Ken Cuccinelli Defends Trump's Anti-Refugee Bigotry

Racist - and homophobe - Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli.

Decent and moral Virginians have long known that Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli is a miserable excuse for a human being who feigns supposed Catholic religiosity while engaging in the types of hatred and bigotry decried not only by the Gospel message but also the Catholic Church's social gospel. Before losing his gubernatorial bid in 2013, Cuccinelli pushed every right wing Christian message of division and hate - ironically, the man is in my view a self-loathing closeted gay - while embracing an agenda that sought to disenfranchise anyone with non-white skin color.  Now, as Trump's acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director, Cuccinelli is vigorously pursuing the Trump/Pence regime's anti-refugee against not only Hispanic refugees at the nation's southern border but also in the context of Bahamians seeking entry to the U.S. A. in the wake of Hurricane Dorian's almost unimaginable devastation of the northern Bahamas.  A piece in Crooks and Liars - an apt title for Kookinelli - looks at Cuccinelli's despicable conduct.  Here are article highlights:

Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Ken Cuccinelli insisted on Sunday that Bahamians should help themselves instead of fleeing to the United States after thousands were left homeless by Hurricane Dorian.

During an interview with CBS host Margaret Brennan, Cuccinelli was asked why the Trump administration is making it "harder to flee to this country" for Bahamians who were left homeless by the hurricane.

Cuccinelli, however, argued that the Trump administration is "making it easier" for Bahamians to travel to the U.S.

"The Bahamas is a perfectly legitimate country capable of taking care of their own," the USCIS chief said. "We rushed resources in, whether it was from USAID or the Coast Guard, who were downright heroic."

"I've got to leave it there," Brennan said, concluding the interview, without pointing out that Cuccinelli's orders actually forced Customs agents to refuse entry to Bahamians who were made homeless by the hurricane for not having the proper travel visas.

A piece in Time noted why the Trump/Cuccinelli visa requirements were so discriminatory against Bahamian refugees, the majority of who - you guessed it - are not white:

U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott [both Republicans] wrote an open letter to Trump asking the president’s administration to “waive, or otherwise suspend, certain visa requirements” for Bahamian citizens who have relatives in the U.S. as the country recovered from Hurricane Dorian. Rubio also noted that many lost — or lost access to — their identification and other relevant documents during the hurricane.

Cuccinelli personifies why so many of the under 30 generations want nothing to do with Catholicism and Christianity itself. The  man is simple horrible and a hypocrite.

Trump Immigration Policy Veers to Evil

Unless one is of 100% Native American descent, everyone of us in America is an immigrant and our ancestors often came to the New World to escape danger, discrimination, or religious persecution.  In a sense they were refugees seeking safety and better opportunity. Sadly, the ancestors of many, if not most, African Americans were forcibly brought to America, their families torn asunder in the process and then they faced being treated as chattel property.  This, combined with the genocide against  Native Americans are the two original sins of America - the ugly underbelly that flag waving self-anointed "patriots" conveniently forget.   Now, the Trump/Pence regime is adding another chapter of evil to America's record through its treatment of refugees arriving at the southern border.  Disturbingly, his strongest supporters are white Christian nationals who underscore just how hideous conservative Christianity has become. Trump is not only committing daily lies but he and the always reprehensible Jeff Sessions are killing America's soul and basic human decency.  A column in the New York Times takes a look at what is being done in the name of every American citizen.  It is ugly and it is evil, plain and simple.  Worse yet, I believe racism against non-whites is the lynch pin behind it all. "Christians" who support this ought to save all of us from the display of hypocrisy of them parking their despicable assess in church pews on Sunday mornings. Here are column excerpts:  

We as a nation have crossed so many ugly lines recently, yet one new policy of President Trump’s particularly haunts me. I’m speaking of the administration’s tactic of seizing children from desperate refugees at the border.

“I was given only five minutes to say goodbye,” a Salvadoran woman wrote in a declaration in an A.C.L.U. lawsuit against the government, after her 4- and 10-year-old sons were taken from her. “My babies started crying when they found out we were going to be separated.”

