WELCOME TO TRUMPISTAN

Chronicle of a Defeat Foretold

Jeffrey St. Clair

 November 6, 2024

+ What does history repeat itself as after it does farce?

+ Kamala Harris proved too cowardly even to address her supporters Tuesday night, as her loss to Trump became more and more inevitable. But what could she really say? She couldn’t honestly say she’d run a vigorous campaign that championed the poor, the downtrodden, and the voiceless or that she’d fought for peace, and human dignity, and to fix an unraveling climate. I’d be really interested to hear her say what she thought her campaign was all about, but even Harris probably couldn’t have pinpointed the purpose or the meaning of her doomed run…

+ From the outside, Harris’s entire campaign seemed to be about saving an economic system (neoliberalism) that she described falsely as “democracy,” which isn’t working for large segments of both the political left and right; at the same time she and Biden were flouting an international system of laws in order to arm and finance a genocide in Gaza. The hypocrisies were too transparent to sustain.

+ This was a fatal moment in the friendly confines of the Stephen Colbert Show around the time that her post-convention/debate bounce began to deflate and she never got any better…

Stephen Colbert: “Under a Harris administration, what would the major changes be and what would stay the same?”

Harris: “Sure. Well, I mean, I’m obviously not Joe Biden. So that would be one change. But also I think it’s important to say with 28 days to go, I’m not Donald Trump.”

+ Like Hubert Humphrey, Harris was saddled with an unpopular war (a war & a genocide in her case) that her own boss was waging. Humphrey tried to break from LBJ on Vietnam but too late. Harris never did.

+ Harris’s stubborn refusal to separate herself from Biden to any degree went so far as to turn her campaign over to his campaign staff, the same brilliant strategic minds that had him trailing Trump by 10 to 15 points in July…

+ Harris had very different policies when she ran against him in 2016, maybe she should’ve stuck with a few of them, instead of saying stuff like her beliefs haven’t changed but her position on fracking/national health care/the border/ have….

+ In what was obviously going to be a “change” election, when Harris had the chance to differentiate herself from Biden, she said there wasn’t a “thing she could think of” she’d do differently…

+ Harris’s flip-flop on fracking is emblematic of her entire campaign, a relatively minor issue that gave devastating insight into her vacuous political character. She could never explain it because the only explanation was pure political calculation (and a bad one). She was willing to invalidate her climate policy to court a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania. It was the equivalent of Hillary telling Goldman Sachs she had one policy in public and another in private. But even more inept. How could you make the campaign about honesty & trust, once you’d shown yourself to be dishonest and untrustworthy on an issue you’d described as being an existential threat to human life on earth?

+ Harris sold out the climate movement (and the climate) and still lost Pennsylvania…

+ Harris losing Pennsylvania almost ensures that the Democrats will turn to Josh Shapiro as their champion in 2028 and won’t reverse course on their blind support of Israel.

+ Maybe in Harris’s case she’d’ve had a better shot at winning Wisconsin if she skipped it like Hillary. It could be the more they saw of her, the less there was to see…

+ Exit Poll in Wisconsin: Trump doubled his support among Black voters. He now has about 20% of the Black vote, compared to 78% for Harris. Four years ago, Trump won only about 8% of Black voters in the Badger State.

+ John Kerry lost in part because his “Ready to Serve” campaign emphasized his military career as the war in Iraq unraveled. Harris played up her role as a hard-ass prosecutor at a time of record police shootings–no wonder her support with Black and Hispanic men collapsed.

+ As I wrote in my column two weeks ago, Harris’ strategy to use Liz Cheney as a surrogate to win the mythical Haley voters when Haley herself was out campaigning for Trump was doomed to fail. And fail it did, spectacularly. Recall that when Cheney left office, he was one of the most universally reviled figures in American history, with an approval rating of 13%.

+ The Harris campaign’s messaging was so bad that they lost to Trump on the issue she hit the hardest, his MAGA movement being a threat to democratic values…

+ The Cheney gambit didn’t help her with independents. In Pennsylvania, independents went 50-44 for Donald Trump.

