In reading an article in the “Washington Post” on May 18th about how character matters in our leaders, (a paper whose motto is “Democracy Dies in Darkness”), it came to my attention that President Trump has arbitrarily decided to welcome one particular group to the U.S.: White Afrikaaner immigrants from South Africa.
While DJT turned his back on Afghan locals who helped the U.S military in Afghanistan and those fleeing wars in Sudan and the Congo, he also turned his back on those who have been waiting in refugee camps for lengthy periods of time. The Afrikaaner White natives, by contrast, were an affluent group of potential citizens. It is quite clear that Money Is King for the current U.S. President. If you think I’m wrong, consider Trump’s recent acceptance of a $400 million-dollar plane from Qatar. (*Note: current Attorney General Pam Bondi used to be a lobbyist for Qatar, and has pronounced Trump’s accepting this gift A-OK).
It wasn’t even A-OK with all of the Republican faithful who have drunk the Kool Ade. Even Ben Shapiro, a Republican MAGA faithful commentator,called it “kind of skeezy stuff.” And don’t get me started on the steps necessary to make sure Air Force One isn’t bugged by Qatar as it carries our President both during his time in office and afterwards, when, he says, it will be donated to his presidential library. It will, no doubt, come in handy for jaunts to the Middle East where Trump insiders have many expensive investments.
EPISCOPALIAN BISHOP SPEAKS OUT
This week, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Sean W. Rowe, announced that, “in light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice,” the denomination would quit its participation in the refugee resettlement program rather than obey the administration’s command that it assist the White South Africans.
Said Bishop Rowe, “It has been painful to watch one group of refugees, selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” he wrote. “I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country. I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months.”Rowe asked church members to “pray for vetted refugees who have not been granted permission to come to this country.”
I would like to say kudos to the Episcopalian Church. I also hope to see more statements from the new Pope like the most recent one, a statement that condemned actions like the above in generic terms.
STATE DEPARTMENT #2
Making this Afrikaaner situation even worse was the photo op at Dulles International Airport featuring the #2 man in the State Department (right behind Little Marco Rubio), Christopher Landau. As the fifty-nine relatively wealthy immigrants arrived, Landau told these descendants of Europeans who ruled South Africa during apartheid, “It’s such an honor for us to receive you here today. We respect the long tradition of your people and what you have accomplished over the years. When you have quality seeds, you can put them in foreign soil and they will blossom, they will bloom.” The White Afrikaaners, who own over 93% of the country of South Africa, were welcomed by a man whose father, George, and his grandparents were Jewish refugees who fled Austria to escape the Nazis.
In 2014, George Landau, who became an American diplomat, recorded a video for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in which he recounted that members of the family who stayed behind were deported to Poland and gassed. Now, Christopher Landau is the mouthpiece for a policy that has closed America to refugees — except for the “quality seeds” of certain White people.
