Caitlin Dickerson, The Atlantic, The Secret History of the U.S. Government’s Family-Separation Policy, Sunday, 7 August 2022: “During the year and a half in which the U.S. government separated thousands of children from their parents, the Trump administration’s explanations for what was happening were deeply confusing, and on many occasions—it was clear even then—patently untrue. I’m one of the many reporters who covered this story in real time. Despite the flurry of work that we produced to fill the void of information, we knew that the full truth about how our government had reached this point still eluded us. Trump-administration officials insisted for a whole year that family separations weren’t happening. Finally, in the spring of 2018, they announced the implementation of a separation policy with great fanfare—as if one had not already been under way for months. Then they declared that separating families was not the goal of the policy, but an unfortunate result of prosecuting parents who crossed the border illegally with their children. Yet a mountain of evidence shows that this is explicitly false: Separating children was not just a side effect, but the intent. Instead of working to reunify families after parents were prosecuted, officials worked to keep them apart for longer. Over the past year and a half, I have conducted more than 150 interviews and reviewed thousands of pages of internal government documents, some of which were turned over to me only after a multiyear lawsuit. These records show that as officials were developing the policy that would ultimately tear thousands of families apart, they minimized its implications so as to obscure what they were doing. Many of these officials now insist that there had been no way to foresee all that would go wrong. But this is not true. The policy’s worst outcomes were all anticipated, and repeated internal and external warnings were ignored. Indeed, the records show that almost no logistical planning took place before the policy was initiated. It’s been said of other Trump-era projects that the administration’s incompetence mitigated its malevolence; here, the opposite happened. A flagrant failure to prepare meant that courts, detention centers, and children’s shelters became dangerously overwhelmed; that parents and children were lost to each other, sometimes many states apart; that four years later, some families are still separated—and that even many of those who have been reunited have suffered irreparable harm. It is easy to pin culpability for family separations on the anti-immigration officials for which the Trump administration is known. But these separations were also endorsed and enabled by dozens of members of the government’s middle and upper management: Cabinet secretaries, commissioners, chiefs, and deputies who, for various reasons, didn’t voice concern even when they should have seen catastrophe looming; who trusted ‘the system’ to stop the worst from happening; who reasoned that it would not be strategic to speak up in an administration where being labeled a RINO or a ‘squish’—nicknames for those deemed insufficiently conservative—could end their career; who assumed that someone else, in some other department, must be on top of the problem; who were so many layers of abstraction away from the reality of screaming children being pulled out of their parent’s arms that they could hide from the human consequences of what they were doing.”
Archives for August 2022
Aftermath of the Trump Administration, August 2022
My daily chronicle of news about the Trump administration (20 January 2017 – 20 January 2021), Republicans, Democrats, corporations, courts, resistance, and persistence continues. I am still posting important articles, especially ones that reflect the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration and ones that address the toxic legacy of the Trump administration and Republicans. However, I hope to devote more of my time to posting muckraking articles on my site and to working with my local activist group in pursuit of progressive change and a stronger democracy. Thanks for reading!
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Monday, 1 August 2022:
War in Ukraine: First grain shipment leaves Ukraine as Zelensky urges security for future food exports, The Washington Post, Dalton Bennett, Jennifer Hassan, Kareem Fahim, Kendra Nichols, Adam Taylor, and Reis Thebault, Monday, 1 August 2022: “A ship carrying grain left the Ukrainian city of Odessa for the first time since Russia’s invasion and blockade of the country’s ports. The shipment is the result of a U.N.-backed deal meant to ease the global hunger crisis. World leaders heralded it as a badly needed glimmer of hope in the race to combat soaring prices, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said international monitors must guarantee the safety of future food-hauling freighters. ‘We cannot have the illusions that Russia will simply refrain from trying to disrupt Ukrainian exports,’ he said.
- The cargo vessel is carrying more than 28,000 tons of corn. It is expected to arrive in Turkish territorial waters Tuesday, en route to Lebanon. A Russian missile strike on Odessa one day after the U.N.-brokered grain-export deal was signed in late July had raised fears that the arrangement would crumble.
- The key Black Sea port of Mykolaiv was hit over the weekend by ‘one of the most brutal shellings’ since the war began, Zelensky said after dozens of Russian rockets destroyed homes, schools and infrastructure. Among those killed in the city was one of Ukraine’s richest business executives, who founded an agriculture company that helped facilitate the country’s grain exports.