+ If any good comes out of this disaster, it would be driving the final nails in the coffins of the Clintons, Bidens, Bushes, Obamas, and Cheneys… It won’t. They’ll all be back in one manifestation or another. The one thing we can count on is that no lessons will be learned from this debacle. The Democrats lost to Trump the same way they did in 2016, only worse.

+ Ryan Grim: “The Cheneys have now stolen two elections from Democrats, but you can’t really blame them for the second.”

+ Sending NAFTA Bill Clinton to scold Arab-American voters in Michigan (of all places!) and Obama to harangue black men in Pennsylvania during the last week of the campaign seems to have gone over well…

+ The Harris campaign refused to allow one anti-genocide speaker at their convention, even one willing to give a tame, non-confrontational, pre-approved speech.

+ Harris lost south Dearborn, Michigan, a 90% Muslim area that Biden won with 88% of the vote four years ago…

Trump: 46.8%
Harris: 27.68%
Stein: 22.11%

+ Dr. Gassan Abu Sitta: “Gone is a genocidal president too hypocritical to admit it. And in comes a genocidal president who wears it as a badge of honor.”

+Harris made little effort to court the youth vote and, at times, seemed to actively disdain it. They repaid her in kind. CBS News Exit Poll in Michigan: “Younger voters (age 18-29) are narrowly going for Trump right now…This deficit for Harris is largely due to younger men in Michigan who are more for Trump.”

+ Around 67% of voters rated the economy as “not so good/poor.” Dissatisfaction with the post-pandemic economy has been evident for at least two years. But Biden and Harris did nothing to address the core issue of the election except tell people that the economic pain they were feeling was psychosomatic.

+ According to the AP’s Votecast, Union members voted for Harris 57-39. Maybe the Harris campaign should have featured more Shawn Fain and less Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban.

+ Households $100,000 and under…

2020: Biden 70%, Trump 29%
2024: Harris 48%, Trump 49%

+ Both Harris and Biden turned their backs on the most successful and popular economic policies of the early Biden era in an attempt to convince the public the pandemic was over–even though COVID continued to sicken, kill and impoverish folks–all while Biden kept writing blank checks to Israel and Ukraine

+ Remember when the Democrats promised $2000 stimulus checks and then only delivered $1400? People living on the economic margins, as most of us were during the pandemic, have long memories….

+ Voters in the red state of Missouri voted to raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 by 2026 and guarantee paid sick days to workers. Nebraska voters also passed Initiative 436, giving workers the right to earn paid sick leave. Harris waited until the campaign’s last two weeks to call for a hike in the federal minimum wage.

+ Aside from Gaza and the economy, the Harris team seemed to totally misread the electorate, perhaps believing they could win on the gender gap (21 points) alone. They couldn’t. 71% of voters were White (up from 67% in 2020), 11% were Black (down from 13%), and 12% were Hispanic (slightly down from 13%. This “white surge” and “black/brown ebb” is at least in part because Harris didn’t give Blacks and Hispanics much of an affirmative reason to turn out to vote and many reasons to stay home.

+ Harris is no Claudia Scheinbaum…

Latino men, 2020: Biden 59%, Trump 36%
Latino men, 2024: Harris 45%, Trump 53%

+ Hidalgo County, Texas, is 92% Latino. Hilary Clinton won with 68.5%. Biden won with 58% of the vote. Harris and Trump are 50/50.

+ In 2016, HRC won Cameron County, Texas, which is 80% Hispanic, by 16%. Last night, with more than 95% of the vote counted, Trump was leading Harris 52% to 47%.

+ Ted Cruz won Latino voters by 6 points, according to NBC News exit polls. In his last race in 2018, Cruz lost Latinos by 29 points—a 35-point swing.

+ Some quarters expected Harris to have a shot at winning North Carolina. She didn’t. In fact, Trump won Anson County, North Carolina, which is 40% Black. This makes Trump only the second Republican to win this county since Reconstruction.

+ But it’s not just Hispanics and Black men. In NYC, with more than 95% of the vote in, Kamala Harris was polling at 67.8%. If that stands, it will be the worst performance for a Democratic Presidential candidate in the city since Dukakis in 1988…

+ Harris seems likely to lose the popular vote as well, which would relieve the Democrats of having to pretend to take action regarding the Electoral College.

