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Post by Marshall on Jun 20, 2018 9:11:24 GMT -5
This will probably not go over well with some here but here goes anyway. Isn't one of the basic causes of immigration problem worldwide (and not just at our southern border) is that the birth rate of the "have-nots" is way higher than that of the "haves"? Am I wrong in thinking that the a large portion of the most desperate immigrants are usually practicing members of conservative religions that eschew birth control? IMHO, this will need to change and people will need to stop having more children than they can provide for. (Here is where I might piss off friends) I don't think the Pope has the moral authority to preach to me about "the poor" when his church teaches them that it is a "sin" to use birth control that works. I don't want to hear it from him. If he wants to help the poor, pass out birth control pills after every sermon and preach that it is a sin to bring children into abject poverty. I can't imagine the hardship and suffering that would drive a parent to put their child on top of a train in Central America to head north on a 3,000 mile journey. It's awful and terrible and heartbreaking but if we don't address the root problem, it will never be solved. Arguing about a fence or a policy is not addressing the root cause. If too-high birth rates in poor countries is not one of the root causes, where am I missing it? Interesting. A couple of comments: In many cultures, historically, the way to insure family success was by having a lot of children. Not all make it. Life is/was hard. And having extra hands helped the family produce whatever they were producing. (growing, herding, makng). Cheap labor. Secondly; This Pope has more sensitivity to the plight of the poor than probably any other. But still, having children in poor cultures was always a way to insure family success. In some cultures (Middle Eastern) it's a sin for a woman to have an abortion because it robs the husband of a potential heir. Having children in poor cultures is the way to survive.
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Post by Chesapeake on Jun 20, 2018 9:47:06 GMT -5
This will probably not go over well with some here but here goes anyway. Isn't one of the basic causes of immigration problem worldwide (and not just at our southern border) is that the birth rate of the "have-nots" is way higher than that of the "haves"? Am I wrong in thinking that the a large portion of the most desperate immigrants are usually practicing members of conservative religions that eschew birth control? IMHO, this will need to change and people will need to stop having more children than they can provide for. (Here is where I might piss off friends) I don't think the Pope has the moral authority to preach to me about "the poor" when his church teaches them that it is a "sin" to use birth control that works. I don't want to hear it from him. If he wants to help the poor, pass out birth control pills after every sermon and preach that it is a sin to bring children into abject poverty. I can't imagine the hardship and suffering that would drive a parent to put their child on top of a train in Central America to head north on a 3,000 mile journey. It's awful and terrible and heartbreaking but if we don't address the root problem, it will never be solved. Arguing about a fence or a policy is not addressing the root cause. If too-high birth rates in poor countries is not one of the root causes, where am I missing it? I think your instinct is right on target. The world has a serious over-population problem. A dramatic example is the phenomenon of periodic famines in the Horn of Africa. The land is simply too fragile to support the current population. Famines kick in like clockwork. The world reacts by sending in emergency relief, which of course it should, but does little to nothing to address the underlying problem, and the cycle continues. So why don't they just stop having babies? The UN's answer is the correct one, I believe. These are patriarchal, largely agricultural societies that are still living in the past, when it was important to have large families. The patriarch was essentially creating his own labor force to feed himself and his spouse, especially as they approached old age. To put it bluntly, the guys kept "their" women barefoot and pregnant for most or all of their reproductive lives. The women went along with it because it has worked for people around the world for thousands of years. And also because, in patriarchal societies, by definition, they had no other choice. We're now at a historic watershed in human development, when families don't need to be large to survive. In this age of modern agriculture, we don't need the large work forces needed in the past to create food. Also at play: among the many benefits of modern medicine is a higher survival rate for infants, plus longer life spans, which together create more mouths to feed for longer periods of time. In short, a lot of people around the world haven't gotten the memo. The UN's prescription for bringing these cultures around to the realization that they don't need to have a constant stream of babies to survive is to educate, and thereby empower, the women: to let them know that there now can be more to life than spending most of it populating the earth. It's okay, now, for them to have a kid or two, and then go have a career. Naturally, the guys in these cultures aren't happy about this. They see these modern ideas as antithetical to what, for them, is a pretty good life, maybe even one ordained by God. Which puts a dangerous spin on the situation. One need look no further to see why so many traditional cultures, and I specifically include those in the Mideast, are hostile to the point of violence against Western ideas about women and their role in society. But until enough women are educated enough, and brave enough, to just say no, the problem of high fertility rates in developing countries will continue, and, with it, a lot of the social upheaval and violence that we see today.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Jun 20, 2018 9:59:15 GMT -5
Meanwhile, the Facebook fundraiser marches on. It is at 9.8 million this morning, new goal, 11 million.
