Tag: Child

U.S. Sen Dianne Feinstein, D-California, isn't backing the Green New Deal, and she wasn't shy about letting a group who does support it know it — even if they are children. A group of schoolchildren visited the senator at her San Francisco office Friday and urged her to get on board with the renewable energy legislation. "I've been doing this for 30 years," Feinstein said. You come in here and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don’t respond to that." "Unfortunately, it was a brief meeting but I want the children to know they were heard loud and clear," she said. Her supporters said a longer video of the confrontation depicts Feinstein in a kinder light. In that clip, she sends aides off to get copies of an environmental bill she's backing in the U.S. Senate. The House legislation aims for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and 100 percent renewable energy sources in the United States by 2030. "That resolution will not pass the senate," Feinstein told the children.

Copyright 2018 CNN (CNN) - A Louisiana mom, running for office for the first time, thought about taking her kindergartner and her 1½-year-old along with her on the campaign trail. So, Morgan Lamandre asked the board that oversees election rules if she could use political donations to cover child care expenses that wouldn't exist if she weren't running. Candidates in other states, particularly mothers, have made similar bids this year and won. "Nobody forces you to run for public office. 'An important bridge to cross' Already, Lamandre's case has spurred a push among Louisiana lawmakers to write an allowance for child care expenses into state election law. The episode follows similar requests in at least six states from mothers hoping to use political contributions to hire sitters while they worked to get elected. "This is an important bridge to cross because women don't feel like the opportunity is there for them because they have a family, they have responsibilities. "When you still have people writing the rules that are of a different time, it's very hard for a 30-something mom who's choosing to seek public office while working full time and raising kids to do that," Agnew said. Brasted noted that the Louisiana Ethics Board's own staff attorney reminded members weighing Lamandre's appeal that the same panel in 2000 allowed a male lawmaker to pay for "childcare (babysitting) expenses ... from campaign funds since they are related to your campaign." "There's already certain opportunities for a certain class of people to be able to run for office that others wouldn't, so this gives the opportunity for two working parents to be able to run for office that wouldn't otherwise have the extra funds to be able to run for office," Lamandre told the Ethics Board.

Then again, I’m not sure if a nonpartisan book about Trump could grow out of the current climate. I found all of this and more in several immersive picture books about women leaders. All the way, Jordan’s distinct “big, bold, booming, crisp, clear, confident voice” guides us. Barbara believed politics could change that,” Barton writes. “Her voice had made a difference.” Image In TURNING PAGES: My Life Story (Philomel, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8), Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivers an ode to books under the guise of recounting her life story. “She lived in a big house on a tree-lined street and partnered with her dad, a successful lawyer, to solve crimes.” Justice Sotomayor credits “Lord of the Flies” with teaching her why “we need laws and rules to feel safe.” Her story skips a beat (or 12) when young Sonia suddenly ends up at Princeton, followed by a successful legal career and a seat on the Supreme Court. Image I might have found ELIZABETH WARREN: Nevertheless She Persisted (Abrams, 48 pp., $18.99; ages 6 to 9), a biography of the Massachusetts senator by Susan Wood with peppy, absorbing illustrations by Sarah Green, equally charming were it not for Warren’s obvious 2020 ambitions. It was only in the first few pages, when Gillibrand relays the story of the strong women in her own family, that I wondered whether she wrote this book to educate children or to woo their parents (or babysitters of voting age). I want my son (and other little boys) to know about the women featured in these books, but “Bold & Brave” doesn’t seem to invite boys in. But if we’re truly going to teach our children about this political moment, then boys and girls both should heed the stories of Barbara Jordan, Justice Sotomayor and Susan B. Anthony.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order stripping the children of immigrant mothers of their citizenship, thus disqualifying himself from being President of the United States. The constitutional crisis came to light moments after the signing ceremony, when a fourth grader visiting the Oval Office on a school tour pointed out the far-reaching legal ramifications of the order. “Hey, wait, wasn’t your mother from Scotland?” the student, Tracy Klugian, asked. “That means you’re not a citizen and you can’t be President.” Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump and the author of the executive order, quickly grabbed the document from the Oval Office desk, panic spreading across his face as he reread it. “Oh, my God,” Miller gasped. “What have I done?” Trump immediately called Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh for help in voiding the executive order, but Kavanaugh was unable to take the call because he was “sleeping off a rough night,” an aide to the Justice said. Asked to comment on Trump’s predicament, former President Barack Obama said, “I can’t imagine what it would be like not to be an American citizen. Of course, my mom was born here, so I’m good.”