+ The Democratic Senate candidates are running ahead of Harris by 1 to 3 percentage points, but they’ve already lost seats in WV and Ohio and are likely to lose Montana, as well, to a Republican who lied about being shot in Afghanistan.

+ Doug Henwood: “Tim Walz. Remember when he was a thing?”

+ Walz was a thing who was never let loose to do his thing…

+ Biden picking Merrick Garland as AG was the most self-defeating cabinet pick since Obama picked Tim Geithner to run Treasury and bail out the same bankers who’d screwed over the people who elected him.

+ In the end, Harris didn’t outperform Biden in a single county in the country.

+ Maybe they should’ve had a primary…?

Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3. 

 

Malnutrition and Mortality in Gaza, One Year Later. Who’s Counting the Dead?

by E. Mark Windle / November 5th, 2024

It’s a tragic sign of the times when little introductory narrative is needed to set the near-apocalyptic scene that exists in Gaza today. The world watches from a distance as Israel’s onslaught continues and the civilian death toll escalates to unimaginable levels. Now, the nightmare that Palestinian survivors are currently enduring is about to take on another dimension.

The prediction made one year ago of a man-made famine is about to be realised, though in truth, Gazans have suffered food insecurity for decades. Despite a heavy dependency on international agencies for humanitarian assistance, access to food and safe water supplies has repeatedly been denied due to blockades imposed by Israel.¹As is the trend in such crises, women and children are particularly affected by malnutrition. Anaemia and other manifestations of nutrient deficiency have led to adverse effects on maternal, foetal and child health. Miscarriage and birth defect rates are high. Suboptimal nutritional status also impairs immune function and the ability of mother and child to recover from disease.²,³

This dire baseline has only amplified the number of civilian losses caused by violence. The proportion of deaths in Gaza attributed to trauma-related injury versus that from malnutrition is hard to define; in many cases, it’s part of the same story. Malnutrition significantly affects the ability to recover from internal injuries, limb loss, and surgery, thereby increasing the risk of infection, sepsis and death.

Obtaining accurate quantitative information on injury, disease and deaths is essential. It draws global attention and allows humanitarian organisations to focus their resources. The tricky bit of course is that over- or under-inflation of rates can occur for political gain. Regardless, even Israeli officials admit that the Palestinian Ministry of Health are the only governmental body actively collating decent morbidity and mortality data.⁴ There are pro-Israel lobbyists who are still quick to dismiss those figures, citing that a third of the 38,000 deaths declared earlier this summer were unverifiable. However, the reality of real-time assessment in this war zone is that many of the dead are still buried under rubble. Formal ID is impossible: collected statistics unavoidably include household losses reported by family members. Any remaining deniers of data coming out of Gaza should consider satellite image analysis performed by the City University of New York and Oregon State University. Almost 98,000 buildings had been destroyed as of 29 November 2023, most of which were in the Gaza Strip area and in densely populated residential areas.⁵ The World Health Organisation and United Nations have also found mortality rates quoted by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to be reliable during earlier critical periods in Gaza’s history.

Malnutrition prevalence from (neutral) aid agency field and clinic data also paints a progressively disturbing picture. In March, nutrition monitoring by UNICEF and others highlighted that around 1 in 20 children attending health centres and in shelters were at a life-threatening stage of severe wasting. In addition, over 30 percent of children under 2 years of age were classified as acutely malnourished; double that of three months earlier.⁶ By June, major nutritional concerns were no longer primarily restricted to the north. Almost 3,000 children in southern Gaza were in need of intervention to manage the effects of moderate to severe malnutrition yet were prevented from attending clinics due to ongoing conflict.⁷ Spring and late summer saw some alleviation of food insecurity, as more convoys were able to cross the border and distribute supplies. Then September marked the month with the lowest cross-border transfer and distribution of food and bottled water.

