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Liberal Opinion Blog. Boston, Massachusetts. Political Democrat, Independent. Debunk Republican Lies, MisinformationDACA Back In Congress
Trump’s subliminal message to Congress: Damned if You Do – or Don’t fix Immigration/DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)!
DACA is an Executive Order President Obama signed in 2012 after Congress refused to act, again, on Comprehensive Immigration Reform. It grants temporary protected status to undocumented young people who entered the country illegally with their parents. Recipients have to meet certain standards and in return, get work authorization and a social security number.
President Donald Trump today (9/5/2017) gave the program a 6 month lease and asked Congress to Act — or DACA ends!
This “ending DACA by NOT ending DACA” is a BRILLIANT political strategy by President Trump.
I don’t agree with ending DACA. I fully support DACA and want these young kids (AND their parents, especially parents with kids who are US citizens and/or lawful PERMANENT Residents) to get lawful status. However, President Trump campaigned on an anti-immigrant platform and it was beyond naive of anyone to believe that HE would support DACA, AGAINST the wishes of his base of hard-line anti-immigrant supporters.
While Trump may not be very good at “presidenting”, HE is unsurpassed at political strategizing!
With one stroke Trump sent his supporters/base into ecstasy and kicked the difficult, potentially career-derailing DACA decision to Congress. Bravo! Take THAT Paul Ryan. And am I GLAD to see it come back to haunt you!!!
Remember when Immigration Reform passed in the Senate – and Republicans, led by then House Speaker John Boehner, REFUSED to bring the bill to the FLOOR OF THE HOUSE for a vote? Well, tee-hee…had they DONE that, they WOULD NOT be facing this dilemma today, because dilemma it is…
If republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan KILL DACA, then President Trump GETS what he wants at the expense of Ryan and other republicans. Trump can claim: “I didn’t tell Congress to kill DACA; I just asked them to fix it. Left to me, I’d have let DACA stand but Congress decided…” Hispanics then flock to the polls in droves (hopefully) to defeat republicans and Ryan, Mitchell lose their Majority positions…which would lead Trump (and Steve Bannon, ex-White House chief strategist/senior counselor) to celebrate!
If republicans, led by Ryan, legitimize DACA, then Trump can tell his base: “I didn’t do it. I ended it and sent it to them to do their job. They: Ryan, Mitch McConnell (Republican, Senate majority leader), etc – these swamp republicans, THEY saved DACA!” Hard-line republicans then flock to primaries to defeat these Trump blockers!
Either way, Trump wins with his base and hard-line anti-immigrant voices. Plus he also gets to blame and possibly get rid of republicans like Ryan and McConnell whom he sees as opponents.
- GOP leaders: Ryan (blue tie) & McConnel
See the Machiavellian sub-plot?
I wonder, with hindsight, what the GOP would do now if they could go BACK to 2005-2007 when BI-PARTISAN efforts led by Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy and Republican President George W. Bush tried and failed to pass the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 because HOUSE REPUBLICANS KILLED IT!
You get what you sow! If you had done the right thing THEN, instead of playing politics and catering to a BASE that NOW opposes YOU, your life would be MUCH easier today because there would likely be NO Donald Trump…since immigration would be OFF the table, hence NO wall to tout!
As for Democrats, I detest, deplore and abhor their blatant HYPOCRISY on Immigration Reform. When they had the perfect opportunity to pass COMPREHENSIVE Immigration Reform with NO republican votes in 2009, they instead embraced Health Care (which has proven to be a NOOSE around their necks ever since).
I’m not sure, wasn’t there, but word out of DC is that Michelle Obama argued passionately FOR Immigration Reform and Obama White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, argued against.
- WHY didn’t YOU act, President Obama?
- Why did you not tackle Immigration Reform BEFORE Health Care or TOGETHER with Health Care, back in 2009?
- Why did you hastily (and cynically?) cobble together DACA (June 2012) and later DAPA (November 2014) in the run-up to elections?
- What happens NOW to the PARENTS of DACA if Congress protects and/or deports the DACA kids?
- I campaigned for Obama in 2008 and have never lifted a finger to do anything since because I felt very strongly, then as now, that President Obama and Democrats FAILED undocumented (and other immigrants) on Immigration Reform.
