tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16140603493366308952024-02-06T20:45:54.394-06:00The South ChicagoanFrom Guanajuato and Jalisco to Chicago and beyondGregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.comBlogger2070125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-79675651056525214552018-06-27T12:57:00.000-05:002018-06-27T13:08:44.376-05:00Korean 'heroes' to Mexicano futbol fanaticos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7gE5LPUCLUJbQvJ0ZTyMjvjyO-gJScr29S2pUSTF69fwbzAaWF2Et9pAE7KZXc8Gej4c3_lybST99xZHDA9AXx1M_lqs5Oys0bQPNGtXhyyp1wHRU_bYGp-stTodAGqfUBqfGoiaZy9SG/s1600/kim+young+gwon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="199" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7gE5LPUCLUJbQvJ0ZTyMjvjyO-gJScr29S2pUSTF69fwbzAaWF2Et9pAE7KZXc8Gej4c3_lybST99xZHDA9AXx1M_lqs5Oys0bQPNGtXhyyp1wHRU_bYGp-stTodAGqfUBqfGoiaZy9SG/s320/kim+young+gwon.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">It was quite a sight Wednesday morning -- fans of the <i>el Tri Mexicano nacional equipo de futbol </i>cheering wildly despite their favorite team getting its <i>culo</i> handed to them 3-0 by the national team of Sweden.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">For a short time, it appeared that Swedish and German national teams would be the ones that would advance in World Cup play, and the Mexico team's incredible performance of recent weeks would end in failure.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">BUT THEN, IN the stoppage time that referees add to each match to make up for injuries and other moments of down time, the South Korea national team managed to show why they deserved to be in the World Cup at all.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl40NVtmMBwf_CPACjh4ifHjs7yE2ZWuZAy7s8eKijoWuEiPlGmTWlOaGNlZ6Z4k_D6jm86fmdvuuTQ0iIdMYeB2CxeG2If-fGXbsW-BRTXb1QD55aj_eMA5MAfd7dFsq-56Lr_q53ON4u/s1600/son+heung+min.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl40NVtmMBwf_CPACjh4ifHjs7yE2ZWuZAy7s8eKijoWuEiPlGmTWlOaGNlZ6Z4k_D6jm86fmdvuuTQ0iIdMYeB2CxeG2If-fGXbsW-BRTXb1QD55aj_eMA5MAfd7dFsq-56Lr_q53ON4u/s320/son+heung+min.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Two goals, which gave the Koreans a 2-0 victory, sent the defending World Cup champion Germany squad back home in defeat, and enabled <i>Equipo Mexico</i> the right to continue playing. Although I have to admit, I have never before seen nine minutes of play added on to a match -- somebody somewhere wanted to give Germany every chance possible to pull off a comeback.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Now, it appears in all likelihood the next Mexico match will be against <i>futebol</i> world power Brazil -- who played their final group-round match Wednesday afternoon against Serbia. This might not be the year that Mexico manages to win the first-ever World Cup championship for a team on the North American continent. Although we will be looking forward to seeing the World Cup tourney itself come 2026, when it is split between Mexico, the United States and Canada.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And for a day at least, the names of Kim Young Gwon and Son Heung Min (the two Koreans who managed to score goals) will be heroes to Mexican soccer fans -- while we also ponder whether Mexican goaltender Guillermo "Memo" Ochoa has lost his magical touch. Seriously; giving up three goals in the second half Wednesday?!? Ouch!?!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> -30-</span>Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-75686414223394846432018-06-17T19:50:00.000-05:002018-06-17T19:53:44.281-05:00A society of ‘dishwashers’ sees El Tri victories as a drop-dead to xenophobes<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It’s a
question I often hear – how can anybody who lives in this country possibly root
for Mexico in the world of international soccer? Particularly since the Mexican
national squad is considered to be an archrival of the U.S. national team.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisUJLufLmCkyYdee6ldxlnFUNxNYISztfi_J919od-1_C6rGlrKstvxe5vxNYRYe8vetHC70BlkHllOivPVBsV8EQH2ViC8x668ih4nOuWG_Y_sgRKXlR5eHo24MCfSQ0LiRIRZHJD1suV/s1600/sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="817" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisUJLufLmCkyYdee6ldxlnFUNxNYISztfi_J919od-1_C6rGlrKstvxe5vxNYRYe8vetHC70BlkHllOivPVBsV8EQH2ViC8x668ih4nOuWG_Y_sgRKXlR5eHo24MCfSQ0LiRIRZHJD1suV/s640/sign.jpg" width="326" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The sign may reflect narrow-minded view of some, … </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Yet
then, all I need to see are little tidbits like the sign I saw Sunday outside a
restaurant seeking workers to be reminded that every time we see an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Equipo Mexico</i> win, it upsets the sensibilities
of so many in our society.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">PARTICULARLY
THOSE WHO think they’re offending us when they go out in public wearing their
ridiculous red “Make America Great Again” caps.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The fact
that Mexico pulled off a shocking 1-0 victory over the German national team on
Sunday (Germany is actually the defending World Cup champion, and so many Anglo
pundits were determined to believe that Mexico was unworthy of a spot on the
same pitch with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Die Manschaft</i>) was my
ethnic brethren’s way of saying “Drop Dead!” to the nitwits who probably see
nothing wrong with The Sign.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which, I
must admit, my father was the first to notice. We went out for a Father’s Day
dinner (we all wanted a hearty meal, but nobody wanted to cook in Sunday’s
excessive heat), and as we left, he pointed out what he termed a racist sign.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">For the
restaurant in question had two signs on their window – one in English and the
other in Spanish. The English sign was a properly printed poster seeking a need
for people to work in jobs as cashiers and counter-help.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">THE SIGN
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">EN Español</i> was a makeshift thing that
expressed a need for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">trabajador para
lavaplatos. </i>As in dishwashers. As in back-in-the-kitchen and out of sight
of paying customers. Implying that such people wouldn’t be bright enough to
speak English.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
I’d wonder if there’s really an intelligence level between up-front and
behind-the-scenes workers when it comes to a restaurant employee pulling
minimum wage-or-less (and counting on a share of tips to make up the
difference).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHviWahEK435ggCnUFtqV5pDDqs0EcETJ5fw02yKQ-mLJfbDc1-cOHhh2dmtAzl0REUJxw1wwuXhxaUTq2ukPUfowdvNdYjbzQpT_TTUtFkeN3iHI8SERwa9P7Iq8pg225CKXDvVe65pul/s1600/hirving+lozano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1211" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHviWahEK435ggCnUFtqV5pDDqs0EcETJ5fw02yKQ-mLJfbDc1-cOHhh2dmtAzl0REUJxw1wwuXhxaUTq2ukPUfowdvNdYjbzQpT_TTUtFkeN3iHI8SERwa9P7Iq8pg225CKXDvVe65pul/s320/hirving+lozano.jpg" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>… but Lozano goal a nice response</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">In the
overall scheme of things, this is a lesser snub. It is almost laughable that
anybody who thinks in such a way would be capable of running a business that
doesn’t immediately delve into bankruptcy.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But then
again, I still had the after-glow of watching the Mexico victory over Germany
just a few hours earlier on Sunday. And in seeing that moment when television
cameras panned over to the faces of German fans in shock that they had actually
lost to “Me-xi-co! Me-xi-co!”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ONE THAT
I watched largely on the Spanish-language Telemundo network broadcasts. I tried
watching the Fox Sports 1 English-language broadcast, but quickly found it
annoying to hear announcers complaining that the Mexican fans who made the trip
to Moscow to watch their team in the World Cup managed to sing their national
anthem in a louder, more boisterous manner than the German fans.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Almost
implying that Mexican fans should be meek and accept their eventual defeat.
Which didn’t happen, and which gave many people of Mexican ethnic origins a
moment of joy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Particularly
in Mexico City, where seismic sensors detected a small earthquake – albeit of
man-made causes, in the federal district. Which, coincidentally, matched up
with the exact minute when Hirving “Chucky” Lozano scored the Sunday match’s
lone goal in the 35<sup>th</sup> minute.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Chicago
Cubs fans love to think the whole world was all worked up when they had their
post-World Series victory parade to Millennium Park. Yet not even they managed
to create a seismic disturbance of the likes we saw Sunday.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I DO HAVE
to admit one thing – I wasn’t alone on Sunday. I noticed while trying to order
food a family – of whom the mother and three sons were all clad in various
jerseys of the Mexican national team.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It has
me thinking I’m going to have to go out and get myself an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">El Tri</i> jersey – although I’m still trying to figure out which
design I like the most.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
I also have to confess it wasn’t a complete picture; the father/husband figure
of the family?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">He
apparently is still living in the past of 2016 – he was wearing a Chicago Cubs
jersey! I’d like to think the rest of his family was ashamed to be seen in
public with him.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also published by the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a> sister weblog.</span><br />
<br /></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-16515990217801425492018-06-14T21:09:00.002-05:002018-06-14T21:12:26.208-05:00Is Equipo Mexico in the World Cup really the equivalent of Chicago Cubs?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It’s no
secret that when it comes to the world of international soccer, I’m a follower
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">El Tri</i>, as in the Tri-colors
(a.k.a., the national <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">futbol </i>team of
Mexico).</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mRjRQ7XgwXEIFak7OumLEQwl8taYdTrjVfQMnvTXcmlkFfWSLB4TyC2_kDiRrw4rsWUQRQbmxaQ8XcShwYNKbJJTaV5jNOUpciXj6RXFZNg-2Pn2COXkYGDhZld_S4vF2up_8d840Okc/s1600/june+17%252C+1994+soldier+field.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1381" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7mRjRQ7XgwXEIFak7OumLEQwl8taYdTrjVfQMnvTXcmlkFfWSLB4TyC2_kDiRrw4rsWUQRQbmxaQ8XcShwYNKbJJTaV5jNOUpciXj6RXFZNg-2Pn2COXkYGDhZld_S4vF2up_8d840Okc/s320/june+17%252C+1994+soldier+field.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>No opening ceremonies in Chicago come 2026</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i></i><i></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It’s
also knowledge to anybody who has closely read this weblog throughout the years
that I don’t have much use for the Chicago Cubs baseball club.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">SO I
HAVE to confess to feeling a touch of nausea when I learned of an advertising
campaign trying to compare the chances of Team Mexico winning the World Cup to
that of the Chicago Cubs winning a World Series.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which,
as Cubs fans will never let the rest of us forget, actually managed to happen
two years ago. If that occurred, then perhaps the day is destined for the near
future that Mexico’s national football team (also the arch-rival of the U.S.
