(Dobbs) Human Rights In The Age Of Donald Trump

Another case of “Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?"

Certain stories still occupy prime real estate on our news sites and broadcasts. Like the tariffs, the Epstein files, the drive by Texas Republicans, at Donald Trump’s urging, to shamelessly redraw Congressional district lines long before they otherwise would and almost write out the opposition in the next election. But because of that, there were a few other stories yesterday that you might’ve missed. Stories you shouldn’t miss. Stories you don’t want to miss. Stories that show us, as if we need even more evidence, the dark and despicable path down which Donald Trump is taking our once proud country, the United States of America.

The first story is about his casual and uncaring abandonment of human rights.

Every year for almost fifty years, the State Department has compiled and publicized human rights report cards about nations around the globe. As then-Senator Marco Rubio said a dozen years ago at a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee, “The State Department’s annual human rights report sheds light on foreign governments’ failure to respect their citizens’ fundamental rights.”

That was then. This is now. The Washington Post has seen drafts of the State Department’s— Rubio’s State Department’s— human rights reports this year for three countries whose records we know are somewhere between dubious and deplorably bad: Russia, Israel, and El Salvador. The Post reported yesterday that “they strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened.” Further, by the president’s executive order, they “remove references to government corruption, gender-based crimes and other abuses the U.S. government historically has documented.”

We don’t have to go any further to see what America’s standards have become than El Salvador. Of course this Central American nation and its dictator president did Donald Trump a huge favor back in March when it agreed, in exchange for millions of dollars, to accept deportees who were scooped up by ICE after being accused, albeit often without grounds beyond unreliably identifiable tattoos, of being members of violent gangs. More than 200 are imprisoned alongside the country’s worst criminals at its infamous Terrorism Confinement Center.

A report earlier this year from Human Rights Watch cited nightmarish conditions there: “Cases of torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare and food.” This is the place that boasts, once a prisoner goes in, they “will never leave.” But you don’t just have to trust HRW. Our own State Department only a year ago cited “significant human rights issues” including torture, government-sanctioned killings, and “harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.”

That’s why the newest State Department report card is so staggering. It says in the past year, El Salvador has “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses.”

Another case of “Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

An official at State told The Post, “The human rights report focuses on core issues.” So now, by American standards in the age of Donald Trump, insufficient food and harsh conditions, torture and killings, no longer are “core” issues” about human rights.

However, the second story is, we don’t even have to look to El Salvador to see human rights abuses ignored with a nod and a wink by the United States government. We only have to look to Florida.

Alligator Alcatraz is the name of the place in the Everglades where they’ve built cages for illegal immigrants ICE picks up. But “cages” doesn’t tell the half of it.

A former corrections officer there, contracted through a private security company, yesterday went public with an NBC Florida affiliate with her personal observations from the short time she worked there.

Each long rectangular tent at Alligator Alcatraz, she says, has eight large cages. Each holds between 35 and 38 inmates. That means close to 300 prisoners in each tent. Times ten tents. “They have no sunlight,” she told the reporter. “There’s no clock in there. They don’t even know what time of the day it is. They have no access to showers. They shower every other day or every four days.” And it only gets worse: “The bathrooms are backed up because you got so many people using them.” The prisoners are given no relief from teeming mosquitos in the Florida swamp.

The Associated Press earlier ran a separate report on the prison, based on interviews it managed to get with people who’d been inside: “People held there say worms turn up in the food. Toilets don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere. Detainees are said to go days without showering or getting prescription medicine, and they are only able to speak by phone to lawyers and loved ones. At times the air conditioners abruptly shut off in the sweltering heat.” One man told The Associated Press they are “locked up 24 hours a day with no windows and no way to know the time.”

Human rights in America in the age of Donald Trump.

A spokesperson for the prison told the AP that its report is “completely false.” But how can we know for sure? They don’t let the “fake news” in.

Trump went to see the place for himself at the beginning of July. You can only imagine how horrified he was at what he found. "I thought this was so professional, so well done” he said afterwards. "It's really government working together."

The third story is the revelation yesterday that ICE is getting a semi-celebrity agent: Dean Cain, who played Superman in a TV show in the mid 1990s.

He told Fox News, “This country was built on patriots stepping up, whether it was popular or not, and doing the right thing. I truly believe this is the right thing.” Which leads us to the newest recruiting campaign by ICE. Because the Department of Homeland Security has the money now to double the ICE force, it is offering yearly bonuses of $10,000 and, for former agents, a signing bonus of $50,000.

Do you know what their standards are for people who will be empowered to grab people off the street and put them on airplanes to Alligator Alcatraz or maybe all the way to El Salvador? You must be at least 21. You must have a valid driver’s license. You must pass fairly minimal physical tests. You must have a clean felony record. You don’t have to have educational credentials. Not even a high school diploma.

Maybe Trump will take a cue from Vladimir Putin and give prisoners a get-out-of-jail-free card if they’ll enlist in ICE and be willing to knock in some heads. Remember, no high school diploma required. Just a license that says you can operate a car.

Finally, yesterday’s fourth story. It’s not about blatant human rights records, it’s about blatant conflict of interest. Namely, the news that the president signed an executive order to open the door to new kinds of contributions to tax-free IRAs.

The White House announcement said this will allow investors “access to alternative assets.” But here’s the conflict of interest: “alternative assets” includes bitcoin and cryptocurrency, which means, it will enrich the whole family of Donald J. Trump.

They’ve already brazenly traded on Trump’s presidency and gotten rich on bitcoin and crypto, and this will make them richer. London’s Telegraph newspaper reported that thanks to the bitcoin he issued just two days before he took office— called $TRUMP— he is worth billions more than before.

After today’s executive order, according to the analysis firm CoinGecko, the value of all cryptocurrencies jumped by almost 2%. Including Trump’s.

These stories all have one thing in common: Trump is turning America into a nation we don’t recognize anymore. And that’s just one day’s news.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net