“In tears myself, I asked my boys to be brave, and I promised we would be together soon. I begged the woman who took my children to keep them together so they could at least have each other.”

This mother, who for her protection is identified only by her initials, J.I.L., said that while in El Salvador she was severely beaten in front of her family by a gang, and she then fled the country to save the lives of her children.

J.I.L. noted that she had heard that her children might have been separated and sent to two different foster homes, and added: “I am scared for my little boys.”

Is this really who we are? As a parent, as the son of a refugee myself, I find that in this case Trump’s policy has veered from merely abhorrent to truly evil.

Family separations arise in part because of the new Trump administration policy, announced last month, of “zero tolerance” for people who cross the border illegally. That means that parents are jailed (which happened rarely before), and their kids are taken away from them.

Mirian, a Honduran woman who arrived in the U.S., broke no law. She simply followed the established procedure by presenting herself at an official border crossing point and requesting asylum because her life was in danger in Honduras — nevertheless, her 18-month-old was taken from her.

“The immigration officers made me walk out with my son to a government vehicle and place my son in a car seat in the vehicle,” Mirian said in a declaration accompanying the A.C.L.U. suit. “My son was crying as I put him in the seat. I did not even have a chance to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat.”

Likewise, Ms. G, a Mexican in the A.C.L.U. suit, went to an official border crossing point and requested asylum with her 4-year-old son and blind 6-year-old daughter. None of them had broken American law, yet the children were taken from their mother.

But even for those parents who commit a misdemeanor by illegally entering the U.S. — because they want to protect their children from Central American gangs — the United States response seems to be in effect to kidnap youngsters.

If you or I commit a misdemeanor, we might lose our kids for a few days while we’re in jail, and then we’d get them back. But border-crossers serve a few days in jail for illegal entry — and after emerging from criminal custody, they still don’t get their kids back soon, said Lee Gelernt, an A.C.L.U. lawyer. In one case, he said, it has been eight months and the child still has not been returned.

It’s true that immigration policy is a nightmare, we can’t take everyone and almost no one advocates open borders. . . . Yet none of that should be an excuse for brutalizing children by ripping them away from their parents.

So what’s next, Mr. President? Minefields at the border would be an even more effective deterrent. Or East German-style marksmen in watch towers to shoot those who cross?
We as a nation should protect our borders. We must even more assiduously protect our soul.

When the husband and I travel to Europe in September, we will likely have to explain repeatedly that (i) we opposed Trump's election, and (ii) the majority of Americans oppose the immorality of his regime's brutal policies.  Right now, I am ashamed to be an American. 

The Ugliness of America's Far Right Grows

The professional Christian set and similar self-anointed "patriots" that want to protect America from those they deem "other" - e.g., blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, gays, etc. - have always exhibited the worse traits of America.  Many of their forebears actively supported the Jim Crow laws and the criminalization of homosexuality.    Now, it the wake of the Paris terror attacks. they are proving just who horrible they are.  Not only are they seeking to block refugees from entering America, but they are stepping up their calls for the mass deportation of Hispanics.  Leading this charge is Phyllis Schlafly, one of the most self-centered, foul women in the nation.  World Net Daily, a/k/a Wing Nut Daily, give Schlafly a platform for her anti-nonwhite screed.  This is what America's conservative Christians now represent.  Here are highlights:  

Phyllis Schlafly, an icon of the conservative movement who has been active for half a century, has a solution to save America and solve its illegal immigration crisis: Load ‘em up on trains and ship ‘em out.

“Every time they say, ‘You can’t deport these people, in my mind’s eye, I see the picture of those railroad cars carrying the illegals out of our country when Eisenhower deported them. They say it was a failure. It wasn’t at all,” Schlafly told WND in an exclusive interview.

“In my mind’s eye, I see those railroad cars full of illegals going south. That’s what they ought to do.”