So in my opinion, President Obama can “speak up” NOW, but the time I wanted him to SPEAK UP was when he was IN the White House with a MAJORITY in the House and Senate!
I wrote to President Obama in December 2008. (I gave a copy to Obama friend, then Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick to hand to the President), but I guess since I am NOT a Harvard erudite like Larry Summers…my voice was/is too plebeian, too inconsequential, to be either passed on or considered!
So president Obama, if you did not read that 2008 letter, one of many I sent to you on immigration, I’m posting it, in part, below:
December 17, 2008
…
ATTENTION: President Elect Obama
Dear Mr. Obama,
…
Now that you are preparing to take over the leadership of this great country, putting your team together and soliciting input from the public, I’m hoping IMMIGRATION is high on your list.
The economy and its attendant issues do take precedence, right now. Healthcare is also important. But IMMIGRATION must not be overlooked as a top priority, either. Remember, during the campaign, when the financial crisis first broke, and republican Senator (John) McCain “suspended” his campaign and headed to Washington, you said: A president has to be able to do more than one thing at once. So I hope that you/your administration can work on both the Economy…AND Immigration too!
It makes smart POLITICAL sense:
Hispanics, a large and growing voting bloc, shifted away from republicans in the 2008 election and voted overwhelmingly for you. I doubt you believe that was due solely to your charm, intellect and good looks (though I admit those are considerable). They gravitated to you and Democrats because they hope YOU will reform the nation’s broken immigration system and make it possible for immigrants living here, (the most visible of whom are Hispanic), to achieve legal status. They were also turned off by the Republican’s vitriolic tone during the recent national debate over illegal immigration. The GOP’s racist, divisive and insulting comments, spurred by some politicians and talk-show hosts, demonized all Hispanics – both illegal and legal.
Reform immigration! You may not be able to claim immediate victory on the wars or the economy by the time mid-term elections roll around, but you can claim immediate victory on immigration reform.
In addition: The money immigrants send back home account for a large chunk of the GDP in many countries, like El Salvador. Without those remittances, observers say those countries would likely descend into chaos and contribute to regional instability. That would cost America a lot more.
- It makes smart ECONOMIC sense:
Millions of immigrants are willing, able and ready to buy some of those foreclosed and abandoned properties now flooding the market and blighting neighborhoods. Immigrants are also eager and willing to buy cars, now bloating dealer’s inventories. Legal status unleashes the power of millions of consumers who can now apply for credit, including bank loans, travel and open businesses.
Fixes a BROKEN system:
Many of the millions of undocumented immigrants living here no longer have lives to return to back home. Immigrants have set down roots and built lives here, in this country. Although many immigrants live in fear that allows them to be victimized without recourse, most do not want to go back and have nothing to go back to.
– There are news reports of military wives who are being deported because their husbands died in combat (Iraq/Afghanistan) before all the necessary paperwork was filed or completed. They’re being told to go…but their US-born children can stay!
– Talented, promising kids of illegal immigrants who are attending school here, or have graduated, cannot go to college. These “straight A” kids and honor students fall in the cracks instead of becoming the teachers, scientists and other skilled workers America so badly needs.
– In Massachusetts, an outstanding math teacher, who had been teaching for years, was/is facing deportation because of a paperwork glitch.
– MEANTIME, immigration agents round up illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds then release them, because federal/state resources are overwhelmed. Yet ICE picks up factory workers, tears them from their families, and deports them.
– Foreign artists/students/scientists and other professionals have to jump through so many hoops to get here, they give up in frustration and go elsewhere, taking valuable brain power and innovation with them.
The TIMING is perfect:
Democrats now have a majority in both houses. And I’m sure there are some republicans who realize their hard-line stance cost them Hispanic votes. They will want to get these votes back….and be more amenable. As you said during the campaign, NOW IS THE TIME!
The support is there. Despite the shouting coming from the right, a majority of Americans favor giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. Unions, businesses, politicians, churches, community groups, the legal profession as well as immigration advocates and enforcers, urge reform.
…
YES YOU CAN…
YES, WE CAN!
