Trump thinks he’s being too soft on immigration? How delusional is he!

We most definitely have a serious split in our society when it comes to the concept of what makes for a rational immigration policy.

TRUMP: Who thinks he's soft on immigration

Because for all the nonsense-talk that President Donald Trump has spewed with regards to immigration and increased deportations and erections of border barricades, it seems that Trump-backers think he’s being weak.

I COULDN’T HELP but chuckle at the CNN report about the meeting Trump had this weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to talk with assorted advisers – many of whom were of the view that the presidential political base thinks Trump is “softening” on immigration.

All of those Tweets from a twit meant to inspire those of a belief that immigration reform means increased deportations and the threats that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is now a dead policy with no chance for extended existence and how we need to move forward with erecting a barricade along the U.S./Mexico border?

Not good enough to appease the ideological buffoons of our society. No matter how much Trump’s talk manages to irritate those amongst us of a more rational line of thought, it’s not enough!

Some of us are just going to demand that our society devolve down to an absolute “police state” before they’ll be satisfied. Heck, even then they probably will find something to be peeved about. Some people will just never be satisfied.

NOT THAT THIS attitude should come as a surprise.

All past efforts to enact serious reform of our national immigration policy (which actually is long overdue, there are some serious flaws in the way things are now handled) have been thwarted by these ideologues.

All efforts by former President Barack Obama to push for serious reform went nowhere because the ideologues played hardball in hopes of gaining their borderline fascist fantasies. While Obama gained the tag of “deporter-in-chief” amongst some Latino activists, he got lambasted by others for the exact opposite tag.

OBAMA: Too soft to fight for immigration?

It seems the same split is at work here. The people who thought Obama too weak on immigration policy ought to realize how backward their line of thought was, since it ought to be apparent (if it wasn’t already obvious enough back then) how intense the opposition to serious immigration reform was.

HECK, THE PEOPLE who were vehemently opposed to Obama (and who turned on George W. Bush when he tried pushing for immigration reform towards the end of his presidency) are now thinking that Trump’s overly-hostile immigration rhetoric is too weak!

What it comes down to is that some people amongst us just are never going to be satisfied. And that to those individuals, Trump’s “Making America Great Again” means putting them in charge so they can force their own vision on the rest of us.

Just how over-the-top is that vision?

Consider that Trump, as a way of getting around the fact that a majority of Congress and the public are never going to accept his “border wall” in large-part because of the expense such a project would ring up, has suggested that perhaps “the military” could fund it.

AS THOUGH WE could take that stretch of desert and heavily-polluted land around the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande and turn it effectively into an army-base – heavily armed and perhaps even containing a moat with man-eating alligators inside.

BUSH: Lost supporters over immigration

It gets scary when stupid suggestions from then-presidential candidate Herman Cain (remember 2012?) wind up being taken seriously by anybody.

Because that’s the level of thought we’ve devolved to if people seriously think Trump isn’t being extreme enough when it comes to his cheap talk on immigration policy.

And to which our society’s saving grace is that Trump appears to be too politically incompetent to actually get anything done, while too egotistical to listen to people who can. Which may be the saddest comment of all.

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It’s going to get ugly before it’s over

It was just a few minutes after reading the accounts of the Chicago-area woman who claims presidential dreamer Herman Cain tried to put his hand up her skirt that I checked my e-mail on Monday to find a pair of new messages.

In those messages, I couldn’t help but see what we’re going to have to endure for the upcoming 12 months as our nation goes through the process of trying to pick a president for the following four years.

ONE WAS A message from the campaign of Tammy Duckworth, the new National Guard lieutenant colonel who is going to try again next year to win a seat in the House of Representatives from the Chicago suburbs.

The other was a message from someone who semi-regularly sends me e-mail messages about whatever political issue is in the news that day, all so he can express his conservative ideological views to me.

Usually, I kind of look forward to reading his rants. They can be entertaining. And sometimes, he can come up with a good zinger. (Although I don’t know if I should use “he” in describing this person, since I have no clue who this person truly is).

But on Monday, it was loaded with ugliness. And when combined with the Duckworth message (which was one sent out to supporters meant to get Democratic partisans excited about the chance to vote for her come the March 20, 2012 primary), it just seemed like the perfect example of what we’re all going to get swamped with as a result of Presidential Campaign ’12 – the race to say something mean-spirited.

