Month: June 2018

News there is that’s quite compelling:
Newsmen murdered, bebe’s crying,
House Republicans attacking
Rosenstein who’s not retreating,

Justice Kennedy resigning

Kennedy was right of center
Conservative in most opinions
But key liberal votes he entered
Hated by Trump’s loyal minions

Strategically he chose his timing

While the Reps. were still in office
Knowing choices will be made
By Donald Trump: a SCOTUS Justice
Who will vote down Roe v. Wade

A Trumpish court he’ll be defining

A right-wing SCOTUS years to come
Perhaps, for several generations
Resolved defeat I’ve seen among
Some Democrats in trepidation

My poem next: on this opining

6/28/18

The market’s waking up to tariff wars brought on by Trump
The country still is traumatized by babies put in jail
Trump’s zero-toleration program’s heading for the dump
And Manafort is still in prison, can’t get out on bail

But recently Pres. Trump opined due-process had to go
To Hell with immigration treaties and our Constitution
When foreigners come to our borders we should treat them so:
No hearings, we just send them back; that is the best solution

It is well known there’s no regard Trump has for U.S. laws
Including our great Constitution, swore, he, to uphold
Disdainful of Democracy, to him it’s full of flaws
Especially the Bill Of Rights, its freedoms are too bold

Trump wants his word to be what’s law, true dictatorial powers
With no one left to contradict, not Congress nor the Press
Like kings of old, like Kim Jung-un all raining praise in showers
Trump wants no brown-skin immigrants diluting our whiteness

It’s my opinion that’s the root of Trump’s supporting base
Minority majority is what they mostly fear
Trump stokes their xenophobia to hate the Latin race
This problem runs much deeper, though, solution will take years

6/25/18

Trump’s immigration policies are not just bad, they’re idiotic
Along with being inhumane they’ve caused conditions quite chaotic
But this is Trump who rips asunder what he touches, so psychotic
Even foreign adversaries Trump applauds men most despotic

He won’t admit it but it’s true that immigrants are sorely needed
They, to supplement our birth rate; populations have receded
From our workforce citizens, thus companies in need have pleaded
They need immigrants to harvest, else their fields need not be seeded

I have worked with Mexicans who labor through the harvest season
Worked the ice deck for the railroad; “wet-back” workers there in legion
Simpatico y amistoso, calling them bad is malfeasance
Trump’s a liar! Can’t be trusted. He’s beyond all rhyme or reason

His administration’s scandals do surpass imagination
His Cabinet just follows suit in governmental degradation
Republicans in Congress don’t fulfill their solemn obligations
It’s really up to us this Fall to capture back this failing nation

6/24/18

• A Balagan

A balagan is what it is, Trump’s jailing of the kids
A Yiddish word for mixed-up mess or situations worse
A task force has been formed to figure
How to bring them back together
It’s uncertain when or whether,
Since the problem’s grown much bigger
Some three thousand children scattered; all with records poor,
To reunite not with their parents but with distant kin

In Trump’s concocted zero scheme to steal their kids away
Away from parents seeking freedom, fleeing for their lives
There were no plans to reunite
The children with their families
That way it’d be a great deterrent
Seen as something so abhorrent
‘Twould reduce the infestation of these insects from their hives
And now their kids are scattered o’er the country here to stay

This tragedy is real, ongoing, fugitives and orphaned kids
Trump has succeeded in one goal: the situation is abhorrent
Doubts I have if they’ll remember
This deliberate travesty
When voting time comes in November
Trump devoid of empathy
Or will they open eyes and ears to witness news inerrant
Trump’s loyal base, what will it take to learn just what Trump did?

6/23/18

Pres. Donald Trump, the hero of the day
With stroke of pen, his EO changed the way
The wet-back families were treated at the shore
Their kids not jailed away, the way they were before

To separate each child away from family
Though he blamed Democrats, it was Trump’s policy
Because the hue and cry by you, the public voice
Against what’s inhumane; Pres. Trump had little choice

Trump’s “zero tolerance” which says arrest them all
Who pass illegally beyond the border wall
Has caused this massive growth of guilty families
No place to house them all in good facilities

So kids, once jailed alone in prisons just for them
Will now be jailed together with parents just the same
But this now is uncertain; the Flores bill holds sway
Requiring humane treatment and limiting the stay

Meanwhile, two thousand kids now orphaned as they are
No plan to reunite them with parents near or far
The crowning jewel of Trump, of his Trumpocracy
Is infants crying “MOM” and “DAD” so helplessly

6/20/18

On 6/15 I posted Asylum Seekers. I had intended to include several URLs to assist people who want to take action. I am repeating that poem here (with minor corrections) in that I don’t believe that I could much improve on it. Over the weekend the situation has grown worse. It’s now about 2000 kids incarcerated. Asylum seekers are being blocked deliberately at Customs ports of entry forcing them to enter illegally so as to be arrested. In many cases parents have been deported back to their country of origin without their children. Also, there are no protocols in place to be able to track the parents and their children so that they could be reunited. President Trump is still falsely blaming the Democrats. The more the misery the more likely, he feels, the Democrats will cave and vote to pay for his wall and much more restrictive immigration measures. The applicable law was passed by the Bush administration. Neither Bush nor Obama implemented the law using a zero-tolerance policy. This is strictly Trump’s doing and he knows it. The URLs that I have in mind are for: calling your Senator, June 30th Events, and Families Belong Together. These latter two are for participating in demonstrations. The last one includes participation even if you can’t physically participate in a demonstration.

