Jacqueline Brandt (Duclos)

Unfortunately I cannot see Fox News because it isn’t available in Europe. I thought

It was just france but recently returned from Portugal and Sweden where it also 

Wasn’t broadcast. I agree that CNN is limited and seems to spend far too much time

Just reiterating it’s anger, confusion and frustration with trump. Both sides seem to have

Resulted in shouting matches.  Personally I think democrats are spending too much 

Time bitching and not enough finding worthy candidates to turn things around. That being

Said I had some Mexican friends in paris last week who live in Mexico City ( one is a sports

Journalist) who have been visiting the states for their whole lives. They were recently in

san Diego on the beach with their families and friends speaking Spanish. They were harrassed

attacked by a group of angry men telling them to go back to their country, this kind of incident

Was new and alarming to them. I do believe that the ambience in America under trump has 

Given free rein to these cockroaches to come out of the woodwork. But that’s just an opinion.

No one in Europe , Canada, Mexico or elsewhere has any esteem for trump. He is seen as a

Buffoon with no culture whatsoever. Being a rich , successful business man seems to be all

People praise because of the mighty dollar but there are other qualities that I think are far more

Important when it comes to ruling the world ! 

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

“Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” a trite yet absolutely true aphorism.  

It seemed our national demons - racism, xenophobia, misogyny, greed - which have accompanied us on this admirable venture we call “America” had been tamed and safely stored in the cellar.  Someone opened the door to the basement and our demons are romping throughout the house-- One might even say they have taken over.  

We talk of progress as two steps forward and one step back-- it seems this time we’ve taken a giant leap into the worst of our past.

Alan, thanks for historical perspective and addendum (#4165) and Jax, for international perspective (#4167).  

Silence is betrayal.

Marvin Irving Blusteln

What a tennis match.

Larry Metnick

See pictures from June 2018 mini Niles East/West reunion 

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Thanks, Larry-- great pics!

Can you help with names?

How many alums from West?  East?

How many spouses and significant others?

Larry Metnick

Janis, I believe there were about 40 people from West and 15 people from East. A few came with significant others. Nobody is better than Sharry with names of attendees, but these are the people I can recall:

John Arpan,Don Weil,Bill Murphy,Lee Miller,Fran Garfield,Jim Archer,Paul Hain,Amy Levine,Don Deck,Jack Kristof,Steve Spritz’s brother,Peter Tortorice,April Mau,Trudy Davis,Scott Mermel,Jim Ditkowsky and Snookie Perri.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Thanks, Larry, for helping me feel pretty good about my memory.

Sharry Rugendorf (Falcon)

Niles Happy Hour

63.  Attended

Half East  Half West.     Even number of men and women

Frances Garfield (Brown)

Sharry, you did a great job!

---fran

Nancy Doyle (Sudlow)

Paul Richard Hain

Much gratitude for Larry Metnick’s photos and fabulous Sharry’s organizing skill.  And, Sharry, this is my 3rd party without uttering one word of politics. I promised you.  Remember?

Alan A. Alop

Another photo: two year old child cries as Honduran asylum-seeking mother is detained at border:

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

And our Attorney General whose oath is to the U.S. Constitution,

NOT the Bible,

justifies President Trump’s policy and the actions of the Justice Department on Paul’s letter to the Romans.  FRIGHTENING! ! !  

Next we’ll be using Leviticus to justify executing children for sassing their parents.  

And we’re concerned about Sharia Law?

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

“The GOP plunges toward its own special place in hell.”   Eugene Robinson

“This isn’t religion. It’s perversion.”  “The Trump administration cites the Bible to justify its right to take infants from their parents and warehouse children in tent cities and an abandoned Walmart.”   Dana Milbank

“Evangelicals’ support for Trump will cost them - spiritually.”   Elizabeth Bruenig

Alan A. Alop

ANOTHER MODEST PROPOSAL

The Wall is raising its ugly head again, as Trump just made it clear that absent massive funding for the Wall in the next budget bill, in September, he will refuse to sign the budget and shut down the government. Since 60 Democrats are needed to sign on, this is likely to be a thorny problem. In the last budget-round the Republican House and Senate leaders convinced Trump there was money in the budget for the Wall and he bought it. Now he realizes he was bamboozled.

So I propose this compromise. We tell Trump “the problem is solved" and “you can sleep easy tonight.” We include in the budget a provision to erect a Wall on the Mexican border, “at an undisclosed location where the rapist Mexicans are least likely to expect it.” And we further provide that the Wall includes a “Presidential/VIP Observation Box” that seats the president and 40 other billionaires, complete with a kitchen, numerous viewing devices, and big colorful buttons that allow the president to dump cauldrons of burning oil on asylum seekers, their children, lizards, and others foolish enough to attempt to breach our border. Buried in the budget legislation—in small font--we include a provision limiting this Wall to a fifty-foot section and limit the expenditure to a couple million dollars. We don’t tell Trump about this part and if he learns about it we simply tell him, “Putin is the one who suggested this proposal.”  What do you think?

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Trump supporters continue to be sucked into the vortex of Trumpism which is a system of lies, political corruption, and manufactured crises.  

Political games are not new to either political party, but Trumpism has taken us well beyond the usual gamesmanship to using children as political weapons.

President Trump does not understand or acknowledge his own policy championed by the Attorney General and the White House Chief of Staff and Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller-- Trump’s rationale for the policy changes all the time-- he is using his family separation policy as a bargaining chip in negotiation with Congress which is controlled by his party.  The Republican House and Senate remain silent.  Trump’s family separation policy is being enforced all the while being defended, deflected, denied by Trump and his administration.

Trump could ST🛑P his family separation policy with a phone call, but he is digging in on Zero Tolerance.