They say people vote with their wallet.
Mike
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Post by james on Jun 20, 2018 11:38:28 GMT -5
Also, "A lawsuit filed in federal court in late April alleges that a private shelter in Texas forcibly injected immigrant children separated from their parents with drugs to sedate them, an investigation published Wednesday from Reveal and the Texas Tribune found. According to court filings, undocumented children in U.S. custody were injected with powerful psychiatric drugs, making them “dizzy, listless, obese and even incapacitated.” splinternews.com/lawsuit-alleges-private-shelter-forcibly-injects-immigr-1826983195
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Post by amanajoe on Jun 20, 2018 12:18:56 GMT -5
I normally stay far away from these discussions, but if you are looking for a place to send some of your righteous indignation, maybe some of it needs to go toward the media that decided this wasn't a story while it was happening in the past. On a news show the other night, one of the strategists for the former Hillary campaign was asked if this had been going on in the previous administration and the response she gave was "Let's not discuss what happened in the past, this is now under the Trump administration's purview and needs to be corrected immediately", which to me sounds an awful lot like a flat out admission. Did the reporter call her to task on that comment? Not that I saw.
The most disturbing part is that this entire media circus going on does seem, once again, less like reporting and more like a reality TV show and to be quite frank, I'm getting sick enough of it that I don't care to watch the news. Not because I think it is fake or that it is anti-this administration or that one, but because they are deciding what public policy should be in the government and then using the sounding board they have to get it done. Reporting should be reporting, not ginning up support for your political views and I'm getting sick of the personal opinion being tossed in as off-hand comments in the middle of the story, or at the end, so that they can be part of the reporting. Want to do an op-ed on what is going on, fine do one, but stop sticking your opinion in under the guise of reporting the news.
By the way, it doesn't take much of a search to see the exact same pictures of the exact same things going on years before the current administration by just checking Getty images archives (as several websites have already done, Getty is really good about detailing why and when their archived pictures that cost money to re-use on your site where taken). Recently the daily caller did just that (yeah, I know, mostly a propaganda site, but the images and dates don't lie. They even found a couple of images that were mistakenly attributed and had the wrong dates and removed them. It is sad when they are becoming the bastion of truth in reporting.)
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Post by fauxmaha on Jun 20, 2018 12:53:50 GMT -5
These social media jibber jabber outrage fests are mostly just circle-jerks of semi-unknown, 27yo Twitter bluechecks writing for Vox/Salon/Slate/HufPo/etc, falling all over themselves to signal the most wokeness, completely disregarding any sense of nuance or history or perspective, fueling the mob that sits around in their otherwise empty lives just waiting for the next thing to get traumatized about.
