Trump, America's Unpresident

So, are you flatly denying Breitbart's reporting of this matter?

Madbolter - I read the link you posted from CIS, but it's still a far, far, cry from "a trivial matter."

The "loophole" of a mother simply believing she's good to go when by law she is simply at the mercy of an immigration officer?

While it may very well be that for decades there have been officers who can't be so cold they would make a parent choose between taking their child, born and growing up in this country and knowing no other, along with them to a life of poverty and crime, and leaving that child behind to cope without them..... wow.

And imagine the horror of that ill-informed mother who honestly DID believe she was "legal," to find out she's "going back."

Even the ones who knew the score, and spent all those years in fear of being found out, because they knew the truth of the matter - what kind of situation must a person be running from that such a risk was a better deal for them? HOW can you possibly wish that on someone? Thank GOD for those kind people over the years.

I don't know about you, but I take a stance that life is an abundant paradise.

My life motto is Burrough's (paraphrased)quote of "Leap and the net appears."

I share willingly and generously of that which I have, because I do believe I will be taken care of.

I once had an AA sponsor who, when I was going through a period of "life stress anxiety" which had me spinning and losing traction on the day to day actions needed to make progress, gave me a tool for coping. You (and others!) might find it useful for yourself when fretting over the fears there "won't be enough" for you. That tool is to stop and ask yourself this question: Do I have what I need RIGHT now?"

It's as simple as that. Not "Do I have what I need to retire?" or "Do I have what I need for the first of next month when rent/mortgage/car payment/whatever is due?" And not "Do I have what I need in five hours, at dinnertime?" Do. I. Have. What. I. Need. Right. Now.

I have found that life is quite mysterious and interesting in it's ability to provide. I get orders for jewelry when I am feeling sort of slim in the wallet. Someone pays me back on a loan fr years back. I find a five in my jacket pocket I must have forgotten was there. I find a twenty blowing down the sidewalk(I have! I even found a hundred and twenty one time.)

Can you actually say that you have really ever "gone without" because some undocumented mother slipped through the cracks in the system? Can you even say that(honestly) even though "thousands," as you mentioned, have slipped through the cracks?

Yes, until corroborated.

Madbolter - I read the link you posted from CIS, but it's still a far, far, cry from "a trivial matter."

Well, opinions vary. To me, "trivial" means "nothing's gonna hinder it." For the average anchor family, the skids are greased for "success." By the millions, they're gonna pull it off.

The "loophole" of a mother simply believing she's good to go when by law she is simply at the mercy of an immigration officer?

Historically speaking, it's clear that they've been merciful indeed. Since 1980, at least three different sweeping amnesty programs have documented tens of millions of illegal aliens, waving a magic wand over them to vindicate their willingness to just break the law "long enough."

And in large swaths of the nation, "sanctuary" locations bend over backwards to support and sustain the "situation" of "immigrants" who are "undocumented" (SO many euphemisms for "illegal alien"). Since 1980, it has indeed been "trivial" for illegals to land here and find a path to a green card.

While it may very well be that for decades there have been officers who can't be so cold they would make a parent choose between taking their child, born and growing up in this country and knowing no other, along with them to a life of poverty and crime, and leaving that child behind to cope without them..... wow.

And there it is, the liberal go-to argument: "We can't be so 'cold' as to enforce the law."

Well, amazingly, we enforce the law in all sorts of other "cold" ways, and we tear apart families all the time to enforce the law.

Furthermore, tearing families apart is not the only or even primary alternative. Deport them all. Entire families. Or, eliminate the welfare state. Have it either way; you should NOT presume both. I'm happy with either approach.

But liberals want BOTH to have wide-open borders AND a welfare state.

But THAT, in turn, presumed the liberal go-to myth: Money grows on trees. California is upwards of 3/4 of a TRILLION dollars in debt, the USA is pushing 20. But, you know, money grows on trees. And liberals have countless ways to kick the can down the road with specious arguments.

Let's keep this point in context. The context was that illegals don't benefit from the welfare state. The CAN'T, so I was told. I've argued that they DO, and I'm not hearing any rebuttal other than, "Well, it's harder for them to do so than 'trivial.'"

That's some nit-picky verbiage.

That's, shall we say, less than compelling!

They DO, and by the tens of millions. And money does NOT grow on trees.

And imagine the horror of that ill-informed mother who honestly DID believe she was "legal," to find out she's "going back."

