Trump, ideologue allies suffer immigration defeat (for now, at least)

If Donald Trump were truly interested in “making America great again,” he’d never have tried becoming president. One can argue it is his combative nature on behalf of conservative ideologues that IS what’s wrong with our society these days.

Will Supreme Ct save us from Trump excesses?

Our inability to work together on issues despite our differences about the details is what ultimately will cause a chasm that splits our society beyond repair. Compromise is the “American Way,” even though many of the ideologues refuse to accept that notion.

IT IS BECAUSE of this that we’re going to have to turn to our court system to ensure that havoc is not wrecked upon us all. Which the ideologues will contend is unjust and evidence of unelected judges imposing their will upon us all.

Although it really is the way the system of checks and balances is supposed to work – Congress creates laws, the president approves them and the courts are there to ensure that if the politicos screw up, the damage will be repaired.

Which is what’s happening with regards to immigration and the concept of “sanctuary cities” – places where the local police don’t automatically share all the information they come across with federal Immigration officials.

Trump, in his bid to appease those individuals amongst us whose idea of immigration reform is a mass increase in the number of people deported from the United States, wanted his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to crack down on the federal funding his office provides to police departments in such cities – including Chicago.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL (who as a former member of Congress and White House chief of staff has a few clues about how to manipulate the federal government process) made it clear earlier this week Chicago wasn’t going to do anything to change the way it conducts itself on this issue.

That now has the backing of a federal judge – U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued an order Tuesday preventing the federal government from cutting off such funding for police.

Ironic in that Trump always goes on about the crime rate in Chicago and the violence, but then would want to take a whack at the funding the Chicago Police Department has available to him.

ORRICK: Will his ruling stand?

Trump on Wednesday turned to his Twitter account and began tweeting like a twit – lambasting the U.S. Court of Appeals based in San Francisco. That court is the one that will wind up hearing whatever challenge is filed to Orrick’s injunction, but it hasn’t acted yet.

ALTHOUGH I SUSPECT that to Trump, one judge looks just like another judge – they’re all interchangeable and that, in his mind, they’re all supposed to rule in his favor.

But a part of me also thinks Trump is just more interested in being a grump. Complaining about sanctuary cities, complaining about courts, ranting about that wall he wants built along the U.S./Mexico border but which action will not occur until at least autumn.

Trump is of the political type that wants to tell you that everything you think is “wrong” (because it’s not exactly like yourself) is “somebody else’s fault,” Support him, and he’ll commiserate with you. On this issue, it's the fault of the "flakes" in Frisco who won't follow his commands!

But he certainly doesn’t have solutions to the problems that face society. That’s hard work – as evidenced by the lack of much significant activity during the president’s symbolic First 100 Days. The time in which we determine if he gets off to a good start.

ADMITTEDLY, TRUMP GOT a Supreme Court justice appointed to fill a long-festering vacancy on the nation’s high court. But with the current political circumstances, the process was geared in his favor. It would have been the ultimate evidence of incompetence on Trump’s part if he had failed.

Which be the key to comprehending whether anything of lasting significance will be accomplished in the next roughly 1,360 days.

BARRON: Will his dad behave?

A rigged Supreme Court that overturns any lower court that dares rule in ways contrary to the desires of The Donald may be the only way Trump can get government to do anything.

Then again, we may find that even those justices on the high court will turn out to surprise us and for that, we should be grateful, even though we’ll inevitably get reports emanating from the White House about all the temper tantrums being thrown by Barron’s dad!

  -30-

Rahm wants to win! What else is new?

Anybody who was shocked or appalled at anything Mayor Rahm Emanuel said this week in speaking to business students at Stanford University is politically clueless or naïve.
 

EMANUEL: Spewing a dose of political reality?

In telling Democratic partisans upset about the current political status quo in D.C. to “take a chill pill,” he came up with a cutesy quip while also reiterating the long-expressed belief that he’s willing to put political tactics ahead of ideological concerns.