The UN continues to monitor the situation closely. Is Gaza now ‘officially’ in famine? To meet the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) definition, at least 20 percent of the population should have significant lack of access to food; acute malnutrition prevalence should be at least 30 percent; and mortality should be at or above 2 deaths per 10,000 people daily. At the time of writing, forty-three thousand are dead. The majority of the surviving population are now displaced, and one in five are facing “catastrophic levels of denied access to nutrition” (another IPC classification). Three-quarters of all crop fields have been destroyed. Access to food and safe water supplies, medical care and the availability of proper sanitation continues to be impossible in most situations. As the UN have stressed, Gaza sits on the very brink of famine.⁸ Without an immediate ceasefire, this will be a forgone conclusion.

ENDNOTES:

• 1
  United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2022) Situation Report. The Gaza Strip. The humanitarian impact of 15 years of Blockade—June 2022. UNICEF. Accessed 2 November 2024.
• 2
  Horino, M. et al. (2024) Food insecurity, dietary inadequacy, and malnutrition in the Gaza Strip: a cross-sectional nutritional assessment of refugee children entering the first grade of UNRWA schools and their households before the conflict of 2023–24. The Lancet. Accessed 2 November 2024.
• 3
  Global Nutrition Cluster (2024) Nutrition Vulnerability and Situation Analysis; Gaza. Accessed 2 November 2024.
• 4
  Prothero, M. (2024) Israeli Intelligence Has Deemed Hamas-Run Health Ministry’s Death Toll Figures Generally Accurate. Accessed 2 November 2024.
• 5
  Bailey, D. et al. (2023) “Nearly 100,000 Gaza buildings may be damaged, satellite images show.” Accessed 2 November 2024.
• 6
  Ammar, A. & Cooper, K. (2024) “Acute malnutrition has doubled in one month in the north of Gaza strip.” UNICEF. Accessed 2 November 2024.
• 7
  Ammar, A. & Ingram, T. (2024) “Almost 3,000 malnourished children at risk of “dying before their families’ eyes” as Rafah offensive disconnects them from treatment.” Accessed 2 November 2024.
• 8
  United Nations (2024) “Over 1.8 million in Gaza face extreme hunger.” Accessed 2 November 2024.Email

E. Mark Windle is a freelance writer, with a former 25-year career as a clinical dietitian specialising in burn injury and critical care nutrition. He has also worked as a senior writer for Story Terrace (London, UK), and as a ghostwriter for Sheridan Hill / Real Life Stories LLC (North Carolina, USA). Read other articles by E. Mark, or visit E. Mark's website.

 

How Joe Biden Could Save Lives And Change American Politics on His Way Out the Door

by Thomas Knapp Posted onNovember 06, 2024

Wait, what? We’re talking about Joe Biden? Why? He’s a “lame duck.”  No matter who wins the US presidential election on November 5, he’s going home to Delaware on January 20.  His chances of asking  for, and getting, much from Congress during that two-and-a-half month interregnum are negligible.

But as head of the US government’s executive branch, what he can do is follow the laws, no matter how loudly Congress howls, absent Supreme Court intervention in support of criminal behavior.

He won’t do it now for fear of harming Kamala Harris’s chances versus Donald Trump, but once the votes are in he’s free to follow his conscience … if he still has one after decades in politics, where a conscience is a liability.

The laws I’m speaking of are Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2378d), which applies to the Secretary of State, and its Department of Defense  analog,  10 U.S.C. 362, informally known as the “Leahy Laws.”

Those laws, according to the US State Department Fact Sheet on them,  prohibit “the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.”

Evidence that Israeli units have committed, and continue to commit, gross violations of human rights in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon isn’t just credible, it’s overwhelming.

Israeli forces have killed at least tens of thousands, and more likely in the 200,000 range, in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and Lebanon, since last October. Most of the dead are non-combatants, many of them children.

Israeli forces have been caught red-handed in numerous atrocities, from bombing hospitals and refugee camps to anally raping male prisoners with metal rods. Israeli politicians openly defend and encourage even that last one.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that Israeli forces are committing gross violations of human rights … and it is therefore illegal for the US government to provide one thin dime of military aid or assistance to those forces. Period.

