🇺🇸🗽😎 FACED WITH GOP GOV’S CRUEL STUNTS, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S INDIFFERENCE TO HUMAN RIGHTS, GOOD FOLKS IN SACRAMENTO JUST “DO THE RIGHT THING” & WELCOME MIGRANTS — “I’m hoping to have a good life here and I was welcomed with open arms,” one woman wrote. “I want to work and serve. We are here to help.”

Mackenzie Mays
Mackenzie Mays
Politics & Government Reporter
LA Times
PHOTO: Twitter

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=fbb1f5c1-f13f-4dac-b153-d626bff1ae79

Mackenzie Mays reports for the LA Times:

With clothing, food and shelter, church groups aid people flown to California on chartered flights arranged by Florida officials, which many in this state call a political stunt

By Mackenzie Mays

SACRAMENTO — On the same day that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration took responsibility for sending dozens of migrants seeking asylum to California, the volunteers and organizers inside the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral of Sacramento refused to say the Republican politician’s name.

Instead, they wanted to talk about the 36 men and women they’ve cared for this week, who they say were left exhausted, confused and afraid at the doorstep of a local church in what California officials have called a political stunt.

Gabby Trejo, executive director of Sacramento Area Congregations Together, said the migrants she took to church with her on Sunday — some who had walked thousands of miles over the course of several months from Venezuela to the U.S. — reached into their pockets to offer a dollar for the collection plate.

“I said, no, you need it more than our church does today. But they didn’t care. They still put it in the plate,” Trejo said. “In that moment, our new neighbors showed me what it means for them to also be able to contribute to our community.”

Cecila Flores, who has supported the migrants since the first group arrived by plane on Friday, wiped away tears at a news conference on Tuesday.

In their 20s and 30s, most of the migrants are the first in their families to make it to the U.S. and are eager to work, she said. Some are married. One brought along a dog named Gieco.

When she asks them simple questions like what they want for dinner, they are timid. Anything is fine, they always say.

“It’s been years since I’ve been able to pick my own clothes,” one man told Flores, an organizer at Sacramento ACT, after a volunteer took him to the thrift store.

The identities of the migrants, who also came from countries including Colombia and Guatemala, remain undisclosed as the California Department of Justice investigates the incident. Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened conservative presidential hopeful DeSantis with kidnapping charges.

Organizers said Tuesday that the migrants had arrived at the Texas border, where they were met by people claiming to be with a relocation program, promising housing and jobs. They were then shuttled to New Mexico and flown to Sacramento on a chartered plane.

. . . .

The people working on the ground with them in Sacramento said that the migrants had no idea where they were headed. Their “American dream” quickly became “a nightmare,” Trejo said, adding they were deceived.

Along with city and county officials, local church leaders and nonprofits have scrambled to help them.

. . . .

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Where is the leadership, competence, and “good government” the Biden Administration promised during the 2020 campaign?

California needs affordable housing and workers, particularly in agriculture, child care, and health care. Migrants can help with this. They are eager to contribute.

The key is to get them represented, through the system with grants of asylum or other protection that many are eligible for, work authorized, and on their way to durable legal status. 

Stunts like De Santis’s, misplaced “deterrence,” lack of creativity, and poor leadership by the Administration and Dems in DC are wasting resources and time that could be used to solve problems, not aggravate them! 

Once again, the Biden Administration has left the job of making the flawed immigration system work to individuals without sufficient Federal support or coordination. Yet, they disdain the advice and counsel of these “grass roots experts” in favor of mindless, half-baked deterrence gimmicks derived from Stephen Miller and other GOP neo-fascists! Why?

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-97-23

🇺🇸BREAKING: DEMOCRACY WINS AS NEWSOM BEATS BACK GOP RIGHT-WING DISRUPTION IN CAL. BY NEARLY 2-1 MARGIN!

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=c6f2a3b9-b11e-439c-8262-d24cdfb93690&v=sdk

A sigh of relief for California

Voters chose to keep Gov. Newsom, sparing the state from more than a year of turmoil.

 

 

Phew.

We can rest easier now that Gov. Gavin Newsom will not be removed from office early and replaced by right-wing provocateur Larry Elder, a radio host with no experience in elective office and who doesn’t seem interested in being a governor for all Californians — only those who share his extremist, intolerant views.

Voters statewide showed overwhelming support for keeping Newsom, and news outlets started calling the race before 9 p.m. This is what the recent polls predicted, based on the early and heavy turnout of Democratic voters, who outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in California.

Elder, as expected, led the field of replacement candidates. He admitted defeat Tuesday night, telling supporters, “We may have lost the battle. But we’re going to win the war.”

It was a nice surprise given that, before election day, Elder and other Republicans had seeded the suspicion that if the recall failed it would be due to fraud rather than the more plausible scenario that millions of voters, most of them Democrats, heard what Elder had to offer and said “no thanks.”

Voters evidently saw through the smokescreen that recall proponents threw up about how Newsom was responsible for every bad thing that has happened in California over the last few years: wildfires, COVID-19, homelessness, crime, income equality, and on and on.

The decision to reject the recall is the best outcome for California.

Even if you dislike Newsom, it would have been a disaster to abruptly hand over leadership of the state to Elder or any of the other 45 people listed on the replacement ballot in the middle of a public health crisis and with a regular election little more than a year away.

Moreover, Newsom has been a strong leader during one of the most challenging periods in California’s recent history. It would have been madness to swap him for anyone, let alone someone with no relevant experience.

While the recall option is an important tool for democracy, it should be used sparingly and only in cases of clear dereliction of duty — and certainly not as a cynical ploy by political opponents to remove a legitimately elected governor.

This was not about Newsom’s performance, not really. The recall campaign started life as a referendum on Newsom’s liberal values, which were clear when he won with 62% of the vote in the 2018 election.

It’s unfortunate taxpayers had to spend between $200 million and $400 million to hold an election that didn’t change anything. But it could pay off down the road if it convinces the state’s Republicans that using the recall isn’t a fair, honorable — or even effective — way to win office.

Yes, it worked in 2003, when Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Gov. Gray Davis, but that was a unique situation driven in large part by the fame of the winning candidate.

If Republicans want to end the “one-party rule” in California, then it’s up to them to develop a platform that appeals to voters, rather than trying to gain power by gaming the state’s direct democracy system.

Newsom now should get back to work but not rest on his laurels — he’s got another election in less than 14 months.

The recall failed, but millions of people voted to oust him nonetheless.

That the recall qualified at all, rather than dying in the signature-gathering stage as most recall efforts do, exposed a deep ambivalence by Californians about the direction of the state.

Though the dust hasn’t yet settled on this election, let’s start talking about fixing the state’s deeply flawed recall law. This election has shown that the process is confusing and the outcome potentially undemocratic.

It takes a majority of voters to oust the governor (or any elected official), but the replacement needs only to win a plurality of votes. A system that makes it possible for a California governor to be replaced with someone who has received a small fraction of the total votes cast in the election is nuts.

It seems California has escaped that possibility this time. Let’s do more than hope there isn’t a next time.

**********************************

Another scurrilous attack by the neo-fascist GOP on American democracy and liberal, progressive values defeated! And, in the process, they wasted hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been used to make the lives of Californians better!

Sure, California has problems that need to be solved. But, the idea that any of the GOP clowns trying to replace Newsom could solve them, or would even be interested in trying, is beyond absurd!

🤡Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-14-21