Sarah Huckabee Sanders Getting Kicked Out of Restaurant Wasn’t Just Because She’s a Republican
Trump’s immigration policies go beyond political lines
By Alana Winns
June 25, 2018
Coming off the heels of political chaos at the border, Americans are still feeling emotionally affected by Trump’s family separation immigration policy.
According to the Washington Post, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant, called the Red Hen, while out to dinner with friends.
“The cheese course was already on the table” when the owner pulled her to the side and asked that she leave because of her political party’s policies.
The Post reported that the owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, politely refused to serve Sanders because “Sanders works for and defends an inhumane and unethical administration.”
“I’m not a huge fan of confrontation,” Wilkinson said. “I have a business, and I want the business to thrive. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”
However, the decision to ask Sanders to leave seems to boil down to basic human ethics rather than because of her being simply a conservative.
Just last week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten Nielsen was heckled by a crowd of protesters while eating at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C.
According to CNN, Nielsen was sitting quietly in back of the MXDC Cocina Mexicana restaurant, not too far from the White House, when she began getting booed and sarcastically questioned:
“Aren’t you a mother too?”
“How do you sleep at night?”
“Do you hear the babies crying?”
“If the kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace.”
Those are many examples of statements that seem to have less to do with being a Republican, and more to do with being undoubtedly immoral.
Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney and political op-ed contributor for CNN, expressed similar observations regarding recent oppositions.
“Let’s make it clear, this is not about asking someone to leave or heckling them simply because they are Republicans or conservatives,” he wrote.
“That would be wrong. This is about targeting people who are very publicly involved in formulating and defending Trump’s immoral policies.”
Obeidallah pointed out that people didn’t yell, “Get out of here because you’re a Republican” but instead made chants that were specific to Trump’s family separation immigration policy literally, “speaking truth to power.”
Additionally, Trump is just a percentage point away from former President Richard Nixon when it comes to the total of Americans who want him impeached, according to Newsweek.
And though Sanders was offended by Wilkinson requesting that she leave by – ironically – writing, “I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so. Her actions say far more about her than about me,” Wilkinson has no regrets.
“I would have done the same thing again,” Wilkinson said. “We just felt there are moments in time when people need to live their convictions. This appeared to be one.”
Trump: ‘No Judges or Court Cases’ for Immigrants — Even Though Many Are Fleeing Drug Violence Related to U.S. Drug Consumption
“Zero tolerance” rages on even for those seeking refuge from nations plagued with violence thanks to drug wars — but the white American drug user crisis continues.
Returning to his racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, President Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday:
Detainees report that the so-called “well coordinated” process requires them to sign away any chance of citizenship.
Roughly one quarter of children who have been torn from their families at the border have been reunited with their loved ones. Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security issued a vague — and reportedly conditioned — way to bring all of the separated families back together.
From dining at Mexican restaurants to wearing clothing with messages, the Trump administration is leveraging hateful communications for political success.
Despite the backlash against the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy regarding immigrants, President Trump boosted his approval ratings among Republicans to 90 percent, higher than Ronald Reagan at this point in his presidency.
The rise in Trump support “suggests a level of unity among Republicans that could help mitigate Mr. Trump’s low overall approval ratings and aid his party’s chances of keeping control of the House of Representatives in November,” The New York Times reported on Saturday.
The number of people identifying as Republican since 2016 has dropped and the Democrats have an 8 percentage point advantage, up slightly from when they won the popular vote by 3 million. Trump’s approval rating amongst non-Republicans is at 15 percent, lower than any other president in recent history, including George W. Bush.
The key for the November congressional elections is going to be voter turn out – and it appears that the Republicans have a decisive advantage after last week’s apparently coordinated hate communications campaign.
Immigrants Will ‘Infest’ America
After backlash from politicians and the general public, Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday saying immigrant families will no longer be separated at the U.S.-Mexico border. The separation was a result of the “zero tolerance” policy.
