Politics

No, the country is not plagued with historic crime sprees, immigrant-driven or otherwise

America is clearly at a crossroads. The picture painted of the United States during Donald Trump’s inaugural speech was a dire one: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. Holy shit! That sounds horrible! No wonder he wants to build that wall. We’ve got to stop all that crazy crime that is tearing our country apart! The situation sounds worse than ever!…
Read more

No, illegal immigrants aren’t sucking the system dry

Day three of some wall talkin’ (the one that won’t work). So, we need that big ol’ Trump wall because illegal immigrants are sucking the system dry and leaving Americans footing the bill, right? Not exactly. Or at least, it’s not the gigantic crisis demagogues like Donald Trump would have you believe. First, there is the charge that illegals don’t pay taxes. This is a myth. On the local and state levels they pay all the same rental, property, gas, and sales/consumption taxes we do. Further, according to the Social Security Administration, about 3.1 million working illegal immigrants (out of about 8 million working illegals total) pay into the Social Security system despite not being able to draw from it. Those taxes total $12 billion annually. (For…
Read more

No, a wall will not stop the flow of illegal immigrants into America

So we’re going to have a wall on the border of Mexico. Just accept that it’s going to happen, because unless Trump is somehow ejected from office, it will. That wall will be built. No, Mexico won’t pay for it, but we’ll have it all the same. The thing is, it’s not going to serve its intended purpose. Trump says the wall is meant to do two things: stem the tide of illegal immigration and stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country. The problem is, it will do little to address either issue. First, there is the matter of illegal immigration. We’ll get into why the boot-shaking fear of illegal immigrants he has been sowing (and his followers have been eating up like candy)…
Read more

No, Mexico will not be paying for Trump’s wall

Let’s talk walls. Donald Trump continues to tell us that Mexico is going to pay for the Trump Wall on the border of Mexico. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has said fat chance and cancelled a meeting with Trump in January as a result. Leaders throughout Mexico have a pretty uniform stance to the idea: Screw Trump. Btu Trump says Mexico will pay, dammit, so the plan he floated is a 20 percent tariff on Mexican imports. In other words, American consumers will be paying for the wall, not Mexico. It astonishes me how many people can’t seem to grasp this, but like clockwork the faithful are all abuzz trying to defend the plan when it doesn’t take more than two seconds of thought to realize…
Read more

How Public Enemy Changed the Way I See the World

It may seem like hyperbole to say that a music act can alter one’s worldview in a significant way, but anyone who knows me knows that music is an incredibly important, often powerful part of my life – and “powerful” is as apt a term as any for what Public Enemy has to offer. After all, Public Enemy changed the way I see the world. For those only passingly familiar with them, Public Enemy is a now legendary hip hop group best known for songs like Fight the Power, Bring the Noise, and 911 Is a Joke. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, making them a crossover powerhouse who may not have burned up the charts – they’ve…
Read more