The mob will have its Two Minute Hate, feel fully vindicated in its moral superiority, grateful for a momentary sense of meaning, and then go on to next week's jibber jabber.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jun 20, 2018 13:20:41 GMT -5
While there are many perils in getting info from Facebook, one of which is being accused of spreading “jibber-jabber,” this is just too good not to post: Karen Brown June 18 at 3:13pm Have you heard that children were separated from their parents under Obama & Clinton? Then, you need a little Facts vs Myths lesson. Michelle Martin, PhD Cal State Fullerton summed up the most important FACTS: There is so much misinformation out there about the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy that requires criminal prosecution, which then warrants the separating of parents and children at the border. Before responding to a post defending this policy, please do your research...As a professor at a local Cal State, I research and write about these issues, so here, I'll make it easier for you: Myth: This is not a new policy and was practiced under Obama and Clinton - FALSE. The policy to separate parents and children is new and was instituted on 4/6/2018. It was the brainchild of John Kelly and Stephen Miller to serve as a deterrent for undocumented immigration, approved by Trump, and adopted by Sessions. Prior administrations detained migrant families, but didn’t have a practice of forcibly separating parents from their children unless the adults were deemed unfit. www.justice.gov/…/press-rele…/file/1049751/download…Myth: This is the only way to deter undocumented immigration - FALSE. Annual trends show that arrests for undocumented entry are at a 46 year low, and undocumented crossings dropped in 2007, with a net loss (more people leaving than arriving). Deportations have increased steadily though (spiking in 1996 and more recently), because several laws that were passed since 1996 have made it legally more difficult to gain legal status for people already here, and thus increased their deportations (I address this later under the myth that it's the Democrats' fault). What we mostly have now are people crossing the border illegally because they've already been hired by a US company, or because they are seeking political asylum. Economic migrants come to this country because our country has kept the demand going. But again, many of these people impacted by Trump's "zero tolerance" policy appear to be political asylum-seekers. www.npr.org/…/arrests-for-illegal-border-crossings-…Myth: Most of the people coming across the border are just trying to take advantage of our country by taking our jobs - FALSE. Most of the parents who have been impacted by Trump's "zero tolerance" policy have presented themselves as political asylum-seekers at a U.S. port-of-entry, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Rather than processing their claims, they have been taken into custody on the spot and had their children ripped from their arms. The ACLU alleges that this practice violates the Asylum Act, and the UN asserts that it violates the UN Treaty on the State of Refugees, one of the few treaties the US has ratified. This is an illegal act on the part of the United States government, not to mention morally and ethically reprehensible. www.nytimes.com/…/meatpackers-profits-hinge-on-pool…Myth: We're a country that respects the Rule of Law, and if people break the law, this is what they get - FALSE. We are a country that has an above-ground system of immigration and an underground system. Our government (under both parties) has always been aware that US companies recruit workers in the poorest parts of Mexico for cheap labor, and ICE (and its predecessor INS) has looked the other way because this underground economy benefits our country to the tune of billions of dollars annually. Thus, even though the majority of people crossing the border now are asylum-seekers, those who are economic migrants (migrant workers) likely have been recruited here to do jobs Americans will not do. www.upi.com/…/Donald-Trumps-wall-ign…/2621477498203/Myth: The children have to be separated from their parents because there parents must be arrested and it would be cruel to put children in jail with their parents - FALSE. First, in the case of economic migrants crossing the border illegally, criminal prosecution has not been the legal norm, and families have been kept together at all cost. Also, crossing the border without documentation is a typically a misdemeanor not requiring arrest, but rather a civil proceeding. Additionally, parents who have been detained have historically been detained with their children in ICE "family residential centers," again, for civil processing. The Trump administration's shift in policy is for political purposes only, not legal ones. See p. 18: www.aclu.org/…/ms-l-v-ice-plaintiffs-opposition-def…Myth: We have rampant fraud in our asylum process the proof of which is the significant increase we have in the number of people applying for asylum. FALSE. The increase in asylum seekers is a direct result of the increase in civil conflict and violence across the globe. While some people may believe that we shouldn't allow any refugees into our country because "it's not our problem," neither our current asylum law, nor our ideological foundation as a country support such an isolationist approach. There is very little evidence to support Sessions' claim that abuse of our asylum-seeking policies is rampant. Also, what Sessions failed to mention is that the majority of asylum seekers are from China, not South of the border. Here is a very fair and balanced assessment of his statements: www.politifact.com/…/jeff-sessions-claim-about-asyl…/Myth: The Democrats caused this, "it's their law." FALSE. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats caused this, the Trump administration did (although the Republicans could fix this today, and have refused). I believe what this myth refers to is the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which were both passed under Clinton in 1996. These laws essentially made unauthorized entry into the US a crime (typically a misdemeanor for first-time offenders), but under both Republicans and Democrats, these cases were handled through civil deportation proceedings, not a criminal proceeding, which did not require separation. And again, even in cases where detainment was required, families were always kept together in family residential centers, unless the parents were deemed unfit (as mentioned above). Thus, Trump's assertion that he hates this policy but has no choice but to separate the parents from their children, because the Democrats "gave us this law" is false and nothing more than propaganda designed to compel negotiation on bad policy. www.independent.co.uk/…/trump-democrats-us-border-m…Myth: The parents and children will be reunited shortly, once the parents' court cases are finalized. FALSE. Criminal court is a vastly different beast than civil court proceedings. Also, the children are being processed as unaccompanied minors ("unaccompanied alien children"), which typically means they are sent into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Under normal circumstances when a child enters the country without his or her parent, ORR attempts to locate a family member within a few weeks, and the child is then released to a family member, or if a family member cannot be located, the child is placed in a residential center (anywhere in the country), or in some cases, foster care. Prior to Trump's new policy, ORR was operating at 95% capacity, and they simply cannot effectively manage the influx of 2000+ children, some as young as 4 months. Also, keep in mind, these are not unaccompanied minor children, they have parents. There is great legal ambiguity on how and even whether the parents will get their children back because we are in uncharted territory right now. According to the ACLU lawsuit (see below), there is currently no easy vehicle for reuniting parents with their children. Additionally, according to a May 2018 report, numerous cases of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were found to have occurred in these residential centers. www.aclu.org/…/aclu-obtains-documents-showing-wides…Myth: This policy is legal. LIKELY FALSE. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on 5/6/18, and a recent court ruling denied the government's motion to dismiss the suit. The judge deciding the case stated that the Trump Administration policy is "brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency." The case is moving forward because it was deemed to have legal merit. www.bloomberg.com/…/aclu-suit-over-child-separation…
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Post by brucemacneill on Jun 20, 2018 13:37:58 GMT -5
Rest your case, Jeff.
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Post by timfarney on Jun 20, 2018 14:09:24 GMT -5
I think it is rested, above, with that inconvenient thing we used to call facts in pre-Trump America.
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Post by Chesapeake on Jun 20, 2018 14:26:16 GMT -5
It looks like Trump blinked. However you want to spin it, he says he'll sign an executive order ending the separation of kids from parents.
I will never say I am ashamed of my country. But this whole episode has gotten me pretty damned close to it.
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Post by aquaduct on Jun 20, 2018 15:04:57 GMT -5
It looks like Trump blinked. However you want to spin it, he says he'll sign an executive order ending the separation of kids from parents. I will never say I am ashamed of my country. But this whole episode has gotten me pretty damned close to it. You're my friend but I'm really happy to let you have your turn in that bucket for a while.
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Post by david on Jun 20, 2018 15:09:03 GMT -5
There's really nothing that deters people wanting free stuff quite like having to work for it. Or be shot. That can work, too. Peter, are you suggesting that the latinos who cross the border are not hard workers, or that they are unable/unwilling to erect a form of government that cannot offer the benefits that the USA can? In my limited anecdotal experience, the documented and undocumented Mexicans and other Latinos work circles around most of my home grown US citizens. One of my cousin owns a concrete company and I overheard him talking to his office manager, stating, "that does it, I am not hiring another damn white guy for my crew. There is always drama and thinking he should be getting more than just money for his work."