…
Respectfully,
In My opinion, my BITTER, disgruntled, defeated, dejected, frustrated, feeling rejected, let-down by Democrats opinion, Democrats OUTRAGE now is way too little, far too late….and their lack of action is beginning to backfire on them with Trump’s DACA edict.
Memo to Democrats:
Take a page from the Donald Trump playbook and LEARN how to please your base, instead of pleasing Rham Emmanuel!
All photos: Google images
Boston Strong
Once again Massachusetts leads the nation – and shows America HOW it is done!
- The Supremacists are coming! The Supremacists are coming!
- Flash the signs…
- BOSTON fires first salvo in MASSIVE Resistance to HATE. So Strong! 8/19/2017.
- PROUD of my city! Best day evah!
- And they call US racist! “You live in Boston? It’s sooo racist” Joke’s on them! Ha HA!
- Finally, the silent majority is silent NO MORE! Roar!!!
- Whites MUST speak UP against white supremacy — send POWERFUL message when do so!
- PEACEFUL protest is the way to go!
- Allow for dissent or we won’t have the DEMOCRACY we’re clamoring for!
- Free speech means free to speak…or freedom to speech!
- Blacks, minorities feel INCLUDED and ACCEPTED when whites speak/stand up!
- After a massive turnout denouncing hate – MAJORITY feel good about themselves, their city!
- Boston Strong message: “Don’t want you here. Go back, go underground, go away”!
- Anti-protest did more for race relations than a government policy!
Mirrors and Smoke?
WHAT is WRONG with us? With America? With THE WORLD?
Today, getting off the train at a stop in Boston…an older white male saw only ONE THING: Black skin — and decided I was an immigrant. (FAMILY COULD HAVE BEEN SLAVING IN THE COTTON FIELDS LONG BEFORE HIS PEOPLE CAME VIA ELLIS ISLAND or later) but my black skin automatically makes me an immigrant…as opposed to the blonde Australian who just got in yesterday.
So, Mr. Trump supporter told me that I would be thrown out of the country…and HE was going to call ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) for me.
Normally, I ignore such ignorance, but I decided “Hell NO!” I was not passing meekly by.
So I turned around, walked up to him and told him: I can give him my phone number to pass on to ICE, if he’d like. He said NO, but he will call ICE on me. I told him he can USE my phone to call ICE and make it easier for them to find me. He said NO. But they will come for me. I told him (Trump) will at most remain in office for 8-years – and WHAT THEN? He said a lot can happen in 8-years (which of course IS their Grand Plan, to become a Totalitarian State with a muzzled media, no press conferences, no accountability, a King-Emperor/Pope that everyone must bow down to. Is Trump 666?)!
I told the guy – after 8-years, it is WE who will come for HIM, because that is the process they are starting!
Other groups of white people were shocked and supportive. The thing about white people…(with the EXCEPTION of KKK and White Supremacists) they/you hear about stuff like that happening, but FEW of them/you actually experience it or see it happen – so when they/you do, they/you are shocked! We expect that to happen ELSEWHERE, IN RED states…not HERE in Boston/Massachusetts.
So I called my U.S. Representative, Stephen Lynch; I called the Transit Police, I called a news channel and I have to call both the mayor and governor’s offices. Because unless “victims” SPEAK OUT and onlookers SPEAK UP, perpetrators will feel that they can be venomous with impunity.
Welcome to the new atmosphere of Venom in Trump’s Reality Show called: America!
Chlorox stock must have gone UP after Trump won?
I understand that many of Trump’s supporters are D-students…with even lower intellects, and CANNOT grasp the intricacies of globalization and historical context, but surely they KNOW enough about the Tutsi/Hutu conflict in Rwanda, about Bosnia, about South African Apatheid, about Nazi Germany (oops, wrong analogy for this bunch), Catholics/protestants in Northern Ireland, Christians/Muslims/Jews/Hindus from Israel/Palestine to Egypt and India, either persecuting or being persecuted plus numerous other hate-fuelled conflicts worldwide – to KNOW that these types of conflicts have NO happy endings? Or DO they know?
