How far will Trump’s insanity go towards changing our political ideology

Trump has influenced our current political landscape in so many ways its hard to keep track. Americans don’t seem to care if he knows what he’s talking about, or if he just makes things up in order to get his agenda across. There are websites dedicated to counting his many lies, The Washington Post has listed over 3000 of them, CNN too, as well as the Washington Post, NY Times and many, many more. Evangelicals,  like Rev Jerry Falwell Jr , Franklin Graham, and  others, who often used to keep politicians in line with theology on things like divorce, infidelity and honesty are now just fine with anything Trump wants to do that they don’t even whisper foul when he commits an act against the ten commandments, let alone morality in general.

But the reason many Americans can so easily overlook Trump’s many lies and indiscretions is simple: he’s only human (Republicans are allowed that, Democrats are vilified for it) and he’s not lying as much as he’s telling people what they already believe, so to them, he’s the only one telling the truth.

We have become a nation that no longer looks to the news for truthful information. We are now a society that looks to the news to tell us what we already believe. And the politicians know this, so they are free to lie to us all they want as long as they tell us what we already think the truth is, not matter how far from the truth that idea is.

So what is the next logical step? Americans hopping on the Trump bandwagon and boldly espousing hateful, prejudicial, un-American views.

Current Georgia Congressman hopeful Brian Kemp has just released the video below showing him holding a gun and espousing his Trumpian values completely unafraid of any counter reaction this may bring, just like his idol, Donald Trump.

And its only going to get worse. How much more is this going to spread before we stand up and say we’ve had enough?

First Indian-American Congresswoman responds to citizenship question

A congresswoman responds to questions about her citizenship.  If Presidents have to deal with this, even Congressmen have to answer this type of questioning.

America is uniting for immigrants

Labor unions, women’s movements, muslims and more are marching together to stand with their immigrant friends and relatives to show support against an antagonistic President who has recently enacted an unjust travel ban, ended Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” program and has just begun a push to build his oppressive and highly un-neighborly Wall.

The president seems to be trying very hard to disassociate America from so many of the people that make up this country one has to imagine what country he thinks he is the president of.

And the people of this nation are rising up against his idea of what makes America Great.

If you look at the makeup of people who are uniting against him, one thing is going to be certain; making America great will mean getting a new president.

Undocumented Immigrants and Taxes

Unlike Donald Trump, the first American President in decades who refused to release his tax returns, an undocumented immigrant showed her tax forms and proved she paid $300 into a system that refuses to acknowledge her or give her any benefits in return.

Undocumented immigrants not paying taxes has been a right wing lie for centuries, yet proof of the contrary has never seemed to slow down the haters in the least.

Comments on her disclosure are proving once again that facts don’t seem to make anti-immigrant hate mongers change their tunes.

In fact, they seem to believe that if they shout their hate louder, then maybe they can drown out the facts and restore their faith in their all-American fantasy tale that immigrants are bad for America.

The fact that our nation’s entire history is one huge immigrant success story doesn’t seem to faze the ultra-conservatives much, and hundreds of years of their vociferous dribblings don’t give me any hope it will stop any time soon, either.

So, in the mean-time, Dreamers, keep up the good fight, and leave the bad fight to the haters, who, in the end, will be the losers, for fate ultimately validates the righteous.

The Problem with Travel Bans

I read an article on Forbes about Trump’s travel ban and what struck me most is how people are looking at this issue. These lawyers are arguing about how it can be legal or what the legal problems are. Unfortunately, if you’ve ever had to deal with the courts you will understand that lawyers can remove all the humanity of an issue in short order.

Why is nobody looking at the usefulness of the order or how it affects people?

By broadly discriminating against a religious group the effect is obvious. If we are to believe most terrorists are Muslims, why are we not also telling Catholic priests they cannot work with children? I know to Christians that sounds like a horrendous proposition. The Muslim travel ban would sound equally as despicable if you were Muslim. We know not all Catholic priests are pedophiles, so we don’t even talk about such an idea, yet how can we so easily talk about Muslims like we are with this travel ban? I personally know many, many muslims and I know they are not terrorists. Many are some of the nicest, most generous people I know. A travel ban based on a religious basis is most incredibly insulting, insensitive and ultimately non-productive.

Many people are also discussing how it is NOT a discriminatory edict by reflecting on many Muslim nations that are not on the ban list, yet within all of the countries on the ban list we are clearly targeting Muslims. Saying we are not targeting Muslims from Pakistan so therefore we are not targeting Muslims is senseless. Why are Pakistan and Iraq NOT on the list? We know many terrorists train or are funded by some Pakistanis and ISIS is based mainly in Iraq and Syria. This makes no sense at all. We are targeting Muslim majority countries in conflict, yet we are not including Pakistan and Iraq, two of the most violent and troubled nations on earth? Clearly we are making this stuff up as we go along and trying to justify our actions based on not including a few very controversial nations. If we are just trying to make America safe, shouldn’t we also have a ban against white supremacists in public schools and movie theaters?

And since most people on earth are not terrorists, because if they were there would be terrorist events happening in every country every day, how is this affecting people and families who are not terrorists trying to come to this country, or especially those trying to flee the conflicts in their own home nations? It could be devastating for many very innocent people.

Then there are those who say people with citizenship, dual citizenship, visas, green cards, etc in the countries on the list are not affected. Why not? The people who flew into the twin towers had American visas. In England, many of the terrorists were citizens or had visas too. In the most recent attack in England, Khalid Masood was an English citizen. Why is England not on the no fly list? He could have flown here and committed his crimes. Look at France, Belgium and Germany. Citizens, visas all.