national soccer club) will see themselves as a real “world champion” of soccer.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">A
happening that, to Mexican <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fanaticos de
futbol</i> is a thought that usually includes a glance skyward – as though the
whole affair is truly in the hands of the good lord himself.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Then
again, I still recall the parody paper The Onion publishing a story following
the Cubs’ World Series victory of 2016, telling of the riotous celebrations
that occurred in Heaven following the Cubbies’ victory – with several Cubs fans
being banished to Hell for their vandalism and other misbehavior.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">SO
WHAT’S THE connection between El Tri and the baby blue bears?</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5sSPVDWxLYc4_4ElJa3oTW_BLksHdXPS3-McsdSjzAqIgISbKtKmK3mOMZVe80plHQ2GtemO3HFO3muGAxtzr4-25yovD64uZLvcBMwXzPCKwyjrPk2-t7ji3pxeK0k_6lRJqty82QRG8/s1600/landon+donovan2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="319" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5sSPVDWxLYc4_4ElJa3oTW_BLksHdXPS3-McsdSjzAqIgISbKtKmK3mOMZVe80plHQ2GtemO3HFO3muGAxtzr4-25yovD64uZLvcBMwXzPCKwyjrPk2-t7ji3pxeK0k_6lRJqty82QRG8/s320/landon+donovan2.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Donovan and Ross, … </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i></i><i></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It seems
that Modelo, a Mexican beer brand available in the United States, has new
commercial spots featuring one-time Cubs player David Ross and Landon Donovan,
who during his own playing career with the U.S. national team was often an
antagonist of Team Mexico and a large part of the rivalry that has developed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But now,
he’s saying that U.S. fans ought to root for Mexico (which plays its first
World Cup match Sunday against Germany). It even claims that with the Cubs
being able to break their “curse” (which really was little more than
generations of ineptitude), it’s now time for Mexico to do the same.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXPPBzSyur48zD-35dGbz1kc1yYuGZoLifZBmm6TlEwpAA-D7u-abPtn83YA7N-egMPueoWvb1uUVbaC_WU3S0MRUTLd-j9yr1camOxfWHTXWqcE5r3fuf6r6pHic2Pds95LuUwX1vxY_/s1600/david+ross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXPPBzSyur48zD-35dGbz1kc1yYuGZoLifZBmm6TlEwpAA-D7u-abPtn83YA7N-egMPueoWvb1uUVbaC_WU3S0MRUTLd-j9yr1camOxfWHTXWqcE5r3fuf6r6pHic2Pds95LuUwX1vxY_/s320/david+ross.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>… selling beer while promoting soccer</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i></i><i></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which in
the case of the World Cup usually involves Mexican teams qualifying and making
it past the first round of matches, but then ultimately losing once things
become more competitive.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">MEXICAN
TEAMS HAVE never made it past el Quinto Partido (a fifth match, with a team
ultimately needing to win eight matches during the next month in order to win
the whole thing).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Now, the
one-time Mexican villain of Donovan is talking in terms of Mexico prevailing.
Although it seems some soccer fans in this country are willing to follow suit
because of the lack of a U.S. team in the running.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
Morning Consult organization came out with a poll this week showing only 20
percent of people intending to watch the World Cup this year, although 77
percent of those who watched international soccer will tune in their television
sets to the activity taking place in Russia.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHVUXUiSpJXeWod7jXlnsPXmiyKA3KFqYvKZjEIvADBaRv2CUkE_neOjxuoY-gVS5TKx4egwdANNCxZh1l-PLBqzZ8szLaJDsnrjanMxwayaYZyKfHcO0Uf9JDNSYz9FoAx22-iZ3K6u6Q/s1600/1994.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="209" data-original-width="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHVUXUiSpJXeWod7jXlnsPXmiyKA3KFqYvKZjEIvADBaRv2CUkE_neOjxuoY-gVS5TKx4egwdANNCxZh1l-PLBqzZ8szLaJDsnrjanMxwayaYZyKfHcO0Uf9JDNSYz9FoAx22-iZ3K6u6Q/s1600/1994.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>2026 will be the fourth time … </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i></i><i></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Who
they’re rooting for? It seems there are 11 percent each who will cheer for
Mexico or England (could the British become the faves of those of us enamored
with this Age of Trump that we’re now in, with the rest of us backing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Equipo Mexico</i>), with another 10 percent
for Brazil (a perennial <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">futebol</i>
powerhouse).</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiprS-WwEoFnTkDnZEXf3xO93E6lsqvw11S8jAKL_zCSKdLvNf0g1wVLcwHaNa8kLzoDGmAgMXXowz-J3P7WgdE_sfZSw_Je1acWbSGRjOu3nNyInkONhXk46OcL-IiEuRFYyTZUWMguLet/s1600/1986.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="160" data-original-width="194" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiprS-WwEoFnTkDnZEXf3xO93E6lsqvw11S8jAKL_zCSKdLvNf0g1wVLcwHaNa8kLzoDGmAgMXXowz-J3P7WgdE_sfZSw_Je1acWbSGRjOu3nNyInkONhXk46OcL-IiEuRFYyTZUWMguLet/s320/1986.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>… the World Cup will be held … </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i></i><i></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ALL I
KNOW is that I’ll be tuning in on Sunday, along with June 23 (against South
Korea) and June 27 (against Sweden) to see if Mexico can advance beyond the
group play, while playing into the theme of Mexico being a Chicago Cubs
equivalent.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Who
knows? I may even have a few beers – although to be honest, I’m more likely to
crack open a Dos Equis or a Tecate (sorry Modelo).</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97-yWwHY8PpdgnAv-R90ec-8IyEXLZIrmecjX5jXO5S4sF4nYZboD9WQuqtQwNCEKhx-qSIIcKBbQjFG3tSO7V4oCVIGuu-wf3xDtU919qq3jYOsZke-cKYh0xaQsDP1ZDUZ8PHxrLHbw/s1600/1970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="277" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97-yWwHY8PpdgnAv-R90ec-8IyEXLZIrmecjX5jXO5S4sF4nYZboD9WQuqtQwNCEKhx-qSIIcKBbQjFG3tSO7V4oCVIGuu-wf3xDtU919qq3jYOsZke-cKYh0xaQsDP1ZDUZ8PHxrLHbw/s320/1970.jpg" width="253" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>… on the North American continent</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i></i><i></i><i></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
I’ll be honest in admitting I’ll take some joy from those people who go out of
their way to feel miserable because they can’t enjoy “the beautiful game.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The ones
who want to think they’re the majority, even though that same poll showing only
20 percent will watch the World Cup also showed only 14 percent “very likely”
to watch the Daytona 500 auto racing.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary was also published at the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>, a sister weblog to this site.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-49418834246399718512017-06-11T22:42:00.000-05:002017-06-11T22:42:22.678-05:00Mexico – 1; U.S.A. – 1<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">As
a fan of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">El Tri</i> (Mexico’s national <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">futbol</i> team), I have to confess – that moment
Sunday night when Michael Bradley scored a goal for the U.S. national team felt
like a kick to the private parts.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0x_oDCd3Yz5W-O7mesa5Mogkvh1TZLoCOboZnHJ0jaXKFmYLjY6z1wy9KxIFZbstPtGnRP7-JvjPSmpvYyIGwmm5gkNfyXKgWG9Oludq_Ucw6DA8BIPUQArlYjHp1sxWy0bx31pLWk9b/s1600/carlos+vela.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="189" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0x_oDCd3Yz5W-O7mesa5Mogkvh1TZLoCOboZnHJ0jaXKFmYLjY6z1wy9KxIFZbstPtGnRP7-JvjPSmpvYyIGwmm5gkNfyXKgWG9Oludq_Ucw6DA8BIPUQArlYjHp1sxWy0bx31pLWk9b/s320/carlos+vela.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
pain eased about 10 minutes later when Carlos Vela scored the lone goal for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Equipo Mexico</i> in Sunday night’s match
that was part of the qualifying process for the World Cup international soccer
tourney to be held next year in Russia.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">BUT
THAT WAS the extent of the scoring, although Mexico squandered a couple of
opportunities to take a 2-1 lead and Christian Pulisic, the young U.S. soccer
star who last week was talking trash about a U.S. victory at the Estadio Azteca
in Mexico City also missed the one shot he had to make a game-winning goal.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Technically,
the tie means neither team blew it. Although considering the degree to which
the Trump trash talk about everything Mexico-related has occurred, there were
Mexican fans who definitely wanted Sunday night to be a humiliating defeat for
the arrogant nitwits north of the Rio Bravo del Norte (a.k.a., the Rio Grande)
who seem to have forgotten that their grandparents, most likely, came from some
other country.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
is why the Washington Post could run a headline calling the match “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a tie that feels like a U.S. win and a
Mexico loss</b>.” A Mexico win would have been enjoyed by many
Mexican-Americans as a pot shot against every Trumpite nitwit – even though I
suspect many of THOSE people would claim they don’t care about real <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">futbol</i>.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3Hf4bCeDzQShfdRx57VTFwmtvDkPvEGmrUsI7PeYX2PMmR_jg2dtpXdkduuL1LQnC9FcyWypviDGTEhxovjQxiLsr6R6FnOPEQIQA5JN2mmTFtI1KYfXnmQHQMRA22gm9zlSoTyRthIL/s1600/michael+Bradley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="199" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3Hf4bCeDzQShfdRx57VTFwmtvDkPvEGmrUsI7PeYX2PMmR_jg2dtpXdkduuL1LQnC9FcyWypviDGTEhxovjQxiLsr6R6FnOPEQIQA5JN2mmTFtI1KYfXnmQHQMRA22gm9zlSoTyRthIL/s320/michael+Bradley.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But
don’t doubt that the tensions between the U.S. and Mexico teams that have often
cropped up when the two nations play each other in virtually any sport weren’t present.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">YES,
MEXICAN FANS boo’ed the playing of, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” U.S. fans who
made the trip to Mexico for the match may well have boo’ed the “Himno Mexicano
Nacional,” only to be drowned out by the bad singing of enthusiastic Mexican
fans.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">And
as a security precaution, officials at Estadio Azteca seated the roughly 1,000
U.S. fans in a separate section in the top deck – and made sure they were
surrounded by about 15,000 empty seats!</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYdWOmFxjzvClmzAjKlH4gQgFn-Yw_igLS26_GAGqnqUhlCpFOTY_QyeRs3aSIK2tYsAT7e8gUEvlePoNG4ICrz6a7SyDRj7snW2KyBl8urIXK2065kKcI9nXRN9lMUjS3Z4_WxzEWAlz_/s1600/christian+pulisic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="828" data-original-width="580" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYdWOmFxjzvClmzAjKlH4gQgFn-Yw_igLS26_GAGqnqUhlCpFOTY_QyeRs3aSIK2tYsAT7e8gUEvlePoNG4ICrz6a7SyDRj7snW2KyBl8urIXK2065kKcI9nXRN9lMUjS3Z4_WxzEWAlz_/s320/christian+pulisic.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
still made for about 84,000 Mexican fans in the half-century-old stadium that
has hosted Olympic Games events – along with many decades of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">futbol Mexicano, </i>both <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bueno</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">malo</i>.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">For
