In the early 1970’s, Scottish rock band, Stealers Wheel released a song, Stuck in the Middle containing the lyrics, “Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, Stuck in the middle with you.”
Who would have ever guessed that those lyrics would today provide the perfect representation of the current state of affairs in the United States of America?
Yes, this ongoing political feud over securing our Southern Border between President Trump and recently reinstalled Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has brought about the longest government shutdown in our history with no end in sight and the left-leaning media fawning all over Pelosi, condemning Trump and crying the blues over how tough it is for furloughed Government Union workers.
Missing of course, is media outrage over the porosity of the Southern Border or calls for Pelosi and the Democrats to actually work to resolve the issue, even though they and the Republicans have for decades now told us how they intend to provide Border Security.
Trump wants to have more wall built along the Southern Border and Pelosi wants to ensure Trump is defeated in 2020 and a Democrat elected.
And we citizens are stuck in the middle as more and more, sides are chosen and nothing gets done as dire warnings of looming catastrophe permeate the news cycles.
As readers recall, I am not a fan of Trump, but in this instance I do lean towards his effort of constructing more wall along the Southern Border, even though I don’t really like the idea very much.
I don’t care for it due to one of the jobs I had in the Army was flying the border separating Western Germany with Eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia and patrolling the fence separating the nations. Yes, in the early 1970’s, before the collapse of the Communist Soviet Union, there was a physical fence erected not to keep people out, but to keep people in and manned by armed guards in towers ready to shoot anybody trying to exit the country along the fence.
In spite of my personal misgivings, I am at a loss as to what else can deter the influx of illegal immigration along the Southern Border and the problems it brings with it.
After all, how many decades now have members of both parties been giving us lip service on how they plan to deal with illegal immigration, pour Billions of dollars of our hard earned taxes into border issues and we have yet to see it decreasing?
1986 saw an amnesty deal struck with the promise of it would curtail illegal immigration. It didn’t and we saw it increase.
Since then we have had several proposals and bills passed into law to deal with the problem, including the Secure Fence Act of 2006 that saw some Democrats today opposing any fence or wall supporting a fence and wall back then.
Even the media was crying about a Border Crisis before, but now it suddenly no longer is?
I hear reports and calls of pending TSA strikes to further cripple the country and cause hardship of the populace during this shutdown.
But unions’ representing furloughed federal workers is apparently not doing anything to help those workers, instead trying to seek unemployment or food stamps.
So we enter a shutdown of nonessential government and suddenly, it becomes a catastrophe. Not the border mind you, but that federal employees have been furloughed that somehow, even though union employees with generous paychecks and benefits, are suddenly starving, unable to meet their responsibilities, can’t afford medical care, missing mortgage payments amid reports of life as we know it will soon end if Trump doesn’t back down.
Why only Trump?
What confuses me, I’m 70 years old, retired on social security and have a monetary reserve that with little effort would carry me a good six months if need be. That and I never earned more than $40K in a single year, but managed to hold some back for a rainy day.
And government has lectured us how long on saving and managing our resources?
And the feud goes on. Pelosi requests Trump to postpone giving the State of the Union speech and Trump postpones a flight on Military aircraft for her and other Democrats to the Middle East. Pelosi cries foul, of course and blames Trump for leaking word of the trip and breeching security.
But in spite of past claims she made on securing the border, she stiffens her back to prevent just that.
This is getting ridiculous. We’ve had border issues for several decades and have only received lip service as illegal immigrants continue to cross the borders. With them come gang members, criminals, drugs and even sex trafficking. And yes, many are decent people just seeking a better life. But is it really better if they ignore our laws to get here?
We have no way of knowing if any carry disease or are smuggling weapons or drugs when they cross. We do know over the years they have cost taxpayers more than they have contributed, as was reported in a 2012 NBC Affiliate Series.
As previously said, I don’t care for the idea of a wall, but I remain at a loss of what else could be done to curtail much of the illegal immigration along the Southern Border. We’ve received lip service far too long from both parties and elected officials and little has worked in getting it under control.
It’s time Trump and Pelosi both, as well as other so-called leaders to put egos aside, sit down and if not a physical wall, come up with a plan to deal with the problem.
Maybe too they could discover how to deal with problem in the other areas where illegal immigration occurs, but let’s get the Southern Border under control first.
It’s on them to end this ego driven feud on both of their parts and work it out. Come up with a real solution, not more of the same lip service we’ve been fed all of these decades.
Do it while we still have a country.
UPDATE I: Shouldn’t they be willing to at least hear the proposal before rejecting it? Democrats signal they'll reject Trump shutdown proposal
UPDATE II: CNN reporting Donald Trump caved. And now the government is going to re-open.
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