It passed unanimously in the Senate Monday and then passed unanimously in the House Tuesday-- it... a resolution "condemning the violence at the white nationalist rally in Virginia last month and urging President Trump to speak out against racist hate groups.
It calls Heyer’s killing a “domestic terrorist attack” and denounces “White nationalists, White supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups” but does not single out left-wing counterprotesting groups such as antifa-- short for anti-fascist-- for equivalent opprobrium in the way Trump did.The authors of the legislation purposely introduced it as a joint resolution, which is sent for a president’s signature, rather than as a simple or concurrent resolution, which are not.The resolution calls on Trump to “speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy” and also “use all resources available to the President and the President’s Cabinet to address the growing prevalence of those hate groups in the United States.”It also calls on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “investigate thoroughly all acts of violence, intimidation, and domestic terrorism by White supremacists, White nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and associated groups” and to “improve the reporting of hate crimes” to the FBI.
Will Trump sign it? So far the White House is refusing to say.Last night Ryan and Pelosi met to work out how to proceed on DACA. Hours before the meeting, in an AP Newsmakers interview, Ryan said that deporting those covered by the program is "not in our nation's interest" BUT he wants to drag out a fix because he doesn't want the program "to be rescinded on Day One and create chaos." Ryan's caucus is very split on how to proceed. Far right radicals-- primarily, though not exclusively, in the South want deportations. Steve King (R-IA), one of the leaders of the congressional xenophobes and racists told CNN that Congress doesn't have to do anything to protect young immigrants who came to the country illegally as children. Instead, King said they can "live in the shadows." He called that "justice." Ryan wants to use DACA as a bargaining chip to get the billions of dollars it will take to get Trump's wall built. "The GOP," said Alan Grayson today, "claims to prize 'personal responsibility.' But the way that Republicans drag their feet over the DREAM Act belies this. Children who are brought to the United States as children, often as young children, and who then grew up here did not make any personal decision that would justify expulsion from their homes. THEY WERE CHILDREN. To say that they must leave their homes and go someplace else that they may not even remember is unmitigated cruelty, and disrespectful not only to them but to the very concept of personal responsibility. What’s next? Are we going to start prosecuting five-year-olds for taking two cookies from a cookie jar?"Early this morning Señor Trumpanzee tweeted his latest incoherent feelings on the 800,000 DREAMers his overtly racist Attorney General-- and half the congressional Republicans-- want to deport ASAP:That prompted one of his earliest and most avid (and crazy) supporters to call for his impeachment. It's going to be a long, long day:A poll for Politico by Morning Consult shows that most Americans disagree with Jeff Sessions' decision to deport DREAMers and, in fact, favor Congress working out a pathway to citizenship for these young men and women. 73% favor allowing them to stay and 54% want them to get citizenship. 35%-- essentially the Trumpist base of racists and xenophobes-- agree with Sessions on ending DACA.