what it’s worth, many of them insisted on chanting the Spanish slur that
translates as “homosexual” (only cruder). It came through loud and clear on
both the Fox Sports 1 and Univision Deportes broadcasts I watched – jumping back
and forth between the two.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ALTHOUGH
I FOUND it humorous to read the claim one fan made to the Washington Post that
the taunt was aimed directly at Donald Trump himself.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
I suspect is the one charge one could make against him that he would take as a
personal insult!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
bottom line is that both national squads are likely to qualify to play in the
World Cup – and it’s likely neither one of them will wind up being the winner
of the sporting event that really deserves to be called the “World” Series.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-11437934153684128622017-04-27T00:02:00.000-05:002017-04-27T00:02:13.728-05:00Sanctuary cities safe, for now. Will judges continue to defy the Donald?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">If
Donald Trump were truly interested in “making America great again,” he’d never
have tried becoming president. One can argue it is his combative nature on
behalf of conservative ideologues that IS what’s wrong with our society these
days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWNWuWl67cRZQoeTEn1XYfOxdg5MvGhyphenhyphen6-C-7KHgAnMlU44OTDVlifJFyBlvXdsLtSSW8eoXpL-nzBoA-kfDDo6pxNcbieKdOkLSO2WAEjXIdaIM501aD7chLyauiEWuLTDNsSHjYLAIS9/s1600/william+orrick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWNWuWl67cRZQoeTEn1XYfOxdg5MvGhyphenhyphen6-C-7KHgAnMlU44OTDVlifJFyBlvXdsLtSSW8eoXpL-nzBoA-kfDDo6pxNcbieKdOkLSO2WAEjXIdaIM501aD7chLyauiEWuLTDNsSHjYLAIS9/s400/william+orrick.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>ORRICK: Saved 'sanctuary' cities, for now</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Our
inability to work together on issues despite our differences about the details
is what ultimately will cause a chasm that splits our society beyond repair.
Compromise is the “American Way,” even though many of the ideologues refuse to
accept that notion.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IT
IS BECAUSE of this that we’re going to have to turn to our court system to
ensure that havoc is not wrecked upon us all. Which the ideologues will contend
is unjust and evidence of unelected judges imposing their will upon us all.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
it really is the way the system of checks and balances is supposed to work –
Congress creates laws, the president approves them and the courts are there to
ensure that if the politicos screw up, the damage will be repaired.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
is what’s happening with regards to immigration and the concept of “sanctuary
cities” – places where the local police don’t automatically share all the
information they come across with federal Immigration officials.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Trump,
in his bid to appease those individuals amongst us whose idea of immigration
reform is a mass increase in the number of people deported from the United
States, wanted his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to crack down on the
federal funding his office provides to police departments in such cities –
including Chicago.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">MAYOR
RAHM EMANUEL (who as a former member of Congress and White House chief of staff
has a few clues about how to manipulate the federal government process) made it
clear earlier this week Chicago wasn’t going to do anything to change the way
it conducts itself on this issue.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">That
now has the backing of a federal judge – U.S. District Judge William Orrick
issued an order Tuesday preventing the federal government from cutting off such
funding for police.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Ironic in that Trump always goes on about
the crime rate in Chicago and the violence, but then would want to take a whack
at the funding the Chicago Police Department has available to him.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7xSZGk3jhW-f3zc0jcEqgdGO2wpRfNqBc2_lwj288FC1EL3dU23Lb3ZgYKCjqBuA8bwthfhoLBc9uj6qkz2Ik6i8BdlBDcHfbtRI7JaD8HcQd9Ryc2m0QP7LiC2Og-PEx_NeQ4alMQY1V/s1600/supreme+court.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7xSZGk3jhW-f3zc0jcEqgdGO2wpRfNqBc2_lwj288FC1EL3dU23Lb3ZgYKCjqBuA8bwthfhoLBc9uj6qkz2Ik6i8BdlBDcHfbtRI7JaD8HcQd9Ryc2m0QP7LiC2Og-PEx_NeQ4alMQY1V/s320/supreme+court.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Will Supreme Ct ultimately feel the same way?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Trump on Wednesday turned to his Twitter
account and began tweeting like a twit – lambasting the U.S. Court of Appeals
based in San Francisco. That court is the one that will wind up hearing
whatever challenge is filed to Orrick’s injunction, but it hasn’t acted yet.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ALTHOUGH I SUSPECT that to Trump, one
judge looks just like another judge – they’re all interchangeable and that, in
his mind, they’re all supposed to rule in his favor.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But a part of me also thinks Trump is just
more interested in being a grump. Complaining about sanctuary cities,
complaining about courts, ranting about that wall he wants built along the
U.S./Mexico border but which action will not occur until at least autumn.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Trump is of the political type that wants
to tell you that everything you think is “wrong” (because it’s not exactly like
yourself) is “somebody else’s fault,” Support him, and he’ll commiserate with
you.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But he certainly doesn’t have solutions to
the problems that face society. That’s hard work – as evidenced by the lack of
much significant activity during the president’s symbolic First 100 Days. The
time in which we determine if he gets off to a good start.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ADMITTEDLY, TRUMP GOT a Supreme Court
justice appointed to fill a long-festering vacancy on the nation’s high court.
But with the current political circumstances, the process was geared in his
favor. It would have been the ultimate evidence of incompetence on Trump’s part
if he had failed.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which be the key to comprehending whether
anything of lasting significance will be accomplished in the next roughly 1,360
days.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">A rigged Supreme Court that overturns any
lower court that dares rule in ways contrary to the desires of The Donald may
be the only way Trump can get government to do anything.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Then again, we may find that even those
justices on the high court will turn out to surprise us and for that, we should
be grateful, even though we’ll inevitably get reports emanating from the White House
about all the temper tantrums being thrown by Barron’s dad!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>-30-</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>, a sister weblog to this site.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-61910080477859155872017-04-06T00:02:00.000-05:002017-04-06T00:02:03.612-05:00How much will Trust Act offend ideologues?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Is
Illinois about to become the statewide equivalent of a “sanctuary city,” only
without the sanctuary label attached?</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiyN_7Yoc3L1jEnWkzh_N5HhGA931_g4e4QE8Gy2o_p5ZGfrBN6hOG7wA_a6O2gzbGGkLZvF90_gmmYrf0xjkIAhyphenhyphenWFtGWX3Vcyt60n_LUV9qZXQuTr1wdhFyzj4VmMUfmUZthbuD9fIJp/s1600/ZZ+-+Illinois+state+seal.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiyN_7Yoc3L1jEnWkzh_N5HhGA931_g4e4QE8Gy2o_p5ZGfrBN6hOG7wA_a6O2gzbGGkLZvF90_gmmYrf0xjkIAhyphenhyphenWFtGWX3Vcyt60n_LUV9qZXQuTr1wdhFyzj4VmMUfmUZthbuD9fIJp/s320/ZZ+-+Illinois+state+seal.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Literally,
no. But I can already hear the outraged wacky nonsense being spewed by the conservative
ideologues who get particularly bent out of shape by anything related to
immigration policy that doesn’t focus exclusively on increased deportations.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">FOR
THE ILLINOIS General Assembly is considering a bill this spring session called
the Illinois Trust Act. Based on acts that already have been passed in a few
other states, particularly California, it would prevent the state’s law
enforcement agencies (primarily the Illinois State Police) from assisting
federal immigration officials in arresting anyone unless a criminal warrant is
produced.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Also,
it includes provisions restricting immigration officials from going into
schools or hospitals in search of people who may have overstayed their visa (or
never had one to begin with).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Considering
that some school districts, including the Chicago Public Schools, already are
telling their officials to keep immigration agents off their campuses, this law
would merely give the legitimacy of the state to the actions they’re already
taking.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">If
anything, it means Illinois is taking sides in the political battle over
immigration reform – and we’re certainly not on the side of a certain
orange-tinted man with wild hair who likes to get his ideologue followers all
riled up by ranting about all those “foreigners” who are to blame for
everything wrong with their own lives.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">PERSONALLY,
I THINK this bill would change little if it were to become law.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
reinforces the basic concept of sanctuary cities that says federal immigration
agents should do their own investigatory work and shouldn’t expect any
instances of immigration law violators to be dumped into their laps by local
cops.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
doesn’t restrict the ability of immigration to go out and find people violating
the law. Even though the ideologue critics will want to lambast it as somehow
providing a place where people can hide.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Actually,
all it is meant is to provide a place where people can feel safe from the
harassment of those who’d want to use the local cops to pick on people whom
they want to believe “don’t belong” here.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EVEN
THOUGH I often wonder if we all had to go through the rigors that foreign
residents do to adapt to this country, how many of us would be worthy of that
U.S. citizenship they obtained through the accident of birth.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">At
a time when Trump and his attorney general are trying to single out Chicago and
other sanctuary cities, a measure such as this would add legitimacy to the
actions of the communities that have decided to make themselves symbolic places
of safety.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">And
I also don’t doubt there will be some local politicking played, as one of the
bill’s sponsors is Daniel Biss, the state senator from Evanston who is among
the people with Democratic dreams of running for governor come next year’s
elections.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">If
this bill does become law, I have no doubt that Biss will become the proud
author who will take single-handed credit for its passage.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">THE