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jun 20, 2018 15:17:21 GMT -5
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Post by aquaduct on Jun 20, 2018 15:37:51 GMT -5
There's really nothing that deters people wanting free stuff quite like having to work for it. Or be shot. That can work, too. Peter, are you suggesting that the latinos who cross the border are not hard workers, or that they are unable/unwilling to erect a form of government that cannot offer the benefits that the USA can? In my limited anecdotal experience, the documented and undocumented Mexicans and other Latinos work circles around most of my home grown US citizens. One of my cousin owns a concrete company and I overheard him talking to his office manager, stating, "that does it, I am not hiring another damn white guy for my crew. There is always drama and thinking he should be getting more than just money for his work." Oh, hell no. I've hired and paid good money for great work from Latinos. Never bothered to ask if they're legal (usually the guy we do the hiring with is legal. And insured, etc. The crew he brings and takes responsibility for aren't my issue). The last guy redid our floors when we moved in 3 years ago. Wonderful gentleman. Legal immigrant. His brother had been killed trying to do it illegally. We had some great conversations. At the end of the day he had some great guys. Couldn't talk to most of them since they didn't speak English, but they did the job well, cracked a beer at the end of the day, joked, and went home happy- to families. Don't have clue one about their immigration status. Don't really give a damn. Don't know what the grand answers are. But right now I'm even more disgusted with the American left than I've ever been. A bunch of whiny, lying, selfish shits. Trump at least had the balls to come to the table in good faith and offer amnesty for many with the condition of some compromise on their part. But no, they ain't as interested in Mexicans as they are playing hardball with those folks as bargaining chips. Gutless, spineless, jerks. Oh well, Trump's got the end game and I think it's great.
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Post by timfarney on Jun 20, 2018 15:54:57 GMT -5
Trump came to the table in good faith? Trump came to this table with an executive order that created the problem, spent several days lying, claiming it was the fault of a nonexistant Democrat’s law, not his policy, that created the problem, then, when public opinion got negative enough, reversed his executive order with a second executive order, proving it was his doing and his to undo all along. So taking unilateral action while blaming your actions on those who had nothing to do with the situation is coming to the table in good faith? Your capacity for self-deception is stunning.
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Post by amanajoe on Jun 20, 2018 16:44:02 GMT -5
Well, I guess it will be a few days before we hear of all the negative effects of keeping the families TOGETHER in the detention centers means that this executive order is yet another heinous crime committed by the administration (tongue firmly planted in cheek for anybody unfamiliar with internet sarcasm).
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Post by brucemacneill on Jun 20, 2018 16:47:40 GMT -5
Well, I guess it will be a few days before we hear of all the negative effects of keeping the families TOGETHER in the detention centers means that this executive order is yet another heinous crime committed by the administration (tongue firmly planted in cheek for anybody unfamiliar with internet sarcasm). I haven't heard what the order really did but I figured it would be what they asked for not what they want so he'd probably put the kids in jail with the parents. Is that it?
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Post by fauxmaha on Jun 20, 2018 16:50:09 GMT -5
Here's your good faith, right here:
Separating kids from their parents is INHUMAN!!!
(( Trump corrects his policy, allowing parents and kids to be held together ))
Detaining children with their families is INHUMAN!!!
If I was the Lone Ruler of the Universe, there wouldn't be any borders. There wouldn't be much of any government, either.
But for goodness sake, Trump is playing these people like a fiddle. This is the price you pay when you are so completely ensconced inside an opinion bubble, you don't even realize it is there.
The Democratic Party has no serious policy on immigration or border security. They have allowed their reflexive anti-Trumpism to paint themselves into a political corner. They are now in a position where ANY border enforcement makes them Nazis.
How can a political party be so blind? Literally from the day Trump announced his campaign, he talked, in very harsh terms, about getting tough on immigration. And he won!
If there is such a thing as a rational approach to politics, when you lose an election you look at your policies and your messaging and re-calibrate. In the case of the Democrats and 2016, it seems pretty obvious: They got too cozy with Wall Street and Silicon Valley. They got too permissive on immigration. They got way ahead of the country on trans bathrooms and wedding cakes and such. They fell into a pattern of sneering at people who drive pickups and watch NASCAR.
