Just because Donald Trump, only the fourth president in 100 years to lose his re-election bid, is devoting his limited energy and attention span to subverting our democracy doesn’t mean his minions aren’t busy elevating his and their customary cruelty to a new level. Trump’s stooges are feverishly at work screwing the most vulnerable among us. Here’s just a few of the malevolent things they are doing on their way out the door into a well-deserved oblivion:
Continuing the Immigration Assault
For four years, the Trump administration has vandalized immigration. They have made getting into this country legally almost impossible. Their guiding principles have been malice, racism, lies and contempt for international law and human decency. They don’t even try to hide it. Now they are at it again in a last ditch attempt to destroy the few human lives their viciousness has not yet touched.
In September we learned that an ICE prison in Georgia was sending immigrant women for unnecessary hysterectomies that the women didn’t consent to or even realize were happening. Congress’s attempt to investigate this criminal outrage is being stymied because those victims who have agreed to testify are suddenly being deported.
Similarly, Cameroonian asylum seekers who allege they were physically assaulted, pepper-sprayed and threatened into signing their own deportation orders are being fast-tracked for deportation so that they too cannot be called to testify about what they have suffered at the hands of Trump’s immigration goons.
Not to be outdone in vindictiveness by ICE, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced that it is making it harder to become a naturalized citizen, effective December 1. The new citizenship test has 128 questions vs. 70 on the old one. Many of the new questions are more difficult than the current ones. I challenge members of Congress, especially Republicans, to answer them correctly. As Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) recently stated: “Our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three branches of government — You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive.” Sheesh!
One More Kick in Disabled People’s Teeth
It isn’t enough that candidate Trump back in 2016 mocked a disabled reporter for his disability or that millions of coronavirus survivors are likely to have lasting disabilities. The Trump toadies at the Social Security Administration have just issued final rules making it much harder for disabled individuals to receive Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and to put in jeopardy the SSDI and SSI benefits of people currently receiving them.
They are replacing the impartial, independent corps of administrative law judges (ALJs) who decide these cases with internal agency lawyers who are Social Security Administration employees beholden to their bosses’ edicts. Expect the number of needy, deserving people who will be denied these essential benefits to skyrocket.
The second rule increases the number and frequency of "continuing disability reviews" (during which beneficiaries must prove they're still disabled). This new rule is intended to make it easier for the government to throw people off the disability rolls.
Both rules will go into effect in December.
As with everything Trump and his cronies do, the result in all these cases is callous cruelty. The viciousness of these reprobates knows no bounds. Expect more of the same before they’re gone.
Dick Hermann
November 27, 2020
Continuing the Immigration Assault
For four years, the Trump administration has vandalized immigration. They have made getting into this country legally almost impossible. Their guiding principles have been malice, racism, lies and contempt for international law and human decency. They don’t even try to hide it. Now they are at it again in a last ditch attempt to destroy the few human lives their viciousness has not yet touched.
In September we learned that an ICE prison in Georgia was sending immigrant women for unnecessary hysterectomies that the women didn’t consent to or even realize were happening. Congress’s attempt to investigate this criminal outrage is being stymied because those victims who have agreed to testify are suddenly being deported.
Similarly, Cameroonian asylum seekers who allege they were physically assaulted, pepper-sprayed and threatened into signing their own deportation orders are being fast-tracked for deportation so that they too cannot be called to testify about what they have suffered at the hands of Trump’s immigration goons.
Not to be outdone in vindictiveness by ICE, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced that it is making it harder to become a naturalized citizen, effective December 1. The new citizenship test has 128 questions vs. 70 on the old one. Many of the new questions are more difficult than the current ones. I challenge members of Congress, especially Republicans, to answer them correctly. As Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) recently stated: “Our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three branches of government — You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive.” Sheesh!
One More Kick in Disabled People’s Teeth
It isn’t enough that candidate Trump back in 2016 mocked a disabled reporter for his disability or that millions of coronavirus survivors are likely to have lasting disabilities. The Trump toadies at the Social Security Administration have just issued final rules making it much harder for disabled individuals to receive Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and to put in jeopardy the SSDI and SSI benefits of people currently receiving them.
They are replacing the impartial, independent corps of administrative law judges (ALJs) who decide these cases with internal agency lawyers who are Social Security Administration employees beholden to their bosses’ edicts. Expect the number of needy, deserving people who will be denied these essential benefits to skyrocket.
The second rule increases the number and frequency of "continuing disability reviews" (during which beneficiaries must prove they're still disabled). This new rule is intended to make it easier for the government to throw people off the disability rolls.
Both rules will go into effect in December.
As with everything Trump and his cronies do, the result in all these cases is callous cruelty. The viciousness of these reprobates knows no bounds. Expect more of the same before they’re gone.
Dick Hermann
November 27, 2020
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