REAL QUESTION could be will anyone try to use it against him? Because using it
gets one into political bed with the same “basket of deplorables” that will
want to view this act as particularly venal because it legitimizes everything
they rant against.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Considering
that Gov. Bruce Rauner is going out of his way to distance himself from Trump
and many of the social issue causes they often spew (Rauner hates organized
labor, but isn’t hostile on many other points), I can’t see him wanting to
touch this issue with a 30-foot pole.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Thirty
feet also being the height of that wall Trump claims he wants to have erected
along the U.S./Mexico border.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
one that not only will Mexico refuse to pay for, but that a Mexican
entrepreneur will probably use as motivation for his own invention – a
31-foot-high ladder suitable for scaling.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published by the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>, a sister weblog to this site.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-82137694370374370942017-03-27T00:02:00.000-05:002017-03-27T00:02:06.636-05:00Trump couldn't beat Obamacare; will he try taking it out on Mexican-Americans?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">No
matter how much President Donald J. Trump wants to say that Democrats will take
the blame for the failure of his version of health care reform to pass, the
masses are fully prepared to blame the Trumpster himself.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30e9hVb7A9ctaQzxGg0MC_D8zd1_DzNqfBHSi1GGhB3sia9KWJJyHCvjF0WH-HAi4lfUCymZtP_h19I_t-EPvgrIBr9Sk4t8z2T8x66CrAaCSn_vpe0Stw6NrkkWGmbqXrjqrKVzO5ioj/s1600/pinata.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30e9hVb7A9ctaQzxGg0MC_D8zd1_DzNqfBHSi1GGhB3sia9KWJJyHCvjF0WH-HAi4lfUCymZtP_h19I_t-EPvgrIBr9Sk4t8z2T8x66CrAaCSn_vpe0Stw6NrkkWGmbqXrjqrKVzO5ioj/s320/pinata.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bound to be bashed in effigy</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">And
since in the world of The Donald, he is all knowing, all wise and never fails
at anything, I’m sure that Trump is now scouring the scene for another issue
that he can score a quick victory on.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ONE
THAT WILL allow him to rebound with something resembling success. Something
that he hopes will be considered more important than any mere loss with regards
to health insurance access.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
is an overly complicated issue that no one should have expected the Trumpites
of the world to achieve any level of success. Even the brightest of minds have
trouble with the nuances of insurance and health care. And let’s be honest, we
don’t have the brightest of minds in charge of our government these days.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">We
have the most egomaniacal of ideologues, and ones with a nativist streak that
tends to outright xenophobia.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Personally,
I can’t get around the fact that the Trump presidential fantasies (nightmares
for the majority of us) began with the attacks he made on Mexico and those
people in this country with ethnic ties to the land down south – although in
some of our cases, it was the border dropping south so that our great-great
grandfathers went from being Mexican to “American.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ALBEIT
A SECOND-class status of American, because the Anglo types who settled the
Southwest likely would never have done so if they had thought all those people
already living there would be treated equal to them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">In
my mind, the failure of Donald Trump and his pathetic band of backers to erase
former President Barack Obama’s version of health care reform from the books
means he’s going to try to revamp his persona with a political victory of sorts
against the foreigners.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmDI_1_3Or3MWA1YAkbfCoXJw_fe1uwiskkYbqNpEOhulAk_dsYcLwmShctzG9t13Xyt9KgOSSYopQsPOg4ty4HsV3Zq70zYiT11zXE8TWnKMLBAA3w8Mo77fMvCFNaoE_EkO1RRUwz8p/s1600/klink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmDI_1_3Or3MWA1YAkbfCoXJw_fe1uwiskkYbqNpEOhulAk_dsYcLwmShctzG9t13Xyt9KgOSSYopQsPOg4ty4HsV3Zq70zYiT11zXE8TWnKMLBAA3w8Mo77fMvCFNaoE_EkO1RRUwz8p/s1600/klink.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>If Trump is Klink, who's Col. Hogan?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">And
since he has now repeatedly failed in his efforts to pass travel restrictions
against people from nations where Islam is a predominant religion, he may
decide that he needs to get his victory at the hands of Latinos.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Whom
he’ll probably proclaim to all be Mexicans. Even the ones of Puerto Rican
ancestry who have U.S. citizenship by birth, or the ones from Cuba who still
get preferential treatment because of the old desire to do things that
humiliate the now-deceased Fidel Castro.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I
KNOW THAT in a lot of Spanish-tinged enclaves and neighborhoods in this
country, including in Chicago, there is the increased sense of paranoia that
immigration agents are on the verge of being unleashed for mass rounds of
deportation.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN0RIF10MowouA6KAkCur_Ka4UHvuo6nFWEuysFlHKzQkde8uLWJ_3VCqKY1FZd9P8jaLK-pSPg5L9KneYt1P7YamEPPjn9cY1LoNKi6J0VC4nF2xsfEkArCEEzS880mgQFysWB1ohQJke/s1600/barack+obama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN0RIF10MowouA6KAkCur_Ka4UHvuo6nFWEuysFlHKzQkde8uLWJ_3VCqKY1FZd9P8jaLK-pSPg5L9KneYt1P7YamEPPjn9cY1LoNKi6J0VC4nF2xsfEkArCEEzS880mgQFysWB1ohQJke/s320/barack+obama.jpg" width="235" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>His presidency comes off better and better</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
may even pick up a few U.S. citizen-types of Latino backgrounds, because the
bulk of Trump backers really are clueless when it comes to distinguishing
people – except to be able to say who isn’t exactly like themselves!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Could
Trump’s wrath take the form of some dramatic action to try to force a
confrontation about “the wall” that the president has said he wants erected
along the 1,900-mile U.S./Mexico border?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
one that supposedly will be 30 feet high and beautiful to look at, from the
U.S. side. Although I can already envision the graffiti marring it, along with
the tunnels that will wind up underneath. Why do I suspect that any border wall
will be as secure as Stalag 13 from that staple of 1960’s television “Hogan’s
Heroes?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">DOES
THAT MAKE White House strategist Steve Bannon the equivalent of actor John
Banner’s “Sgt. Hans ‘I know nothing’ Schultz?” With Trump himself as the
immortal Col. Wilhelm Klink – making ridiculous boasts about how “No one
escapes from Stalag 13” – which was about as accurate as all the “fake news”
that Trump now spews on ever so many issues.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Or
are we really in line for some immigration raids so we can get a few busloads
of people being driven back across the border into Mexico – and in the process,
probably a kid or two who gets mistaken for Mexican (and probably will wind up
having parents who voted for the Trumpster)!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">President
Trump has just shown too much incompetence, but has too big an ego to let it go
and try to think the issue through rationally. Like in the 1978 film “Animal
House,” when the Delta fraternity responds to their being expelled from college
with “a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
best we, the true majority of our society, can hope for is that their streak of
political incompetence continues. Although the one sad truth is that real
people will wind up getting hurt – all to salvage the ego of the man who couldn’t
beat Obamacare!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at this weblog's sister site, the <a href="http:.//chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-55353977585182500702017-03-14T00:02:00.000-05:002017-03-14T00:02:00.827-05:00Gutierrez highlighting need for the serious talks that Trumpites desperately want to avoid<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
sounds like a dramatic moment; Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., being handcuffed by
federal agents. A member of Congress under arrest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC7R651qDzzf2fEfFJMAYC8X2QXpCERaAtKj5ZCi-auz1O61J2vypvcqmiyI48VC1O86xyECQP-vedQi0sn0ibjZDDlZSviMuvRF2-BJxi8TzoocNDPLxvg4eZNDJ9pPQEMEpMOTSzSAQo/s1600/gutierrez.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC7R651qDzzf2fEfFJMAYC8X2QXpCERaAtKj5ZCi-auz1O61J2vypvcqmiyI48VC1O86xyECQP-vedQi0sn0ibjZDDlZSviMuvRF2-BJxi8TzoocNDPLxvg4eZNDJ9pPQEMEpMOTSzSAQo/s320/gutierrez.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The "moment" of arrest, as provided by Gutierrez</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
we should keep in mind that Gutierrez on Monday engaged in actions he knew full
well would likely result in his arrest. If anything, Gutierrez was doing the
equivalent of double-dog daring the Trumpites who now run the federal
government to cuff him and take him away.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">FOR
GUTIERREZ ON Monday led a group of attorneys and activists with an interest in
federal immigration policy into a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officials in Chicago.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Yes,
it’s true that Gutierrez throughout the years has talked with such officials
about various aspects of immigration policy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But
Monday’s meeting was the first he has had with immigration since Inauguration
Day. Meaning this was the first such meeting of the minds, so to speak, in the
Age of Trump.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Considering
that President Donald J. Trump has gone out of his way in so many federal
agencies to put people in charge whose political allegiance is to him and not
necessarily the agencies they work for or issues they address, Gutierrez wanted
to see just how reasonable the new president’s people were willing to be in
discussing immigration issues.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">OF
COURSE, THEY weren’t. They continued to engage in rhetoric reflecting the
so-called tough talk that Trump has been spewing – as in he wants to bolster
the number of people who ultimately get deported from this nation so as to create
a populace more to his liking.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Perhaps
a populace that would actually give a Trump presidency a majority electoral
support, rather than the 46 percent he got last November.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2uQY4a7AwFHURt69MsBdutUa1wQBiP8j1fUSAMBUDNr-Q4XoyHJYTV-rwqPQ_LDg-E7dWH9riD5wrny2QIXn0XBb1uLK_2srFdu3Wl2WIRBlkp7QFiQbKdZD2qWfgcylv7GFEL1KpZfF4/s1600/woolworth%2527s+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2uQY4a7AwFHURt69MsBdutUa1wQBiP8j1fUSAMBUDNr-Q4XoyHJYTV-rwqPQ_LDg-E7dWH9riD5wrny2QIXn0XBb1uLK_2srFdu3Wl2WIRBlkp7QFiQbKdZD2qWfgcylv7GFEL1KpZfF4/s320/woolworth%2527s+.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Same principle, if less dramatic results</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">That
was the point when things got feisty. When talks ended and Gutierrez decided to
resort to the tactics of the Civil Rights protest era – pretending that
immigrations offices were a Woolworth’s lunch counter in the segregated South.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
became a sit-in, at which point the federal agents brought out the cuffs.