Simple rule: If you come across as having a warm, loving, accepting opinion of Guatemalans illegally crossing the border, while simultaneously coming across as having nothing but loathing and contempt for WalMart shoppers, you're doing politics wrong. Not to worry. Rachel Maddow will come on the television and tell you all about what a great person you are, and how contemptible those WalMart shoppers are, and you can spend another day pretending it's them, not you.
In all of that, the Democrats drifted away from (to use a term from a generation ago) the "Reagan Democrats". And they lost Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin.
In response, not a bit of introspection. It was just all "Russians" (which, as an aside, is shaping up to be the biggest political own-goal in history) and collusion and porn stars and everything else.
No one in their right mind can possibly be surprised that Trump is actually getting tough on immigration. It's not like he kept his intentions a secret.
Maybe the Democrats should stop focus-testing their messaging over wine and cheese in Pacific Heights and realize that they are significantly out of touch with the public on this issue.
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Post by amanajoe on Jun 20, 2018 16:53:31 GMT -5
Trump came to the table in good faith? Trump came to this table with an executive order that created the problem, spent several days lying, claiming it was the fault of a nonexistant Democrat’s law, not his policy, that created the problem, then, when public opinion got negative enough, reversed his executive order with a second executive order, proving it was his doing and his to undo all along. So taking unilateral action while blaming your actions on those who had nothing to do with the situation is coming to the table in good faith? Your capacity for self-deception is stunning. What executive order started it? I can't find it in the public record. Sessions made several comments about enforcing all crossings as criminal starting the prosecution engines to cause the separations but if there was any executive order involved, I can't find it.
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Post by amanajoe on Jun 20, 2018 16:55:48 GMT -5
Here's your good faith, right here: Separating kids from their parents is INHUMAN!!! (( Trump corrects his policy, allowing parents and kids to be held together )) Detaining children with their families is INHUMAN!!! If I was the Lone Ruler of the Universe, there wouldn't be any borders. There wouldn't be much of any government, either. But for goodness sake, Trump is playing these people like a fiddle. This is the price you pay when you are so completely ensconced inside an opinion bubble, you don't even realize it is there. The Democratic Party has no serious policy on immigration or border security. They have allowed their reflexive anti-Trumpism to paint themselves into a political corner. They are now in a position where ANY border enforcement makes them Nazis. How can a political party be so blind? Literally from the day Trump announced his campaign, he talked, in very harsh terms, about getting tough on immigration. And he won! If there is such a thing as a rational approach to politics, when you lose an election you look at your policies and your messaging and re-calibrate. In the case of the Democrats and 2016, it seems pretty obvious: They got too cozy with Wall Street and Silicon Valley. They got too permissive on immigration. They got way ahead of the country on trans bathrooms and wedding cakes and such. They fell into a pattern of sneering at people who drive pickups and watch NASCAR. Simple rule: If you come across as having a warm, loving, accepting opinion of Guatemalans illegally crossing the border, while simultaneously coming across as having nothing but loathing and contempt for WalMart shoppers, you're doing politics wrong. Not to worry. Rachel Maddow will come on the television and tell you all about what a great person you are, and how contemptible those WalMart shoppers are, and you can spend another day pretending it's them, not you. In all of that, the Democrats drifted away from (to use a term from a generation ago) the "Reagan Democrats". And they lost Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin. In response, not a bit of introspection. It was just all "Russians" (which, as an aside, is shaping up to be the biggest political own-goal in history) and collusion and porn stars and everything else. No one in their right mind can possibly be surprised that Trump is actually getting tough on immigration. It's not like he kept his intentions a secret. Maybe the Democrats should stop focus-testing their messaging over wine and cheese in Pacific Heights and realize that they are significantly out of touch with the public on this issue. Wow, that was faster than even I expected! I thought it would take a few days!
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