Schlafly was referencing the 1954 campaign in which President Dwight Eisenhower sent home 3 million illegal aliens and sealed the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“These ideas that they’re putting out, that we have some obligation to admit all these people, are just ridiculous,” she said. “We don’t have an obligation to admit anybody. A country that doesn’t have borders isn’t a country. We need to have borders.”

In fact, she says, the national sentiment on this issue explains why GOP front-runner Donald Trump is surging in the polls – far ahead of establishment candidates.

It is because of folks like Schlafly that I no longer call myself a Christian.  Today, to be a Christian often means one is a horrible person who wraps themselves in feigned religiosity while making a mockery of the Gospel message.

The GOP and the New American Fascism

The far right regularly accuses liberals and gays of being fascists and being a threat to "freedom."  The reality is, of course, that it is the far right and today's Republican Party that are the advocates of a new American fascism.  This fascism is dressed up in the guise of patriotism and protecting American values (most often so-called "Judeo-Christian values").  Hitler and the Nazis used similar tactics in the early days of their take over of Germany in the 1930's. Frighteningly, the Republican Party and the ugliest elements of its base want to take America down a similar road.  A column in Salon looks at the disturbing phenomenon championed by those like Ted Cruz and Donald trump.  Here are highlights:

It would appear that our descent into irrationality has not yet hit its limit. Yesterday, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump said that he would consider forcing Muslims to register with the government to be part of a tracking database. Here’s what he said:

MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard: Should there be a system a database to track Muslims?

Trump: There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases, we should have a lot of systems, and today you can do it.But right now we have to have order, we have to have strength, we have to have a wall and we cannot let what’s happening to this country happen any longer.

Hillyard: Is that … your White House would…(inaudible)

Trump: I would certainly implement that.

This took place at a ropeline in Iowa where Trump was campaigning. The question didn’t come out of nowhere. Earlier in the day Yahoo News had published an interview in which Trump said that he would deport any Syrian refugees allowed to enter this country under President Obama and didn’t rule out draconian surveillance measures to track American Muslims. He ominously warned:

“We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”

The MSNBC reporter asked him why Muslims databases would be different than having Jews register in Nazi Germany. He replied, “You tell me.”

So, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president has once more upped the ante on the xenophobia that’s been sweeping through the right wing for some time. Mexicans, Muslims, it all the same. Gotta build that wall, track them, deport them, keep ’em out.

Unfortunately, the nervousness coursing though society after the terrorist attack in Paris has made this kind of talk sound less unreasonable to more people, and we had the Congress yesterday struggling to find a way to appease voters who were calling into their offices demanding that refugees be denied entry into the country.
The explanation as to why 47 Democrats would join in this immigrant bashfest is as prosaic as it is depressing. They fear being called “soft on terrorism.” A bunch of hysterical voters who listen to demagogues on cable TV and talk radio called their offices to demand they put a stop to this foreign threat. Rather than be leaders and try to calm the waters, they just went with the flow, knowing that this legislation is unlikely to become law, but wanting to be able to tell their constituents they voted to bar refugees from our shores and keep the children safe. (Well, the good American children anyway. Syrian children will not be so lucky.)

Why they believe this will work for them is unknown. . . . Voters who succumb to xenophobia will likely vote for the Republican alternative. Stoking paranoia is the GOP specialty.

And anyway, this is a soulless sort of politics. This isn’t a highway bill or a tax hike. It’s an issue of life and death. These are votes that should be taken on merit, not political calculation (which very often turn out badly — ask Hillary Clinton). And feeding this xenophobic beast in an environment in which the frontrunner of the Republican Party is endorsing government registration of American Muslims is a very risky business. This kind of thing can get out of hand  quickly.

The public’s fear of Syrian refugees may be understandable but it is nonetheless irrational, and political leaders have a responsibility to be rational at times like these, if for no other reason than to actually protect the nation instead of playing kabuki games for political purposes. 

