Category: *Lies

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Will Sarah Sanders Leave the White House? Who Could Blame Her?

Shortly after CBS News reported that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders may be planning to leave her job at the White House departure at the end of the year, Sanders almost denied it in this tweet:
“Does @CBSNews know something I don’t about my plans and my future? I was at my daughter’s year-end Kindergarten event and they ran a story about my “plans to leave the WH” without even talking to me. I love my job and am honored to work for @POTUS.”
But in light of the current public doubt about Sanders’ credibility, her quasi-denial doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Sanders’ veracity has frequently been challenged by the media. On numerous occasions during White House daily briefings and press conferences, she has made statements that were later found to be false. When asked about them, Sanders has said she misspoke due to a lack of correct information at the time.

Even before the possibility of Sarah Sanders’ White House resignation came to light, one had to wonder whether she likes her job, or whether she hates the position she’s constantly in – that of representing to the media and to the world, a president who is known to frequently lie, change his stories, and speak and act impulsively.

If Sanders likes her job, one would conclude that she must truly believe what she says when she unfailingly defends Trump’s behavior in her position at the White House podium. The other alternative would be that she is aware of Trump’s many lies, exaggerations, and inaccuracies, and herself has a poor relationship with the truth, and even that she is estranged from her conscience.

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether Sarah Sanders is making things up on the spot, or whether she’s been briefed. Some examples:

The statement that women traveling with undocumented immigrants through Mexico were “raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before.”

And this one: “Everybody acts like President Trump is the one that came up with this idea. … There are multiple news outlets that have reported” former President Barack Obama ordered wiretapping on Trump.

In addition, Sanders often says that some of the cruel and insulting things Trump has said were “jokes.”

Sarah Sanders has also denied any plans for firing various senior advisors, only for them to be fired shortly thereafter.

Perhaps most famously, Sanders denied that Trump knew about his lawyer’s payment to Stormy Daniels, citing a personal conversation she had had with him. Later, when Trump changed his story and admitted he had known about the payment to keep Daniels from going to the media about their affair, Trump put Sarah Sanders in the position of a deer caught in headlights.

Did Sarah Sanders lie for Trump? Did Trump lie to her when he denied knowledge of the payment, and did she believe him? Sarah Sanders, who always has the President’s back, learned from this that he didn’t always have her back. This realization could certainly be a factor in Sarah Sanders’ decision to leave the White House.

There aren’t many options for ways to respond when the press, on live television, calls you on a falsehood that you had previously insisted was the truth. Either you admit you’ve lied, or you have to throw your boss under the bus by admitting to the press that he gave you the false information.

Is Sarah Huckabee Sanders being misled by Trump on a regular basis, or is she deliberately misleading people when she briefs the White House press every day? If she intentionally lies on behalf of Donald Trump, then she’s lost her credibility. If she doesn’t willingly lie for Trump, and simply believes she’s telling the truth regarding Trump and his escapades, she shows herself to be incredibly gullible – and, again, lacking in credibility.

For a person of integrity, the stress of a job such as Sanders’ could eventually take a toll on one’s health and well-being. Even for a person who lacks integrity, such a job could break the stress barrier. Whichever person Sarah Sanders is, it must be tough to stand in front of the White House press every day, defending a president who is known for propensity to lie on a regular basis. Who could fault Sarah Huckabee Sanders if she wants to leave the White House?

Sarah Sanders, Raj Shah expected to leave White House posts | CBS News [2018-06-14]

Sanders slams report she considered leaving White House | Fox News [2018-06-14]

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Migrant Children: Leaving their Conditions for Worse Ones?

On April 26, 2018, Steven Wagner, an official at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), stated during a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee oversight hearing that HHS had lost track of 1475 migrant children in 2017. The migrant children had all been placed into HHS custody when trying to cross the Mexican border into the U.S, unaccompanied by adults.

When migrant children attempt to cross the border on their own, the Department of Homeland Security places them into the custody of the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), who provides them with food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities, until sponsors are selected and approved for the children.

Officials at HHS maintain that once the ORR places migrant children into the care of sponsors, it is no longer the responsibility of HHS to keep track of them. HHS did, however, follow up with a survey of over 7,000 of the migrant children, and this is apparently how they discovered that almost 1500 of them are unaccounted for.

According to Snopes, “From October to December 2017, HHS called 7,635 children the agency had placed with sponsors, and found 6,075 of the children were still living with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been deported and 52 were living with someone else. The rest were ‘missing,’ said Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary at HHS.”

But this does not excuse the HHS’ complete lack of concern for following up on the safety and well-being of these children, which could be illustrated by Senator Rick Santorum’s comment on CNN’s State of the Union: “I mean, we lose people all the time in a lot of other government programs.”

Usually, a sponsor is a parent or other close family member, but sometimes, the sponsor is not related, or is a distant relative. When HHS releases migrant children to the care of sponsors, the children become the responsibility of the sponsors. On the one hand, with no oversight or follow-up from HHS, migrant children, if not in the hands of familiar and trusted relatives or family members, could be ripe for human trafficking.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), chairman of the Senate subcommittee, in response to the revelation the HHS had lost track of 1475 migrant children, cited the case of a group of Guatemalan boys who had been forced to work on an Ohio egg farm after the HHS had released them to the care of human traffickers posing as family members (and hence approved as sponsors).

“These kids, regardless of their immigration status, deserve to be treated properly, not abused or trafficked,” Portman said in the subcommittee. “This is all about accountability. …We’ve got these kids. They’re here. They’re living on our soil,” he told PBS. “And for us to just, you know, assume someone else is going to take care of them and throw them to the wolves, which is what HHS was doing, is flat-out wrong. I don’t care what you think about immigration policy, it’s wrong.”

On the other hand, with the Trump administration’s no-holds-barred approach to undocumented immigration (including the recent announcement that the Justice Department would begin to prosecute 100 percent of those who attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally), some feel that it’s not altogether bad that the HHS hasn’t caught up with all of the migrant children.

It’s possible that some of these migrant children and their sponsors have not responded to HHS calls because they have chosen to go “off the grid” in order to avoid the risk of deportation or prosecution. There are many other possible explanations for their “disappearance, including explanations as simple as an outdated phone number, or a decision not to answer the phone.

Whether we agree or not with the Trump administration’s policies regarding immigration, it is not ok to put any children, no matter what their status, at any level of risk for human trafficking. Just as true, though, is that undocumented migrant children are quite likely trying to flee a traumatic situation at home, and it is not ok, simply because we “can’t take on everyone in a difficult situation,” to subject these or any children to childhood trauma, whether through government negligence by formal policy.

Outrage over reports of ‘missing’ immigrant children – Daily Mail | Daily Mail [2018-05-28]

Federal Government Lost Track Of 1,500 Immigrant Children | Wochit Politics [2018-05-26]

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