Gutierrez was briefly restrained, then released, but left unaware for several
hours as to whether he would really wind up facing a criminal charge for his
behavior.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">THE
REASON I know this is because Gutierrez himself chose to use the same weapon
that Trump uses to spew his political nonsense – a Twitter account. Gutierrez
gave us updates in the form of 140-character Tweets, along with pictures of the
moment of his restraint by the uniformed police officers that Immigration and
Customs Enforcement maintains.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
also means that the Internet became overloaded with the rants of nitwits who
want to believe that it is behavior unbecoming a member of Congress to be
arrested. Particularly in defense of foreigners whom they probably believe should
never have been permitted to enter this country.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
is the problem with trying to have a serious discussion about immigration
policy and what needs to be done to reform it – we have some people in our
society who truly are malcontent enough that they want to thwart it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">That
is the reason that former President Barack Obama was never able to get anywhere
with his efforts to push for immigration reform – which is one of the failures
of his presidency. Although I suspect the ideologue nitwits will claim it to be
their ultimate success that they prevented a president from engaging in
long-overdue action.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">WE
NEED TO come to a serious understanding of exactly what the criteria ought to
be for people who want to have lives in this country. And no, a kneejerk keep
them all out (unless they’re female with the proper physical characteristics to
appease those males amongst us – including the current president – who can’t
find an attractive wife otherwise) is NOT serious discussion.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">If
anything, Gutierrez served the purpose on Monday of showing us just how
stubborn the new presidential administration is going to be in terms of not
wanting to discuss immigration policy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">For
if anything, they view immigration as the policy that creates the people who
can be demonized for the political benefit of the xenophobes amongst us.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">While
the rest of us would just as soon have the serious talk about immigration
policy those nativists seem desperately to fear.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span><br />
<br />
EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published by the Chicago Argus, a <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">sister weblog</a> to this site.</div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-83189635641193994332017-02-17T00:02:00.000-06:002017-02-17T00:02:19.621-06:00What did ‘Day w/o Immigrants’ accomplish?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I
wasn’t the least bit shocked when I read through some of the commentary posted
on Facebook in response to several stories that had been written about the “Day
Without Immigrants” protests that took place Thursday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsEv-BRiGiNgQCA9XA3TwYpGpg7aaYSrAkfX86KbhA9BqISdoZxuaZoDeDUX2GDCdj_UhL8bWZGu0wAZzw2Re3Ve776FPIhlWquibDGOtoF2XZgvu849U-tS4Y6ScHEUxrHqWCJfTmyhv/s1600/immigrants.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRsEv-BRiGiNgQCA9XA3TwYpGpg7aaYSrAkfX86KbhA9BqISdoZxuaZoDeDUX2GDCdj_UhL8bWZGu0wAZzw2Re3Ve776FPIhlWquibDGOtoF2XZgvu849U-tS4Y6ScHEUxrHqWCJfTmyhv/s400/immigrants.jpg" width="305" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Did you comply with all the goals?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
nativist nitwit segment of our society wanted to make sure we all knew they
think the people who participated in protest are irrelevant to our society, and
that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would be wise to arrest protesters
so as to garner a large share of future deportees.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IF
ANYTHING, WHAT appalled me the most was the poor grammar of most of these nattering
nabobs of negativism (to steal from the spirit of Spiro Agnew’s quote that was
his one positive contribution to our society).</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Their
spelling stinks and their grammar was atrocious. This coming from the people
who go about thinking they’re the “real” Americans.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I
suspect many of the immigrant protesters for whom English is an acquired language
probably speak and write it better!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">For
it would seem that these protesters, consisting both of immigrants to this
country and people who want to make it clear that the nastiness emanating from
the mind of our current president has nothing to do with the American Way of
life!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">PEOPLE
WERE ENCOURAGED not to go to work or school or spend any kind of money. The
protest was meant to be a one-day example of the economic impact the so-called foreigners
(or whatever stupid slur one might choose to use) have on this country.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">There
were noon hour protests in Chicago with people marching from Union Park on the
Near West Side to the Federal Building plaza. Which actually seems like a
common destination for protests in Chicago these days.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
women marched there. Now the immigrants – although they didn’t achieve the
hundreds of thousands of participants that the ladies did when they chose a
Saturday morning to participate.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XsjI16G-w1o-ABO514vrv9RHVTZaBe-nZ2iwBjy1MeuUs0sVCp72ykXp5__MI05JvMv_wND5SS0DPvzxBzGqt9fOKj6kxKiOwaXP_yP6CaXDYIH-3gah23TeAY3lkQdG4ppvfbyxW3cM/s1600/berghoff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XsjI16G-w1o-ABO514vrv9RHVTZaBe-nZ2iwBjy1MeuUs0sVCp72ykXp5__MI05JvMv_wND5SS0DPvzxBzGqt9fOKj6kxKiOwaXP_yP6CaXDYIH-3gah23TeAY3lkQdG4ppvfbyxW3cM/s400/berghoff.jpg" width="272" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Forced some lunchgoers to address issue</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
makes me think that many immigrant types had to work for a living. Otherwise
the crowds could have been larger.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">AND
WHAT DOES it say that many of the xenophobic types had the time to take to
Facebook (and probably Twitter too, I haven’t bothered to check) to write their
rants all through the afternoon?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
reminds me of one-time Chicago Cubs manager Lee Elia’s famed obscenity-laced
rant when he said “85 percent of the world are earning a living” while the
other “15 percent” have the time to go to weekday afternoon Cubs games so they
could harass the ballplayers.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Could
it be that the “15 percent” who write these pathetic rants and the “46 percent”
of people who voted for Donald Trump to be president are the same people?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
also amazed me the degree to some businesses acknowledged reality and closed
for the day – and not just a few shops in the Little Village neighborhood.
Chicago’s famed Berghoff Restaurant forced its usual noon-hour lunch crowd
downtown to have to acknowledge the immigration issue.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">WHILE
CELEBRITY CHEF Rick Bayless closed four of his Mexican-oriented restaurants,
and said he’ll donate proceeds from the two restaurants he kept open to groups
fighting to defend those immigrants being harassed.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-HAy5yFPuNEUktUUa5mwTGxvE9CbanP5I9B-YE3OQGnGELCHIogVodrxmfDRhex86CxxhQWHZjEWF0gjsAyaVVqlUo42c_YvOeCO8IUgcAIu292ibbYlJexhCcq7FOiVdN2cO-VyeQ5Hx/s1600/Calumet+-+sign+gaffe%252C+July+28%252C+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-HAy5yFPuNEUktUUa5mwTGxvE9CbanP5I9B-YE3OQGnGELCHIogVodrxmfDRhex86CxxhQWHZjEWF0gjsAyaVVqlUo42c_YvOeCO8IUgcAIu292ibbYlJexhCcq7FOiVdN2cO-VyeQ5Hx/s400/Calumet+-+sign+gaffe%252C+July+28%252C+2012.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Some Pete's Fresh Market stores were closed</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Certainly
a good move on his part – since he can now claim to have made an economic
sacrifice and gain positive publicity by taking an action he had little choice
but to do. Although I expect the Latino activist types who get all worked up
that the pop star chef of Mexican cuisine is actually a white boy native of
Oklahoma won’t want to give him any credit.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">There
was even the Pete’s Fresh Market chain of supermarkets that focuses its business
on neighborhoods that often are ignored by Jewel. Their Southwest Side stores
were closed. I wouldn’t know personally because I didn’t do any shopping
Thursday.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Sure
enough, I complied with the protest by not doing shopping or engaging in
commerce. Athough I did keep a previously-scheduled doctor’s appointment – does
that make me a “traitor” to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la causa</i>?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>, a sister weblog to this site.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-55630607472172017732017-01-27T00:02:00.000-06:002017-01-27T15:16:36.480-06:00Trump "legacy" already set w/ knuckleheaded stances on Latino issues<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
Latino segment of the electorate was always wary of the concept of “President
Donald J. Trump,” remembering that the very first outlandish and irrational
attack he made during his presidential campaign was against Mexico.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfyjDC1BqEbU1D6synovvKMeluwNTP7vnTWRTeQ2KCa6nVbhIe0-tszvGcZNGop9gfitEorJTUR71px2nROklzyv7v6yuuCK28b6RLOSbLg9S284T6SAZHe-tvkay3z-8s5OsQ8mfqVk3d/s1600/Donald+Trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfyjDC1BqEbU1D6synovvKMeluwNTP7vnTWRTeQ2KCa6nVbhIe0-tszvGcZNGop9gfitEorJTUR71px2nROklzyv7v6yuuCK28b6RLOSbLg9S284T6SAZHe-tvkay3z-8s5OsQ8mfqVk3d/s320/Donald+Trump.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>TRUMP: Setting legacy in first week</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">We
realized that if the people truly gave in to their worst instincts and picked
him to be the nation’s chief executive, we’d probably wind up being targeted by
much of his trash talk.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">SO
PERHAPS THE only surprise in Trump’s initiatives this week concerning sanctuary
cities and border barricades is that they didn’t come sooner.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">As
it was, Trump signed off on a pair of executive orders related to the two
issues within the first week of his presidency. Perhaps we can take comfort
these are merely executive orders that a future president will be able to erase
with the sign of a pen.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It’s
not like Congress did anything to grant approval that would have given the
Trump trash talk some government muscle to back it up. It can easily be undone
once we have a serious person back in the White House. There also are questions
as to the practicality of enforcing either of Trump’s orders for the long-term.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But
just as an attempt to revoke the Affordable Care Act because some people don’t
want the nation to be involved in providing for the healthcare of its residents
is going to harm some residents in the short term, there will be Latinos
(regardless of whether or not they’re Mexican, because the ideologues can’t
tell the difference and think we’re all Mexican) who will get hurt by this
xenophobic focus created by the president.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">FOR
ALL I know, there are bound to be Latinos who lose their healthcare – taking a
double blow because of the partisan nature of this particular president.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I’m
not sure which of these two “issues” bothers me more?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Sanctuary
cities truly are a worthy concept – it’s a wonder that more places don’t adopt
the idea, which basically amounts to the notion that local cops do their own
jobs and leave the responsibility of enforcing policy to the federal
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who are trained in the nuances of
immigration law.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
fact that Chicago is a sanctuary city does not, in any way, impede the
authority of federal immigration officials to do their job. People can’t “hide
out,” so to speak, in Chicago – or any other city with such status.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">ALL
IT REALLY means is that a traffic ticket can’t evolve into a deportation
hearing. Nor should it be allowed to!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Unless
you’re the type of individual who wants the police to be little more than the
armed thugs of government. In which case, you are the real problem our society
faces.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Honestly,
though, it may be the border wall (which was the subject of Trump’s
campaign-beginning rhetoric) that will make this nation look more ridiculous.