Why hasn’t Biden already ordered the Secretaries of State and Defense to stop writing checks and shipping weapons to Israel?

Because Israel has a powerful political lobby in the US. Anything less than complete and unquestioning obedience to Benjamin Netanyahu’s every demand is a “third rail”… for politicians who face re-election.

Biden doesn’t face re-election.

And these days, the Israel lobby’s support goes mostly to Republicans. Its main intervention on behalf of Democrats is meddling in primaries to ensure “pro-Israel” Democrats get nominated in “safe” Democratic seats.

At some point, there’s going to have to be one of those “national conversations” over whether it’s really in the interests of the United States to unstintingly support a violent, atrocity-prone, ethno-supremacist regime.

That conversation is unlikely to go Israel’s way. But it has to be started by a figure of national stature who needn’t worry about re-election.

If Biden does possess a conscience, or even just desires a big “legacy” accomplishment, he’ll cut the Israeli regime off come November 6.

Author: Thomas Knapp

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, publisher of Rational Review News Digest, and moderator of Antiwar.com’s commenting/discussion community. View all posts by Thomas Knapp

 

Disabilities and Bullying and the Harris-Trump Road Show

by Paul Haeder / November 5th, 2024

Remember this?

Oh, yeah, that Messiah, Mister Rapist, Grifter, Dirtier than Dirt Kushner-Guided, Roy Cohen-Trained TRUMP: “My Uncle Donald Trump Told Me Disabled Americans Like My Son ‘Should Just Die’”

Read the Time Magazine article written  by his nephew.

Here, reality check for democrats and republicans:

Some legit writing here from me to be published in “legit” media around my area:

When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful

“I’d like to have enough resources, money, to take a trip somewhere. I don’t want to be homeless if housing finds out I have extra money in my bank account.”

Seems like a wish for anyone supposedly in the land of the free – not to be homeless. Variations on this goal were broached at the Oct. 23-24 self-advocacy meeting at the Best Western at Agate Beach.

More than forty people attended the planning and visioning session to carve out some future collective goal to make change a community of people living in the developmental disability and neurodiverse world. One of the main organizers of this self-advocacy event is Julie Chick, Sammy’s Place Director, a nonprofit out of Nehalem.

I attended the event wearing several hats – an educator, an activist, journalist and assisting working with clients in the neurodiverse “world” with Essential Services. Right out of the blocks I asked Chick to synthesize what she got out of the two-day meeting.

What did you find valuable in the event?

“The person-to-person connections and relationships again can be taken for granted by those that easily access their community, and can be difficult if you have no wheels or knowledge of public transportation. Relationships of all types are the bedrock of humanity, yet some of the people in our DD system had not had much opportunity to get out and make friends. These folks have been meeting though this self-advocacy work, Arc of Lincoln’s Day Services Activities, and Beach Buddies, and their circle is growing with some coming in from other counties.”

The critical mass around self-advocacy is fighting for basic rights, like lifting up the maximum allowable savings and checking account balance above the draconian $2000 law.

With such a limit on money given to or earned by people living in subsidized housing, and those receiving disability payments from the government, and other services, like personal assistants, the fear losing those hard-fought safety nets is palatable.

Connecting with others along the coast, in the seven counties situated along the Pacific, the participants were passionate and determined to come away with tools to advocate for themselves not only politically, but through better transportation services, more opportunities to make money on the side with arts and crafts creations, and better ways to make personal connections, even romantic ones.

“I want to meet people who respect me for who I am and so I can follow my dreams,” stated advocate Frank Perdue. “I don’t understand why ‘normal’ people don’t want to go out on dates with people like us. We need better opportunities to meet people who think like us.”

For anyone interested in the complexities of life as a man or woman living in the neurodiverse world, a recent Hulu documentary might be their entry point. “Patrice” follows New Jersey school crossing guard Patrice Jetter. The kids love her, and she loves them.

She is also an amazing artist, entertainer and performer. She is romantically involved with Garry, who lives with cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. The story is about a commitment ceremony – between Patrice and Garry – since they were told their marriage quest would jeopardize their individual monthly social security stipends and their subsidized housing.

