The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I've recently heard several MAGAs claiming Vice President Harris now supports their orange messiah's border wall. It may derive from the following Axios article, which I will now dissect. The article starts with, "If she's elected president, Kamala Harris pledges to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the wall along the southern border — a project she once opposed and called 'un-American'  during the Trump administration." Something tells me this isn't the whole story, but I'll bite. Please continue... "Why it matters: It's the latest example of Harris flip-flopping on her past liberal positions such as supporting Medicare for All and banning fracking — proposals that aides say she now is against. - Harris is embracing a more hawkish immigration policy as Donald Trump's campaign spends tens of millions of dollars attacking her about the border. - But she still has significant differences with Trump on immigration, opposing his app...

While (illegal) immigration has been a hot-button issue for quite some time, the temperature was raised exponentially after President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning travel for citizens from seven Muslim-dominated countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, and Sudan). Due to the short notice provided by Trump regarding the matter and the vague language used in the order, chaos at airports was widespread, as natives from those seven nations who possessed visas or green cards were left waiting and wondering, uncertain what their ultimate fate was going to be. This prompted protests from both inside and outside the country, not to mention over 50 lawsuits (to this point), and plummeting poll numbers to boot. Unsurprisingly, this has led to heated immigration debates, so heated, in fact, many Trump supporters are now threatening to boycott Budweiser due to their pro-immigrant-themed Super Bowl ad. Yes, as Martin Lawrence's character said in the film...

Just yesterday, I read an article by MSNBC's Steve Benen, titled, "The public has no idea the deficit is shrinking." In a December 2014  Bloomberg Politics Poll , it found that 73% of the public believes the deficit to be getting bigger; 21% believe it to be getting smaller; and 6% are uncertain about the matter. While the deficit increased substantially from 2008 to 2009, largely due to the Great Recession, it decreased slightly in 2010, stayed roughly the same in 2011, and has been steadily decreasing in 2012, 2013, and 2014, to the point where the deficit is near its 2008 level before the Great Recession truly made its impact felt. In the same poll, people were also asked, "On immigration, do you think the Obama administration has sent more or fewer undocumented immigrants back to their home countries compared to ten years ago?" While only 29% said more, 53% said fewer, and 18% said they weren't sure. Once again, the opposite is true. Sadly, I find ...

The Daily Show 's "Moment of Zen" cracked me up last night. The show's nightly final segment featured Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (Republican), who, when speaking about illegal immigration said this: "Come some night with me and sit out at the border, one, two, three in the morning - dogs, tarantulas, scorpions, rattlesnakes..." For some reason, when hearing Gohmert utter this line, I immediately thought of a strange personal ad: "If interested, I'd love for you to join me on a long romantic walk on the beach..." Instead of using that cliched line, however, Gohmert went a different route. In fact, when reading that line again, I envision Gohmert engaging in the following back-and-forth with a woman on a dating site: Pattie B. Kinky: "What was your name again, big boy?" Louie Gohmert: "Louie, Louie Goh... You can just call me Louie." Pattie: "So, Louie, what do you like to do for fun, if you know what I...

The Wall of Hypocrisy Past, present and future, We head to the great land, Filled with opportunity, Of which we’ve never had, Like generations before us, Before theirs as well, On the oceans they sailed, With no fear of death, Illness strikes several, Some never recover, Friends and family mourn, Yet fight against the struggles, The water becomes no more, As we finally reach land, Standing and embracing one another, Sharing smiles, tears and laughs, From Europe we’ve traveled, From China and Japan, From Canada and Mexico, From South America and Africa, Longing for a taste of freedom, Longing for the American Dream, Hoping for nationwide acceptance, Wanting a better life for our families, We walk away from the boats, To a land full of opportunity, Hopeful a wall is not present, To deny us of all that’s free.

I never knew how much of a hot-button issue this was until a couple years ago or so. I've gotten into heated discussions about capital punishment, abortion, religion, but never had I gotten into such a discussion regarding immigration. First off, I'd like to define immigrant based solely on what the dictionary tells me. Immigrant- One who comes to a country for the purpose of permanent residence. A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another. There you have it, an unbiased definition coming right out of the dictionary. Based on that definition, I only have one question to ask - isn't everyone in the United States here because of immigration? It's not like my family just woke up in America 200 years ago. No, they traveled from Germany, Poland and England to settle here. That's the case with every single one of us. Nobody out there can tell me that they are American through and through, and that all their relatives' lives started in the U...