[E]nabling Islamophobia is one of the most dangerous things our leaders can do:

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, is pursuing a strategy explicitly designed to provoke hostility toward innocent Muslims in Western society in order to radicalize these communities and recruit them to their cause. Listening to the American political debate in the wake of the tragic terrorist attacks in Paris, that strategy may be working. Islamophobic rants are both morally offensive and factually inaccurate and play right into the hands of our terrorist enemies.

Hopefully, the House will calm down and the Senate will derail this bill. But more importantly, one hopes that Democrats and whatever sane Republicans are left will recognize that every time they feed this xenophobic monster it makes Donald Trump and his ilk stronger. And if they make Donald Trump and his ilk stronger they are also making the ISIS terrorists stronger. That’s a bad policy on every level.

Republicans Playing to the Terrorists' Script

Passengers aboard the "St. Louis." These refugees from Nazi Germany were forced to return to Europe

While cooler heads argue logic, reason and deliberate screening efforts should prevail in processing refugees fleeing violence in their home countries, many in the Republican Party are doing exactly what ISIS wants and needs for its propaganda efforts.  From John Kasich's idiotic calls for a government agency to promote "Judeo-Christian" values, to Ted Cruz and others' calls to only accept Christian refugees, to efforts to claim that the Koran calls for death and murder while ignoring the horrors advocated in the Old Testament, the Paris attacks are being used to turn the struggle against ISIS into a war of religions.  That, of course is precisely what ISIS wants and needs as a recruiting and propaganda tool.   Sadly, the Republicans eager to prostitute themselves to the ugly, ignorant and extremist elements of the GOP base either do not care about the damage they are doing or are too stupid to grasp it.  A column in the New York Times looks at the sickening conduct and the farce it makes of supposed support of the Gospel message.  Here are excerpts:

Desperate refugees flee persecution and war, but American politicians — worried about security risks — refuse to accept them.

That’s the situation today, but it’s also the shameful way we responded as Jews were fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s. In the shadow of one world war, on the eve of another, Americans feared that European Jews might be left-wing security threats.

[I]n January 1939, Americans polled said by a two-to-one majority that the United States should not accept 10,000 mostly Jewish refugee children from Germany. That year, the United States turned away a ship, the St. Louis, with Jewish refugee children; the St. Louis returned to Europe, where some of its passengers [some estimates say half] were murdered by the Nazis.

All the Republican presidential candidates say that we should bar Syrian refugees or apply a religious test and accept only Christians.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey says we shouldn’t accept Syrians even if they are toddlers and orphans. And the House of Representatives may vote this week on legislation to impede the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

Remember what a Syrian immigrant looks like — the father of Steve Jobs.  

Yes, security is critical, but I’ve known people who have gone through the refugee vetting process, and it’s a painstaking ordeal that lasts two years or more. It’s incomparably more rigorous than other pathways to the United States.

If the Islamic State wanted to dispatch a terrorist to America, it wouldn’t ask a mole to apply for refugee status, but rather to apply for a student visa to study at, say, Indiana University. Hey, governors, are you going to keep out foreign university students?

Or the Islamic State could simply send fighters who are French or Belgian citizens (like some of those behind the Paris attacks) to the U.S. as tourists, no visa required. Governors, are you planning to ban foreign tourists, too?

If Republican governors are concerned about security risks, maybe they should vet who can buy guns. People on terrorism watch lists are legally allowed to buy guns in the United States, and more than 2,000 have done so since 2004. The National Rifle Association has opposed legislation to rectify this.

The Islamic State is trying to create a religious divide and an anti-refugee backlash, so that Muslims will feel alienated and turn to extremism. If so, American and European politicians are following the Islamic State’s script.  Let’s be careful not to follow that script further and stigmatize all Muslims for ISIS terrorism.

The top priority must be making Syria habitable so that refugees need not flee.  

Helping Syrian refugees today doesn’t solve the Middle East mess any more than helping Jewish refugees in 1939 would have toppled Hitler. But it’s the right thing to do. Syrians, no less than those Jewish refugees, no less than my father, are human beings needing help, not flotsam.