THE DUCKWORTH MESSAGE, signed by her campaign manager, tells us that next year’s elections are important because a second-term Barack Obama presidency is going to need allies in Congress, rather than people who are out to discredit his presidency and maybe even try to impeach him (who knows what reason they will give – there are times when it seems they will impeach first, and figure out why later on).

“In the first (post-Election Day scenario), we take back Congress from the GOP and set our country back on the right track. In the second, we face two more years of a Congress held hostage to the Tea Party’s radical agenda,” her campaign manager wrote.

Not exactly nice rhetoric. It is self-serving in its own right. But when followed up by a link to a website where we can easily make a contribution to the Duckworth campaign (just $10 is all they’re asking for now), it becomes downright tacky.

It would be one of those moments that would explain why I often describe myself politically as a “Democrat, but not always proud of it.”

BUT THEN I read the other e-mail message from the ideologue and then I realized why I put up with this type of nonsense even when it goes overboard.

For what my anonymous ideological correspondent wanted to do was rant about the very press conference that I had just read about – the one where Sharon Bialek publicly stated that Cain tried to make sexual advances toward her, although he eventually returned her to her hotel room when she turned him down,.

Bialek is the fourth woman to come forth in recent weeks to claim that Cain’s behavior toward the female gender can be crude, although she’s the first to let us know exactly who she is.

Which is going to make her the target for every ideological ding-dong who wants to believe that a fellow conservative like Cain wouldn’t do such things – or doesn’t care if he does them so long as he supports the kind of actions on social issues that they want to impose on our society as a whole. Personally, I think they should be more concerned about the IRS hinting they want to look into his campaign funds.

MY ANONYMOUS INTERNET “buddy” (the hateful rhetoric is always anonymous) called Bialek’s claims, “stupid harassment charges” and said she is the reason why, “good people don’t get into politics.” As though he's the real victim here.

Personally, I dismissed any possibility that Cain might be a “good person” back when he thought it was funny to make jokes about the U.S./Mexico border needed a wall with barbed wire and electricity going through it (along with maybe that moat with alligators that Barack Obama himself once satirized the GOP for wanting).

Anybody who deliberately plays up to the conservative stereotype with a straight face isn’t a good person. The fact that so many of these sexual harassment allegations are now coming forth merely reinforces my perception that Cain isn’t the most socially graceful of people running for president.

And, of course, he also threw in an Internet link so that we could easily make a donation to the Cain campaign, while also giving us the address and telephone number of Gloria Allred, the attorney reknowned for her involvement in women’s rights issues who is representing Bialek.

AS THOUGH WE’RE all now supposed to waste our time with telephone calls that harass Allred and her legal staff with our rants. It must be nice to have the kind of money that one can afford to run up such long-distance phone charges without giving it a second thought!

That just strikes me as being way too overzealous, and may well be the reason that Obama manages to get re-elected. What if we real people (not the ideologues of either side) really wind up despising the GOP nominee more than we distrust Obama’s abilities?

Every day, that becomes more and more of a real possibility.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't feel any need to provide links to the fundraising websites for Duckworth or Cain that I alluded to in this commentary. Look them up yourself if you care enough to make a contribution.

One year, and counting

I already have a headache from the 2012 election cycle and all the rancid rhetoric it has produced. The idea that we’re going to have to endure one more year of this nonsense-talk is something I don’t know if I can endure.

OBAMA: One year from victory?



It’s true. The general election for 2012 will be held one year from Sunday. In exactly one year, we’re going to learn whether the economic downtown that doesn’t want to leave is going to take down the presidency of Barack Obama – or if the Republicans will manage to blow their chance to put “one of their own” in the White House.

I WRITE IT that way because the struggles many people are facing are going to make them inclined to take down whoever they can come Election Day.

Unless there is some turnaround in the economy that is historic in nature, there won’t be much of anything that Obama can take credit for on that front. And that front could be the only one that many people will care about.

Take the last presidency that suffered from this issue – that of George Bush the elder when he ran for re-election in 1992. All the trash that afflicted Bill Clinton’s candidacy should have been enough to take him down.

Yet there were a significant-enough number of people who wanted to vote for Anybody But Bush. Some of those ABB’s went for Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot. But Clinton got more than his share, which led to his victory.

IN THEORY, THE same thing is going to happen to Obama one year from now.

And while one can argue that the economic downturn was caused by the ideological policies of past presidents (such as the former Bush’s son), the fact seems to be that Obama hasn’t been able to break through the ideological hostility to be able to accomplish much of anything to fix the problem.