If it gets built (and the cost would be stratospheric), it will fail to
accomplish its goal of keeping “Mexicans” out of the United States.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">In
fact, all it may well wind up doing is becoming a graffiti-laden barricade that
provides the world with an embarrassing entry point to the nation that likes to
boast of the Statue of Liberty and turn her, “Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free” into the ultimate proof that talk is
cheap.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">TRUMP
SHOWS HOW absurd he is with this policy, which merely reminds me of the smart
aleck wisecrack often made about how a 10-foot wall can be scaled by an 11-foot
ladder. There’s no such thing as an impenetrable barrier – not even the
uninhabitable deserts that comprise many of the border region’s 1,900-plus
miles.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">We
may wind up creating the 21<sup>st</sup> Century’s equivalent of the Berlin
Wall, which was built by the Communist regime of the old East Germany to
isolate their portion of Berlin from the rest of the world. Just as Trump-ites
dream they can isolate the United States from the presence of Mexico.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It's
particularly ridiculous that Trump talks of forcing Mexico’s government to pick
up the construction tab. If anything, Trump ought to devote his own personal
fortune to paying for such construction. We’ll even allow him to put his name
on the wall like he does all the other structures he has erected around the
world.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">A
“Trump Border Wall” can be his lasting legacy – a structure that totally fails
to achieve its intended purpose of keeping people out, visually illustrates the
ignorance of his political talk and possibly bankrupts the man and his family financially
in the process.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published by the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>, a sister weblog.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-41431774122022166912016-12-24T00:02:00.000-06:002016-12-24T00:02:05.755-06:00Feliz Navidad! Or whatever other holiday you're honoring. Now go have a life away from the Internet<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">Here's hoping that you're having a happy holiday, whether it's a traditional Christmas with platters of tamales. My grandparents used to make them, but never passed along the secret of making them properly, so I'm likely to settle for a holiday ham.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xMtuVP8Mj4o/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xMtuVP8Mj4o?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">Now that that's said, log off your computer or whatever other device you're using to read this on the Internet. It's an extended Christmas holiday, along with the beginning of the eight days of Hanukkah. Which means you'd probably be better off doing something in the real world with family or friends, rather than reading the latest nonsense being spewed online.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">SERIOUSLY, ANYTHING PUBLISHED here can wait until Monday. There isn't going to be anything all that important either today or Sunday.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gT2wYi2iQ5M/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gT2wYi2iQ5M?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">So enjoy. And if you absolutely have to see something holiday-related on your computer before you log off for the day, check out either of the two video snippets published here. Your choice which holiday you favor. Along with my own personal favorite of Celia Cruz' take on "Jingle Bells,"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;">And if by chance you're so overly touchy that you want to perceive inclusion of another holiday as a "war" on your special day, then I really have to say "Get over yourself" and leave me alone -- I don't want to hear about it.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VcNUUdeqPfw/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VcNUUdeqPfw?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: large;"> -30-</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-36888050156973877202016-12-08T00:02:00.000-06:002016-12-08T00:02:04.853-06:00How times change; Rahm now our ally in upcoming political fight w/ Trump<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I
can remember a time not all that long ago when Rahm Emanuel was an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enemigo</i> of Latino activists with an
interest in reforming the nation’s immigration policy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklyhWyAE85y0hqaaUpJX_USoOfzzhag8VGSOObuPlz3yhviyjhe6XQ4rvTUF3dSmG0hQrH9JLJYR9lYPTPDVRjbO53y77X0x2sIshJtOLTKz0vN32m0SBnS2W5fGVu87ArgUAZtIvfnB9/s1600/rahm+emanuel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklyhWyAE85y0hqaaUpJX_USoOfzzhag8VGSOObuPlz3yhviyjhe6XQ4rvTUF3dSmG0hQrH9JLJYR9lYPTPDVRjbO53y77X0x2sIshJtOLTKz0vN32m0SBnS2W5fGVu87ArgUAZtIvfnB9/s320/rahm+emanuel.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>EMANUEL: Now taking up immigration</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Back
then, Emanuel was the chief of staff for President Barack Obama, and the perception
was that a significant part of why Obama was so slow on the draw to do anything
to push for reform was that Rahm was holding him back.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EMANUEL
SAW A long, drawn-out political fight and didn’t want to expand capital to take
the partisan actions that would have been required to actually win such a
fight. He didn’t want to make the enemies that would arise at the very mention
of creating a sensible, rather than nativist, policy for immigration.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Yet
now, it seems that Emanuel is being put into a position where he has to take
the lead in trying to push for sensible policy. Or more actually, to not have
blatantly xenophobic policies take over.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Emanuel
of Chicago was one of several mayors from across the nation who sent a letter
to President-elect Donald J. Trump asking him to not revoke the executive order
that Obama signed off on a couple of years ago that created the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals policy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">That
is the one that says people who came to this country as children without a
valid visa would not face deportation.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IT
IS AN order that was never popular with the conservative ideologues of our
nation, particularly those who define immigration reform as an increase in
deportations of people they find less than desirable.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">And
for some people, particularly many of those who were inclined to support Trump’s
presidential campaign, it is Priority Number One that the executive order be
revoked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMxJSL67MwG4L67K9XWz6eVQOwV1LbAjvQT-amCL8NXcztaruziZdcgruw8LgLCdzn95xGBG4V5-Ou_wqO0JLT-2wEboY30FmZlgvSFW61CjRiRYlrMRedSqj5buXIrF2W7myB5pI70c2t/s1600/donald+trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMxJSL67MwG4L67K9XWz6eVQOwV1LbAjvQT-amCL8NXcztaruziZdcgruw8LgLCdzn95xGBG4V5-Ou_wqO0JLT-2wEboY30FmZlgvSFW61CjRiRYlrMRedSqj5buXIrF2W7myB5pI70c2t/s320/donald+trump.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>TRUMP: Will he listen?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">If
possible, as Trump’s first act as president on the very day that he takes
office next month.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Asking
Trump to leave the executive order in place is most definitely asking him for
something he won’t want to give. Particularly since it would be seen by his
backers as a violation of everything they wanted to believe “the Donald” stood
for!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IT
WON’T MAKE any difference that all Emanuel and the mayors want is for the order
to be left in place until Congress itself can enact something resembling a
long-term reform policy of immigration laws.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Considering
that the incoming Congress will be solidly Republican in leaning and filled
with people who are looking to Trump to reinforce their own standing in
Washington, it’s not like any long-term policy is going to be favorable to the
many people who have spent years dreaming of the day when we have a sensible
policy dictating who, and how, people from other countries can choose to have
lives here.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
letter was signed by mayors from across the country, including Bill diBlasio of
New York, where Trump lives. Yet it was Emanuel who on Wednesday made the trip
to Manhattan and had roughly a 45-minute-long meeting to discuss various issues
– including immigration.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Now
I don’t know if Trump will pay one bit of attention to anything that Rahm said.