Sadly, to much of the GOP base, if one is not a white, heterosexual, conservative Christian, you are flotsam - flotsam to be discarded and deprived of rights and compassion.  So much for  heeding the Gospel message of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless and treating others as you would want to be treated.  Thankfully, the younger generations see this hypocrisy and are walking away from religion.

GOP Fear Mongerers and America's Poor Track Record on Immigrants

One other thing that John Kasich said in the context of whether or not Syrian refugees should be allowed into America was to the effect that "the American public usually gets it right."  Kasich made the statement to justify turning away Syrian refugees.  In point of fact, America has gotten it seriously wrong on immigration many times over the course of the nation's history - especially if the immigrants were of different faiths and darker skin color.  The image above shows how wrong public opinion was in the 1930's in the context of taking in Jewish refugees.  This piece looks at America's less than stellar track record.  Here are some excerpts:

It’s a comforting thought to look at the refugees fleeing ISIS — the same ones to whom Republicans want to deny entry into the United States — and say that we’re better than this, that Americans as a whole will rise up and refuse to be so cold, so heartless. But those of us who are eager to help people in need are truly in the minority, historically speaking.

As World War II approached, Fortune Magazine published the results of a 1938 poll that should serve as a grim reminder that Americans can and will latch on to bigotry in any sense. Today, we pretend that America has always accepted Jewish people. Unfortunately, the poll reveals that the majority — 67 percent — openly rejected taking in Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, and other countries oppressed by the Nazis “with conditions as they are.” Only 23 percent of Americans, most of whom opposed raising immigration quotas, said that accepting Jewish refugees was a good idea.

2016 Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie’s opinion that we should not even accept Muslim “5-year-old orphans” is one that should stay buried in our shameful past — but a January 1939 poll heartbreakingly reveals that Americans even opposed taking care of Jewish children.

In September, the Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor reminded us that the bigotry espoused by the Right and the hatred they level at Muslim refugees is exactly like the anti-Semitism of the 1930’s:

No matter the alarming rhetoric of [Adolf] Hitler’s fascist state — and the growing acts of violence against Jews and others — popular sentiment in Western Europe and the United States was largely indifferent to the plight of German Jews.

“Of all the groups in the 20th century,” write the authors of the 1999 book, “Refugees in the Age of Genocide,” “refugees from Nazism are now widely and popularly perceived as ‘genuine’, but at the time German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian Jews were treated with ambivalence and outright hostility as well as sympathy.”

“Part of that hostility was fueled, as some of the European grievances are now, by stereotypes of the refugees as harbingers of a dangerous ideology, in this instance communism and anarchist violence,” Tharoor notes.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Every day, Republicans remind us  — incorrectly — that Muslims are of the devil, that their ways and beliefs are somehow dangerous to the good, pristine America they know and love…and that has not existed since Jim Crow ended.

GOP Threatens Government Shutdown Over Refugee

Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)

While utterly ignoring the hate mongering elements of their own base - including those advocating for the execution of some 10-30 million LGBT Americans - the political whores in the Republican Party are now making rumblings about shutting down the federal government if the Obama administration does not limit access to Syrian refugees to those who are Christian.  Of course, how they would winnow out those who are not Christian is not specified nor is any cognizance given to the reality that any terrorist worth his or her salt who wanted to infiltrate America along with the legitimate refugees could easily provide falsified documentation as to their alleged - and false  - Christian faith.  Among those leading this charge is Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) who seems more delusional bu the day.  Politico looks at this latest wave of GOP batshitery.  Here are highlights:

A cascade of Republicans on Monday implored the Obama administration to scrap plans to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States next year, saying they pose an unacceptable security risk in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris.

And, in a dramatic twist, the sudden standoff is raising the possibility of a government shutdown next month.

Throughout the day a host of Republican governors around the country, wary that refugees could end up in their home states, blasted President Barack Obama’s plans. But those governors lack real sway over the process, and some are asking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to insert a provision in the Dec. 11 spending bill that would bar more Syrian settlers.