- The success of grain exports going forward will depend on the United Nations and Turkey, which helped broker the deal with Russia, ensuring safe passage of ships from ports such as Odessa and Mykolaiv, Zelensky said late Monday.
- Ukraine on Monday confirmed the delivery of precision multiple-launch rocket systems from Germany, bolstering a growing arsenal that has been credited with destroying dozens of strategically important Russian targets. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht recently said that an initial delivery of German Gepard antiaircraft weapons has arrived in Ukraine and that Germany is sending more self-propelled howitzers than initially planned. Several German IRIS-T air defense systems are also slated for delivery in the autumn.
- The White House on Monday announced an additional $550 million in security assistance for Ukraine. The latest package will include ammunition for howitzer and high-mobility rocket systems, or HIMARS, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a news briefing. The United States has now provided about $8.8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine during the Biden administration. The European Union also announced that $1 billion in aid will be delivered to Ukraine by Tuesday.
- Brittney Griner is due back in a Russian court Tuesday, where she will make her first appearance since the United States publicly acknowledged it had proposed a prisoner exchange to free the WNBA star, along with security consultant Paul Whelan. Griner faces charges of cannabis possession, and U.S. officials say there has been no major progress on securing her release since they proposed the swap.
Russia-Ukraine War: With Its First Grain-Loaded Ship in Months En Route, Ukraine Readies More. A Ukrainian Official said 16 more ships were waiting to depart with grain, but experts warned that even if the deal with Russia that opened Ukraine’s ports holds, the global food crisis will persist. The New York Times, Monday, 1 August 2022:
- A ship loaded with Ukrainian grain leaves the Port of Odesa for the first time since the war began.
- ‘One miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’: The U.N. chief issues a grim warning, citing war.
- Russia has turned Europe’s largest nuclear power plant into a fortress.
- Ukraine wages a ‘deep war’ to degrade Russian forces as Moscow continues its scorched-earth campaign.
- Hunger is so widespread that Ukraine’s resumed grain exports will barely make a dent, experts say.
- Here’s what we know about the deadly blast at a prisoner camp in eastern Ukraine.
- A blast hit a warehouse belonging to a Bulgarian arms merchant previously targeted by Russia.
Russia-Ukraine War: A weekly recap and look ahead (August 1), NPR, NPR Staff, Monday, 1 August 2022: “As the week begins, here’s a roundup of key developments from the past week and a look ahead. What to watch this week: Monday: As a ship loaded with Ukrainian grain left Odesa for the first time since the war began, there are hopes that it will be the first of many resuming the country’s exports. Tuesday: The trial of WNBA star Brittney Griner continues in Moscow. Wednesday: ASEAN-led meetings get underway in Cambodia, where Ukraine will be on the agenda. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be among top diplomats gathering in Phnom Penh. Friday: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are expected to meet in Sochi, Russia. What happened last week: Monday, July 25: Russia’s Gazprom said it would reduce the amount of gas it sends through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% of capacity. On the same day, Russia announced it would quit taking part in the International Space Station after 2024. Tuesday, July 26: European Union energy ministers agreed on an emergency deal to ration natural gas to help EU countries get through the coming winter. Wednesday, July 27: On the same day that Brittney Griner’s trial continued in Moscow, the U.S. proposed a prisoner swap in which Moscow would free Griner and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine imprisoned in Russia, in exchange for the U.S. release of imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Thursday, July 28: Russian missile strikes targeted Ukraine’s Kyiv and Chernihiv regions on the same day that Ukrainian authorities announced an operation to liberate the occupied region of Kherson in the south. Friday, July 29: Ukraine and Russia blamed one another for shelling that killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war in eastern Ukraine. Also, Blinken spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since the war began, urging Russia to accept the proposal aimed at bringing home Griner and Whelan. Blinken also pressed Russia on allowing Ukrainian grain exports. Saturday, July 30: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a mandatory evacuation of people in the eastern Donetsk region. Also, Gazprom cut off gas shipments to Latvia. Russia demands payment in rubles and has already stopped gas shipments to other EU countries after their refusal to do so. Sunday, July 31: Marking Russia’s Navy Day, President Vladimir Putin approved a new naval doctrine highlighting the U.S. and NATO as the biggest threats to Russia.
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