Tag Archives: The Wall

national news

McConnell now seeks ‘bipartanship’?

Mitch McConnell’s lack of self-awareness takes my breath away.

The U.S. Senate majority leader has penned an op-ed in the Washington Post that demands that congressional Democrats “work with us” instead of putting “partisan politics ahead of country.”

Interesting, yes? You bet it is!

Let’s review part of the record for just a brief moment.

  • McConnell once declared his intention to make Barack H. Obama a “one-term president.” In fact, he said it would be his No. 1 priority while leading the Senate Republican caucus.
  • He has remained shamefully silent about Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
  • This is my favorite: McConnell said that he would not allow President Obama to nominate anyone to replace the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He made that proclamation mere hours after Justice Scalia died in Texas. Obama nominated Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia, but McConnell would not allow even a hearing to examine Garland’s exemplary judicial credentials. Obama was in the final full year of the presidency and McConnell gambled — successfully, it turned out — on the hope that a Republican would win the 2016 presidential election.

This Senate Republican leader now accuses Democrats of “playing politics” over The Wall and causing the partial shutdown of the federal government.

Astonishing. I need to catch my breath.

national news

Mitch McConnell is MIA

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence at Donald Trump’s Rose Garden press conference was so very conspicuous it has become a serious back story in the government shutdown drama that goes on and on and on.

The Senate majority leader once all but guaranteed that there wouldn’t be a partial shutting down of the government. Indeed, he and the president reportedly agreed on a deal approved by the Senate unanimously to fund the government until early February.

Except the measure didn’t have money for The Wall that Trump wants to build along our southern border. Trump got a gut full from right wing talkers, so he changed his mind.

Yep. He stabbed the majority leader in the back.

Which makes me wonder if McConnell and Trump are at each other’s throats yet again.

He wasn’t standing with the president as Trump talked about the meeting he had with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer. He hasn’t spoken publicly for several days about the status of the shutdown, other than to say the Senate would not take up the House bill that Pelosi promised to send to the Senate.

Aren’t he and Trump big-time pals these days? Don’t they stand together in favor of The Wall and opposed to any measure that doesn’t include money to build it?

He should have been in the Rose Garden. Mitch McConnell is missing in action. Given that no one seems able to talk sense to the president, then maybe McConnell is planning a mutiny.

national news

Knock off the ‘open borders’ demagoguery

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I am going to declare a form of rhetorical war against those who keep insisting that those who oppose building The Wall along our southern border favor “open borders.”

Open borders . . . shm-open borders.

The nation’s demagogue in chief, Donald Trump, keeps harping on that mantra. He is wrong to say it. His true believers are wrong to buy into it and repeat it. Trump is wrong to push for The Wall. He is wrong to suggest that The Wall is the only way to make our nation more “secure” from undesirables seeking to enter this country illegally.

What’s more, he is wrong to demonize every single illegal immigrant in the manner that he’s done. He is wrong minimize the asylum-seekers who are fleeing repression, corruption and personal threats to their lives in their own countries.

It is the “open borders” canard that sends me into orbit.

To suggest that those who oppose The Wall somehow favor a security-free border gives demagoguery a bad name.

I am one American who opposes The Wall. Do I favor stronger border security? Of course I do. So do many other Americans who believe as I do. We want the nation to be a place that enforces immigration laws strictly but also is a welcoming place for those who seek freedom and a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

We can protect this country by enhancing existing security measures: drones, electronic surveillance, more Border Patrol officers.

The president simplifies a complex issue by dividing us into two camps: those who favor The Wall vs. those who oppose it.

I am sickened by the demonization and demagoguery the president keeps spewing, not to mention the parroting of that hideous rhetoric by his allies in Congress and those rank-and-file Americans out here in Flyover Country.

We all love this country. We all want to protect it. We simply differ on the best way to do it.

The Wall is a boondoggle, pure and simple.

national news

Democrats taking Trump insults personally?

A part of me wishes congressional Democrats had stuck around Washington to knuckle down in search of a solution to the government shutdown instead of scurrying for the tall grass; Donald Trump managed to forgo his Florida getaway to stay in D.C., after all.

Another part of me thinks that Trump is handling this standoff poorly while he dishes out Twitter-fueled insults to his political foes.

He needles them to come to the White House, but uses that snarky tone — along with the demagogic rhetoric about favoring “open borders” — to make whatever point he wants to make.

How can Democrats not take this constant barrage personally? How can they put all that crap aside as if the president never said anything of a smart-alecky nature?

For instance, Trump fired off this tweet: I am in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over and make a deal on Border Security. From what I hear, they are spending so much time on Presidential Harassment that they have little time left for things like stopping crime and our military!

See what I mean? He has to say something about Democrats having “little time left for things like stopping crime and our military.” That’s the stuff of a demagogue.

He continues to play exclusively to his base, which cheers him on blindly. The rest of us? He couldn’t care less. This is the guy who said he’d be a “unifying” president, that he would seek to be everyone’s head of state, head of government and commander in chief. He is nothing of the sort!

The partial government shutdown now figures to hang around for a while. Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in a few days. Maybe something will change. Maybe they can persuade their GOP colleagues in the Senate to pass the word on to the president that his insistence on building The Wall is a non-starter.

If only they can get over the personal insults that emanate from the president’s Twitter account.

economic news, national news

Nice timing on pay freeze, Mr. POTUS

Donald John Trump isn’t exactly the master of impeccable timing.