Asylum Seekers

It’s happening here at our Mexican border
Seeking asylum from horrible fates
They’ve traversed great distances simply in order
To live with their loved ones in these golden states

Then after cruel hardships, when at entry ports
They get turned away; no more room they say
So they enter illegally not at a port
Only to have their kids taken away

An evil new policy Trump has imposed
It’s called “zero tolerance” aimed at deterrence
“Asylum seekers, our borders are closed.
No longer the haven of refugee preference”

Some two thousand children removed from their parents
With records inaccurate: whose child is whose?
Some living in tents, desert heat that’s abhorrent
While Trump blames the Dems falsely for this abuse

It’s Trumpian policy easily reversed
It’s not but a bargain chip: Trump wants the wall
He’s ready to ruin lives; his wants come first
It’s time, to your Congressman please make that call

6/15/18

It’s happening here at our Mexican border
Seeking asylum from horrible fates
They’ve traversed great distances simply in order
To live with their loved ones in these golden states

Then after cruel hardships, when at entry ports
They get turned away; no more room they say
So they enter illegally not at a port
Only t o have their kids taken away

An evil new policy Trump has imposed
It’s called “zero tolerance” aimed at deterrence
“Asylum seekers, our borders are closed.
No longer the haven of refugee preference”

Some two thousand children removed from their parents
With records inaccurate: whose child is whose?
Some living in tents, desert heat that’s abhorrent
While Trump blames the Dems falsely for this abuse

It’s Trumpian policy easily reversed
It’s not but a bargain chip: Trump wants the wall
He’s ready to ruin lives; his wants come firsts
It’s time, to your Congressman please make that call

6/15/18

The Justice Department’s long I.G. report
On F.B.I’s probe into Clinton’s Emails
Was published today prompting many retorts
That were citing results which it never revealed

Several conclusions I’ll mention in summary:
The investigation of Emails from Hillary –
Good methodology, done apolitical
But Comey was dinged for his public recitals

Ignoring the F.B.I.’s time honored policies.
Also, Pete Strzok, a main F.B.I. agent
Was called out for Emailing personal content
Using the F.B.I.’s Email equipment

Although he expressed clearly anti-Trump sentiments
They found no such bias in judgements he’d made
When Mueller found out about Pete’s Email’s content
He had Pete removed for appearances sake

The Trumpian entourage of sycophant heads
Are already citing the I.G. Report
To state it’s the F.B.I.’s bias they dread
And Bob Mueller’s probing will have to abort

The I.G. Report was professionally done
No bias in treatment, no mincing of words
But Trump cited passages where there were none
Concocting conclusions quite clearly absurd

6/14/18

Two practiced liars alone in a room
Except for translators whom, we can presume,
Will maintain their silence as rightly they should
The two making promises neither’ll make good

And so went the summit: Jong-un and Pres. Trump
They signed an accord worthy of the trash dump
Trump praised Kim effusively: honest, great guy
Ignoring the thousands Kim’s sentenced to die

Then Trump, as an afterthought, pledged to dismiss
The joint exercises: S.K. and U.S.
What N.K. and Russia and China for years
Tried hard to derail since it stoked all their fears

Trump’s words caused dismay here at home and S.K.
Who were never forewarned, never asked for their say
And what did great-deal-maker get in return?
He got simply bupkess; that’s what we have learned

What’s more Jong-un claims that Pres. Trump also pledged
To scuttle the sanctions held over his head
Inviting Kim back to the White House as well
For whatever purpose I can’t really tell

So, Kim got much more than he’d been hoping for
While giving up nothing to even the score
While Trump got diversion from his many woes
And peace-maker bragging rights, ‘though ‘twasn’t so

6/12/18

Tomorrow Trump meets with the erstwhile Jong-un
His gut is his yardstick; it’s what he goes by
Meanwhile Kim’s been readying; Trump he’s sized up
Just play to Trump’s ego; no need else to try

What’s more, Trump’s quite desperate; must have a “win”
After his screw-up at G6 plus one
Puts Kim in the driver’s seat; Trump will cave in
Just having this summit Jong-un will have won

But whatever happens Trump’s win is assured
He might give the farm away, nobody knows
The “deal” they’ll agree to might well be absurd
The deal of the century, naught else will come close

Rising above all the Trumpian falsity
Viewing Trump’s doings from ten thousand feet
One sees an assault on our nation’s democracy
Jilting our allies while foes fill their seats

And sitting like vultures to reap in the spoils
Are Russia and China while Trump blunders bleaker
From their vantage point Trump’s a readymade foil
To render our western democracies weaker

6/11/18