Wow. I barely know where to start.

First, I fail to believe that there is any appreciable proportion of these illegals that don't know they are illegal. If you could find one, that would be amazing in the extreme. Your example case is at best the tiniest subset of the group we're talking about.

Second, what "horror" are you talking about? It's simple: Go HOME! Make YOUR nation something worth living in. Don't come HERE as a law-breaker and then presume that your mere act of making it across the border entitles you to freebies.

Your appeal to emotion is a fallacious one.

Even the ones who knew the score, and spent all those years in fear of being found out, because they knew the truth of the matter - what kind of situation must a person be running from that such a risk was a better deal for them? HOW can you possibly wish that on someone? Thank GOD for those kind people over the years.

I DON'T wish it on ANY of them! I want them to NOT take any risks to come here. I want them to NOT even try by illegal means to fly under the radar!

We have a LEGAL process, and they should ALL abide by it. Period!

No risk. No "horror" in the LEGAL process.

Oh, but what about the "refugees" from a "bad" situation? Surely we must let ALL of them come on in. Right? Save them from that "horror"?

Well, then, let's quit pretending that we're being "humane," when really, if we were humane in the liberal sense of that word (like we OWE them to be here), then we should throw open the borders to everybody with absolutely no restrictions whatsoever and say, "Come on in and TAKE, since you have no capacity to contribute at the needed level! Come on in and immediately enjoy $15 per hour for doing what a machine can do for pennies. Come on in and enjoy taxpayer-supported healthcare, education, and EVERYTHING you could want (even free cell phones), because we OWE this all to you on humanitarian grounds."

Ridiculous. This nation has trickled off dramatically over my lifetime, as I've seen myself and everybody I know pay more and more taxes. Half of this nation is SICK of it. We don't want wide-open borders, and if you do, then, frankly, you are not in touch with ANY of the realities of paying for it!

And if you are not in favor of WIDE-open borders, then, frankly, you are NO more "humanitarian" than I am. The second you draw a line, are you drawing a LEGAL line. And the second you are drawing a LEGAL line, then you have to be "cold" enough to enforce it.

So, stop with the appeals to emotion. I'm "cold" enough to realize what's at stake and not be moved by them.

I don't know about you, but I take a stance that life is an abundant paradise.

Except that that's fantasy land. In REALITY, there are not enough resources to go around. As a liberal, YOU are constantly reminding us of that fact, as you bemoan global warming BECAUSE you believe it will reduce natural resources to an "unsustainable level." You don't get it both ways.

Global warming will increase the area of arable land globally. So, if you want a "paradise," then you WANT global warming! Of course, it won't be a paradise everywhere, but globally-speaking, it would be a huge net gain.

But you don't want global-warming, and instead the resources of the earth just keep dwindling everywhere. There is NO free lunch, despite your fantasy-land idea of one.

In REALITY, the taxpayers are about done with this ride. I have seriously contemplated just getting off the ride, retiring early (even though it would be a lifestyle hit), and saying: "I'm not paying any more for people to just live off of my efforts." MANY like me are serious about it. And the second I think that it's nothing more than a dice-roll that I'll do better continuing in my business compared to just cashing it all in, that is the very second that I'm off the ride. You can kiss a pile of jobs good-bye, and you can kiss my significant taxes good-bye. How many middle-class business-people need to think like me before the bottom gets pulled out from under your liberal "paradise"?

You'd better think LONG and HARD about how much your policies have been bleeding us.

In REALITY, we know all know what theft is. And doing it on a large scale makes it no less theft. You libs' perpetual conflation between things like police and fire departments on one side and flat-out theft on the other is ridiculous. When my money is stolen from me to give to others directly (for cell phones, health care, welfare, etc., etc.), I am receiving NO direct benefit. I am "buying" NO goods or services for myself (as I am with fire and police departments, the military, roads, etc.). Instead, my money is just being taken from me to give to somebody else with NO return to me. I'm "buying nothing" with such theft.

And if life is so "abundant," as you say, then you should not NEED to steal from me to throw the borders WIDE open to everybody who wants to fasten to the teat! Just tap into that fabled "abundance" and leave mine alone. How about that? Let's call the bluff on your "paradise." If "the universe" is so liberal, then quit stealing from me, and just promise those that used to be living off of MY money that "the universe will supply."

