The Erickson Report, Page 2: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Otrages - the Outrages

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages - the Outrages

Okay, switching over, some Outrages for you.

1. Pia Klemp, is German and 35 and also something of a rarity: She is a ship's captain and a member of Sea-Watch, a non-governmental organization that rescues asylum-seekers in the Mediterranean who are trying to reach Europe by boat.

She's also facing 20 years in prison in Italy for the heinous crime of not letting people drown.

Human traffickers in Libya extort thousands of dollars from migrants who arrive in the country desperately trying to reach Europe. As Klemp notes, those migrants risk the crossing of the Mediterranean "because there are no legal entry routes" and they keep coming because "there are so many reasons to flee."

But the ships used by the traffickers often are not seaworthy or are deliberately sabotaged, forcing humanitarian vessels such as Klemp's to either rescue the migrants or let them drown. Over the years, Klemp has rescued, by her estimate, at least 1000 people. For that, she has become a target of Italy’s extreme right-wing Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who has promised harsh penalties for so called "illegal" migrants which has led to rescue workers like Klemp being branded as criminals.

This despite the facts not only that seeking asylum is a human right but that Article 98 of the 1982 UN Law of the Sea says that:

“Every State shall require the master of a ship flying its flag, in so far as he can do so without serious danger to the ship, the crew or the passengers, to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost.”

Despite that, cases against Klemp and others are being pursued even as there is no proof of any substantial violation of law by any rescue vessel operated by any NGO.

Pia Klemp

Journalist Rula Jebreal summed it up: "Italy's fascists are using this case as a showcase to deter others from aiding migrants. They would prefer to let people drown in the Mediterranean."

2. Continuing on immigration outrages, they want them to drown in the sea; we lean toward letting them die in the desert.

According to a report in Politico from two weeks ago, Tweetie-pie is considering sweeping restrictions on asylum that would effectively block Central American migrants from entering the US.

If they are put into place, those seeking asylum will be found ineligible if they have entered or attempted to enter the US after failing to apply for asylum or other protections in any country that isn’t their country of origin that they went through to get to the US.

In other words, people fleeing El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, who make up the bulk of those seeking asylum at the southern US border, would be barred from applying because they walked through Mexico to get here.

In other words, the choices for asylum seekers are apply for asylum from within your home country, just sit there in the poverty, the crime, the violence, all the things you are seeking to flee, and see what the people who regard you as coming from shithole countries and say you are riddled with drugs and criminals and terrorists and don't want you in the first place will say about your case, or stay in Mexico - just don't bother us.

It really is like they aren't even pretending anymore. The bigotry, the hatred, the xenophobia is right out there for all to see.

3. Speaking of immigration, the Immigration and Nationality Act is a federal law passed in 1952 that stipulates that any child born abroad to a married US citizen parent is granted birthright American citizenship. The reference to "married" was largely to deal with situations where only one of the parents was a US citizen. "You're a citizen, your spouse is not, doesn't matter, the kid's a citizen."

But the State Department interprets the law to mean that a child born abroad must be biologically related to a US citizen parent and what's more, a child born to a same-sex couple through assisted reproductive technology, which is not mentioned in the law and barely existed at the time, is born "out of wedlock" and thus, it's claimed, is not a birthright citizen.

The Immigration and Nationality Act makes no reference to biology in determining birthright citizenship, giving the policy little textual support in law. But the State Department doesn't care, which has plunged same-sex couples into a legal nightmare, as the State Department in effect says they are not really married, that they're not really "married US citizen parents."

In February, a federal judge ruled in a suit brought by one same-sex couple that the Department’s imposition of a biological requirement is a "strained interpretation” of immigration law, and dismissed attempts to institute a biological testing standard as “unilateral.”

But the State Department has appealed that ruling and has fought to summarily dismiss a suit brought by another same-sex couple, so the fight - and the Outrage - continue.

Oh, a footnote to all this: The policy was adopted in 2014 - under Obama.

4. Next, this type of intellectual corruption is pretty commonplace these days, but still it’s outrageous.

William Happer

In mid-June the Environmental Defense Fund released emails between William Happer, a member of the National Security Council, and policy advisers with the Heartland Institute. The emails dated from 2018 and 2019 and were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act filing.

The emails show that Happer, who has claimed that carbon dioxide is good for humans and that carbon emissions have been demonized like "the poor Jews under Hitler," actively sought the help of the Heartland Institute, a notorious and brazen liar about climate change, in seeking to discredit the scientific reports on the subject coming out of NASA.

In the words of Matthew Nisbet, a professor of environmental communication and public policy at Northeastern University, "It's equivalent to formulating anti-terrorism policy by consulting with groups that deny terrorism exists."

5. One final outrage. Ryan Kirkpatrick is a student at West Park Elementary School in Napa, California. He's 9 years old.

On June 10, it was reported that after learning that some kids cannot afford lunch at school and have to take on debt, he used his saved-up allowance money to pay off those debts for his entire third-grade class - because, according to his mother, he wanted to make a difference. The total came to $74.50.

So why is this an outrage?

Ryan Kirkpatrick

Because why should he have to? Why is it acceptable for some kids to be too poor to afford a school lunch? Why should any child or their family have to depend on private charity - which is exactly what this is - to afford a meal?

Make no mistake, Ryan Kirkpatrick did a good and kind thing. The Outrage is not in what he did - it's in the fact that such an act is ever necessary.

And bear in mind that this comes at the same time that the federal minimum wage has passed an ignominious milestone: It has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009 - and as of June 16 it had gone the longest time without an adjustment since the program was enacted in 1938. In fact, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has been declining since it hit its peak in February 1968 - that's a 51-year long decline in purchasing power.

A majority of states now have minimums above the federal level, but even in those, only three now have minimums above $11.50 an hour - a figure which offers purchasing power slightly below that of the federal minimum those 51 years ago. It's 51 years to get exactly nowhere.

Meanwhile, in 21 states the paltry, miserly, federal minimum is still the standard.

And we're all supposed to believe our economic lords and masters when they tell us the economy is doing great.