In an interview, John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said “it’s a good time to hit the pause button [on the Syrian resettlement program] and to reevaluate where we are and what the risks are.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the leading immigration hard-liners in the Capitol, sent a letter to colleagues calling for provisions in the omnibus spending bill that would give Congress more oversight over Syrian refugees.

And House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul of Texas wrote a letter to Obama asking him to “temporarily suspend the admission of all additional Syrian refugees into the United States pending a full review of the Syrian refugee resettlement program.” In an appearance on CNN, McCaul said Congress should declare war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS.

Ryan and McConnell will have to decide quickly on a course of action as they confront the first potential legislative crisis since Ryan became speaker. The government funding process offers powerful leverage over the Obama administration but would threaten a shutdown if Democrats balk at their demands.

Time is short. Just 25 days remain until government spending authority runs out, and Congress will recess next week for Thanksgiving.

Republicans’ chief concerns stem from reports that at least one of the suspects in Friday’s attacks may have crossed through Greece along with refugees. A Syrian passport discovered near the body of one of the attackers in Paris showed that the holder of the passport passed through Leros, Greece, in early October, according to Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday afternoon that the Syrian passport was fake, according to French officials.

The Arab Gulf States - Missing in Action in the Refugee Crisis

While Saudi Arabia, not Iran, is the number one financier of Islamic terrorism and foments unrest as it pushes its extremist version of Islam, it has been missing in action when it comes to aiding the refugees fleeing chaos it has had a hand in creating.  The same goes for other wealthy Gulf States.  In relative terms they have done nothing, leaving European nations and poor Muslim states to do the heavy lifting.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the abject failure of these nations, most of which are in theory allies to America even as in many ways they support our enemies.  Here are excerpts:

[F]ew in the media or diplomatic circles have asked the more important question: Where have the rich Arab countries been over the last few years, as the Syrian civil war has raged and millions of refugees have fled to neighboring countries? The only Arab countries to have accepted Syrian refugees are Jordan and Lebanon, two weak economies with very limited means. To be sure, rich Arab countries have sent some aid to refugees in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, but no major plan has even been offered that would appear to be aimed at making a serious difference.

Consider the financial means at the disposal of five energy-rich Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. Their combined GDP is about $2 trillion a year, and their combined population is under 55 million people. That translates into a per capita annual income in the poorest member of this group, Bahrain, of more than $21,000 and a per capita gross national income in the richest, Qatar, of $90,000.

Arab countries could have offered well-financed safe havens on the vast stretches of land they control, or they could have offered major financial incentives to other countries to host the refugees.

But, arguably, expectations ought to have been low to begin with. For a Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, or citizen of any other average Arab country, it is next to impossible to get even a temporary visa from some of these rich Arab countries, the same or worse for a work permit. Still, many people are prepared to criticize Western countries for not readily offering safe haven to Middle Eastern refugees.

While many NGOs and large numbers of Westerners have urged their governments to act to help or accept the refugees, public responses have been more muted among rich Arab states. There have been no reported demonstrations to pressure those governments to accept refugees or find other, fundamental solutions.

They have also appeared concerned about possible political instability if Arabs from other countries arrive and swamp their relatively small populations. While Indian or Pakistani guest workers will always remain foreigners because of their linguistic differences with Arabs, Arab migrants speak the same language and can communicate and influence local populations, especially in volatile societies like Saudi Arabia.

Even recognizing all these concerns, though, it remains puzzling why five countries with a combined national income of $2 trillion have not offered credible assistance to solve the current refugee crisis. After all, they have all more or less been involved—directly or indirectly—in the Syrian civil war by virtue of having either encouraged or armed various groups.

Western nations need to accelerate the use of alternate fuels so that in time - the sooner the better - these nations that are as hypocritical as American Christofascists can slide back into backwaters with little economic power over the rest of us. 