It is NOT in either white, black or grey interests to stoke division and unity based on ideology, race or religion. There are NO winners, ONLY losers! This is NOT what Americans should want…but hey, go ahead. We’re heading the way of Rome so maybe it is inevitable…a matrix…without a leo. (reference to movie: The matrix). With Trump: always deja vu all over again! Or is it a perpetual Groundhog’s Day?
We are destroying our environment to the point that one day, life on earth may no longer BE sustainable – and/or we may end up living in a kind of Hunger Games scenario where only billionaires like the Trumps can afford oxygen.
We are destroying the fabric of this society with our dependence on drugs, from prescription to recreation. Drug use is now SO prevalent among employees nationwide the percentage of people testing positive for drug use ON THE JOB is rising – to the point, where immigrants/refugees from Syria, etc…are being hired to do the jobs.
According to a CNN expose, 80% of employees at an oil and trucking company in Colorado tested positive for drugs (marijuana is legal, but smoking it on the job is cause for dismissal) and had to be fired! In Louisville, Kentucky: 695 overdose calls to EMT in January 2017, an average of about 22 PER DAY. (CNN)
We are angry at each other for the sins of politicians whom we revere – but who DO NOT love us back! So if Trump shoots a person on 5th Avenue, THAT is ok, especially if it’s a black person or an immigrant. If Hillary Clinton sneezes on anybody, she is a monster who is trying to infect the world with influenza! And this hypocrisy cuts BOTH ways,! BOTH parties are equally at fault!
While politicians bask under 100-percent health coverage for themselves and possibly their dogs, too… we, like the dumbasses we are, operate like programmed robots…”repeal Obamacare”… leave me uncovered, no matter if my wife/daughter/sister/mother/BROTHER gets raped and the insurance company calls that a pre-existing condition. DON’T CARE! Don’t want Obamacare! These bots DON’T even KNOW why they don’t want it – but their politicians, who all HAVE GOVERNMENT funded healthcare tells them: “you should NOT have government funded health care”…so they’re following the Pied Piper! Why don’t you ask your congressional delegations to give up THEIR government funded healthcare?!
- (Ro)Bots don’t have jobs, but they vote for someone who cuts jobs and makes HIS products overseas. You want a PATRIOTIC company; how about MacNeil Automotive Products – MADE IN AMERICA, with pride. Do you see the company execs on TV blowing hot air? No. Actions don’t need words – they speak for themselves!
- Bots don’t have a home or they’re losing the one they have, so they vote for someone who has gold plated walls, gold-plated toilet seats and gold-plated dishes. Guess if you’re broke, he will scrape off some the edgeS of his toilet seat and give it to you to pawn!
- Bots can’t afford to fly, probably never stepped on a plane – but vote for someone with (according to lying New York Times) helicopters (plural) and several airplanes (see photos below), including a gas-guzzling private Boeing 757 that seats about 200 people and uses more money in fuel (thousands of dollars an hour) than bots made in 10-years!
- Bots vote for Trump who cut funding for drug treatment – while their community is being ravaged by drugs…but what does THAT matter, if he’s deporting immigrants. See ALL those immigrants who are leaving and taking the meth with them? You’re good now…
Bots are so fuelled by hate, they can’t see the forest for the trees until the Zika virus comes to bite them in the behind, then it will be the fault of immigrants.
Can’t understand why there are so many devastating tornadoes, floods and droughts? immigrants!
Why that nuclear facility tunnel collapsed in Washington State? Immigrants.
Why bots don’t have a college degree? Immigrants!
If we CANNOT see that there is SOMETHING wrong with the current political climate; if we cannot SEE that this White House is a chaotic super-mess; if we cannot see that THIS dysfunction is NOT what America should be presenting to the world – if we cannot see that a republican president like a Mitt Romney or a Paul Ryan even, would act with DIGNITY reflecting the office of President of the United States; if we are so BLINDED by ideology that we can no longer see, acknowledge and speak the TRUTH, regardless of how it looks for our side, then welcome to the great decline. NO Supreme court Judge is worth THIS! Beware you get a judge and lose BOTH a president and a party!