THE MAN WANTS to win because he wants to have political control. And “control” is certainly something that Democrats don’t have in the current federal government set-up.

For as much as people want to rant and rage about how loony-toons the current president is, the real long-term threat to our society is that his presence empowers those amongst the Republicans in Congress who are of a conservative ideological bent and are determined to impose their social agenda on all of us.

We have to live in their world, and accept our place as subservient in it, is the way they view our society. For them, the 2016 election cycle was a long-desired dream-come-true because it created circumstances by which they don’t even have to contemplate bipartisanship.

Republican strategy in recent decades (since the days of Reagan, I’d argue) has been based on creating a government by which they dominate and others have to listen. If anything, the GOP becomes incompetent when they’re placed in a position of having to negotiate anything.

Rahm would restore Obama and Clinton ideals...

EMANUEL, HIMSELF A former White House staffer under both presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and also the man who once led efforts to make Congress Democrat-leaning, knows that coming years will be an ugly age for those people who don’t fit the certain profile of the conservative ideologue segment of our society.

Stressing the need to find conservative-leaning candidates willing to run as Democrats in Republican-leaning districts to challenge congressional incumbents, exploiting any differences between GOP officials to create dissention and saving one’s strength for resisting any efforts to redistrict Congress in ways to bolster the Republican caucuses even further are what we expect to hear from Emanuel.

... rather than any specific policy

So when Emanuel says, “If you don’t win (elections), you can’t make the public policy. I say that because it is hard for people in our party (Democrats) to accept that principle,” it’s the same philosophy he has always espoused.

Emanuel is the guy who famously (in political circles) tried to talk Obama out of pushing so hard for health care reform because he didn’t want to tick off Republican ideologues into wanting to vehemently oppose anything the president would try to do.

HE’S ALSO THE guy who tried to get Obama to downplay activity toward immigration reform for the same reason, creating a situation where many Latino activists view Obama as a disappointment and have tagged him with that “deporter-in-chief” label.

One that Trump, if he follows through on all his political trash talk, will easily snatch away from Obama. Which may actually serve as evidence that Emanuel has a point. Losing elections enables government officials to behave in ways that are greatly harmful to our interests. “Winning’s everything,” the mayor said.

Reagan planted dream of GOP dominance ...

I found it interesting that the Illinois Republican Party on Tuesday felt compelled to issue a statement denouncing Emanuel for doing little more than going into the rhetorical mode that gave him the political nickname, “Rahm-bo.”

Republicans were particularly bothered by Emanuel’s comment that, “wherever there’s a disagreement among Republicans, I’m for one of those disagreements. I’m all for it.”

AS THE GOP says in a statement, “Mayor Emanuel espoused a political world of trying to foster disagreement and division. During Emanuel’s political lecturing, his hatchet-man was busy slashing school budgets and trying to create a crisis for his boss who infamously advised to never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

... will Trump make that dream grow?

Which might be a legitimate point, if not for the fact that the social conservatives have long advocated disagreement and division, so long as the balance of power leans in their favor and allows them to bully the opposition. Hearing GOP political operatives call anyone else unfair is a laugh!

It makes me wonder if the real fear amongst Republican political operatives is that Emanuel can be a cunning S-O-B with a politically strategic mind, while the current GOP efforts are headed by the chaotic, and politically amateurish, initiatives of Trump himself.

Who very well could wind up shooting himself and the Republican Party’s desired agenda in their collective foot, quite possibly with a “pistol” that Emanuel will conveniently figure out a way to place in their hand.

  -30-

EXTRA: How can anybody consider corn flakes to be “un-American?”

About the time you read this on Thursday, there’s a good chance that I will have had my standard start to the day – a cup of coffee and cereal. Corn flakes is actually a favorite, with a banana chopped up into it.

Political protest? Or just breakfast? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Now under typical standards, I would think you could care less just what my breakfast routine is. In fact, I’d like to think that the majority of you will think I’ve gone goofy for sharing this tidbit with you.

BUT I GUESS I’m trying to get the attention of the other tiny percentage – those of you who are motivated by the Brietbart News Network and its claims that Kellogg’s is somehow “un-American.”

A concept I find so utterly ridiculous that I have to say the only people who are misfits to this country’s ideals are the ones who could somehow think that Tony the Tiger (the symbol of sister cereal Frosted Flakes) is un-American. Then again, they’re probably the same people who a generation ago claimed Tinky-Winky was gay – and that Teletubbies were a subversive plot to undermine our society by toying with the youthful mindset.

What has Brietbart, a socially-conservative leaning website that I must confess I pay little attention to (I also haven’t looked at the Drudge Report in years, and can’t say there was ever anything about it that was appealing to me), all up with its knickers in a bunch?

Yes, I’ve been watching too much BBC programming lately. But Brietbart is doing an attack because there are corporate entities that are reluctant to spend their advertising dollars to support the site because it is so over-the-top in its rhetoric in favor of Donald Trump.

SOME GO SO far as to claim the site is egging on those with racial and ethnic hang-ups (and are trying to justify them as legitimate with that “alt-right” label). In the case of Kellogg, they say the copy published these days by the Brietbart site, “aren’t aligned with our values.”

Which Brietbart wants to believe is Kellogg trying to “blacklist” their efforts. Which is such an exaggeration of the truth.

For it seems that Brietbart is peddling a rather subversive concept that says everybody is obligated to support their rhetorical nonsense. When in reality, any publishing entity has to realize that anything they publish has the potential to p-o anyone else – and sometimes those people will react accordingly.

If Brietbart really wants to stand their guns and refuse to alter their editorial policies, that’s their right. But it’s also the right of the public to support who they want. And if it turns out that Brietbart ticks off so many people that they wind up getting hurt financially, well that’s the reality of capitalism.

AND BECAUSE I’M offended by the concept of the schoolyard bully getting upset when everybody else fights back, I’m inclined to want to resist.

So if Brietbart is really going to call for a #DumpKellogs (yes, I know it’s spelled wrong) campaign on Twitter, I’m going to feel compelled to resist. I’m not about to urge people to eat more cold cereal – that’s their own business to decide.

But it will be with a touch of pride that I’ll make my political statement (as lame a gesture as it truly is) in eating up my corn flakes with vim and vigor.

Although it means I’m probably lucky, because I bought the above-purchased box when I went to the local supermarket Wednesday night. What kind of political statement would I have made if I – which I nearly did – bought a box of Corn Chex instead?

  -30-

The anger overflows, and someday it could be all who hate Trump

I don't doubt that people are pissed about the outcome of Election '16.

Someone graffiti'd this house. Will others follow? Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

It seems that in several cities across our nation, including Chicago, protesters marched to let their outrage be known that the rubes of our citizenry banded together to pick as big a buffoon as Donald J. Trump to be president.

IT MADE A mess out of traffic on Lake Shore Drive, amongst other places. I don’t doubt that the contempt will linger on for quite some time.

Although let’s be honest about one thing – I have no doubt that these people are behaving much more civilly than the ones who have spent the past eight years acting as obstructionists of the presidency of Barack Obama.

I also don’t doubt that the people now upset ultimately will show more respect for Trump than the Obama critics ever did for the soon-to-be former president.

Whom I now fully expect will be the target of efforts to try to do a “Soviet-style” attempt at a rewrite of history. As in people will try to erase any trace that the Obama years ever took place.

WHO KNOWS, THEY may full well be capable of coming up with a scenario by which our country went straight from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump! Or maybe they’ll permit us to remember the existence of Bill Clinton; just so they can highlight the fact of his impeachment for kinds of behavior that they won’t want to admit our new president-elect has oft engaged in himself.

I’ll be the first to admit that much of the knuckleheaded rhetoric of the Trump presidential campaign is going to fall short of being fulfilled. Although people who felt we could put up with a Trump presidency because it’s all nothing but hot air ought to be wary.

Because the hard-core element of our society that DID vote for Trump fully expects to get the guy who bellows out “You’re Fired!” at everybody he doesn’t like and wants that nonsensical hard line on Mexico and on Arabs (it won’t matter if they’re not Muslim) and anybody else not like themselves.

I wonder what this Trump-liking truck driver thinks of his counterpart delivering tortillas

If Trump tries to suddenly become Mr. Rationality, his voters will be repulsed and will turn on him so viciously. Likely harder than any of the protesters who spoke out against him this week!

AS FOR THOSE who would be inclined to cry out “I told you so!” when it happens, keep in mind that we all lose if our government winds up delving into levels of nonsensical behavior.

Personally, I expect Trump himself will provide us with loads of trivial behavior similar to all the antics he engaged in that have generated New York Post news copy throughout the decades – possibly antics that decades from now we will be able to laugh at and wonder how we could ever have treated such a man so legitimately. Particularly since when you seriously try to analyze what he says, you can’t because he speaks in vagaries.

I doubt he knows really what he hopes to accomplish as president – other than getting use of Camp David; while probably griping privately about how it’s not up to the luxury standards of his own Mar-A-Lago mansion in Florida.

We ought to be paying more attention to the kinds of people a “President Trump” will put into key positions. Such as one-time House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – both of whom would have been regarded as has-beens prior to this week.

NOW WE KNOW why they aligned with Trump and put up with his nonsense and all the ridicule they received. They’re going to get jobs that could define their legacy (just as how Joe Biden will now be remembered as a Vice President, instead of a goof of a Senator from Delaware).

 

Hillary sticker will wear away!

Considering the leanings of those kind of people, that may well be enough for people to be wary of a Trump presidency. Although we should keep in mind that it can’t last forever. The era will come to an end.

There’s also just way too much that can go wrong for Donald J. Trump, who a year from now is probably going to wish he had never been so egotistical as to think of running for president.

I doubt that a ride on Air Force One will be worth that much to him!

  -30-

Who’s kidding whom? We don’t (or shouldn’t) require immigrant standards

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump showed us all on Monday why his line of reasoning makes him unfit to be president of the United States.

 

TRUMP: Would his wife be model immigrant

That’s the only way we can view his suggestion that we require tests of people from elsewhere on Planet Earth who want to come live in this country. As Trump put it, we should require tests to see where they stand on certain issues.

AS FOR THOSE whose views on issues don’t pass the test, keep ‘em out!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t let ‘em in!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ban them!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which, of course, is nonsense. There’s no way we could ever devise a test on social issue stances that would possibly make any sense.

Largely because those are issues upon which we, the native born of this nation, don’t agree. Just think how up in arms our own citizens would be if/when they found out that the official stance required on an issue such as equal rights for gay people is the one they can’t stand.

And as much as I’d like to fantasize that we could deport all those people who culturally want to live in a land motivated by the Dixie mentality and a return to “our way of life” (which is the euphemism I have heard many aging Southerners use to describe the segregation of old), I’m realistic enough to know it will never happen.

IN FACT, IT would be more likely that the official stance required for immigration would be something along the lines of the Dixiecrats of old. Something that the real majority of our nation would find repulsive.

Something that would go about splitting our society ever further than it already is. How quickly will vice presidential running mate Mike Pence have to come up with a stance in opposition to make himself look a little less ridiculous by association?

For the simple fact of our society is that we are a mix. We don’t have an indigenous people in this country (and I’d say those people of native Indian tribes aren’t numerous enough to be considered the base of our nation).

 

PENCE: What next will he disagree with

And while I know there are those who rant and rage and complain about how we can’t all unite and be just like themselves, I have always thought of the fact that we, the United States, are a cultural mutt is our greatest strength.

ONE BEING MADE even stronger in the 21^st Century because immigration is no longer about finding even more western Europeans who, within a single generation, can be mistaken for someone who was native-born to this nation.

I also have felt that those individuals who come from totalitarian nations with close-minded views of the rest of the world are often the ones most in need of some time living in this country.

Exposure to the real world is what they need.

Then again, I suspect there are those living in parts of this country that keep themselves as isolated as they can from urban America who also could benefit from such exposure.

BECAUSE A PART of me has always wondered if those social conservatives of our society look at the totalitarian parts of the world and secretly feel a tinge of jealousy, wishing that our nation would be just as strong-armed in opposition to anything they don’t agree with.

Maybe we ought to think about deporting them to less-open places of the world? Nah, that would be as logistically ridiculous as all of Trump’s talk about boosting deportations and erecting a pointless wall (you never heard of tunnels?) along the U.S./Mexico border.

 

CLINTON: A vote for sensibility?

If anything, I suspect that many of the people who actually are going to vote for Trump for president come the Nov.8 elections are doing so because they like this ridiculous isolationist vision of the world. Which is why Trump said what he did on Monday during a campaign appearance in Ohio.

The man will say anything, no matter how absurd, if he thinks it will get him another vote. Meaning that the real majority of us who find isolationism to be stultifying need to express our opposition on Election Day with a vote of opposition.

  -30-

What’s the difference between ISIS and Trump-loving conservative ideologues?

The world’s attention fell upon Orlando, Fla., and not because of anything that occurred at Disney World.

For in the early hours of Sunday, an armed man entered a club whose defining characteristic was that it was a place where gay people were not made to feel unwelcome.

AFTER A FEW hours, local police wound up engaging in a shoot-out with the man, and some 50 people were killed – along with more than 50 more wounded.

That puts it in the category of the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history. It seems the gunman who provoked the incident made statements claiming he did it in the name of Allah, and the ISIS activists of the Middle East also are taking credit – although it seems they are more interested in gaining public attention for themselves.

In short, the bloodbath occurred – it would seem – because someone objected to the concept of gay people being treated with any dignity or respect as human beings. What really frosts their bottom, however, is that western society generally is coming about to realize how ignorant homophobia can be.

Does that mean we can start thinking of those conservative ideologues who rant and rage about gay people being given special treatment every time they stick up for their rights as being aligned with ISIS or any of the other people of the Middle East who act up in ways they say are beneficial to Islam?

I’M PRETTY SURE that the conservatives of western society who have particular objections to gay rights would take great offense to such a statement. They probably would claim they are the real patriots willing to fight for our way of life.

Although I can’t help but wonder at how some of the ideological nonsense they spew about our society’s flaws really would put them in line with the way of thinking of these extremists who use Islam to try to justify themselves.

Perhaps our nation’s conservative ideologues on a certain level are jealous that they can’t use the extreme violent tactics of a group like ISIS against the people they disagree with?

Is that really what some people would like to have in terms of the way our culture operates? The extremism, except without all those funky Arabs. Whites only, please!

IT DID AMAZE me the degree to which so many officials were quick to come out with public acts intended to put distance between themselves and this incident. Heck, our very own Gov. Bruce Rauner was lagging behind, bringing up the rear literally in issuing the statement saying that flags at government buildings will fly at half-staff in tribute to the 50 deceased.

It’s not like this was even the only potential anti-gay incident of Sunday.

An arrest was made in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday of a man with a trunk-load of firearms and explosives. It seems he was headed for West Hollywood for an L.A. Pride festival to take place that day.

What kind of actions he had in mind, we don’t know. It seems he got caught before anything bad could happen. Which is the only reason we don’t have news reports of coast-to-coast anti-gay violence taking place in the United States.

THE SCARY THING is that these people probably do think, on a certain level, that they’re standing up for moral ideals. Just like I'm sure they'll find a way to condemn President Barack Obama for his Sunday statements defending the rights of those who were killed. I'm also sure all those people wearing those “Make America Great Again” caps and touting the ideals of Donald Trump think they’re doing right by society.

They ain’t.

And while I’m sure there are people who will argue that Trump really doesn’t buy into all the nonsense his presidential campaign has been spewing, the fact is that these are the kind of people who will get stirred up the most.

Which makes me wonder how many more actions like these do we have the potential to see in coming months? Even one is too many.

  -30-