Donald Trump Outlines Plan To Combat Illegal Immigration

View image | gettyimages.com

By D. DiFrancesco

Well today is the day that Donald Trump outlined his first policy plan to combat illegal immigration...well sort of.

So here are just a few of its highlights:

He will build a wall along our southern border with Mexico and somehow he is going to make them pay for it.  How that will happen is unclear.  Strong-arming another country does not typically work when it comes to the exchange of cash so for all of his blustering I doubt he will be able to fulfill #1 on his list.

He is going to defend the laws and Constitution of the United States.  Well now isn’t that special...isn’t that exactly what the President of the United States is supposed to do.  Many on the right will argue that President Obama did follow this rule, but in fact he did.  They may not like it, but he in fact did act lawfully.  But I digress. Mr. Trump will triple the number of ICE officers paying for this by eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.  I’m not certain what we are talking about in real dollars and cents here, but to his credit he at least has offered some method of paying for the additional manpower.  

He will implement nationwide e-Verify.  This has been around for many years (since 1996) and never been made mandatory.  Mr. Trump is not offering anything new program here.  This in my opinion has always been one of the best ways to combat illegal immigration.  If you eliminate their means of employment then in most cases you eliminate their reason for coming here illegally in the first place.  There is such harsh rhetoric lodged at illegal immigrants, but we have not been holding employers responsible for their actions.  Now is certainly the time to make this a mandatory program as it always should have been..

He is committing to end birthright citizenship.  Mr. Trump references a Rasmussen Report piece from 2011 claiming that voters, by a 2:1 margin are in favor of ending birthright citizenship for children born here by illegal immigrants.  While this is compelling, it flies in the face of his promise to defend our laws and our Constitution.   As it stands, the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution precludes him from following through on this promise.

Ultimately the question is how does the U.S. deal with the illegal immigrants already here.  Trump has proposed nothing short of rounding them up, while keeping families together and deporting them.  This in my opinion is neither practical nor possible.  The resources in manpower, equipment and time make this not only a daunting task, but an impossible one as well regardless of what he says.  The most logical way to proceed is to provide a logical path to citizenship as many even on the right have expressed in the past.

In the end, although he has made an attempt to offer something to his supporters that they may find presidential he offers it with clear racist undertones.  He continues to accuse the Mexican government of sending us their criminals.  I am very confident saying that the vast majority of individuals that cross the border illegally are doing it to make a better life for themselves and their families not to commit crimes as Trump is implying.  Yes, there have been several instances where an illegal immigrant has been deported and come back across the border to commit heinous crimes, but this is not the norm. Really--what do you think the likelihood is that Mexico is putting their undesirables on a bus and dropping them off at our border?  I for one think it is highly unlikely.  And lastly his plan to defy the 14th amendment by ending birthright citizenship would create a huge legal battle that could last for many years as well as requiring a change to a longstanding amendment that was hard fought to achieve almost 150 years ago.  No matter how distasteful this may be to some people, until changed it is the law of the land.

Let’s see what other “terrific” plans Mr. Trump comes up with over the coming weeks.  I for one will be waiting with baited breath.

Republican Presidential Candidates Continue to Disparage Obamacare, But They Are Wrong

By D. DiFrancesco

Republicans have been relentless in their attempts over the past couple of years to repeal the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. Obamacare.

A countless number of votes in Congress along with numerous court challenges to have Obamacare repealed have essentially been fruitless resulting in the act becoming the law of the land.  Those most vocal about the law are those who are least affected by it.  If you have an employer sponsored health plan or Medicare you very unlikely to be affected at all, but if you listen to Fox News you would think that nearly every American is paying more or in many of their reported cases, an exorbitantly higher amount for insurance than they were before.  This in fact is blatantly false.  Yes, you may be paying more for insurance if you chose not to have insurance in the first place or if your plan was sub-par though those that fall into this category are in the minority.

I for one have been in favor of the Affordable Care Act from its inception.  I have a decent health insurance plan that is sponsored by my employer and that I still contribute toward on a monthly basis to the tune of approximately $700 per month yet I still benefit from portions of the act.  I am able to provide insurance for my under 26 year old children at a much lower rate than what they would pay on their own and I appreciate the fact that preexisting conditions can not be held against you should you change jobs or insurance plans.  I can’t imagine that anyone would not like these benefits of the ACA.

Those that preferred the pre-ACA healthcare environment don’t seem to realize that requiring insurance of every American can only help.  Individuals that didn’t have insurance or only had sub-par insurance were generally obligated to go to their local emergency rooms for care in the case of illness.  Typically these individuals left the hospitals stuck with a bill that they could not and would not pay.  These costs are then passed on to...guess who...you and me through higher insurance premiums and higher costs for medical services.