After all, there are many people of petty and offensive moral leanings (a.k.a.,
the deplorables) who are counting on him to tell Rahm and others like him where
they can stuff it.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">BUT
AS ONE who has long had a particular interest in the immigration issue, I find
it ironic that the very activists who have long decried Rahm Emanuel are now in
a position where they’re going to have to put their faith in him as someone
tough enough to stand up to Donald Trump. It seems our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">amigos</i> are truly flexible in nature depending on our needs.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
one thing I can say is that I’m fairly sure Emanuel isn’t intimidated by Trump;
largely because they’re both capable of matching each other when it comes to egotistical
blowhard behavior</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
will be interesting to see if our city’s mayor can have any influence on this
issue – because perhaps Rahm is just one of those guys who was meant for the
national scene and not the municipal level of dealing with parking meters and
trash cans.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">“In
Rahm, We Trust.” A thought that many of us people of a certain progressive
sensibility are going to have to adopt – no matter how much the very thought
makes us shudder.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary was also published at the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>, a sister weblog to this site.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-8231993741424352182016-11-18T00:02:00.000-06:002016-11-18T00:02:04.134-06:00Are Trump and his backers petty enough to harass cities that offer "sanctuary" status?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
never fails to amaze me the level of nonsense that gets spewed by people with
regards to immigration policy, particularly when the topic of sanctuary cities
arise.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkx9v623-mV5ef9SisbGuFbRlYulZrCn0udaVEk4l-5gbOvPyfC7M34BGyH9k6bPWAOWJkZa31-dqIv3V8HSR243E1luhltlNhPcD6N-WrT-ir35XppdeaO6vBqFR4Ez-RKNpFHZKMLnzk/s1600/donald+trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkx9v623-mV5ef9SisbGuFbRlYulZrCn0udaVEk4l-5gbOvPyfC7M34BGyH9k6bPWAOWJkZa31-dqIv3V8HSR243E1luhltlNhPcD6N-WrT-ir35XppdeaO6vBqFR4Ez-RKNpFHZKMLnzk/s320/donald+trump.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>TRUMP: Is he really this petty?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Chicago
is one such place – where people whose immigration status is uncertain are
supposed to not fear interactions with local police because our cops don’t
automatically turn over such information to federal immigration officials.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IN
SHORT, GETTING pulled over for a traffic ticket or a petty offense will be
treated solely as the petty offense it is, and not balloon into an immigration
hearing with deportation consequences.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But
now that we’re in the era where we will soon have a “President Donald J. Trump”
who campaigned on the notion that he was going to give rise to the number of
deportations from this country and otherwise keep out people he deems
undesirable, it has some wondering what happens next.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I
stumbled across an Internet comment (anonymous, of course) from someone who
wants the new president to start punishing local officials, including our very
own Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who don’t get with the program on immigration
enforcement.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">“Trump
could even prosecute Rahm for things like obstruction of justice and could lock
that dirty little f*cker up for the rest of his miserable life,” he (or she)
wrote.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">GEE,
FIRST THESE people were chanting at the Republican convention for the
incarceration of Hillary Clinton. Now they want the mayor of Chicago locked up
for not fitting their ideological hang-ups. For people who probably think they’re
“real Americans,” I find it odd they’re so eager to turn this country into a
police state!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But
the pressure is being put on cities that made themselves sanctuaries because
there are those ideological nut cases who want to make people not like
themselves miserable. Perhaps they’re the ones who found something logical in
that “self-deportation” nonsense that Mitt Romney spewed four years ago during
his failed presidential bid.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But
now we’re going to have to see just how far Trump is willing to carry out the
trash talk of his campaign. There are those people who voted Republican because
they want to believe he didn’t mean anything he said literally.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Yet
the honest truth is that there also are those people who were most enthusiastic
to vote for Trump because they WANT to believe him literally, particularly on
the immigration issue.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZVe3wKnQuDL__U2ifpqhA_eMzOQ1_fKk9Z4kksZSEflyyb0QDfrOLyG029IIl8mOTU4E0T0hLR7HGPhRIxRlzQBzzDmKEaFSyQkZMk9sIpkRbNGpsz_jutzYL4gpERxLqCZ_Z-Lkczxbs/s1600/rahm+emanuel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZVe3wKnQuDL__U2ifpqhA_eMzOQ1_fKk9Z4kksZSEflyyb0QDfrOLyG029IIl8mOTU4E0T0hLR7HGPhRIxRlzQBzzDmKEaFSyQkZMk9sIpkRbNGpsz_jutzYL4gpERxLqCZ_Z-Lkczxbs/s400/rahm+emanuel.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>EMANUEL: One-time immigration foe now friend?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IF
TRUMP’S FIRST presidential act isn’t the full repeal of the executive orders
issued by Barack Obama to offer comfort to young people who were brought by
their parents without full immigration status, they will revolt.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">They
will want the punitive action by the federal government against urban areas in
general, and sanctuary cities like Chicago in particular.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">For
what it’s worth, the mayor has said this week the city is not about to give up
its sanctuary city status – which was enacted before he became mayor and is
largely a symbolic policy. Chicago officials made it known they’re not looking
to bully non-citizens.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Not
that it means anyone in Chicago is immune from prosecution. For federal
immigration officials have agents in Chicago on the search for those who are
not supposed to be residing in this country. They can still investigate and
prosecute cases.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IT
JUST MEANS they have to do their own legwork, instead of being able to rely on the
Chicago Police Department for some free assistance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Considering
that immigration is an issue that lies beyond the Chicago Police jurisdiction,
it only makes sense they should butt out. Immigration officials are the ones
trained in the nuances of immigration law and understand it better than a beat
cop who pulled someone over for driving with a busted tail light.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">We’ll
have to see just how this whole issue shakes down. I don’t doubt some are eager
to see urban areas punished for this issue – although the real reason is more a
matter of partisan politics rather than anything else. For the urban areas,
particularly places like Chicago, did NOT vote for Trump’s presidential
ambitions.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">They
are the reason why Hillary Clinton will win the popular vote so overwhelmingly
despite losing the Electoral College, and I’m sure Trump is a vindictive-enough
individual to be willing to find a way to crack down on his political opponents.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-52595013898478545672016-11-12T00:02:00.000-06:002016-11-12T00:02:03.865-06:00How many piñatas will suffer a cruel fate in coming years as Latinos take out their frustrations on Donald Trump?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">In
the end, Donald Trump was very much a typical Republican running for U.S.
president, with regards to gaining not-that-much support from the nation’s
growing Latino population.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-57_pkqfm0fnG8klJVStT4gZGWZ1tpycgwRyPq1jmaPfldbAlmGYfA4K-CSp1JbLNfaCkhYbkLjRgQUlTqBQgeZ0QuYZbN7OvHUDALuqiVxSCL67evw6fd8g56CZNwSHXfQopALD2uGI/s1600/pinata.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-57_pkqfm0fnG8klJVStT4gZGWZ1tpycgwRyPq1jmaPfldbAlmGYfA4K-CSp1JbLNfaCkhYbkLjRgQUlTqBQgeZ0QuYZbN7OvHUDALuqiVxSCL67evw6fd8g56CZNwSHXfQopALD2uGI/s640/pinata.jpg" width="363" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Will his head be bashed? Or kneecaps smashed?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
outrage felt at Trump who used Latinos as a political punching bag to gain the
voter support of white people with ethnic hang-ups wound up not biting him in
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">culo</i> like was originally thought.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">THERE
WAS THAT study by Latino Decisions, a Miami-based group that analyzes issues of
Latino political empowerment, that estimated Trump could wind up taking as
little as 18 percent of the Latino vote. That would have been a record-low, if
it had happened.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Instead,
it seems that Trump got 29 percent support from the Latino electorate that bothered
to cast ballot.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
means Hillary Clinton, according to the same studies by Edison Research, took
65 percent of Latinos – meaning two of every three people with ethnic origins
to a Latin American country gave their support for her.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">That
is very typical for a Democratic presidential candidate.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">JUST
AS IS that 29 percent for a Republican. It’s kind of how few Latinos feel the
need to be a part of the Party of Reagan. For whatever reason, those
individuals don’t want to be identified with the Latino masses, so they wind up
siding with political people who verbally express their contempt – and go out
of their way to convince themselves that the GOP isn’t really talking about
them specifically.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">So
I really didn’t think it all that significant early Wednesday when I saw on the
television broadcasts of Trump’s victory celebration a couple of people waving
about signs reading “Hispanics for Trump.” It was bound to happen.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
I have to say I find it interesting that the candidate who kicked off his whole
political process more than a year ago by labelling Mexican-Americans as
“rapists” and “drug dealers” is somehow more acceptable than the candidate who,
four years ago, came up with that “self-deportation” nonsense.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">For
it’s true. Trump’s 29 percent level of Latino support is better than the 27
percent that Mitt Romney took when he challenged Barack Obama’s re-election.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">IT’S
ALSO BETTER than the 21 percent that Republican Bob Dole took in 1996 when he
ran against Bill Clinton’s re-election. Hillary’s husband got what is generally
regarded as the record-high Latino support level of 72 percent.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Hillary
had been expected to get as high as 79 percent, but wound up falling short. I
can’t help but wonder how a stronger turnout would have changed that percentage
– because I suspect many people of Latino ethnic origins just didn’t bother to
vote.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
I’m not about to say that Hillary Clinton would have won if she had maximized
every single Latino capable of casting a ballot to actually do so. I doubt it
would have mattered in North Carolina or changed much in Wisconsin.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">It
might have made a difference in Florida. Then again, I wonder if only white
people had voted in that state if Florida would have rivaled Indiana for the
right to say it was the first state to fall into the Trump column on Election
Night.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">PEOPLE
ARE GOING to be spending coming days, weeks and months crunching the numbers
(which have yet to be made official in any state) to try to find out where
exactly votes could have been changed to affect the outcome. Although I stick
by my premise that if every person who had been insulted by Trump had turned
out to vote, he would have lost – regardless of the quirks of the Electoral
College.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Take
my home city of Chicago, where there was roughly a 75 percent voter turnout on
Tuesday and where Trump only got 12.5 percent of the vote.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">On
paper, Clinton took 85 percent of votes cast in the 12<sup>th</sup> Ward,
overseen by Alderman George Cardenas and is one of the most-heavily Mexican
parts of Chicago. Yet the Chicago Reader pointed out that voter turnout in that
ward was only 58 percent. I expect to learn that level of turnout was typical
across the country; It’s hard to get outraged on behalf of people who couldn’t
even bother themselves to vote.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Which
makes me wonder if the great beneficiary of the Trump electoral victory is the
piñata-making “industry” – since the majority of Latinos disgusted with his win
will have to resort to smashing their Trump-shaped containers of candy and
other treats with “great vengeance and furious anger” (remember actor Samuel L.
