A Southern Border Immigration Snapshot

by Jack Dallas  June 26, 2019

Our immigration system has been broken for decades. We haven’t addressed the root cause, we haven’t improved our legal processing facilities for asylum seekers, and we haven’t passed laws that would address the core issues. While there is currently a humanitarian crisis at our southern border, much of this was created by poor management and new government policy.

Illegal southern border crossings are lower now than in decades. 

As much as President Trump would like to blame President Obama for everything related to immigration, Trump’s policy changes and re-interpretation of existing laws are wholly responsible for making a  problem which needed solutions, more unmanageable. Trump ran his campaign in 2016, on “the southern border immigration crisis” and he inflamed a portion of our citizenry who were looking for a scapegoat to blame for his or her own problems.

Southern border annual death toll illustrated.

President Trump desperately needs an immigration crisis, particularly one that will last through the elections in November of 2020. Like the reality show host that he is, he will either create a crisis where none existed or make an existing problem worse. This is so he can use his “stable genius” mind to solve the problem he created.

Our problems didn’t start with Trump or Obama. This decades-old problem has recently been exacerbated by a number of issues:

• Climate change is responsible for horrible droughts in Guatemala and Honduras, which in turn has caused crop losses and a food crisis for many.
• Drug cartels have expanded into the lucrative human smuggling business and have been very effective in their efforts to move refugees toward our southern border.
• Smugglers have told migrants that, if they travel with children, things will be easier for them in the U.S. (see chart below)
• Honduras has 61% of its population living in poverty, it is the second poorest in Central America, has widespread gang violence, and a per capita annual income of $2,150.
• Guatemala has 59% of its population living in poverty, 23% of those live in extreme poverty (living on less than $1.25 per day).
• El Salvador has one of the world’s highest homicide rates, 38% of its population lives in poverty, and it has an average per capita income of $3,920.
• President Trump, amidst all the above, is cutting $550 million in federal aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the rest of Central America, providing a greater incentive for impoverished people to leave home.
• President Trump and his then DOJ chief, Jeff Sessions, implemented a new immigrant family-separation policy, hoping this new level of human cruelty would act as a deterrent.

The immigration problem was bad when Trump took office. It had been bad for decades. Trump ran much of his campaign in 2016 stating he would solve the immigration problem with a simple wall that Mexico would pay for. His MAGA-Hatters bought this hook, line, and sinker. His Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean border wall will never be built and Mexico certainly won’t pay for the thing. His aid cuts to Central America will make things worse. Trump’s new policy of family separation didn’t work as a deterrent because, as he soon discovered, starving immigrants don’t own televisions and they don’t watch Fox News.

2019 saw a drastic increase in the percentage of family unit crossings

Trump’s Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, John Sanders, will resign July 5, 2019. He will be replaced by another acting head. The old acting Homeland Security director was replaced last April with another acting head. They will join the acting heads of White House Chief of Staff, UN Ambassador, OMB, SBA, FAA, OSHA, FDA, CPSC, EEOC, FEMA, ICE, and USCIS. Trump thinks by making everyone “acting” gives him more control.  It certainly doesn’t give the “acting” head of any agency or office the respect or authority to do a job befitting their full potential.  I’m guessing that Donald Trump slept through the Management 101 class where they discussed how insane it is to give someone responsibility without authority.  Anyone who has made a substitute teacher’s life a living Hell can vouch for how well that works.

A Brief History of Lies in the White House

by Jack Dallas
June 2019

Washington, "I cannot tell a lie."
Nixon, "I am not a crook."
Trump, "Who are those other two guys?"

George Washington couldn’t tell a lie, Richard Nixon couldn’t tell the truth, and Donald Trump doesn’t know the difference. I probably heard that somewhere, if not, someone should have said it. Lies, fibs, bullshit, whoppers, and tall tales are common fodder for most politicians. Donald Trump tells lies with such skill and conviction you’d think he’s been doing it all his life. All politicians lie, some are just more productive. The Washington Post’s current count for Trump’s lies is somewhere north of ten-thousand. In the first 828 days of his presidency, Trump has averaged 12 lies a day, and this doesn’t include his golf games. To paraphrase The Donald, “I’m the biggest liar the world has ever seen.”

Historically, the malodorous stench coming from the White House was not political oratory, it was raw sewage. There was no sewer system for the White House in the “good old days” prior to 1850, and this waste was just allowed to drain into a marsh a short distance from the residence. The White House got its drinking water less than half a mile downstream from this marsh.

