Letter from the US

Barry Sheppard writes that, in another indication of the abject failure of the Donald Trump administration, there is no national plan to confront the pandemic, or even to collect true information.

The Democratic impeachment inquiry began when a “whistleblower” revealed that US President Donald Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation of former vice-president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine and made a White House visit by Zelensky — which the new Ukrainian president dearly wanted — conditional on him stating publically that such an investigation was underway.

Twenty-five thousand Chicago public school teachers, supported by other school workers, went on strike on October 17. Their demands were broad in scope, reflecting the demographics of the city.

The population of Chicago is almost equally divided between Blacks, Latinx, and whites. However, its public school student population is 47% Latinx, 37% Black, and 10% white. About 76% are economically disadvantaged and concentrated in the city’s south and west sides. The north side is more white and affluent.

While much of the media continues to focus on the Mueller report and the squabbles between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, US President Donald Trump’s real crimes are scarcely addressed or are ignored altogether.

This column will take up one of these crimes, Trump’s intensification of his racist war on immigrants. He is not alone on this — the ultra-right throughout Europe and elsewhere have similar anti-immigrant policies.

The most important finding of the long Mueller investigation into United States President Donald Trump — that there was no collusion with the Russians to fix the 2016 US election so that Trump would win — came as a shock to most liberals, progressives and even many socialists.

A white man in Jefferson, Kentucky, shot and killed two African Americans at a grocery store on October 24. Gregory Bush was seen trying unsuccessfully to break down the doors to a predominantly Black church before he turned his attention to the store and opened fire.

As the plight of child asylum seekers separated from their parents fades from the news, hundreds of children remain incarcerated and separated from their families, writes Barry Sheppard from San Francisco.

It is now abundantly clear that the Donald Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy towards parents with children seeking asylum in the US involves separating children from their parents, keeping the children in the US and deporting the parents, writes Barry Sheppard in San Francisco.

More than 100,000 people took to the streets on June 30, in about 750 cities and towns in every state across the country, to protest the separation of immigrant children from their parents seeking asylum and denounce President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy that made this cruel practice possible, writes Barry Sheppard from San Francisco.

In response to huge public outcry against his policy of forcibly separating children from immigrant parents seeking asylum, United States President Donald Trump issued an executive order on July 20 to halt the separations.

A victory? Not so fast, writes Barry Sheppard from San Francisco.

Washington has a long history of using deportations to strike fear among undocumented workers. In recent years, deportations have multiplied — previous president Barack Obama became known as “Deporter in Chief”.

But President Donald Trump has greatly stepped up the drive, mainly against Latinos without papers. He has unleashed Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out indiscriminate raids where Latinos congregate, deporting the undocumented. These include those without criminal records or who are guilty of only minor offensives, often separating families.

While the May 14 massacre of protesters by Israeli snipers was occurring in Gaza, United States President Donald Trump was symbolically opening the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was there, heaping praise on Trump.

There were also two pastors present, one to give the opening prayer, the other the closing one. Both pastors were from the extreme rightist, white Christian evangelical community and are well known for their outspoken anti-Semitism and support for Israel.