Three years still to go? If so, heaven help us!

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“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”—President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation, Jan. 17, 1961

Ike, himself a Republican (and former 5-star General of the Army), could have been warning about Donald Trump, who is going all-out on military-industrial at the expense of all else—along with a concentration of power in his single person. 

It never was basically an either-or matter of DACA renewal as opposed to funding for our military. Money was in no way an issue in past months when DACA stood on its own as an issue tabled by Congress. DACA is just a matter of proper respect and fairness for young people by not ordering them to be deported. Donald Trump doesn’t like Mexicans. For no other reason have these young, innocent Hispanics—many very long-time residents—not been given some sort of fast-track to U. S. citizenship. 

Instead, the DACA visa-renewal bill was shelved until it could be held hostage as a bargaining point by Donald Trump in seeking the heavy end of one of his “deals.” Donald, in weighing his recent comments, would prefer to replace these technically illegal Hispanics with Norwegian immigrants.

I hesitate to compare Trump to Hitler in any way but I am a little intrigued by Adolf’s old championing of an “aryan race.” He described founding a superior type of humanity. The purest stock of Aryans according to his Nazi ideology was the Nordic people of Germany, England, Denmark, The Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. And we have Donald Trump, of German ethnicity, talking of admitting more Norwegians and fewer Blacks and Hispanics (and Muslims) into the U.S.

Donald the other day off-handedly referred to Nigerians as living in huts. That in itself painted an improper picture of modern Nigeria. And many of us, I’m sure, wished the president would concern himself instead with the actually homeless here in the U. S. The National Alliance to End Homelessness states that there are 564,708 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the US. What many of them would give for at least a hut.

With Trump giving occasional lip service but otherwise dragging his feet, a Republican Congress just couldn’t get around to voting on a “clean bill” for DACA’s young “Dreamers”—a bill free of “ifs,” “ands” and “buts” emanating from the the mind of Donald. Renewal of the DACA bill could have been routinely dealt with by Congress without weaseling some time ago.  The seat of the entire problem is sitting in the Oval Office. It apparently is not a “deal” to Donald Trump if one gives consideration to a racial minority without getting something bigoted in return. 

But Donald Trump does not “make a deal.” He insists on abject surrender to his simplistic demands. He has continued to reject any bi-partisan bills involving accord on social issues—if they don’t also include praise for his proposal for massive increases in military spending. It’s all pretty clear to those not cowed by the bull-scat coming out of the White House . . .

A real sign of the times and Donald’s scale of values recently was his voiced disgruntled miff over not being able to spend the past weekend—because of the shutdown he, himself, had effected—attending an elaborate first-anniversary, fund-raising at Mar-a-Lago, including his usual weekend of golf of course. Donald previously had bragged about being willing to “take the heat” over the threatened shut-down. But even he could not “push the envelope” of public opinion by heading off to party over the weekend with his back-slapping cronies—today’s unregistered lobbyists—as the shut-down became a reality with the entire public looking on. 

So he spent the weekend sulking in the White House, suffering heroically and offering absolutely nothing constructive to the political imbroglio.

Yet people step forth to speak up for this guy. So much of him is self esteem run amok, so little involved with concern for the great portion of Americans living on the edge day after day.

So, Donald reneged on his promise to sign off on a bipartisan government-funding bill that included DACA—also even funding for his border wall. Government shut down briefly. Democrats yielded and the Senate passed a temporary 3-week funding bill.—with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promising to bring DACA back onto the Senate floor. But the fly in the ointment now is the House of Representatives, where Republicans are stating that no major immigration bill will pass for fear it “would anger our base.” A leading spokesman said, “We’re not going to pass a bill that has amnesty. There are things that would anger our base that I don’t see us passing in the house.”  

So that makes pretty worthless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s promise to bring DACA up on the Senate floor if Democrats come to heel on more of Trump’s demands, whatever they eventually turn out to be. Any Senate bill will hit a stone wall in the House. Donald has the marker in his pocket for scapegoat-designation purposes.. 

I began here talking about racism and this government-shutdown is certainly a facet of that subject, what with all of the Hispanic disdain involved. So, moving on . . .

“The president has made the Latino community a priority and we always will,”—Mike Pence, 2017. Ladling out whatever applesauce best suits the hype they are promoting at the moment is nothing new for Donald Trump and his vassals. 

“WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 -- President Trump's re-election campaign on Saturday released a new YouTube ad saying Democrats will be "complicit in every murder committed by illegal aliens" if they stand in the way of the president's agenda. The ad was released on the first day of the government shutdown, and the one-year anniversary of Trump's presidency.