William Henry Harrison
Ninth President of the United States
1841-1841

One of the most honest occupants of the White House was probably William Henry Harrison. This is not because he was particularly truthful, but because he died just 31 days after being sworn in. His death was originally thought to be from pneumonia after his two-hour inauguration speech in a cold rain. Upon later analysis conducted in 2014, it was concluded that his death was probably due to septic shock brought on by enteric fever, possibly typhoid. The polluted water supply would have been the probable source of the bacteria.

James K Polk
1845-1849

Zachary Taylor
1849-1850

Two other presidents of this period had run-ins with the White House plumbing. While Nixon had problems with plumbers, he was not of this period and it was a different kind of plumbing. Both Zachary Taylor and James Polk suffered from problems from severe gastroenteritis. Polk recovered briefly only to die in 1849, of cholera three months after leaving office, and Taylor died in office in 1850. Here we are 178 years later; sanitary sewers have since been installed, the water supply is safe, and the only ones getting sick of the shit coming out of the White House are the American people.

The Three-Party System

We have entered the age of the multi-party system. Many of us remember the two-party system with Democrats and Republicans. In 2016, we added a third party, the Trumpublicans. While, over the years, the Democrats and Republicans have had their spots and stripes fade, change, and move around a bit, this new party is an entirely new species and deserving of its own branch on the Political Tree of Life.

Political Tree of Life. View from this side and it looks like it leans left. View it from the other side and it appears to lean right. (37°52'32.5"N 119°20'43.7"W)

The tree shown in the picture above represents the Political Tree of Life. It grows in Yosemite National Park just south of the Tuolumne Meadows parking lot off the Tioga Road in the north area of the park. I have visited this tree (Ponderosa pine??) on each of my many trips to Yosemite, beginning in 1956. I think both the tree and I have grown about 14” in the ensuing 56 years. Like our young democracy, the tree grows slowly in the harsh environment of its planting.

This representative Political Tree of Life can be viewed from many angles. If seen from one side it seems to lean left and from the other, it looks to be leaning right.  As you travel around the tree your perception changes.  If you could burrow under the rock in which this tree grows, you would see the dirty underbelly of our political system. This is the view of the Trumpublicans.

Instead of savoring the beauty of our wonderful representative government from its many above ground vantage points, they attack the roots of our democracy to suck the very sap upon which the tree’s survival depends. They do this in the name of greed and financial gain. They could care less if the tree survives as long as they profit in the here and now.

Maharaja Trump and Minion Miller

Trumpublicans are evolved from primitive Republicans and through the function of natural selection and genetic political mutation; they have spawned this new species. Scientists believe that good honest Republicans chose to cohabitate and socialize with racists, homophobes, fascists, religious extremists, and even Nazis as a simple path to expanding their own numbers and breeding stock. This was not because they necessarily believed these “strange political bedfellows” but it was simply a matter of expediency to further some other part of their agenda. The power generated by their numbers is like a drug and the addiction is very difficult to kick. Once tasted, it is hard to resist the euphoria generated by the power these strangers possess and it is all too easy to make excuses for their behavior.

The Drug of Politics

A Trumpublican is a former “Republican” who has mutated and abandoned all semblance of conservatism and instead has chosen to bow down, sell their political souls, and to be herded into servitude by their new emperor, one Donald J. Trump. They thereby have given up all Republican ideals in an effort to please their President and spare his wrath. This group includes spineless politicians afraid to stand up for their own morals and beliefs in favor of the new sovereign. These are the Chrysaora of the Political Tree of Life. They have but one function and that is to drift aimlessly in the seas of our republic and to consume all the political capital that floats by.

Chrysaora

“Mom is it true that the Trumpublicans way back in 2018 failed to stand up to Trump and that’s why we now live underground eating insects and listening to old recorded episodes of Hannity?”

The United States Space Force; Mission Improbable

The United States Space Force
             Satire by Jack Dallas

Space Force Insignia
Crossed Golf Clubs and Signature Trump Golf Balls

Mission:  To visit the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Trump.  Its five-year mission, barring impeachment or being voted out of office in 2020, is to explore strange new worlds.  It is to seek out new Caucasian life and new White civilizations.  To boldly go where only 533 people have gone before!