Oh, but wait! The illegals are HERE because THERE the universe was not supplying. THERE they lived in "horror." But, what's the difference between THERE and HERE? Well, simply and flatly, HERE are people that are FORCED to pay for them to have freebies that they can't get THERE.

So, in your liberal fantasy, the "plenty" is nothing more than funds you've STOLEN from others. And WE are sick of funding your liberal fantasy-land.

My life motto is Burrough's (paraphrased)quote of "Leap and the net appears."

Must be nice to live in the liberal fantasy-land, where we the taxpayers have to BE your safety net.

I now better understand the hysterical weeping, literally weeping and wailing, when Trump was elected. The libs suddenly realized that this guy just MIGHT destroy the myth of the infinite safety net. Who knows if he WILL, but, you know, "hope and change" and all that. At least you have to face the THREAT that he just might, and then the free ride is over.

I share willingly and generously of that which I have, because I do believe I will be taken care of.

I've issued this challenge before, and I'll reiterate it now. I'll post redacted tax returns, if you will. I can PROVE, and I will, that I'm in the top 1% of charitable givers. I'm not the "selfish bastard" that I get cast as when I talk about how "cold" I am. I GIVE, and I do far, far more than over 95% of other people in this nation.

So, if you're so "giving," then prove it. EVERY lib I know talks the talk, with other people's money! When's the last time you didn't buy something you really wanted or needed SO THAT you could give that money directly to somebody else? MOST libs have no concept of that. If you're different, then, seriously, good on you.

But none of that provides support for institutionalize THEFT in order to grease the skids for illegals. Period. I give far more than most, but I'm sick of being STOLEN from on top of it.

I once had an AA sponsor who, when I was going through a period of "life stress anxiety" which had me spinning and losing traction on the day to day actions needed to make progress, gave me a tool for coping. You (and others!) might find it useful for yourself when fretting over the fears there "won't be enough" for you. That tool is to stop and ask yourself this question: Do I have what I need RIGHT now?"

None of what you're saying justifies institutionalized theft to support illegals. Period. If you're content with your life, then good on you. Great life philosophy, although it really doesn't cohere with running a business.

Unlike you, I don't want the government telling me what I "need" and what I don't.

I don't want the government telling me that I must pay yet more tax, so that I literally do not have enough to hire somebody else. That's more work for me, more long hours, and one less JOB this nation has as a nation.

I don't want the government stealing from me to give to a "more needy" person, according to THEIR assessment of "need." I'll choose that for myself, and you can "keep the change."

It's as simple as that. Not "Do I have what I need to retire?" or "Do I have what I need for the first of next month when rent/mortgage/car payment/whatever is due?" And not "Do I have what I need in five hours, at dinnertime?" Do. I. Have. What. I. Need. Right. Now.

Sorry, but that's a pile of Pollyanna BS. It's equivalent to saying, "I don't need to 'stress' about retirement or even the oil change that's coming up. NO worries! 'Somehow' it will happen, and if it doesn't, there's going to be this societal safety net to just 'take care' of 'everything.'"

The taxpayers are sick of being the ever-increasing safety net for an ever-increasing number of "recipients."

Money does NOT grow on trees! It's a BASIC principle that libs literally do not understand. If you want to give money to somebody who has not earned it, then you MUST steal it from somebody who has earned it.

So, you start playing with property laws, as if you have ANY right to pretend that you know who should have a legal right to this and who should have a legal right to that. It's absurd.

And meanwhile, it's the MIDDLE class that gets screwed. Always. We're the people that actually do EARN every dollar we have. We're the ones that stay up until 3am night after night to see to it that our business grows rather than the required work just not getting done. We're the ones who pay and pay and pay, and yet somehow we're never the ones who are "entitled" to the "subsidies" and "kick-backs." We're in the MIDDLE, by the tens of millions, so we get screwed above and below. I have NO sympathy for either.

And the last thing that's gonna fly is opening the floodgates to more illegals to take yet more as part of an ever-increasing lower class. That's no "paradise." That's just bringing the "horror" to more and more people, particularly people who DID plan and scrimp and save and do their best to "get ahead," while the liberal "paradise" keeps taking and taking and taking. Lowest common denominator. That is the liberal "paradise."

I have found that life is quite mysterious and interesting in it's ability to provide. I get orders for jewelry when I am feeling sort of slim in the wallet. Someone pays me back on a loan fr years back. I find a five in my jacket pocket I must have forgotten was there. I find a twenty blowing down the sidewalk(I have! I even found a hundred and twenty one time.)

