by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Congress went home late last week while leaving the country in a real mess. A good portion of government was shut down because Congress and Donald Trump could not agree on a spending bill, and thousands of government workers suddenly found themselves furloughed without pay just before the big holiday. And other government employees were even less fortunate - they were forced to keep going to work - also without pay.
But elected members of the federal government were not laid off - they just took off and went home to snuggle close to loved ones as they awaited Santa's sleigh bells on Christmas Eve - and their pay kept coming, thank you very much.
This Christmas the divide between two America's - the haves and the have nots - has been clearer than it has been in years. Donald "poor me" Trump is holed up in the White House tweeting like mad about how everything wrong in the world is the fault of somebody other than himself - and he is taunting Congress to give him a spending plan that includes plans for a border wall, something that Ann Coulter says he must build if he is to maintain the faith and allegiance of the people who put him in office.
Trump represents privileged America, people who grew up in gated communities and only had to suffer the company of poor people when they showed up to clean their houses and scour their toilets. He is, practically by genetic design, incapable of empathy toward those whose circumstances were not as privileged as his. But many of our nation's poorest people support Trump politically, and they do so because he continually denigrates immigrants and people of color, thus giving America's poor whites the false security that someone is actually below them on the social and economic ladder.
Last night when he wasn't tweeting his wrath, Trump was on the phone with youngsters who were calling NORAD to check on Santa's progress - and he appalled more than a few parents when he asked their children if they "still believed" in Santa Claus. (Probably due to that adderol-infused large brain of his.)
Last night another politician was also busy. Congressman Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat, was out on the streets of El Paso, Texas, helping to feed and comfort more than 200 immigrants that ICE dumped into the city without warning. There have been other surprise drops by ICE over the past few days, and more are expected. The congressman and other hard-working volunteers collected and passed out food, gave immediate comfort, and worked at finding adequate housing for the people that the United States government had put out on the streets late on Christmas Eve.
The good people of El Paso were doing God's work.
Trump was being Trump.
And many Americans were finding it easier to believe in Santa Claus than to believe in Donald Trump.
Citizen Journalist
Congress went home late last week while leaving the country in a real mess. A good portion of government was shut down because Congress and Donald Trump could not agree on a spending bill, and thousands of government workers suddenly found themselves furloughed without pay just before the big holiday. And other government employees were even less fortunate - they were forced to keep going to work - also without pay.
But elected members of the federal government were not laid off - they just took off and went home to snuggle close to loved ones as they awaited Santa's sleigh bells on Christmas Eve - and their pay kept coming, thank you very much.
This Christmas the divide between two America's - the haves and the have nots - has been clearer than it has been in years. Donald "poor me" Trump is holed up in the White House tweeting like mad about how everything wrong in the world is the fault of somebody other than himself - and he is taunting Congress to give him a spending plan that includes plans for a border wall, something that Ann Coulter says he must build if he is to maintain the faith and allegiance of the people who put him in office.
Trump represents privileged America, people who grew up in gated communities and only had to suffer the company of poor people when they showed up to clean their houses and scour their toilets. He is, practically by genetic design, incapable of empathy toward those whose circumstances were not as privileged as his. But many of our nation's poorest people support Trump politically, and they do so because he continually denigrates immigrants and people of color, thus giving America's poor whites the false security that someone is actually below them on the social and economic ladder.
Last night when he wasn't tweeting his wrath, Trump was on the phone with youngsters who were calling NORAD to check on Santa's progress - and he appalled more than a few parents when he asked their children if they "still believed" in Santa Claus. (Probably due to that adderol-infused large brain of his.)
Last night another politician was also busy. Congressman Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat, was out on the streets of El Paso, Texas, helping to feed and comfort more than 200 immigrants that ICE dumped into the city without warning. There have been other surprise drops by ICE over the past few days, and more are expected. The congressman and other hard-working volunteers collected and passed out food, gave immediate comfort, and worked at finding adequate housing for the people that the United States government had put out on the streets late on Christmas Eve.
The good people of El Paso were doing God's work.
Trump was being Trump.
And many Americans were finding it easier to believe in Santa Claus than to believe in Donald Trump.
1 comment:
Elections have consequences. The last election was an overwhelming rejection of hatred and racism in America as symbolized by that wall Trump wants to build.
Time will only tell if it was ICE who dumped the immigrants on the streets of El Paso, Texas as news media report. Have they run out of private prisons in which to place these persons? Or was the inglorious dumping done by the private sector because they could no longer extract profit from them?
Either way the conduct is shameful. The children especially would have endured less harsh treatment, legal protections, and a court that sought to do for them that which is in their best interests had they been in the custody of any one of the several States of the Union.
Private prisons cannot be bothered to consider the humanity or the dignity of those children. Money, it is all about money.
God have Mercy on us all.
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