Syrian Refugees - The Moral Failure of the World

There is plenty of blame to go around in terms of who is responsible for the plight and needless deaths of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war and/or religious extremism in the form of ISIS.   That blame extends to world leaders - especially those of the Gulf nations - and to other religious leaders of other faiths.  Here in America, conservative Christians have spent - and continue to spend - millions of dollars to deprive LGBT Americans while pushing a form of religious extremism not far different than that of ISIS except for the level of violence and willingness to commit murder to further one's religious agenda (something Christians did with a vengeance in past eras).  As a column in the New York Times much of the moral bankruptcy in the west is a refusal to have empathy for those who have a different skin color, hold a different faith, and have different customs.  

In my own case, my grandmother's ancestors were French Arcadians who settled in New Orleans after being thrown out of Canada by the British. My father's parents left Austria-Hungry on the eve of World War I.  Other ancestors  fled Ireland during the hard years of the Potato Famine and its aftermath.  Other than Native Americans, every one of us traces our ancestry back to either immigrants or refugees.  How often we forget that but for a fluke of birth, we could be among the refugees now trying to find refuge in Europe and elsewhere.  This is a reality the lunatics of the GOP base and Tea Party ignore.

Here are highlights from the Times column:

WATCHING the horrific images of Syrian refugees struggling toward safety — or in the case of Aylan Kurdi, 3, drowning on that journey — I think of other refugees. Albert Einstein. Madeleine Albright. The Dalai Lama.

And my dad.

In the aftermath of World War II, my father swam the Danube River to flee Romania and become part of a tide of refugees that nobody much cared about. Fortunately, a family in Portland, Ore., sponsored his way to the United States, making this column possible.

If you don’t see yourself or your family members in those images of today’s refugees, you need an empathy transplant.

Aylan’s death reflected a systematic failure of world leadership, from Arab capitals to European ones, from Moscow to Washington. This failure occurred at three levels:

■ The Syrian civil war has dragged on for four years now, taking almost 200,000 lives, without serious efforts to stop the bombings. Creating a safe zone would at least allow Syrians to remain in the country.

■ As millions of Syrian refugees swamped surrounding countries, the world shrugged. United Nations aid requests for Syrian refugees are only 41 percent funded, and the World Food Program was recently forced to slash its food allocation for refugees in Lebanon to just $13.50 per person a month. Half of Syrian refugee children are unable to go to school. So of course loving parents strike out for Europe.

■ Driven by xenophobia and demagogy, some Europeans have done their best to stigmatize refugees and hamper their journeys.

António Guterres, the head of the U.N. refugee agency, said the crisis was in part “a failure of leadership worldwide.”

“This is not a massive invasion,” he said, noting that about 4,000 people are arriving daily in a continent with more than half a billion inhabitants. “This is manageable, if there is political commitment and will.”

We all know that the world failed refugees in the run-up to World War II. The U.S. refused to allow Jewish refugees to disembark from a ship, the St. Louis, that had reached Miami. The ship returned to Europe, and some passengers died in the Holocaust.

Aylan, who had relatives in Canada who wanted to give him a home, found no port. He died on our watch.

Bravo in particular to Icelanders, who on Facebook have been volunteering to pay for the flights of Syrian refugees and then put them up in their homes. Thousands of Icelanders have backed this effort, under the slogan “Just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”

Then there are the Persian Gulf countries. Amnesty International reports that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates haven’t accepted a single Syrian refugee (although they have allowed Syrians to stay without formal refugee status). Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s bombings of Yemen have only added to the global refugee crisis.

We Americans may be tempted to pat ourselves on the back. But the U.S. has accepted only about 1,500 Syrian refugees since the war began

There has been a vigorous public debate about whether the photo of Aylan’s drowned body should be shown by news organizations. But the real atrocity isn’t the photo but the death itself — and our ongoing moral failure to save the lives of children like Aylan.