Jackson in “Pulp Fiction?”) to release their tensions over the many inane
actions likely to occur during the next four years!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at the sister weblog, <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">The Chicago Argus</a>.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-65413011881301567692016-11-11T22:25:00.000-06:002016-11-11T22:27:23.695-06:00Mexico -- 2; U.S.A. -- 1<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI3-UgHfIrxKh99cBHwNv3oo-GisZQi8LZ3quyT4pF0UpuhzTSWJg5AyRveS9_p4XoYOEkfTmgMrb1Al0-0gMdRmDFQJjmDhFJDq8EhaWZZcP_hhukAV9MuV7TnFdg2U8PiMkmBCtI6GML/s1600/rafael+marquez+alvarez.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI3-UgHfIrxKh99cBHwNv3oo-GisZQi8LZ3quyT4pF0UpuhzTSWJg5AyRveS9_p4XoYOEkfTmgMrb1Al0-0gMdRmDFQJjmDhFJDq8EhaWZZcP_hhukAV9MuV7TnFdg2U8PiMkmBCtI6GML/s320/rafael+marquez+alvarez.gif" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Hero? Or villain?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I
confess to watching the U.S./Mexico soccer matchup Friday as much to see if
there would be any xenophobic outbursts as to see the quality of the national
teams as they both try to qualify for the World Cup tourney to be held next
year in Russia.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
presidential election that gave us Donald Trump, who centered much of his
campaign rhetoric on bashing Mexico and Mexican-Americans gave this game (just
three days following Election Day) a potentially nasty undertone.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">YET
PEOPLE SEEMED to behave, which was a plus.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Except
for some outbursts of a “U.S.A., U.S.A.” chant that cropped up just after the
U.S. team began the second half with a game-tying goal, there seemed to be a
mellow mood from the fans who gathered in Columbus, Ohio, for the match – a site
usually chosen because officials can count on a pro-U.S crowd to predominate.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">In
fact, the American Outlaws group that models itself after soccer hooligans but
actually consists of too many mellow suburbanite types to be dangerous actually
made its own effort to urge its members to tone down any anti-Mexico chants.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">They
even made a point of leading a group singing of “This Land Is My Land” – a song
that the “God Bless America”-type crowd likes to think is borderline
subversive. Even though I suspect Woody Guthrie was more of a “real American”
than many of the people who go about using that label to describe themselves.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">THIS
MATCH’S RESULT was particularly unique because the U.S. team actually had a
streak of victories against Mexico when playing Mexico, one that dates back a
few years.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">The
score of 2-0 has become so common that U.S. soccer interests have started to
view it as a predictable outcome. Which I’m sure makes Mexican-Americans across
the nation fidgety.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">And
made the 2-1 victory, with Rafael Marquez Alvarez scoring the winning goal just
a couple of minutes before match’s end, all the more enjoyable.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">But
for those rooting for the United States, keep in mind there are still more
qualifying matches to occur – and it is very likely that both the United States
AND Mexico will wind up earning a trip to Russia for a chance at a World Cup
championship.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at the sister weblog <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">The Chicago Argus.</a></span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-47489130245265256912016-09-21T21:21:00.001-05:002016-09-21T21:24:14.231-05:00Is a Mexican-inspired song a new Democratic political tradition?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">I
couldn’t help but notice the song that Mexican <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ranchera</i> singer Vicente Fernandez came up with this week to tout
the presidential aspirations of Hillary Clinton.</span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LZDH1pZuvwo/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LZDH1pZuvwo?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">There
are those Latinos who will vehemently argue that Clinton’s level of support for
people of Latin American ethnic origins is apathetic, at best. But when the
Republican opponent has gone out of his way to use Latinos as the equivalent of
a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">piñata</i> to gain political points for
himself, it’s no wonder that Spanish-tinged political rhetoric is going to bear
a heavy pro-Hillary tint.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">THE
LATINO VICTORY Project, which is based in this country, worked with the Mexican
citizen to get him to record <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">El Corrido de
Hillary Clinton</i> – a tune that says Hillary is respectful of Latinos and
will be a bridge between ourselves and the masses of this society.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Perhaps
if Trump could have just kept his mouth shut about Mexicans being drug dealers
and rapists, nobody would have felt compelled to sing about the campaign <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en Español</i>.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">This
reminds me of the 2008 campaign cycle when the Texas primary resulted in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">¡Viva Obama!,</i> which told us of the
wonders that the senator from Chicago would bring to our nation if only we gave
him a chance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Although
to my mindset, it’s just a parody of the mariachi band <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByYI3ST6zfI">standard</a> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">¡Viva Mexico!</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">BUT
WILL WE now feel compelled to have a Spanish-language novelty song for every
Democratic presidential aspirant in the future? I say Democrat, because the Republicans
seem determined to be the party that resists the growing number of Latinos
living in this country.</span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0fd-MVU4vtU/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0fd-MVU4vtU?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">Heck,
George W. Bush lost a lot of his conservative ideologue support when he began
to be perceived as too sympathetic to Latinos!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;">And
for those who want to believe Latinos are too hostile to the outgoing
president, I’ll be the first to concede there are mixed feelings. But I doubt
we’d have had that Thalia dance at the White House if there wasn’t some sense
of admiration.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-65833180933485947532016-09-02T00:02:00.000-05:002016-09-02T00:02:05.360-05:00Pure political posturing, is all that Trump visit to Mexico was
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Fact:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"> Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has targeted Mexicans in the United
States as a way of gaining the votes of nativists come Election Day, was in
Mexico City on Wednesday and appeared with President Enrique Peña Nieto.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qDSBGfd2iE31PXcueoenOo9pwIANqCvy6jb8RYwi8gIEHBwur_kswx2ubfegdQf_o9k7Ix_EbSvAKYLbIFM_Rxnx46iAPNx0Zbu6WC0Hy3QhqINjcYvoVaC-bWfMPzwRkc5IKMAxfnpT/s1600/pinata.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qDSBGfd2iE31PXcueoenOo9pwIANqCvy6jb8RYwi8gIEHBwur_kswx2ubfegdQf_o9k7Ix_EbSvAKYLbIFM_Rxnx46iAPNx0Zbu6WC0Hy3QhqINjcYvoVaC-bWfMPzwRkc5IKMAxfnpT/s400/pinata.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Trump is lucky he wasn't mistaken in Mexico for a pinata</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Fact:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"> There are no other
facts. Or at least none that matter.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">BECAUSE
THE WHOLE point of the event was for everybody involved to be able to tell
stories about how tough they were in the presence of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enemigo</i>.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">What
really happened? Who knows!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">In
reality, probably nothing of substance happened. The meeting was purely about
creating a situation that would allow everybody involved to tell stories meant
to make themselves look great.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Which
means the relations between the United States and Mexico aren’t likely to be
impacted in any significant way by this meeting. It might as well have not
happened.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">THERE
ARE THOSE who want to believe that Trump went to Mexico to try to temper the
hostile rhetoric he has spewed throughout the campaign season – from the fact
he kicked off his campaign by making denigrating comments about Mexicans in
this country to his constant stupid talk about wanting to erect a barricade
along the U.S./Mexico border.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">It
is very clear that the Mexican-American segment of the electorate is all riled
up to vote against Trump, and will also include those of other Latin American
ethnicities in solidarity against The Donald.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Peña
Nieto was more than willing to have a meeting with Trump so he could say later
how he told him off and stood up for his people – even those expatriates now
living in the United States because the opportunities for a worthy life in the
home country were just too lacking.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLSBalJQ7LBx_-GTtaPpyOGwPfdQ-slR90-HP1e_kuEnuioZQkVngy1eY3F0sQgEeO5IqyOfEXtMMKL7xBn05Ztnbdj1JLaEz6B-Hn6lNETz4bEA-nyEPJYk2AHMQXiC09zV95DijAPx60/s1600/pins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLSBalJQ7LBx_-GTtaPpyOGwPfdQ-slR90-HP1e_kuEnuioZQkVngy1eY3F0sQgEeO5IqyOfEXtMMKL7xBn05Ztnbdj1JLaEz6B-Hn6lNETz4bEA-nyEPJYk2AHMQXiC09zV95DijAPx60/s320/pins.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A political pairing</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">While
Trump wants to be able to say how he faced off with the Mexican president and
told him in no uncertain terms how Mexico WILL BE PAYING to build that
Trump-desired wall and how he had better learn to like the idea.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">WHAT
AMUSED ME about this event in Mexico City was that there really wasn’t an
effort for the two men to talk. The language barrier was in place.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
press conference format was in Spanish, and Trump didn’t make any effort to
speak <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en Español</i>. They were talking
past each other. They could just as easily have been talking about Mexican
League baseball batting averages or the measurements of the latest Miss Mexico
in the Miss Universe competition, and it would have had the same significance
as any talk about the issues.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
found it interesting that Peña Nieto made a point of saying Trump never brought
up talk of “the wall” during their time they were face-to-face. While Trump
insists he did.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Of
course, he waited until after he was back across the border and in Phoenix –
speaking English again and talking to a gathering of electoral fanatics who
will want to believe anything Trump chooses to tell them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">BECAUSE
THERE WERE those people who complained how Trump didn’t bring along any of the
reporter-types who have been traveling about the country to cover his campaign.
Likely, Trump didn’t want any outside observers trying to interject fact into
the tale he wanted to tell.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Which
was of a weak, meaningless nation being put in its place by none other than
Donald Trump himself.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">While
Peña Nieto wants it known that Trump is nothing more than a loudmouthed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yanqui</i>, an out-and-out blowhard and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">un gringo pendejo.</i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Which
makes it seem that the sad truth of this confrontation is that U.S./Mexico
relations are probably about as low a priority for Trump if he were to become
our nation’s president, no matter how much nonsense rhetoric he spews about the
issue in coming weeks.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-45847354285610914692016-08-24T00:02:00.000-05:002016-08-24T00:02:01.742-05:00Would Trump risk nativist vote just to get a few more Latinos?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
don’t doubt that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump isn’t really as
ridiculously over-the-top on immigration policy as the image that has been
concocted for him during his campaign.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3w75o7968kl2sSZnJKtE98WwNe7LLR64ZQN2la4gYODtkrFiRdU7ZzC8xfaZyoYa8uwrqGM5HdOWqHdldvzZbczZy7_VuE8mVyaAF4rMT5ERHUvZssa_1nmbWzvyJ7FSbg9RGyD8LTlk/s1600/donald+trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3w75o7968kl2sSZnJKtE98WwNe7LLR64ZQN2la4gYODtkrFiRdU7ZzC8xfaZyoYa8uwrqGM5HdOWqHdldvzZbczZy7_VuE8mVyaAF4rMT5ERHUvZssa_1nmbWzvyJ7FSbg9RGyD8LTlk/s320/donald+trump.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>TRUMP: Too late to change his stance now</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But
the fact is that Trump decided early on which segment of our electorate he
wanted votes from, and those are the people to whom anything resembling
immigration reform had better include increases in deportation and set restrictions
against people who aren’t exactly like themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">IN
SHORT, TRUMP sought the bigot vote. That’s what he’s going to get (and being
bigots, they think their votes are the only ones that ought to count).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So
what do I think of the news reports Tuesday that say Trump really doesn’t want
to boost deportations? He merely wants to enforce the immigration laws as they
currently exist now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">That’s
probably correct. Although one should keep in mind that the current federal
immigration policy is a bureaucratic mess – one in serious need of reform. The
kind of reform that President Barack Obama has hinted at wanting to implement,
but the Republican majority that controls Congress has repeatedly thwarted his
efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So
is it accurate to say that Trump would merely maintain the Obama way of doing
things? