’s third-largest district do more for students who don’t have a stable roof over their heads. In addition to the standard asks of better pay and smaller class sizes, teachers want the school system to provide resources, including dedicated counselors and funding, to help both students and teachers grappling with a lack of affordable housing. Of the 300,000 students in Chicago’s public schools, an estimated 16,450 are homeless. And that’s based on students self-reporting, so it’s likely a low count.
Without a stable home, students have serious trouble succeeding in class, according to teachers and homeless advocates in the city. They often can’t focus, can’t do their homework or study, and sometimes miss class altogether. And teachers told VICE News they wind up doing work outside of what’s typically expected, like making calls to shelters to ensure their students have a place to go after school.
“I have kids who are experiencing homelessness, and they end up not coming to school because they fall through the cracks,” Aaron Bingea, a 7th- and 8th-grade math teacher, told VICE News. “Truancy becomes a big problem.”
When one student in Chicago showed up to class without her homework, she hadn’t forgotten to do it. She tried. But she didn’t have keys to her friend’s apartment, where she was staying while her own family searched for something they could afford. And no one was at her friend’s place to let her in.
“They were always unsure night to night whether they would have housing, and they talked about how difficult it was to just study when you had no space that was your own,” Doug Schenkelberg, the executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, told VICE News.
Even students who aren’t homeless struggle with affordable housing. Bingea estimated that between 80% and 90% of the students he works with are low-income and more than half have to travel about an hour to get to school. Their families have been priced out of their neighborhoods but want to stay in their schools. His school district has lost some 4,000 students — about a tenth of the district — in the last seven years, he said.
The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Chicago area is about $1,200 per month, which, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, means a household would need to make about $48,000 a year to afford a place to live. In 2017, the median household income as just above that, at $52,000.
“What’s really exciting about what the teachers are doing in Chicago is really putting it [affordable housing] in the contract demands, front and center,” said Marilyn Sneiderman, director of Center for Innovation in Worker Organization at Rutgers University. “Historically, unions have actually set up affordable housing. They’ve been involved with advocating legislatively for good housing laws.”
"They end up not coming to school because they fall through the cracks."
The teachers on strike want more nurses and counselors, which some schools don’t have at all, as well as higher wages for school aides and protections for undocumented students. In addition to resources for those within Chicago Public Schools, the union also wants the school system to advocate for better housing policy citywide. It’s part of a growing trend in the labor movement toward bargaining over issues that extend outside of the workplace.
And even if they lose on affordable housing, putting their demands in the contract, the teachers hope, will force the city to address the issue in other ways.
“I don't know of another entity in Chicago politics with as much power as we have that is actually pushing for these things,” Bingea said. “So it's our responsibility to do so.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said that affordable housing doesn’t belong in teachers’ union contracts. On Thursday, she cancelled classes for all of Chicago’s public school students before the teachers officially declared their strike.
“We value the workers,” Lightfoot said in a press conference. “Honoring that value is who I am and what I stand for. But I also must be responsible for the taxpayers who pay for everything that goes on.”
But others in Chicago’s city government fully support the teachers.
“I’m a product of Chicago Public Schools. I went to four different public schools because we were gentrified out because we didn’t have affordable housing,” said Chicago Alderman Andre Vazquez, who walked the picket line Thursday. “I’m 40 years old. At some point, things need to move forward, and we need to solve these problems.”
Correction 10/19 7:21 p.m.: An earlier version of this article misrepresented Aaron Bingea's estimate of the percentage of his students that have to travel long distances to school. The story has been updated.
Source-- by Alex Lubben—VICE NEWS, doug schenkelberg, Marilyn sneiderman, lori lightfoot