This brings up the usefulness of such a ban. We know that religion is not the perpetrator of terrorism. Christians and Muslims are listed in atrocities all over the globe, yet because we are a “Christian” nation, we are focusing only on the Muslims. This is blatantly discriminatory. You cannot argue otherwise without omitting many obvious and convenient facts.

Terrorists are Zealots. They are willing to go to extremes to get their message across. They use whatever facts they wish to use to carry their anger and hate to a broader audience. If we truly want to make the world safer, we need to work with all communities to disarm the hate, and disarm the individuals who would harm innocent people.

A real war on terrorism would put a ban on installing dictators and government that persecute their citizens in other countries just because they would work favorably with us. This would go far in removing hate against a nation because of how they are being treated by us. We also need to persecute organizations, companies and the very laws that make it easy for them to acquire weapons and the tools to carry out their crimes.

We need to reduce  the access to weapons as well as the ammunition of hate. This would be more effective than a travel ban. Unfortunately we love our easy access to weapons, and our greed keeps us producing hate around the world. We should stop blaming others for our problems and start taking the blame ourselves. Only then can we work towards making our nation and the world safer.

Stars and stripes on gun

3 easy steps for a better immigration system

Alex Nowrasteh   wrote a piece for USnews.com outlining 3 easy steps for a better immigration system that the next president could do to help with our highly problematic  system. It is a wonderful article, but I wonder about the third suggestion of having states create their own visa programs. He makes several wonderful points about states having differing needs for guest workers, and therefore would be in position to create the most beneficial types of visas for the industries that need guest workers most and that are not currently offered by the federal immigration visa system, but you have to wonder about competing visa programs and how difficult it would make  it for guest workers to change jobs, move to another state, or transfer when a company moves and the new state does not offer the same kind of visa program. This could be fodder for new problems and a more difficult situation for companies and immigrant families.

Still, it is a wonderful article and well thought out, and at least somebody is looking at positive ways to mend our broken immigration system. Please take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-11-01/three-steps-to-immigration-reform

Website illustrates impact of Trump’s immigration plan

A new website graphically shows the effects to our country should Donald Trump follow through with his campaign promises on immigration. It is one thing to make bombastic statements in order to get the attention of voters, but it’s another thing to destroy the country you pretend to want to “make great again.”

 

http://www.immigrationvoter.com/trump365

Clinton wants to pass immigration reform in first 100 days in office

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine said Hilary Clinton wants to push for immigration reform in her first hundred days in office, should she get elected president. While this sounds good, President Obama has been trying to pass the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 (S. 744) for 3 years and has failed. The bill, co-authored by 4 democrats and 4 republicans, has met stiff resistance in the Republican dominated House of Representatives. Unless we vote out the stubborn Republican Senators who are against immigration reform, Hilary Clinton does not stand any more of a chance than Barrack Obama.

 

Trumpery is a 15th century word that means what you think

How could anyone in the 15th century know that Trumpery was going to be a thing in the 21st century?

 

Definition of TRUMPERY (Merriam Webster)

noun trum·pery \ˈtrəm-p(ə-)rē\

trumpery
1
    a  :  worthless nonsense
    b  :  trivial or useless articles :  junk <a wagon loaded with household trumpery — Washington Irving>
2
archaic  :  tawdry finery

The oxford dictionary defines it as:

“Practices or beliefs that are superficially or visually appealing but have little real value or worth.”

If used as an adjective to describe something, Oxford Dictionaries show:

 Showy but worthless and Delusive or shallow:

 

Other synonyms for Trumpery from Merriam Webster include:

Balderdash, baloney, blarney, blah (also blah blah), claptrap, crapola, folly, foolishness, hogwash, hooey, humbuggery, poppycock, rubbish, senselessness, silliness, stupidity, nonsense.

It’s profoundly ironic that a man named Donald Trump comes to us on the wings of public grandstanding with little substance to back up his words. “Trust Me,” or “Ill be the best you ever seen,” are the epitome of Donald Trump’s platform, and those words pretty much sum up classic Trumpery.

It’s almost like his hollow showmanship and the link to his name were planned.

So, who in the 15th century could have predicted Donald Trump’s rise in popularity under these very prescient ideas?

Well, Michelle De Nostradamus, for one.

nostradamus

“The high and tall, come into Milan, The Abbot of Foix with thofe of Saint Maure, Shall make the trumpery being cloathed like rogues.”

and

“No, I’ll not chalk my face or smear myself with phosphorus to amuse such trumpery.”

 

So, the next time Donald Trump opens his mouth, we can all celebrate his Trumpery, but we won’t be able to claim the word as our own. Apparently, it’s been done before, and has been for hundreds of years.

Todd Schulte on mass deportations

Unknown-1A great article on what mass deportations would do to our country by Todd Shulte, the president of FWD.US, an immigration reform advocacy group. This article goes into some good statistics and helps to visualize what Donald Trump’s immigration policy would really do to our country and the people who live in it.

It’s one thing to say something provocative and get lots of people’s attention. It’s another thing to actually do what you’re talking about, and if Trump does get elected and he actually tries to mass deport 11.5 million people, this will not be a pretty place to live.

I also suspect that foreign investment in this country would plummet. Who would want to build factories or buy companies in a country that treats foreigners with such disdain?