The president has stated that first, we will go to the Moon.  We will build a large tower in the Mare Imbrium Basin.  The great expanse of flat lava fields will be perfect for the planned golf course.  Once completed, the basin will be renamed Mare-Lago Basin and the tower will be named after, “the greatest president the world has ever known.”  This person will be identified after a secret vote is held in the West Wing of the White House.

Alan Shepard Golfing on the Moon

The golf connection with The Space Force was originally hinted at when the official insignia and shield were revealed to have two pairs of crossed silver golf clubs and two Trump signature golf balls emblazoned in the design.  Trump’s fascination with a golf course on the Moon began after he heard that Alan Shepard hit what might have been a 2.5-mile chip shot with a six-iron on February 6, 1971.  

Video of Alan Shepard hitting golf balls on the Moon
February 6, 1971

Trump said he beat Shepard's record at Mar-a-Lago, but everyone was looking at Melania and it couldn't be verified.  His caddy was told to look for the ball at the Bonaventure Golf Club, some 3.64 miles away.  The ball was originally shot from the fourth hole of a 464-yard par 4.  Trump's caddy returned an hour later with a white Titleist Pro VI.  That was the brand of ball Trump was shooting so he declared he had beaten Shepard's Moon record.

Upon intense questioning and more than just a few beers later, the caddy confessed he found the ball in the Bonaventure Pro Shop.  He said it could have been Trump's ball but he was forced to buy the other 11 balls before leaving the shop.

Alan Shepard in Guantanamo shows Bob Hope his lunar golf club
Photo by Jack Dallas--December 31, 1971

The financing of the Lunar Tower Project and Country Club will be simple, “Mars will pay for it.”  As the president tweeted, “those Martians have been getting away without paying their fair share of space exploration for far too long.”  The president has long been anti-Martian and states that it goes back to those Bugs Bunny cartoons like Haredevil Hare and Hare-Way to the Stars and the Daffy Duck ones like Duck Dodgers.  On several occasions, Marvin the Martian tried to destroy the Earth with his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator (aka Illudium PU-36).  Trump tweeted that these weapons of mass destruction will not be tolerated and as soon as we can get to Mars with our own WMDs, we will defeat these backward Martians.  Trump plans a 15% tariff on Mars Bars until the Martians give up all of their PU-36s.  He warned his supporters at a recent rally in West Virginia that the Martians were comi8ng for their jobs and their women.

Marvin the Martian

Our return to the Moon is predicated on Trump’s belief that Mars is actually part of our Earth’s lunar satellite.  While scientists universally dispute this claim, Trump says that he heard this from Fox News so it is now a proven fact.  You can tell when Tucker Carlson is really concentrating on proven facts because his eyes move closer together and they will follow you around the room.

Tucker Carlson really concentrating on the facts.

Lunar Rocks

Trump has seen samples of lunar rock and stated that, “they are not green cheese as everyone believes, that’s FAKE NEWS, the rocks are really from Mars.”  When Trump heard the explanation that nobody believes the Moon is made of green cheese and that the phrase was from an old children’s fable about a simpleton who saw the Moon’s reflection in water and mistakes if for a round of green cheese, Trump asked, “What’s a simpleton?”  The stifled laughter in the room had its first casualties when Sarah Sanders fainted and Mike Pence had to leave the room after seeing her cleavage in the fall.  Sarah recovered quickly but Pence is now on a much-needed sabbatical.

Ziggy for Governor

Well, it had to happen eventually. It seems that the new Alabama law that provided legal rights to the unborn has had an unforeseen consequence. It appears that a zygote only 14 days old is on the ballot to run for governor in Alabama. The press has affectionately nicknamed the zygote, Ziggy-Jo-Bob or Ziggy for short. After all, he/she is really small right now.

Ziggy

How did this happen?  Well, it seems that Ziggy’s mom-to-be works in the Montgomery Elections Office and only recently found out that she was pregnant during a routine physical.  We will call her “Mary” for reasons that will soon be apparent to the reader. You see, Mary shouldn’t be pregnant as her husband is serving his second year of a twenty-year sentence for bank fraud and embezzlement.  He is in the Limestone Correctional Facility in Harvest, Alabama, and is not allowed conjugal visits.  Mary, a deeply religious woman, shouldn’t be pregnant.