My grandson is scheduled to depart for Japan tomorrow (Tuesday).  This morning (Monday), before 8 a.m. local time, a strong earthquake in Osaka, Japan killed at least three people, and injured more than 200.  There have been 441 earthquakes in the past 365 days in Japan.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Is there really a Trump base standing with him on his Zero Tolerance Policy which includes family separation?

Who's applauding Trump's Zero Tolerance Policy at National Federation of Independent Business gathering in DC?

Please speak out and tell us why.

Finally Republican Senators are asking Trump to rescind his family separation policy.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

Steve, I respect your outrage and wish I had an answer for why our classmates are silent on the forum...

Is it possible they're not outraged?  

We see what’s become of “I alone can fix it.”  Trump manufactures crises to play political games.

In America we have government of, by, and for the people.   

Democracy requires we engage in political conversation-- which means political conversation is a necessity, not an option. 

Trump and his administration have no plan for reuniting families-- parents are deported without their children. #STOPSEPARATION OF FAMILIES          stopseparation.org

My grandson is inflight to Japan.

Donald Henry Kuehn

1. Tomorrow, my union, the American Federation of Teachers, will file a formal complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Council regarding the Trump policy of separating parents and their children at the border. The allegation will be that the current policy violates the UN Convention Against Torture and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

2. Trump is using these families, who are fleeing unfathomable conditions in their home countries, as bargaining chips in his misguided effort to get Congress to fund his border wall (you know, the one Mexico was supposed to pay for).

3. The President continues to tell the Big Lie, trying to cast blame on the Democrats for his immoral policy, saying in part that they could stop this immediately if they would negotiate with his party on a new law (which would, I presume, contain funding for said wall).

4. Democrats should respond with one simple answer: WE DON’T NEGOTIATE WITH HOSTAGE TAKERS.

DK

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

It's World Refugee Day. 

Parents are being deported from the U.S. without their children.

This is Donald Trump’s policy and he could change it with a phone call.  

DK is correct -- the children are hostages.  

The world is outraged.  

“This is not us, we would never do this, this isn’t America.”  

BUT  “This is what we are doing -- it’s being done in our name.  This is America.” 

There’s lots of talk, but mostly inaction.  

We need leadership--

we can protect strong borders without separating families.  

Go to  stopseparation.org  

My grandson has arrived safely in Japan.  

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

We welcome news that Trump will stop his family separation policy. 

Rather than phone the AG, Trump decided on the theater of a photo op to sign an Executive Order - “Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation” which will hopefully stop his Zero Tolerance policy from separating children from their parents. 

(Trump said he’d sign the EO at 2 pm ET before leaving for a campaign rally in Duluth, MN at 3.)

We'll see what happens... Trump wants to look strong...

How will we reunite the families that have already been separated?

Some of the parents have already been deported.

Some of the children have been transported thousands of miles from the southern border.

There’s no mechanism to match children with their parents and no plan in place for the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services to reunite already separated children with their parents.  Per usual we have a manufactured Trumpian crisis.

No way are these children past the trauma of being separated from their parents.

So much for Trump’s compassion for children and families.  “No one with a heart” could have defended Trump's family separation policy (Trump has)-- he knew what he was doing, it's his plan, he's known for a year he was going to institute this policy--

the glitch for Trump-- he wasn't prepared for the public outcry from within the Republican Party and from American businesses-- i.e. airlines refusing to be instruments of his family separation policy.

Remember when Trump said family separation policy is required by law, his hands are tied?-- he instituted the policy to separate children from their parents.  Sadly he now signed an EO that does nothing for families already separated and the practice of separating children from their parents could resume after 20 days,

We cannot trust Trump... we must remain vigilant.

Trudi Ann Davis (Davis)

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

     M e l a n i a   

          h a s  t a k e n   

                     o n e

                s m a l l  s t e p                                                                                           

    h    i n t o          S 

C       t h e    O

        A

     o f   t h e  C R I S I S 

  h e r   h u s b a n d   c r e a t e d. 

Melania traveled to McAllen,TX, visited Lutheran Social Services which houses fifty-five 12 -17 year old boys, then boarded plane to return to D.C.

Melania's husband continues to exploit culture wars and to traffic in conspiracy theories.

An act of Trump created a catastrophic mess-- with no plan to reunite children with their parents. 

Donald Trump has done irreparable damage to the lives of 2300 children and their families.

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

The politics of unempathy.                                              

          I

    REALLY

     DON'T

     CARE.

      DO U?

So many unanswered questions... like how easily are Border Patrol agents distracted from their work?

Janis Kliphardt (Emery)

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is facing backlash from her Tampa, FL high school classmates--

Hundreds of alumni sent an open letter and petition to Berkeley Preparatory School Headmaster Joseph Seivold:

The letter cites the school’s core values and creed: “Berkeley puts people in the world who make a positive difference, and use (their) privilege for good.”

“Given the facts at hand, we do not have faith in Secretary Nielsen to live the values of our alma mater or to make any decisions concerning outcomes for children at the border.”  

The alumni group says DHS Sec’y Nielsen has the power to halt the practice of separating children from their parents at the border but shifted the blame to Congress.  Recognizing it would be easy for the school to dismiss their request as disadvantageous to Berkeley, the letter states that “morality transcends respectability ... children are being removed from the protection of their parents ... by a graduate of our institution.”

“Today, we respectfully request that you condemn the policies causing the separation of children from their families at the US-Mexico border, implemented and enforced by Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, Class of 1990.”

Berkeley Prep publicly congratulated Nielsen when she was confirmed as DHS Sec’y, but has declined “to take a position on non-education-related governmental policy or action.”