Because Democrats will gain power and UNDO everything that Trump/republicans do now…Republicans will return and re-undo – and fiddle, fiddle…
Americans? Americans…do you hear me? Republicans, Democrats and Independents…
- Do you want clean air?
- Do you want clean water, no lead, no contaminants?
- Do want good paying jobs?
- Do you want safe streets, neighborhoods?
- Do you want good schools?
- Do you want to reduce, pay down the National Debt?
- Do you want a strong, technologically capable military?
- Do you want healthcare that covers PRE-EXISTING conditions?
- Do you want to drive on a bridge that will not fall into the Water? Airplanes that terrorist don’t blown up?
- Do we want an America that is free of terror threats?
- An America that is FREE?
2013 Brige Collapse. Seattle, Washington
Are there going to be TWO different sets of air? The clean red air for republicans to breath, while the democrat sitting next to him at the ball game is breathing polluted blue air?
Are there going to be TWO different levels of airlines? Republican Air with its RED logo that terrorism akeep targetting and blue Democrat Air, with its Donkey logo, that terrorists send valentines to?
ARE WE NOT JUST DUMB ASSES — ALL? What the HELL is the fighting for?
Oh France, France – what are your people drinking to make you so politically savvy, while we over here are acting like functional illiterates? If it is the wine – I don’t drink, but it might be time now for me to go out and get roaring drunk!
PS: Trump’s veiled “threat” to Comey is NO bluff.
I believe Trump tried and TRIED to get Comey to say he (Comey) would be “LOYAL” so HE (Trump) could get Comey ON TAPE and compromize him. If Comey, a SEASONED veteran, did not go to the Oval Office, in this climate of Trump, without HIS OWN MIKE and a gadget that would sweep for listening devices and hidden recorders…then he DAMN well NEEDED TO BE FIRED.
Wonder if HE will guess I’m checking for recordings???
Here’s what I think:…for what it’s worth: Trump is like the Wizard of Oz. And now we are getting a peek behind the curtain…
All that facade about savvy businessman and deal maker…blah! (Romney, others KNEW.) Trump is just the public face of the Trump empire, the spokesperson. His kids, namely Ivanka, is/are running the show. After his dramatic bankruptcies, nearly running the company into the ground, I suspect Donald became a figurehead. The public was lulled into a myth about Trump and now that’s being exposed!
I also believe Mr. Trump is regretting becoming President…because with his inability to earlier grasp the scope of the Presidency, HE thought it would be as easy as his Wizardry of Oz, but being President is NOT mirors and magic…so he is out of his depth, because his kids CANNOT save him in this setting…though they are trying, moving to the oval office, purging the insane people or keeping them at arms length…but HE is Donald Trump! Unruly, out of control…
Notice how his wife, who knows him best of all, is keeping a low profile. She knows. If only Mrs. Trump would write a Kiss-and-Tell?
So, Donald Trump is slowly sabotaging his own presidency. And you can watch it unravelling. Sad. If only he would hire some excellent republicans (or democrats/people) with the skills needed to salvage this ship, like a Carl Rove (whom I detest, by the way, but he’s good at what he does!).
But Donald WILL NOT tolerate anyone who so much as watches him cross-eyed…so here we are.
Who in their right mind will CHALLENGE the FBI when the agency is investigating you, especially after you called them names, like Nazis?
OK, President Trump. May I remind you that Comey is not Rosie O’Donnell? HE knows what’s in your tax returns…
And please, PLEASE Mr. President, I know nobody around you can tell you to STOP talking…but I’m not around you. For heaven’s sake: STOP TALKING! STOP TWEETING. STOP watching TV.
Just STOP!
Head for the gym. Go biking. Golf! Jeez!
Yep! This Photo Op! See you later, alligator. The President craves “loyalty” even at your expense.
Republicans, it is ON your heads…if (when?) this trainwreck unravells. All it will take is replaying that photo op in the Rose Garden to “celebrate” a bill that’s going nowhere. Heard of the Bridge to Nowhere? This is the Healthcare BILL to Nowhere!
Take a page oput of the Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz playboook: GET OUT NOW, WHILE THE GOING IS STILL GOOD! Remember I warned you…while you can still smell sweet.
All photos from Google Images, unless otherwise stated…
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