We know Mary is a very religious person, as she recently became a Platinum Cloud Worshiper and Diamond Angel Contributor in Kenneth Copeland’s Word of Faith branch of Pentecostalism in Fort Worth, Texas.  Mary, who earns around $23,000 a year in her clerical position in the Elections Office, seems to have made a significant donation to the ministry.  Some have proffered the opinion that she found the lion’s share of the still missing $20 million from her husband’s bank fraud and embezzlement crimes. We don’t know how large a donation Mary made but Mr. Copeland states that his new private jet means he no longer has to fly with “the demons.”

Kenneth Copeland

All of this is conjecture of course but Kenneth Copeland has come out in full support for the “immaculate conception” theory for Mary’s pregnancy.  He believes this may be the second coming.  Mary concurs and stated she remembers the first coming just a few weeks ago. While you must be at least 30 years of age to run for governor in Alabama, Mr. Copeland states that, if we TRULY BELIEVE, then Ziggy is well over 2,000 years old and easily meets this standard.  As God is everywhere, he/she also meets the residency requirements to run for governor.

Boxes of missing mail-in ballots found in the outhouse

This whole thing wouldn’t have become an issue, as Kay Ivey should not have been challenged until the mid-terms of 2022.  It now appears that the election is in dispute after the discovery of 327,898 mail-in ballots for her opponent, Walt Maddox.  The ballots were found in and around an outhouse behind the Dixon Mills Church of God Pentecostal on Alabama State Road 10 located between Sweet Water and Dixons Mills.

Dixon Mills Church of God Pentecostal on State Road 10

Mail-in ballot boxes were found mostly inside this outhouse
located behind the church

With the number of found ballots exactly matching the number of votes separating Ms. Ivey and Mr. Maddox and considering the proximity of the outhouse to a Pentecostal church, Supreme Court Justice James L. “Jay” Mitchell has declared this to be a sign from God.  He further decreed that Alabama needs a new election to see who God or the voters want to be their new governor.

Mary's new doublewide and
Ziggy's campaign headquarters

When Mary found out about her condition, she took advantage of the new law and registered Ziggy for the planned new election.  In the meantime, Mary is scheduled to move out of her old trailer and into a brand new doublewide. The extra space will be needed for Ziggy’s campaign headquarters.  Campaign donations can be in the form of cash, baby formula, or Pampers.  Ziggy already has the support of at least fourteen evangelical churches, the National Rifle Association, the World Wrestling Federation, NASCAR, Budweiser Beer, and the KKK.  That latter group’s support is conditional and depends on Ziggy being Caucasian.  Ziggy's crib is going to have more decals than Jeff Gordon's jacket.

Jeff Gordon

The election will be scheduled for April 1, 2020, to give Ziggy time to grow a hand that he can raise to be sworn in if this is God’s will.  Ziggy will be the first candidate in Alabama history to not have committed a crime or to have had rumors circulating about adulterous relationships with a relative or reticent farm animal.  If Ziggy the zygote is elected, the yoke is on Alabama.

Yoke's on you Alabama

You Are Known By the Company You Keep

My mother’s admonition (see title) perhaps fell on deaf ears while I was a child.  I didn’t really have much control of my pool of friends.  They could only be selected from the neighborhood and kids in school where we had assigned classrooms.  It wasn’t until I was an adult that I had more control of the people with whom I would associate.  "You are known by the company you keep" has a parallel that states, "birds of a feather flock together."

Donald J. Trump has neither the excuse of youthful inexperience nor ignorance.  He has full control of his friends and associates and has gone so far as to claim, "I surround myself only with the best and most serious people."  That which follows outlines some of the characters Donald J. Trump has selected as allies, advisors, and friends.  This story covers but a single thread in a complex tale regarding his election and initial dealings after he became president.

Robin Rosenzweig (Mrs. Broidy) and Elliott Broidy

Enter Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser for the Trump campaign in 2016, who would go on to become the Deputy Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC).  This is the same Elliott Broidy who bribed financial regulators in New York State in addition to their family members and mistresses.  He avoided jail time by making restitution to the tune of $18 million and by flipping on the others.  Broidy also sought $75 million from Malaysian officials to get the Justice Department to stop an investigation into a fraud case involving a Malaysian development fund.  Why would someone like Elliott Broidy think he had such influence?  None of this seemed to bother The Donald or the RNC.  They only surround themselves with the "best people."  He is one of them.