Exodus of Syrian Refugees Highlights the West's Failure

While American Christofascists are applauding Kim Davis, fabricating a myth that Christians are facing persecution in America and, of course, making money begs to support their comfortable lifestyles, pictures of drowned Syrian refugee children have underscored not only the failure of western nations to address the brutality unfolding in Syria and the rest of the Middle East, but also the sick values of American Christians.  Sadly, the Mat Stavers, Maggie Gallaghers, Tony Perkins, and others of the parasitic professional Christian set  don't give a damn about drowned Syrian children.  If one isn't a white conservative Christian, one simply doesn't matter.  Indeed, for much of the Christofascist base of the GOP, nothing warms their hearts more than seeing Muslims killed, hence their rush to support war with Iran. Take a look at the image above.  Those pictured are just as human as you or me, but for too many, they and their lives do not matter.  For too many they just don't matter.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the political and moral failure of the West.  Here are highlights:

Arresting images of desperation on the West’s doorstep have brought Syria, for the moment, back to worldwide attention: refugees cramming into train stations and climbing border fences; drowned Syrian toddlers washing up on beaches, a girl in polka dots, a boy in tiny shoes.

It was never any secret that a rising tide of Syrian refugees would sooner or later burst the seams of the Middle East and head for Europe. Yet little was done in Western capitals to stop or mitigate the slow-motion disaster that was befalling Syrian civilians and sending them on the run.

“The migrant crisis in Europe is essentially self-inflicted,” said Lina Khatib, a research associate at the University of London and until recently the head of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “Had European countries sought serious solutions to political conflicts like the one in Syria, and dedicated enough time and resources to humanitarian assistance abroad, Europe would not be in this position today.”

The causes of the current crisis are plain enough. Neighboring countries like Lebanon and Jordan became overwhelmed with refugees and closed their borders to many, while international humanitarian funding fell further and further short of the need. Then, Syrian government losses and other battlefield shifts sent new waves of people fleeing the country.

Now those departing include more middle-class or wealthy people, more supporters of the government, and more residents of areas that were initially safe.  One of those, Rawad, 25, a pro-government university graduate, left for Germany with his younger brother Iyad, 13, who as a minor could help his whole family obtain asylum.

As the numbers of displaced Syrians mounted to 11 million today from a trickle in 2011, efforts to reach a political solution gained little traction. The United States and Russia bickered in the Security Council while Syrian government warplanes continued indiscriminate barrel bombing, the Islamic State took over new areas, other insurgent groups battled government forces and one another, and Syria’s economy collapsed.

For years, Yacoub El Hillo, the top United Nations humanitarian official in Syria, has been warning that with the Syrian crisis — the “worst of our time” — the international system of humanitarian aid has “come to the breaking point

“This is the price of political failure,” he said in Beirut in March, declaring that the breakdown of the aid system results from the strategic stalemate over Syria. “This is a direct affront to international peace and security.”

He said that it cost the United States $68,000 an hour to fly the warplanes used to battle the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, while the United Nations has received less than half of the money it needs to take care of the half of Syria’s prewar population that has been displaced.

Few refugees have been accepted by the regional and global players that have helped fuel the conflict — not by the United States, Russia, Iran or the Gulf Arab states, some of which, despite their wealth, have pledged just tens of millions toward the billions of dollars Syrians need.  

Syrians have so little hope for a solution in the near future that talk in the capital, Damascus, among supporters and opponents of the government alike, has turned to plans for getting overseas, especially to Europe. It is a route taken by everyone from the wealthy, whose money cannot always buy them visas, to the poor, who often sell everything to finance the trip.

But not all families are that lucky. Aylan Kurdi, 3, was found lying face down in the surf on a Turkish beach, one of at least 12 Syrians who drowned nearby.

The boy’s father, Abdullah Kurdi, said in an interview that the family had fled first from Damascus and later from their ancestral home, the Kurdish town of Kobani that has been attacked repeatedly by the Islamic State. They were trying to immigrate to Canada, but could not get permission to travel legally. His son Ghalib, 5, and his wife, Rehan, also drowned.

“If they can’t work together to save these children,” Adnan Hadad, an activist from the Syrian city of Aleppo, wrote on Twitter as the image of the boy went viral, “the world leaders better find another planet to rule.”