The documentary utilizes vérité footage of Patrice and Garry’s daily life, both together and apart. Their lives are at a rather challenging level just accomplishing daily routines like preparing a meal. Patrice walks with a cane and leg braces, whereas Garry uses a wheelchair and needs help into bed.

They both have their separate apartments, 20 minutes apart via bus. Also part of the movie is the handicapped-equipped van Patrice owns which breaks down for good in the documentary. Much of Patrice’s story focuses on raising funds (and awareness) around a vehicle they need – for Patrice to get to work as a school crossing guard and for Garry to live a more mobile life with his significant other. Collecting aluminum cans just won’t cut the $55,000 price tag, and alas, a Go Fund Me drive gets Patrice to that goal and the new vehicle.

Many of my current and past clients will relate well with this documentary, from the Special Olympics participation, to the end-of-the-month dilemma of $28 left for food or incidentals. The shared values and the care each of the main protagonists display should melt any cold heart, but the reality is that both democrats and republicans have stalled on a marriage equity bill allowing a legal union AND continuation of both spouses’ Social Security/Medicaid support.

Garry and Patrice had terrible upbringings and experiences  during their formative years, and Patrice’s reads read like a horror story of abuse, bullying, assaults and rape. The oppression from the government agencies is just another knife in the heart. We learn that Patrice’s mother was from a family of abusers, and that Patrice’s stepfather abused her mother.

Patrice is on her own as her siblings are dead, as well as her mother. But by the end of the movie, with the Go Fund Me videos, it is clear that she has a plethora of friends and tribal family.

Compelling is Patrice’s real life friend, Elizabeth Dicker, who happens to be the Accessibility Specialist at Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services. Elizabeth summarizes how Garry and Patrice’s situation is not just cruel, but also illogical:

“If two people are having Medicaid benefits, and then those two people get married and then they just don’t lose their benefits, how is the government making or losing any money?”

Situating the real policy issues now, after billions ($15.5 billion) were spent on the 2024 elections, we learn from advocates like Julie Chick and Frank Perdue that the limitations on Supplemental Security Income are badly out of date.

Organizations like Oregon Self Advocacy Coalition (OSAC) work hard to engage communities in advocating for the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

I spoke at length with Gabrielle Guedon, director of OSAC. She was really interested in the power of the press to bring OSAC members’ struggles to the general public. She is also inviting people to read the GO! Bulletin on how to get involved in advocacy about policies.

She lives by this credo by Malala Youseif: —

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” 

And, on the OSAC webpage we see she’s just like anyone you might know:

“I build miniature doll houses and make pillow cases. I love camping. I’m a carb-o-holic! I like rock-n-roll and I would love to visit Australia.”

Fred C. Trump III is the author of

All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way.

In January 2020, just before COVID hit, Lisa, myself, and a team of advocates met with Chris Neeley, who headed the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, a much-needed federal advisory committee that promotes policies and initiatives that support independent and lifelong inclusion. We discussed the need for all medical schools to include courses that focus on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We emphasized how crucial it was for hospitals and other acute-care facilities to help patients transition from pediatric to adult services. We emphasized the importance of collecting sufficient data to explain medically complex disorders. This was not about more government spending. It was about smarter investing and greater efficiency.

We spent the next few months making calls and talking with officials and gathering our own recommendations, giving special attention to the critical need for housing support for people with disabilities. We were back in Washington in May.

By this time, COVID was raging. We were all masked up and COVID tested on the way into the White House Cabinet Room. Once we got inside, we sat down with Alex Azar, the administration’s secretary of health and human services, and Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health, both of whom served on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. The promising agency motto stated: HHS: Enhancing the Health and Well-Being of All Americans.

Sharp, direct, and to the point, Azar exhibited my kind of efficiency with no time to waste. His first question was, “OK, why are you here?”

I made a brief introduction. Our group included a leading doctor and several highly qualified advocates. What followed was a great discussion. Something clicked with Giroir—an idea for a program everyone could agree on that would cut through the bureaucracy and control costs and also yield better and more efficient medical outcomes.

Excellent. We were making progress.