Yet, a part of me seriously believes that Obama could wind up prevailing a year from now. We could be watching his second victory party, which will not seem as impressive as the first.

Then again, that 2008 election cycle truly was historic in nature. There’s no way he should be expected to match the old enthusiasm – some of which was so naïve in nature that he should not have been expected to live up to their desires.

IT’S JUST THAT I see the harsh ideological nature that the 2012 opposition to Obama has taken. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney turns up as the front-runner in some polls, but usually with overall support that indicates the bulk of Republican partisans want Anybody But Mitt to get the nomination.

The fact that someone as fringe-ish as Herman Cain can continue to linger as a challenger to Romney or Texas Gov. Rick Perry (and in some polls turn up as the leader) makes me seriously think that the GOP is on the verge of picking as its presidential hopeful someone whom the bulk of people in this country will hate even more than they might distrust Obama.

I can’t help but notice that the same polls that show Obama with weak approval ratings usually show members of Congress with approval ratings that are historically awful.

Which means that many of those political people who rant and rage about Barack and want to believe that “real Americans” think just the way they do will find out that real people can’t stand the ideologues either.

WHICH IS WHY I honestly expect to have several migraine headaches throughout the upcoming year. Because an election cycle between people who are hoping to be the least-detested candidate seeking office is NOT going to be the most high-brow of campaigns.

The trash talk we’re going to hear in the upcoming year is going to rise to levels we haven’t heard in the political past. It’ll be uglier than a typical Chicago Cubs season.

You can’t get uglier than that!

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Cain headed on path toward political immortality, if not electoral victory

CAIN: Clarence, Jr.?

With the women coming out of the woodwork to say that business executive-turned-presidential dreamer Herman Cain sexually harassed them, political pundits are also cropping up to compare him to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

I’ll be the first to admit that my initial reaction to learning that a woman said Cain treated her inappropriately because of her gender made me recall the days of two decades ago when Thomas faced the accusations of Anita Hill, who claimed he behaved crudely (the Coca-Cola can?) in her presence.

IT WAS JUST a few weeks ago that The Nation gave us a commentary, with an unnamed silhouette on the cover and the headline, “We STILL Believe Her.”

They didn’t have to name Hill. We knew who they were referring to. This still lingers in our national memory, and likely will not go away.

Which means that Cain may wind up with the same fate. He has risen above the pack in ways that will ensure he will be remembered – regardless of whether he actually wins the GOP presidential nomination for the 2012 electoral cycle.

What always struck me about the whole Clarence Thomas affair was the degree to which the conservative ideologues took the whole issue seriously, and in fact continue to hold a grudge whenever the issue comes up.

I KEEP WANTING to shout to these people, “You won, quit whining.”

Because it is true. Clarence Thomas got confirmed by the Senate as a Supreme Court justice, despite the allegations that indicated he personally was a boor and not exactly of the temperament that we’d like to think is maintained by our nation’s high court.

Yet it is the conservative ideologues who continue to bear a grudge. They don’t want to forget the attack, which ultimately was unsuccessful. In short, they’re bad winners.

They’re even worse losers – as we have seen by the way they conducted themselves during the presidential administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The people who are screaming the loudest now about Cain being mistreated will be the ones who a year from now will be leading the “Impeachment!” attack against Obama – should he manage to prevail in next year’s election cycle (which is a very real possibility so long as the ideologues prop up extremists such as Cain as their presidential hopeful).

WHICH MEANS I fully expect the ideologues to go out of their way to prop up Cain’s image – no matter how many attacks he sustains in coming months. Even long after this campaign cycle is over, we’re going to hear trash talk from the ideologues about the people who would dare to criticize Cain.

Heck, a part of me views pundit Ann Coulter’s recent comments about the difference between “good blacks” (like Cain) and the kind of African-American people who would deign to side with less-conservative movements than hers as being just the beginning of such rancid rhetoric.

Now I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know what to think of the women who have come forth against Cain. I’m not sure if he did or didn’t act like a crude twit towards these ladies, and I haven’t really gone out of my way to check into their claims to see if they’re credible.

Perhaps it is because I realize it doesn’t matter much if they’re credible.

FOR THE CONSERVATIVE ideologues have already made up their minds. They are willing to overlook the great moral flaws of any individual who is willing to put the “right” letter (“R,” not “D”) after their names and vote the “proper” (claiming morals, even though they usually stand for intrusion into peoples’ personal business) way on various issues confronting our society. They are going to take up the “Cain Crusade” and will try to elevate him into some tragic example of a great figure who was “taken down” by those liberal freaks who can’t see the world in their own narrow view.