Ultimately I would have preferred that we took this to the point of providing universal healthcare for all.  We already have it for seniors through the Medicare system.  We simply would need to eliminate the age restrictions on this plan and expand it to everyone.  

I recently was confronted with the typical argument that “we don’t want a plan like they have in Canada, you know the Canadians don’t like it”, but in fact that is nothing but a Republican talking point.  Of all developed countries there are only two that don’t have universal healthcare provided to their citizens and guess who those two are, they are the United States and tiny Belarus.  I also looked at life expectancy around the world and the United States comes in at a dismal #42 on the list while Canada, with the plan that Republicans tell us no one likes is #14.

I suppose that as usual the United States is right while every other developed nation in the world is wrong.

I don’t think so.

The Trump Phenomenon

View image | gettyimages.com

By: D. DiFrancesco

I find the political climate today quite fascinating, just look at “The Donald Trump Phenomenon” that we are all living through. It is the first campaign of its type for the office of President and  provides, if nothing else, a unique look into the psyche of at least a portion of the Republican Party.

Mr. Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire has been nothing short of arrogant, abrasive and in your face and yet he leads in the early polls and not by a small margin.  He has left the other candidates scrambling to grab a piece of the limelight or be buried under six feet of the Trump ego.  Take Ted Cruz and his “machine-gun bacon” stunt.  Although somewhat intriguing, it brought Cruz little in the way of percentage gains on Trump’s sizeable lead.  Ultimately the current state of the Republican race has turned into a “who can be more outrageous than Trump competition”, one which no one is more masterful at than Trump himself.

The Fox News Republican Debate, the most watched debate in history with 24 million viewers was nothing if not unconventional with Trump rubbing the face of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in the mud and daring him to do anything about it.  

The first question of the debate was clearly aimed at pinning Mr. Trump into a corner.  The candidates were asked to raise their hands if they would support whomever was the Republican Party nominee and as expected Donald Trump did not raise his hand.  He stated that he would only support a nominee if he respected him otherwise he would not make that promise. This statement caused the audience to erupt in boos, but coming from Trump, what did they expect.  

Taking things a step further he doubled down on his inappropriate comments about Rosie O’Donnell, he took shots at Fox moderator Megan Kelly and called his fellow candidates stupid and losers amongst other things.  He also had no issue whatsoever attacking fellow candidate and libertarian Rand Paul questioning his tactics and self aggrandizing grandstanding which as you can imagine did not sit well with him. And again, even with all of Donald Trump’s bellicose antics he is leading in the polls and seems to be gaining in popularity.  I can only assume that he is also taking jabs at “The Apprentice” for saying “You’re fired!” and then creating one of the greatest pieces of reality TV ever...namely his own Presidential campaign.

So what we can learn from Donald Trump’s rising popularity?  We learn that there is an element of the Republican Party that is angry, angry that they haven’t been openly able to show their racism, namely their hatred of immigrants.  They need someone to blame for their stations in life so they seek diversion in attacks on women, finding humor in the hideous things Mrs Trump says and attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement dismissing them as little more than thugs though not said in so many words.  This one time pro-single payer proponent now Obamacare hater, promises to repeal the popular and at least partially successful plan drawing in those voters that refuse to accept the reality that the ACA is legal and the law of the land.  They revel in Trump’s statements of the obvious.  He points out that jobs are being shipped out of the country by the terrible trade deals that have been negotiated by our government over the years.  He wants to close the southern border with Mexico to keep the “illegals” out though I don’t believe that he has much experience with the state of our southern border.  He loves to state how he is the only one to come out against the war in Iraq, yet he has never been anything but a private citizen so his for or against vote really carries no weight.  Regardless, Trump receives cheers and standing ovations for his stance regardless of how outrageous it is.

I guess my fascination with Trump to this point is that he can gain such a following while having offered not one single solution.  When asked about his plans for any number of issues he simply answers that his plans will be huge, terrific or spectacular with not one single specific. Even his evasive answers are not enough to dissuade his followers.  This fact leads me to believe that the mainstream media is underestimating Trump’s candidacy.  They are calling him a flash in the pan, but if his wealth is anywhere near what he so vociferously claims that it is, he can stay in this thing to the very end regardless of what the RNC wants him to do and it appears that at least for now his followers, like the “Mexican people”, love him.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, so get your popcorn, sit back and watch the greatest show on earth...The Trump Phenomenon.