Trump and Democrats Make a Deal on the DACA Program

Wednesday night Donald Trump met at a White House dinner with Minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schummer to cut a deal on this DACA thing.  Deferred action on childhood arrivals, or whatever.  This is the program that keeps illegal children under sixteen brought over by their parents from being deported.  The three of them cut a deal eating Chinese food.  They agreed that DACA would be preserved by law by an act of congress.  In exchange the Trump administration would get all the funding it wants for border patrol assuming that none of that goes toward building the border wall.  They agreed that that would be a battle left for both sides to fight out another day.  Schummer and Pelosi made separate announcements stating what this deal was.  How the Republicans can’t accept it.  All of the right wing news publications are saying their cause was being betrayed by President Trump.  After all one big reason they voted for him was he would deport the DACA children, who are now mostly adults.  However House Speaker Paul Ryan referred to the deal as a “discussion” and not an agreement.  Paul Ryan and Mitch Mc Connell don’t want to bring up this proposed bill before the house and senate.  As such you have a continuation of “Republican Civil War” as Norman Goldman refers to it.  Now this is a wedge issue that splits the Republicans right down the middle.  I can only imagine what Shawn Hannity thinks of Trump now.  This is the first real disagreement Shawn has had with President Trump and it must be a real come-down.  There were other proposals made by callers on the Norman Goldman show.  It was suggested, for instance, that the democrats agree to build the border well knowing beaurocratic snaffos would insure that the wall was never built because it would be delayed forever.  In exchange the Republicans would support the concept of “Medicare for Everyone” or the Bernie Sanders bill.  Norman states that this would be setting the sights too high and the democrats at this time don’t have that kind of leverage.  

On June 8th 1967 the United States Navy intelligence ship the U.S.S. Liberty was attacked in international waters by aircraft and vessels belonging to Israel. Thirty-four sailors, Marines and civilians were killed in the attack. The deliberate Israeli air and sea onslaught sought to sink the clearly identified intelligence gathering ship and kill all its crew. It was in truth the worst attack ever carried out on a U.S. Naval vessel in peace time. In addition to the death toll, 171 more of the crew were wounded in the two-hour assault, which was clearly intended to destroy the intelligence gathering vessel operating in international waters collecting information on the ongoing fighting between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Israelis, whose planes had their Star of David markings covered up so Egypt could be blamed, attacked the ship repeatedly from the air and with torpedo boats from the sea. When one Israeli pilot hesitated, refusing to attack what was clearly an American ship, he was instructed to proceed anyway.  Most Americans are completely unaware that a United States naval vessel was once deliberately targeted and nearly sunk by America’s “greatest friend and ally” Israel. The attack was followed by a comprehensive cover-up that demonstrated clearly that at least one president of the United States even back nearly fifty years ago valued his relationship with the state of Israel above his loyalty to his own country.  The most disgusting part of the tale relates to how U.S. warplanes sent to the Liberty’s aid from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean were called back by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara acting under orders from President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who declared that he would rather see the ship go to the bottom of the sea than embarrass his good friend Israel. Ironically, the first ship to reach the foundering Liberty and offer assistance was from the Soviet Union, an offer that was declined.