Trump’s Fantasy Border Crisis
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
Trump hardliners and their predecessors created real crises at home and abroad gone unaddressed. They include:
- governance by Washington’s criminal class, threatening humanity, a gangster state, a totalitarian plutocracy, oligarchy and kleptocracy, not democracy, a notion Republicans and undemocratic Dems abhor, tolerating it nowhere, including at home;
- waging endless US wars of aggression against nations threatening no one, massacring their people, immiserating the living under violent, chaotic conditions;
- thirdworldizing America by transferring the nation’s wealth from ordinary people to the nation’s privileged class;
- waging war on unwanted aliens - Muslims from the wrong countries and people of color, including Black Americans and Central American Latinos, fleeing their countries because of US-installed despotic regimes, creating intolerable conditions;
- threatening all sovereign independent nations with regime by naked aggression, color revolutions, political assassinations, or old-fashioned coups;
- mocking the notion of equal justice under law, we the people applying only to the nation’s privileged class, most others exploited to serve them, beneficial social change considered an abhorrent notion;
- enacting police state laws, targeting political dissidents, anti-war, human and civil rights activists, as well as supporters of ecosanity called eco-terrorists, and critics of apartheid Israel called anti-Semites - heading the nation toward full-blown tyranny.
America was always ruled by men, not laws, who lie, connive, misinterpret, and pretty much do what they pease extrajudicially for their own self-interest and cronies.
Trump regime hardliners are more ruthlessly dangerous than any of their predecessors, threatening life on earth by possible nuclear war on Russia, China, and/or Iran - a doomsday scenario if things go this far, an ominous possibility because psychopathic gangsters are running US foreign policy, DLT a front man for their imperial interests.
He’s a pathetic figure, a bombastic caricature of a leader, a fantasy one, a serial liar, threatening humanity to serve US monied interests, himself and his family members included.
If he and his predecessors supported democratic governance in Central America, not tyrannical regimes brutalizing their people, forcing countless numbers to seek refuge abroad, no endless stream of Latinos would head north to the US.
No border wall will stop them. They’ll go through, under, or around it. Trump declared a national emergency over a nonexistent border crisis, a politicized action polarizing the nation, most Americans opposed to constructing a wall along the nation’s southern border - while major issues go unaddressed.
DLT lied claiming a border wall will keep out criminal gangs, rapists, killers, and other lawbreakers, “tak(ing) advantage of our weak borders for their own gain” - a racist notion, falsely branding Latinos from the wrong countries as criminals.
He lied saying border wall construction “will help keep deadly drugs out of our communities…”
Cocaine, heroin, and other illicit drugs produce hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues – a US government-supported bonanza for corrupt regime officials in various countries, the CIA, organized crime, and Western financial institutions, heavily involved in money laundering.
One reason among others for Bush/Cheney’s war on Afghanistan was to restore opium production the Taliban largely eliminated. The country was transformed into the world’s largest producer, accounting for at least 90% of world demand for heroin.
As long as much of Afghanistan remains occupied under US-installed puppet rule, opium production will flourish, vitally needed eradication steps ruled out.
Trump lied about a “national security and humanitarian crisis at our southern border.” The crisis exists in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, created by Washington, their oppressed and deeply impoverished people victimized by the scourge of US imperial aims.
DLT invoked National Emergencies Act authority for political reasons. Under the NEA, he may legally declare a national emergency under real crisis conditions. Nothing of the kind exists along the US southern border with Mexico.
Declaring a national emergency when none exists for border wall construction is a constitutional violation, an impeachable offense.
He’s highly unlikely to be removed from office over this issue. It’s minor compared to major ones going unaddressed.
The ACLU intends suing him in federal court, a statement by its executive director Anthony Romero saying the following:
“By the president’s very own admission in the Rose Garden, there is no national emergency. He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress, and decided to move along his promise for a border wall ‘faster.’ ”
“This is a patently illegal power grab that hurts American communities and flouts the checks and balances that are hallmarks of our democracy.”
“We will be filing a lawsuit early next week. As the country’s premier defender of civil liberties and civil rights, the ACLU will always fight to ensure a robust system of checks and balances on the power of the executive, which is critical to safeguarding our democracy and defending rights.”
ACLU National Security Project attorney Dror Ladin added:
“The Constitution assigns Congress the power of the purse, and no prior president has ever tried to use emergency powers to fund a chosen project — particularly a permanent, large-scale domestic project such as this — against congressional will. This is obviously improper.”
By letter to Trump, the Dem controlled House Judiciary Committee said it intends investigating his national emergency declaration after admitting on Friday that he “didn’t need to do this, (b)ut (he’d) rather do it much faster” - the committee saying his action “raises both serious constitutional and statutory issues.”
The letter demands committee access to all communications between the White House and Justice Department from November 1 last year to February 15 - related to this issue.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen, Protect Democracy. and other groups intend suing Trump over this issue.
Perhaps the Supremes will have final say. Whether its right-wing majority will rule in Trump’s favor remains unknown if things go this far.
The nation and its establishment media are focused on this relatively minor issue while major ones affecting everyone everywhere go unaddressed.
That is what’s most troubling about what’s going on - world crisis conditions festering while politicians and media press agents fiddle.
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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