Do you REALLY think that this "mystery" is how to run a nation?

I'm being deadly serious in my question, because I'm seriously trying to find out how basically rational the person is I'm responding to.

Do you SERIOUSLY think that as a nation we should say, "Hey, EVERYBODY, come on in and join the party, regardless of what you can contribute! Somehow, mysteriously, it's all gonna work out."

Do you REALLY believe that???

If not, then your "argument" is just more appeal to emotion, and it's really, really thin!

If it is what you believe, then, seriously, we are doomed because more and more like you vote. In that event, I am JOYFUL that perhaps, hopefully, Trump can be a SLAP upside your faces and something of a correction before we inevitably slide off into insanity.

Can you actually say that you have really ever "gone without" because some undocumented mother slipped through the cracks in the system? Can you even say that(honestly) even though "thousands," as you mentioned, have slipped through the cracks?

Uh, yes, actually I can. Of course, you'll set the bar SO low that it's almost impossible to "go without," as if this nation was founded to establish a lowest-common-denominator and then ENFORCE that we ALL end up at exactly that level.

Can I pin things on particularly "some undocumented mother"? Of course not. There is no direct, obvious causal chain between some PARTICULAR undocumented mother and my "going without." But there are CLEAR causal chains between the ever-increasing welfare state and my going without.

As just ONE example, Obamacare has made health insurance not-affordable to the middle class. I'm just one example of tens and tens of millions.

I used to have EXCELLENT insurance that I was promised I could keep. I used to have a wide range of excellent doctors I could visit if I needed to.

Now, thanks to the grand give-away (that includes some number of undocumented mothers that got green cards and jumped on Obamacare at taxpayer expense), I no longer have that plan, not one even CLOSE to it.

Now, as I write this, I actually have an eye infection that I'm self-treating in hopes of not having to go to the doctor because my annual deductible is SO ridiculously high at this point (even though I'm paying MUCH more per month for "insurance") that any doctor visit is straight out of my pocket, even though I'm "insured." What a JOKE! So, I'll hope to avoid spending at least $175 out of my pocket. I'll endure the pain and watch the eye closely to see if my efforts are producing an improvement. If not, I will spend $175 that I wouldn't have spent before Obumble"care," and that's just one example that's immediately present of a trend that's spanned years, in which I've spent FAR more money to get FAR less.

So don't float that "go without" crap, as YOU and YOUR ilk literally STOLE decent health insurance from me and handed it on a silver platter to somebody else, WHILE telling me to pay even MORE to support their subsidies.

Meanwhile, I go to Walmart to find the fat couple and the two fat kids buying pure CRAP as food with Colorado's food stamps, and then they pay for a big-screen TV with a credit card. So, yeah, I just "went without" to enable them to "prioritize" their TV set over PAYING FOR THEIR OWN junk food! I bought either their food or their TV, yet I got NOTHING for the "purchase." That's called theft, and my eye hurts, and I'm sick of it.

Quit STEALING from me, and you'll find me a lot more sympathetic about illegal aliens. But as long as there's ANY pathway for millions of them to become citizens WHILE breaking the law, your appeals to emotion fall on deaf ears.

Now, feel free to bring on all the "WOT" moaning and vile epithets. Again, they fall on deaf ears. You libs don't live in REALITY. Plain and simple.

It's all GOT to be paid for, and WE taxpayers are sick of being stolen from.

Oh, again, if you can even come close to being in the top 1% of people donating a high proportion of their income to charity, feel free to take me up on my challenge. I can prove that my wife and I donate between 15% and 18% of our gross income to charitable organizations, most of which goes to direct care-giving, such as ADRA, which is one of the best "bang for buck" charitable organizations on earth.

If you're not in the vicinity of 18% of your gross income going to charity, then you have nothing to say to me regarding supposed "selfishness." So, frankly, shut up and quit STEALING from me and calling it a "paradise" that you have MY money to distribute around BY FORCE.

Michael Flynn resigned late Monday as President Trump’s national security advisor, following mounting scrutiny over his conflicting accounts of contacts with a Russian diplomat and his admission that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the matter.

Flynn’s departure, which came after several days in which Trump conspicuously refused to publicly back him, marked another embarrassing setback for an administration just over three weeks old, on a subject that has for months given pause to both Democrats and Republicans — connections between Trump and Russia.