Shera Bechard and Elliott Broidy

Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump, and Karen McDougal

Broidy did eventually step down from his Deputy Finance Chairman job when it was revealed that he paid a former Playboy centerfold, Shera Bechard, $1.6 million to keep quiet about their affair (rumored pregnancy and abortion).  Sound familiar?  Her lawyer was none other than Keith M. Davidson who also brokered deals with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal with Michael Cohen on behalf of Donald Trump.  Remember Cohen too, was the Deputy Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Michael is now also known as Inmate No. 86067-054 as he is serving three years for financial crimes and for paying hush money to women to protect his boss, Donald Trump.  All the president's men and women.

Trump poses with George Nader, an ex-con who had served time for child pornography and child molestation when this picture was taken.  Now in jail again on child pornography charges.

Enter George Aref Nader, a close ally of Donald J. Trump.  He is a Lebanese-American businessman, lobbyist, and convicted sex offender.  Trump surrounds himself with only the best people.  Well, at Trump’s inauguration it was destined that "best person" Elliott Broidy and "best person" George Nader would meet and strike up a "best people" partnership.  They would frequently meet with Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, and Michael Flynn.  

George Nader, for a little background, has served two jail terms, one for possession of child pornography and one for child molestation.  He avoided a third jail term on a technicality when key evidence was thrown out by the courts.  His first child pornography conviction came in 1991 when videotapes were found in candy tins as he came through the Dulles Airport in Washington.  In 2018 he again came through Dulles when his three iPhones were found to have child pornography.  At some point during the Mueller investigation, George Nader testified but left the country before investigators could arrest him for child porn. Yesterday, he came through JFK and he was arrested based on a sealed indictment.  The charges indicate his phones had porn videos of children as young as three.

Well, the Broidy-Nader alliance was based partially on Nader’s being a paid emissary of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and for his ties with Saudi Arabia.  They came close to sealing a deal for $1 billion in defense contracts.  They would get these contracts presumably because of their ties to Trump and their promise to get Trump to come down hard on their mortal enemy, Qatar (pronounced "cutter").  Getting the U.S. to alienate Qatar would be difficult since it is home to as many as 11,000 U.S. troops stationed at that critically strategic airfield.

Map of Qatar
Note its location between Saudi Arabia & UAE
and its proximity to Iraq and Iran

Qatar Airbase

Imagine how unusual it was then that after the UAE expressed a desire for the U.S. to alienate Qatar, that President Trump entered the Rose Garden with the president of Romania and gave the off-the-cuff remark that Qatar was our bitter enemy and a sponsor of international terrorism.  This happened on June 9, 2017.  One might reasonably ask, why would he say such a thing?  You might also want to then ask if Qatar is a sponsor of international terrorism, why we sold Qatar $12 billion worth of fighter jets just seven days later.  We do know that two of Trump’s friends were promising the UAE a change in U.S.-Qatar relations.  We then know that Trump, counter to U.S. defense interests, called Qatar sponsors of terrorism.  Things that make you scratch your head in wonderment.

Trump with Romanian president in Rosegarden
It was at this meeting Trump called Qatar a sponsor of terrorism
None of which had anything to do with Romania

It might help to also know that back in August of 2016, Erik Prince (founder of Blackwater security and brother of Betsy DeVos), George Nader, Donald Trump Jr., and Joel Zamel (Israeli social media expert who specializes in "honey traps" and deep or dark web capabilities) met in Trump Tower to discuss a multi-million dollar foreign intelligence effort to be run and financed by Zamel’s Gulf Monarchies.  George Nader paid Zamel $2 million after Trump was elected.

Mohammed bin Zayed, aka MBZ

There was another meeting (to discuss Israeli-Palestinian peace??) at the Four Seasons in New York with Rick Gerson (hedge fund manager and close personal friend of Jared Kushner), Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, UAE Ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Otaiba and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed (aka MBZ).  This meeting seemed to be a prelude to another meeting, weeks later in Seychelles (pronounced "say-SHELZ") a 115 island nation in the Indian Ocean), that included Erik Prince, George Nader, and Russian and Emirati officials.  Rick Gerson denied he was at this second meeting but was just on this remote island for vacation.

The red marker is the location of Seychelles Island

It would seem that our cast of characters would fit well in an internationally themed Damon Runyon novel of misfits and scoundrels.  Where wheeling and dealing is a way of life.  You need lots of money in this game because, if you get caught, you will need it to keep yourself free from jail.  We find ourselves in a post-Mueller Report timeframe and await the dropping of the next shoe.  I will imagine that the Trump presidency will have to wait for the development of a Hollywood movie before the complexity all of his shenanigans can be possibly understood.