Imagine the fear of a child who speaks no English and who is taken away from the only point of constant reference in his young life. If you strip those layers of politics away, one by one, you are capable of seeing how horrible it is. When I was 7, I took a walk around my new neighborhood in Havertown, Pennsylvania. Back in 1969, kids could do that and expect to circle back safely to our front steps. When my mother heard what happened, she rolled her eyes and told my father, “We never should have taught her to read.” I tell you this story to make you chuckle, yes, but also to remind you that we were all children once. But my father and my aunt did not have to deal with what the children who were separated from their parents in the last few months of the “zero tolerance policy” have experienced. Imagine, then, the fear of a child who speaks no English and who is taken away from the only point of constant reference in his young life. They spent 18 days in the dark, with no promise of rescue. Those children at the border, those children in the caves, my father and my aunt, and my 7-year-old self shared the same thing: A visceral need, a profound desire, to go home. We are at our best when we remember how that feels.

The message was that the issue involving migrant children shouldn’t be about politics; therefore, it should solely be about the children. “Go see a four-year-old child sitting at a table, drawing a picture of a turtle, wondering where his mom is,” Representative Dan Kildee said. Four politicians toured the Bethany Christian Services building Thursday, where dozens of children who were separated from their parents at the border, are being cared for. "Obviously, we're not going to agree on everything,” Kildee said. “But we all agree these children ought to be reunited." Michigan Congressmen Dan Kildee was joined by Congressman Bill Huizenga and Debbie Dingell. The Michigan lawmakers were also joined by Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan. "I want to make sure the border integrity that we need to have is part of that solution,” he added. It was to put politics aside and do right by these children. "We all care about our kids,” Dingell said.

Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials: Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things” Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed” Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.

One Democrat — Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto — blames the Trump administration for creating this crisis and exploiting detained children as “bargaining chips.” “What we see is an administration who has manufactured a crisis using these kids as political bargaining chips for their own political...gain,” the lawmaker told Powerhouse Politics podcast hosts, Rick Klein and Ali Rogin. "We can't get answers," she stated. Where's the accountability?” Cortez Masto is the first Latina and female from Nevada ever elected to the U.S. Senate. She has been particularly vocal about the White House’s zero tolerance immigration policy, which she believes is part of President Trump’s greater “anti-immigrant agenda.” “It's clear. From the time that he started campaigning and talking about people coming across the border that were criminals...and drug dealers and rapists, to the Muslim ban...he has an anti-immigrant policy and we see that playing out.” The Nevada Democrat claims that the “easiest” and “quickest” way to stop family separation at the United States-Mexico border is not legislation by Congress but instead, action on President Trump’s part. “[Legislation is] not needed if we're going to make the change. Simply the president, all he has to do is change a policy back,” she explained. “This administration can correct all of this and can stop it — by just picking up a pen and making that change.” “Stop separating these parents from their children. Stop traumatizing kids that are coming across this border,” the senator stated. The Nevada politician has not yet been to a detention center but says she plans to visit one on Monday “to see for myself.” In the meantime, Cortez Masto’s message to President Trump is clear: “Nobody should use children as bargaining chips for political gain.

However, ICE apparently has taken steps to reunite families if the parent is to be deported. From a Trump tweet on 6/16/18: Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change! We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. This, right here, is why Democrats really need to figure out messaging. They should be accusing the administration of violating state laws which protect children from endangerment. They should be be hammering the administration into a corner on these issues with questions like: If the strategy of separating parents from children isn't new and the immigration laws haven't changed for the past decade, then why did these numbers begin to spike 6 weeks ago? If this is a new strategy of existing laws, then why is the Secretary of Homeland Security denying it? What we would need is a special investigation to review the thousands of immigration cases over the past year to reunite children with their parents, if their parents or relatives can still be contacted - they might have been deported already, and if they were applying for asylum they are not likely in a situation where they can continue to care for their children. (I'm a bot) MCALLEN, Texas - Two months after the Trump administration began separating children from their parents along the US-Mexico border, immigration authorities cannot say what procedures exist to reunite children with their parents after the parents' illegal-entry cases have been resolved but their immigration case is still pending. Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, who is the lead lawyer suing the Trump administration for separating immigrant parents from their children, said immigration authorities are not reuniting children and parents even after the parents have served their time, which is usually two to three days.

We are being conditioned to expect this kind of treatment for anyone on the wrong side of Trump's whimsical shifts in policy. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? ... Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way. Everyone with any human decency must oppose this. Jen Hoffman provides an "Americans of Conscience" weekly checklist of meaningful actions one can take.