He helps shut down part of the federal government, forcing the furloughing of thousands of federal employees; thus, they are not getting paid while their agency is shut down because the White House and Congress are arguing over money to build The Wall along our southern border.

What does Trump then decide to do? He signs an executive order freezing wages for federal employees! They were slated to get a 2.1 percent pay increase. No longer will they get it. Trump said the budget cannot support it. Imagine that, will ya?

The budget deficit has exploded since the president and congressional Republicans enacted that tax cut, depriving the government of revenue that might have helped minimize deficit growth.

At least, though, the pay freeze doesn’t have an effect on the 2.6-percent pay increase granted to our men and women in the military.

Still, as the saying goes: Timing is everything.

Nice timing, Mr. President.

national news

Reaction to Trump tweet brings back other memories

Donald Trump’s tweet about who he believes deserves blame for the deaths of two children on the southern border who happened to be in U.S. custody has brought its share of scorn from critics.

He wrote: Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally. They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try!” 

The critics suggest that Trump’s cowardly tendencies compel him to blame others for his own failures.

I am reminded of another president, the late George H.W. Bush.

The 41st president didn’t like taking credit for his successes. He was unafraid to accept responsibility for the times he fell short, such as when he lost his bid for re-election in 1992. He said the blame for his loss fell solely and wholly on his shoulders.

I recall a statement he made during a TV interview with his granddaughter, Jenna Hager. She asked him about his “legacy.” He demurred. The former president said he didn’t want to comment on any legacy. He preferred to let others talk about “our success” and when “I fell short.”

Please take note of how he used the “we” when discussing the good things, and the “I” when referencing the other stuff.

That is the mark of a leader. Or, as President Kennedy reminded us after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, when the CIA-led incursion into Cuba failed in its effort to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime: “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”

media news, national news

Trump on a rush to publish worst tweet of the year

“Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally. They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try! The two …”

I have no need to include the rest of this Twitter message. Yep, it comes from Donald John Trump, the “stable genius” who appears to be on a mad rush to publish the most disgusting tweet of 2018.

This one has to rank up there with the best, er, worst of ’em.

Two small children have died while they are in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. They came here illegally from Central America.

Now the president of the United States is blaming Democrats for those people trekking from repression en route to the United States. He blames Democrats because the children reportedly didn’t get the medical care they needed to prevent them from dying.

Words escape me. I have none to describe the depths of despicability that this man, the president, has sunk.

Is this the worst he can do? Probably not. I mean, we have a couple more days before the end of the year approaches. I’m quite certain this individual, Trump, will sink even lower.

International news, national news

Trump stays put, unlike congressional leaders

I have to say it out loud: I disagree mightily with Donald Trump’s reasons for shutting down part of the federal government, but I agree with his decision to stay put in Washington while needling his foes to find a solution to the stalemate.

Meanwhile, congressional leaders — Republican and Democrat alike — are nowhere to be found in D.C. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is gone; so is Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer; Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell also are MIA.

I get that the two sides are miles apart. Trump wants money to build The Wall along our southern border. Democrats are having none of it. But the two sides cannot talk to each other face to face if one of the parties is absent, correct?

We don’t need The Wall to shore up our border security. We can accomplish that feat without erecting The Wall, whether it’s an actual wall or an unreasonable facsimile.

At least the president is on scene. I wish those who run the legislative branch of government were there, too.

International news

‘Open borders’ becomes latest straw man

I have grown so-o-o-o weary of hearing Donald Trump and his political brethren continue to harp on those who allegedly favor “open borders” and allowing anyone to enter the country anywhere at any time.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has joined that amen chorus by declaring that those who favor “open borders” are chiefly responsible for the deaths of two children who were taken into custody after entering the country illegally with their parents.

Spare me. Please!

The “open borders” argument has become the president’s latest straw man. He holds it up and then knocks the stuffing out of it by insisting that his foes don’t favor border security of any kind.

Gad, man!

I can speak only for myself. I oppose The Wall. I do not favor “open borders.” I want border security as much as the president of the United States. I favor U.S. Border Patrol agents using whatever means they have available to them to arrest those coming in illegally.

I also want U.S. immigration policy to reflect a nation that wants to work with these folks if they are seeking asylum. If they are fleeing repression and hardship in their home country, then we should protect them. Deporting them to the place they are fleeing simply isn’t part of the American spirit.

Open borders? That is a red herring. It fuels a demagogue’s arsenal of fiery rhetoric.

economic news, national news

Federal workers ‘favor’ the shutdown? Hardly!

Donald Trump says many members of the federal work force “favor” the government shutdown that has put many of them out of work and has taken money from their pocketbooks.

Yep, that’s what the president said.

The president’s assertion, quite naturally, has been rebuked by union leaders, who say Trump’s statement is, shall we say, way off the mark.

Think of it. You work for a federal agency that is deemed “non-essential.” Members of Congress and the White House cannot agree on spending priorities. The government runs out of money approved by Congress during its most recent continuing resolution.

So the government shutters itself. Your agency is one of them that goes dark. You’re furloughed without pay.

And you favor shutting down the government? Sure thing, and the sun will rise in the west tomorrow morning.

Trump is trying to insert The Wall into this discussion. Well, whether employees favor construction of The Wall along our southern border is beside the point. They might actually support the president on that one.

It doesn’t mean they want the government to shut down and they want to deny their families an income upon which they demand for things such as, oh, keeping a roof over their head and putting food on their table.