IMPORTANT UPDATE
About five hours after this posted,
Governor Northam announced a recall of Virginia’s National Guard.
Well done, Governor Northam.
Today I'm recalling four Virginia National Guard soldiers and one helicopter from Arizona. Virginia will not devote any resource to border enforcement actions that support the inhumane policy of separating children from their parents. https://t.co/AmdbE0XoFi
— Governor Ralph Northam (@VAGovernor73) June 19, 2018
======= Original Post =========
Listening to the cries of youth — babies, little kids — taken from the parents should hit hard for anyone with an ounce of morality and ethics.
Listening to the lies and demented justifications from Trump kakistocracy officials about the family separation policy tears at those who believe fervently in the ideals of a ‘search for a more perfect union’.
Listening to journalists seeming to step up, more firmly, to call Trump and Team Trump’s lies lies and working together to challenge the demented propaganda from the White House press room podium gives a glimmer of hope that there might be a turning point in media (inadvertent?) complicity with GOP deceit.
Listening to news that Colorado’s Democratic Governor and Massachusetts’ Republican Governor both took action to stop their state government from being complicit with Trump’s inhumane border policy gives heart that resistance at the state level to the Trump regime’s illegalities might stiffen.
As a Virginian, well aware of how (most of) my fellow Virginians are sharing the horror at watching what is happening at the border and trying to figure out what “we” can do to turn the tide against Trump’s atrocities, I have yet to see serious action from Richmond.
First, for clarity’s sake, it is clear that Governor Northam is not on board or supportive of the horrific actions and demented Trump policy of likely international law violation through family separation designed, at least in part, to seek political leverage. (“Give me a wall and I’ll give you the kids …” the kidnappers say.) Unlike the crickets from across Virginia’s Republican officials (and some stated support for Trump’s family separation policy), Governor Northam made his view clear the other day:
We are better than this. In the United States of America, we should have zero tolerance for a policy that separates children, some as young as infants, from their parents. https://t.co/3NbrFTqv2S
— Governor Ralph Northam (@VAGovernor73) June 15, 2018
However, just when reading that a Republican governor is stopping his state’s National Guard deployment to the border someone shared reporting about the Virginia National Guard’s deployment to Arizona.
“Once again the Virginia National Guard has answered the call from our fellow states to provide capabilities they need to accomplish their assigned mission,” said Maj. Gen. Timothy P. Williams, the Adjutant General of Virginia. “Just as we are assisting the Arizona National Guard now and we helped last year in Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands, other states would help us and come to Virginia if we needed them. I am confident in the abilities of the Soldiers we are sending, and they will come back to us in a higher state of readiness from the experience they will get.”
When seeing reports of Virginia National Guard (and Fairfax County emergency personnel and …) doing things like heading to Texas and the USVI to provide disaster assistance, as a Virginian, I truly welcome their service and fully support this as appropriate mutual assistance. Hearing reports, months ago, that Virginia would send troops to help the Trump crackdown did not engender the same feelings of support, appreciation, and pride. Regretfully, I stayed silent then. Today, however, that silence must end.
Governor Northam, when it comes to dealing with Trump’s illegal actions, when it comes to Trump’s trampling of the Constitution, when it comes to Trump’s immoral policies, tweeting is not enough.
One of the best relics of the 2017 political season came from your (our) Lieutenant Governor. Then primary candidate Justin Fairfax came out with the declaration that
…the Virginia state line is where we start taking our country back from Donald Trump…
We’re drawing the line right here [to] stand up TO the bullies…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whMESbdcVKg
Governor Northam, this Virginian calls on you to “draw the line” and “stand up to the bullies”.
Make a reality of Justin Fairfax’s principled campaign advertisement.
“Stand up to the bullies” of this immoral, inhumane family separation policy …
A strong and visible sign of this would be using your powers to end, as rapidly as possible, the (implicit) support that Virginia’s National Guard is providing to it.
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