“Really appreciate your coming in,” Azar finally said, more warmly than he had sounded at the start. “I know we’re going to see the President.”

The meeting I had assumed would be a quick handshake hello with Donald had turned into a 45-minute discussion in the Oval Office with all of us—Azar, Giroir, the advocates, and me. I never expected to be there so long. Donald seemed engaged, especially when several people in our group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members, who were constantly in and out of the hospital and living with complex arrays of challenges.

Donald was still Donald, of course. He bounced from subject to subject—disability to the stock market and back to disability. But promisingly, Donald seemed genuinely curious regarding the depth of medical needs across the U.S. and the individual challenges these families faced. He told the secretary and the assistant secretary to stay in touch with our group and to be supportive.

After I left the office, I was standing with the others near the side entrance to the West Wing when Donald’s assistant caught up with me. “Your uncle would like to see you,” she said.

Azar was still in the Oval Office when I walked back in. “Hey, pal,” Donald said. “How’s everything going?”

“Good,” I said. “I appreciate your meeting with us.”

“Sure, happy to do it.”

He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.

“Those people … ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

I truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives. For Donald, I think it really was about the expenses, even though we were there to talk about efficiencies, smarter investments, and human dignity.

I turned and walked away.

And, yes, this is an equal deformity essay, so, drum roll, Harris did what?

And, yes, bullying at school is a effing big thing, leading to depression, and, yep, suicide. But another clown just didn’t/doesn’t get it.

The Human Costs Of Kamala Harris’ War On Truancy

[Cheree Peoples outside of the apartment where she lives when her 17-year-old daughter, Shayla Rucker, is at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Peoples was arrested six years ago for Shayla’s repeated truancy despite ample evidence given to the Orange County school showing Shayla suffers from sickle cell anemia, which leaves her in constant pain and requires frequent hospitalization.]

On the morning of April 18, 2013, in the Los Angeles suburb of Buena Park, a throng of photographers positioned themselves on a street curb and watched as two police officers entered a squat townhouse. Minutes later, their cameras began clicking. The officers had re-emerged with a weary-looking woman in pajamas and handcuffs, and the photographers were jostling to capture her every step.

“You would swear I had killed somebody,” the woman, Cheree Peoples, said in a recent interview.

In fact, Peoples had been arrested for her daughter’s spotty school attendance record under a truancy law that then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris had personally championed in the state legislature. The law, enacted in January 2011, made it a criminal misdemeanor for parents to allow kids in kindergarten through eighth grade to miss more than 10 percent of school days without a valid excuse. Peoples’ 11-year-old daughter, Shayla, had missed 20 days so far that school year.

[Cheree Peoples outside of the apartment where she lives when her 17-year-old daughter, Shayla, is at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Peoples was arrested six years ago for Shayla’s repeated truancy despite ample evidence given to the Orange County school showing Shayla suffers from sickle cell anemia, which leaves her in constant pain and requires frequent hospitalization. (Credit: Tara Pixley for HuffPost) ABOVE: Buena Park police officers Luis Garcia (left) and James Woo escort Peoples, 33, to their patrol car on April 18, 2013. She was handcuffed and under arrest.]

Yet the penalties she once championed for truancy and the way she originally thought about the issue are foundational to how California handles truancy today. Peoples’ arrest wasn’t a freak occurrence ― it was the inevitable outcome of Harris’ campaign to fuse the problem of truancy with the apparatus of law enforcement. And Peoples is far from an outlier. There are still hundreds of families across California entering the criminal justice system under the aegis of Harris’ law.

“I think it was a good thing that she shined a light on [truancy],” Jeff Adachi, who served as San Francisco’s chief public defender from January 2003 until his death on Feb. 22, told HuffPost in February. “There is a correlation between children who fail at school and what happens later in life. [But] the idea of locking parents up, or citing them with a crime because they’re not taking their children to school — it doesn’t address the root of the problem.”

“What it ended up being, practically, is families and kids having to come to court to be told to utilize certain services in order to come to school. Which, from where I sit, is very much the job of the school district and not the job of the criminal court.” – a public defender

And then this criminal, Trump?

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Paul Haeder's been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.