The ad features illegal immigrant Luis Bracamontes, now on trial for murder, who has admitted to killing two deputies in the Sacramento area in October 2014. So Donald found an Hispanic who murdered people after illegally crossing the border. No way he could plant “murder” and “illegal immigrant” in the public mind with someone  such as white guy Stephen Paddock who killed 58 and wounded 851 others in the October Las Vegas shooting. Donald didn’t even talk about gun control after that one.

“I don’t know if that [ad] is necessarily productive,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) said Jan. 21 on CBS’ Face the Nation. In any case, I can’t see where it justified stalling over the DACA issue. This sneaky bit of petulant and hypocritical propaganda is way beyond unbecoming for a person who is president of the United States of America.  (And no, I won’t put a capital P on president in his case.)  

Sounds like the same guy though, who said back on Aug. 31, 2016, in disparaging Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. . .”

June 3, 2016—“I’ve been treated very unfairly by this judge. Now, this judge is of Mexican heritage. I’m building a wall, OK? I’m building a wall. I am going to do very well with the Hispanics, the Mexicans,” Trump said in an interview with CNN on June 3, explaining his attacks on the judge presiding over the Trump University lawsuit. “I think I’m going to do very well with Hispanics.” he later reiterated. “But we’re building a wall. He’s a Mexican. We’re building a wall between here and Mexico.” He was speaking of U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrant parents. “This judge is giving us unfair rulings. Now I say why. Well, I want to — I’m building a wall, OK? And it’s a wall between Mexico, not another country.”

“I do great with Latino voters. I employee so many Latinos, I have so many people working for me, the Latinos love Trump, and I Iove them.”—former quote from Donald Trump

“Does President Trump even want a deal on DACA? He says he does, but after he was embarrassed at his own immigration meeting for not understanding anything about it, he’s suddenly decided to take the advice of immigration hardliners like Stephen Miller [senior policy adviser]and Tom Cotton [Republican senator from Arkansas], who simply don’t want DACA restored.”—Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, Jan. 19, 2018 

“Why are we having all these people from [Donald’s now-historic scatological vulgarity] countries come here?” he asked about Haiti, African nations and El Salvador, according to people attending a recent Oval Office meeting last week with senators from both parties.

During a June rant also in the Oval Office Donald Trump complained about the number of foreigners who had been let into the country despite his dictatorial travel ban. Haitians “all have AIDs,” he said, and the Nigerians would “never go back back to their huts.” 

From a Jan. 12, 2018 Trump Tweet (5:28 a.m.)—“Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians . . .”

From a Jan. 12. 2018 Hillary Clinton tweet (11:14 a.m.)—“The anniversary of the devastating earthquake 8 years ago is a day to remember the tragedy, honor the resilient people of Haiti, & affirm America’s commitment to helping our neighbors. Instead, we‘re subjected to Trump’s ignorant, racist views of anyone who doesn’t look like him.”

Jan. 18, 2018—The Department of Homeland Security has removed Haiti from a list of countries eligible for a program granting U. S. visas to low-skilled workers. The department said it was barring Haitians from receiving H2-A and H2-B visas due to “high levels of fraud and abuse” by Haitian visa holders and a “high rate of overstaying” visa terms. The type of visas, primarily for seasonal works in agriculture and other industries, have served as one of the very few legal avenues for Haitians to come to the U. S. since the program started in 2012 (Obama years) to help the country recover from a devastating earthquake.

Way to throw around that “love” your speech-writers have been including in your statements on immigration lately, Donald. Enough of your not-so-subtle attempts to brainwash the voting public.

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”—from the plaque on the Statue of Liberty

MISCELLANY.—Trump called Puerto Ricans who criticized his administration’s response to Hurricane Maria “politically motivated ingrates.” He pardoned and effusively praised Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff sanctioned for racially profiling Latinos and keeping immigrants in brutal prison conditions.

In the 1990s, Trump took out advertisements alleging that the Mohawk Indian record of criminal activity is well documented.” At the time, he was fighting competition for his casino business.

Trump once referred to a Hispanic Miss Universe as “Miss Housekeeping.”

During the 2016 presidential election, Trump called out a Gold Star Muslim family and insinuated that the mother wasn’t talking because she was Muslim. “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said in an interview with ABC News in July. 

Trump once said, Laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that,” according to John R. O’Donnell, author of the 1991 book Trumped! He retweeted false statistics about white homicide victims after a black activist was kicked and punched at one of his rallies in Alabama. 

He called some of those who marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., last August “very fine people.” After David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, endorsed him for President, Trump was reluctant to disavow Duke even when asked directly on television. He endorsed and campaigned for Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate who spoke positively about slavery and who called for an African-American Muslim member of Congress not to be seated because of his religion.

What is Donald Trump thinking about when he makes a photo-op appearance in church?

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