Random Notes, April 2025

Sorry for the delay, it's been a busy month. I apologize again for the radio silence:

+ President Trump falls in love with certain words. In his first term, it was "collusion" and "quid pro quo." Second time around, he sprinkles "tariff" in every other sentence as if he fully understands what that entails. On top of tanking the economy in real time, he's taxing allies and adversaries alike because they're "unfair" (another buzzword) and won't elaborate further. Then he took heat from within the GOP, his approval rating dipped, and Trump mostly backpedaled. This alleged freeze holds until early July, but who knows if this histrionic cycle continues.

+ The overreach is overflowing into other aspects of American life. A Maryland man was detained and sent to a maximum security facility in El Salvador for ambiguous reasons. Three children, one requiring medical attention, all technically anchor babies but US citizens regardless, were deported. This second non-consecutive term is only 100 days in, but I fear this won't be the cruelest thing this administration does.

+ The house was sold seven months, but my aunt's estate remains a headache. As the executor of the estate, I owe the state of Illinois $720 and the feds over $7,000. (My CPA said I can pay in installments.) This probably puts the kibosh on my summer travel plans. To my handful of regular readers, I'm open to summer job opportunities if you have leads.

Next Time: my jury duty experience.

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Random Notes, June 2019

What's new?

+ Writing about Donald Trump on this blog has grown rather difficult, insofar that I struggle to offer a fresh and unique vantage point. This is especially because we all have a pretty clear idea of who President Trump is. The decision to back out of bombing Iran, and the postponement of ICE raids on undocumented immigrants --both 11th hour, both in complete haste-- has shown us the cowardice underneath the bluster. Nearly 2 1/2 years into office, we're all well aware that his tactics are loggerheads and threats, not discipline and critical thinking.

+ Theresa May bit more than she could chew. Her three-year stint at British Prime Minister will be undoubtedly defined by her support of Brexit and her abject inability to set any feasible plan into motion to leave the European Union. The majority of Britons know Brexit was both a mistake and a right-wing pipe dream. Here's hoping her successor changes course.

+ My latest summer of travel is in full swing! Since late May, I've already been to Omaha, South Bend, and Des Moines, and tomorrow I'm taking a day trip to the Beloit/Janesville area. With the exception of Des Moines this is all familiar terrain, but I'm making a conscious effort to see and do new things in each city. Besides my week in Scotland in late July (see WU #620) and my third trip to Baltimore in 15 months, I have tentative plans to visit more mid-western cities, while catching minor league baseball games.

Next Week: at long last, my 14th annual Fantasy Emmy Ballot.

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Cinder Block on the Gas Pedal

The day before the inauguration, I replied to a Twitter hashtag about the proposed wall at the US-Mexico border. Though I hadn't implicitly said it before on social media, I gave the response I normally give in mixed conversation: the wall will serve as a metaphor and not much else; its just a pipe dream for xenophobes. The tweet received nearly a dozen hearts over the span of a week, but it also dragged me into a conversation I wasn't preparing myself to get into. I spent the better part of two days arguing the point and purpose of the wall, how much it would cost, and how the preexisting laws are allegedly not being enforced. I was dismissed at least twice as just another aloof liberal. The whole encounter was a massive headache.

In other words, welcome to Trump's America. The man who spent the better part of 18 months hijacking the Republican Party to cater his own desires has launched the mother of all culture wars. Bigots, homophobes, reactionaries, and the generally under-informed now feel more entitled than ever to throw their weight around. Immigration hardliners now believe their $20 billion* pipe dream is becoming a reality. The quick and prolific succession of executive orders has been bewildering, and the nationwide protest of the temporary ban of Middle Eastern refugees was a justified rebuke. Though I am deeply concerned about Chief of Staff Steve Bannon's influence in Trumps's inner circle, I am more afraid that this new president will be a patsy of the party. The fact that Trump is still squabbling with CNN and the New York Times indicates Bannon has at least one hand on the steering wheel. If former President Obama had to work around gridlock for most of his term, then President Trump is fueling the loggerheads.

Tonight's appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, a prime-time spectacle that didn't have to be, was the closest thing to a bipartisan olive branch we might see in the next four years. Trump could've made a worse pick, but its tough to say which concerns me more: Gorsuch's originalist philosophy, which evokes a "Mini-Me" of the man he might succeed, Antonin Scalia; or that he's not even 50 years old, which could keep Gorsuch on the court for the next 30-plus years. Some Democrats are hoping for a Merrick Garland-type shutdown of the nominee, but I fear that it will not succeed.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in for a bumpy ride.

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*a conservative estimate, to be honest.

Run for the Border

With health care reform in the bag and financial reform almost there, it looks like the raging debate of the summer will be immigration. This might be the most divisive topic that our government has tackled since President Obama took office; it's a really overwhelming and frustrating situation, one that I'm not sure has a clear remedy. So far, it's been a war of words between guilt-tripping liberals and embarassingly ignorant "speak American" conservatives, bickering over an issue that should've been resolved 60 years ago. To elaborate:

It's pretty easy to pin the blame on Mexican day laborers. One will argue that they're eating up our nation's resources like a vampire craves blood, though statistics suggest that illegal immigration might have already peaked. At least 100,000 immigrants have left the state of Arizona since 2008, not necessarily because of a overtly harsh law that was passed, but because the struggling economy depleted the number of jobs available. Traffic on the Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas borders, both legally and underground, have also decreased in the wake of the recession. Sadly, despite good intentions SB1070 is tainted by prejudice and racial profiling; do you expect any black or white Arizona citizens, regardless of whether or not they're American citizens, to be affected by this law? Paperwork or not, every Latino in Arizona has a target on their back.

What it comes down to is, We're paying for the mistakes of past generations. The government is finally putting their foot down 60 years after they should've gotten off their keisters. Immigration laws cut pretty fast and loose until the early 1950s, no matter what direction you were coming from. Our ancestors were perceived as cheap labor by rich Anglo-Saxons, and their limited knowledge of our native tongue kept them from asking for more money or forming unions. Looking back, it's amazing how so much has changed since the Ellis Island days. (In skimming the history of this issue I'm not trying to put these migrant workers in sympathetic eyes, though it's not like these day laborers have found any work back home.)

Whatever solution that our government arrives at will satisfy very few people on either side of the political spectrum. No matter what President Obama does, it will be perceived as either too accommodating to aspiring U.S. citizens or too forceful in deporting or detaining "offenders." Bussing out supposed illegals sounds like something out of a mobster movie and too cartoonishly simple to work, and speeding up the citizenship process is almost a concession of defeat. Sadly, the time to lay out a feasible solution may have already come and passed.