Of course, the fact that such views (anybody who thinks it is a “joke” to electrify the U.S./Mexico border is a nitwit worthy of our derision) put him outside the real mainstream of our society means he’s not about to win the GOP presidential nomination. The fact that he still gains significant support in certain polls shows how out-of-touch many of those GOP-leaning voters are.

But Cain has gained a certain sense of immortality. I don’t know if The Nation will be doing some sort of graphic on their website (or whatever technology is in use) to say two decades from now we believe the women who criticize Cain.

But he definitely has made himself more significant than, say, Michele Bachmann. Does anyone remember that there was a brief moment a couple of months ago when her campaign was taken seriously?

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It’s too early to think of Election Day!

Remember nearly a month ago there was a straw poll in Iowa that briefly made people think that Michele Bachmann was the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination?

CAIN: Flavor of the month

Now, we have a new straw poll – this one out of Florida. This poll has Herman Cain as the leader to be the GOP nominee.

I WOULD THINK these two polls, in and of themselves, ought to convince us that the value of “straw polls” is nil, and that it’s way too early for us to be thinking about who is going to run for president against incumbent Barack Obama come the 2012 election cycle.

We already have many Republicans working the electorate; trying to get support for themselves and create the image that they really could be president of the United States.

That is why we’re hearing a lot of “stupid talk” and ridiculous rhetoric from various candidates. What amazes me is not so much that the political people are doing this (they’re a unique breed who often don’t know any better), it is that people are taking this seriously.

That latter straw poll out of Florida literally inspired the Chicago Tribune website headline Rick Perry’s campaign struggles to explain straw poll loss.

IF THE TEXAS governor is really squirming in his shorts at the thought that he didn’t come out on top of a straw poll, then perhaps he is showing us up front that he can’t keep things in proper perspective and that we probably shouldn’t be thinking of him as someone worthy of presidential caliber.

To me, it’s just fluff being touted by the kind of people who are so intensely interested in the electoral process and usually have their own ideological hang-ups that may be bigger than their interest in elections in general.

BACHMANN: Flavor of last month?



The kind of people who bothered to show up and participate in a Florida straw poll are nowhere near the average voter, let alone the average resident of this nation.

So the fact that Herman Cain could get the highlight of his presidential campaign (it will probably be the only time something happens that puts him on top) is not a shock at all.

WHEN REAL PEOPLE start paying attention to the election cycle, the kind of people who take seriously people such as Cain or Bachmann will be so vastly outnumbered.

The same actually applies to the opposite end of the ideological extreme. Put together an event of Democratic partisans who have nothing else going in their life but to obsess about the Nov. 6, 2012 presidential elections, and you’ll find a group of people so in love with Barack Obama that you could be deluded into thinking that the president is a shoo-in for re-election.

He’s not!

Although a part of me wonders if the types of people who get all worked up over a Cain or a Bachmann at this stage of the game will assert so much influence come Election Day that they will wind up “doing in” the chances of victory for whomever actually gets the Republican nomination?

THAT COULD BE the one legitimate lesson of the straw polls – the fact that there is a segment of the GOP so off-the-mark with the bulk of the nation. Then again, I think most of us already knew that.

More likely, this is just such an early part of the political process and anybody who’s seriously trying to pick winners now is the equivalent of the baseball fan who is convinced his team has the pennant clinched, just because they managed to win the first exhibition game of Cactus League play.

So reading about these straw polls amused me about as much as reading a Washington Post account about Obama’s re-election strategy.

OBAMA: Next year's flavor of the month?

Surprise, Surprise!!!

HE’S GOING TO be focusing on voter turnout of voters with strong ethnic ties, along with the most liberal elements of our society. In short, the people who are the base of the party these days.

Get enough of them to the polling places on Election Day, and it really doesn’t matter what the other side does.

Then again, the strategy is the same for the eventual GOP nominee. Get the conservative ideologues with their pet causes (gay marriage, abortion, too many foreigners, etc.) to the polls, and it doesn’t matter what Obama and crew do.

In short, it’s way too early for us to be thinking about who’s running for president. I think the people who are focusing on who will make it to the World Series this year are probably more logical.

THEN AGAIN, THESE two straw polls do combine to give one hilarious story line.

For the Michele Bachmann who was the favorite of the Iowa political geeks in their straw poll actually wound up coming in dead-last in the Florida version!

How the mighty can fall oh so quickly.

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