On Tuesday, he said immigrants would infest America:
I Really Don’t Care, Do You?
On Thursday, First Lady Melania Trump made an unexpected trip to Texas to visit a shelter for immigrant children. She wore a short trench coat with a message written on the back: “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?”
Melania Trump wore the jacket boarding the plane at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and when she returned.
Social media users posted about the irony of what the first lady chose to wear to visit kids separated from their families.
East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham said there was “no hidden message” behind the jacket.
Meanwhile, President Trump tweeted that the statement was against the “fake news media”:
Dining at Mexican Restaurants
In the middle of a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, Stephen Miller — the senior White House adviser who orchestrated the “zero-tolerance” policy — had dinner on June 17 at Espita Mezcaleria in Washington, D.C.
“Hey look guys, whoever thought we’d be in a restaurant with a real-life fascist begging [for] money for new cages?” a customer at the restaurant said to Miller, according to The New York Post.
Miller didn’t respond and left quickly, a witness said.
Homeland Security Trump Minister Kirstjen Nielsen then went to another Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday for dinner.
A group called the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America approached Nielsen in MXDC Cocina Mexicana.
“If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace!” protesters chanted. They also shouted, “Shame!”
“Have you listened to it? Have you heard the babies crying? Do you hear them crying?” activists asked, regarding a tape leaked earlier in the week of young children taken at the border crying.
“No borders, no walls, sanctuary for all,” they said.
Dining at Red Hen
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took an almost 200-mile drive from the White House to rural Virginia on Friday night to eat at a tiny, 26-seat restaurant in Lexington, where residents overwhelmingly voted against Trump in the 2016 presidential election, despite the rest of the county voting for him.
Huckabee was at the Red Hen with “her husband, three or four men and women of roughly similar ages, and an older couple,” according to The Washington Post.
The chef contacted the co-owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, to let her know Huckabee was present and that the staff was concerned.
When Wilkinson arrived, she asked her employees if they’d like Huckabee to leave and they agreed.
Many of her gay employees were upset by Sanders’ defense for the administration’s ban on transgender service members and her praise of a Supreme Court ruling that sided with an anti-gay baker.
And earlier in the week, she defended the administration separating migrants from their children at the southern border.
Wilkinson asked Sanders to leave the establishment.
On Saturday morning, Sanders used her official press secretary account to tweet about being asked to leave because she works in the Trump administration:
organizational misbehavior
NFL Owners Prove They Are Still Trump’s Racist Cronies
“These injustices are so widespread as to seem practically written into our nation’s DNA,” said Doug Baldwin, Anquan Boldin, Malcolm Jenkins and Benjamin Watson.
Kaitlyn D’Onofrio
June 22, 2018
President Trump recently suggested that NFL players give him a list of people they believe were wronged by the justice system. If Trump agrees, he said earlier this month, he will “pardon them or at least let them out.” How did NFL owners respond? They didn’t.
The Oregon Department of Transportation has received phone calls from people around the world demanding the firing of Lori McAllen.
Sheryl Estrada
June 22, 2018
The Oregon Department of Transportation (DOT) is internationally under fire as a DMV employee’s racist comment on Facebook calling for immigrants who arrive at the U.S. border to be shot has gone viral.
“You cannot make assumptions that people are going to commit a crime based on how they look,” said Delta Sigma Theta sister Chante Spencer.
BAHAMA BREEZE WEBSITE
Kaitlyn D’Onofrio
June 22, 2018
Sisters of Delta Sigma Theta sorority were racially profiled by police and restaurant workers at a Bahama Breeze restaurant. The group was targeted even though no crime was committed.
‘Woke’ news and career advice
from people who look like you.
The suit is seeking $1 billion in damages for local D.C. residents.
Alana Winns
June 22, 2018
While gentrification continues to grow throughout cities in the U.S., a D.C. lawyer has decided to take action by filing a discrimination lawsuit on behalf of at least 23 people.
