Today is Thanksgiving. It’s the one day a year we Americans are required by federal law to overeat, watch football, and think about what we’re thankful for.
I have a lot to be thankful for. I’m married to the greatest woman in the world. The life we have together is pretty awesome and continues to get even more awesome.
My health is a lot better than it was last Thanksgiving. Less than a year ago I found out I have Crohn’s disease. It almost killed me. I eventually had surgery to remove part of my large bowel removed. After some extensive lab tests last month ago, it looks like the Crohn’s is in remission. I won’t know until after I have a colonoscopy next month. Fingers crossed!
On a related note, I’m thankful to have health insurance. I’m also thankful President Barack Obama was able to put the Affordable Care Act into law. It means I don’t have to worry about being denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition or paying more money for health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. It also put a cap on my out-of-pocket expenses. Without that, last year’s ten-day hospital stay and this year’s surgery very well could have ruined us financially.
When President Donald Trump announced the end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, today was supposed to be its deadline. Congress had until today to come up with something to replace it.
DACA isn’t a law. It was something put in place by then President Barack Obama with an executive action. He bypassed Congress entirely when he put DACA in place.
Today, March 5th was supposed to be the day DACA recipients could not renew expiring two-year permits. The courts stepped in and called Trump’s justification for ending the program questionable. Because of this, they did away with the March 5th deadline. Federal judges ordered the Department of Homeland Security to continue renewing all existing DACA permits.
Even witches support DACA.
The Trump administration tried to get the Supreme Court to hear the case, but they refused to take the matter up. Instead, they said it should continue to work its way through the lower courts.
My thoughts on DACA are mixed. I feel sorry for people living here illegally who were brought here as children. As children, I believe they did nothing wrong. The wrongdoers were the people who brought them here. Those are the people who should be punished.
I also don’t like how the current system doesn’t offer a pathway to citizenship. I believe anyone coming to the United States should have the goal of being a citizen. If you are coming to the United States for the purpose of making money to send back to your family in your home country, then I don’t want you in my country. The money you earn in this country should benefit the economy of this country.
What I find ironic about this non-deadline is how once again the courts have stopped Donald Trump from doing what he wanted to do. It’s kind of hard living up to the reputation of being the worst president in American history when the courts stop you at each and ever turn from enacting your agenda.
President Donald Trump doing what he does best, being mad.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like Donald Trump. I did not vote for Donald Trump. I very much did not want him to be my president. With that said, my life is really no worse than it was before he took office. I attribute that to his ineptitude. He’s so terrible at being president, he cannot get anything done even though his party controls both houses of Congress.
Maybe that’s the secret when voting for a president. Instead of picking the person you think will do the best job, pick the person you think will do the worst job. If they’re bad enough, the courts and their own party will stop them from doing anything.
I cannot imagine a scenario where a bonafide genius would actually refer to themselves as a genius. I would think that would be the first cut-off to being considered a genius. You refer to yourself as a genius, you aren’t a genius.
What’s he ever done that makes him think he’s a genius? That he ran for president and won the on the first try? What’s that got to do with anything? He simply lucked out. He got to run against Hillary Clinton, one of the most unelectable candidates ever to win the Democratic nomination. Even then he lost the popular vote by almost three million votes.
So many things had to fall into place for him to win the White House. Trump being a genius had nothing to do with it.
He’s never invented anything. It’s not like a created a working lightsaber for something. That would be something I guess. He’s just a tacky real estate guy who slaps his name on stuff along with a lot of gold leaf. That doesn’t make him a genius.
The man is so stupid, he not only thought Barack Obama was born in Kenya, he thought that would make him ineligible to serve as president. No matter where Obama was born (the radical Islamic jungles of Hawaii) he would be eligible to serve as president because his mother was a citizen.
The Trump administration released a list of priorities that need to be included into any law replacing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Obama executive order. From CNN:
The Trump administration has asked lawmakers to include tough border security and immigration enforcement measures in any deal to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that the administration is ending. Those measures include provisions to make it harder for unaccompanied minors to enter the country illegally, money for the President’s border wall and cuts to legal immigration.
Executive order versus a law
DACA is not a law. It is an executive order put in place by Barack Obama. Since we already have laws that govern immigration, laws passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by a president, I’ve never understood how an executive order could take precedence. There’s no denying that an executive order has power. It just doesn’t have as much power as a law.
Donald Trump is an idiot
I don’t like Donald Trump and I didn’t vote for him. I think he’s an ignoramus. I loathe him on a very personal level. With that said, even a broken clock is right twice a day. I understand where he’s coming from on this. We as a people agree bringing children here illegally is a pretty rotten thing to do. How then can we complain when steps are taken to make it more difficult to do just that?
If we cannot use the law to stop these businesses from benefiting from illegal child labor, then we need to try harder to keep these children from being brought here in the first place. That means tougher security on our southern border. That even means building a wall.
Why build a wall?
The future giant ice wall of Texas.
The benefit of a wall is that it’s immune from future executive orders or the future nonenforcement of existing laws. Build a massive wall on the southern border and people cannot come here illegally.
It’s physics. If you build a wall, illegal immigrants cannot come here. American companies then cannot build their workforce using illegal immigrants willing to accept lower wages than what citizens are demanding.
American companies will have to hire American citizens and pay wages in line with our economy.
There is a reason wages have been stagnant in this country for decades. Immigration, both illegal and legal, has been a big factor. Why pay an American citizen a prevailing wage when you can bring a cheaper worker here on an H-1B visa? Once you hire them, it’s not like they could ever quit and go work somewhere else for more money. They are indentured to the business that secured the H-1B visa.
I’m not in favor of building a wall. Building a wall seems like it would take a lot of work and a lot of money. It makes more economic sense to enforce existing immigration laws. Enforcing existing law seems like it would require a lot less work.
When people are discovered living and working here illegally, it’s better to enforce the exisitng law and just deport them back to their country of origin. If the American people don’t like this, they can pressure lawmakers to change the existing law. They can pass new laws that don’t include forced deportation. If lawmakers refuse to do this, the American people can then elect new lawmakers.
I am no longer a Democrat
This is the way our system is supposed to work. Lawmakers should be answerable to their constituents. They should pass laws that benefit their constituents. Lawmakers should not pass laws that go against the best interests of their constituents. The Democrats are failing to do that. If you didn’t know better, you’d think Democrats were representing people who are here illegally, not American citizens. It’s one of the reasons I left the Democratic party and registered as unaffiliated before the 2016 Presidental election.
I still voted for Hillary Clinton. I didn’t vote for her because I thought she would make a good president, I voted for her because she was the lesser of two evils. I not only voted for her, I stood in line to do so.
The German magazine Der Spiegel published a recent issue with Donald Trump on the cover. He has a large butcher knife in one hand and the severed head of Lady Liberty in the other. It’s a provocative image. It seems to insinuate that Donald Trump has become an Islamist.
Islamists are the only people I know of who engage in decapitations of the people they don’t like or agree with.
It’s an absurd image to put on the cover of a magazine. Not because it’s vulgar, but because it is inaccurate. Donald Trump is not an Islamist. Donald Trump is not even Muslim, he is Presbyterian.
Donald Trump is not an enemy of liberty. Far from it. He believes in American liberty. He believes Americans have the right not to be victims of Islamist terror attacks. It is hard to pursue life, liberty, and happiness when you live under the threat of people from failed nation states coming here and killing you.
The last time I checked, emigrating to the United States is a privilege, not a right. A privilege should never usurp a right.
Even if Donald Trump wanted to kill Lady Liberty, he would not use a butcher knife, he would use a drone. That is the preferred presidential method of killing enemies. Ask Barack Obama.
I don’t support Donald Trump. I don’t like Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I reluctantly voted for Hillary Clinton. Is Donald Trump my president? According to the U.S. Constitution, yes he is.
President Donald Trump is unique from past presidents in that he seems to keep his campaign promises. I’m still waiting for President Obama to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Our new commander in chief signed an executive order that bars citizens of seven countries from entering the United States. This ban will remain in effect for the next 90 days.
These seven countries are:
Iran
Iraq
Syria
Sudan
Libya
Yemen
Somalia
The Department of Homeland Security classified these countries as “countries of concern.” President Obama signed this classification into law on December 18, 2015, as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of FY2016.
This list was an augmentation to an earlier list of countries contained in the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. It added the countries of Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
This temporary travel ban is being referred to in the media as Trump’s Muslim ban. That’s not correct. It was the Obama administration that crafted this list. Were countries added to this list because they have a majority of people who practice Islam? It wouldn’t appear so. There are other countries with far more Muslim people that didn’t make this list.
If I wanted to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States, I’d include the most populated Islamic countries to this list.
I don’t care if folks from these seven countries cannot come to the United States. Not once in my life have I wished my community had more Iranians or Yemenis in it.
Traveling to the United States is a privilege, not a right.
Even if the goal of the Obama administration’s list was to curtail Muslims from coming to the United States, I couldn’t care less. Not really. The religion you practice is a choice. Nobody is born Muslim. A person’s DNA does not decide what religion they practice. Religion is always a choice. People are no more born Muslim than they are born Pentecostal, Mormon, or Southern Baptist.
Religion, or the lack thereof, is always a matter of personal choice. It’s about time we stop pretending otherwise.
The First Amendment to our Constitution includes the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
I’m not a lawyer, but I have watched many episodes of Judge Judy. What these words in the Constitution mean to me is that you’re free to practice whatever kooky religion you wish without the government stepping in and endorsing it or condemning it. The government will not respect your chosen religion. The government will not prohibit your chosen religion.
That sounds swell to me.
I don’t support Donald Trump. I don’t like Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I reluctantly voted for Hillary Clinton. Is Donald Trump my president? According to the U.S. Constitution, yes he is.
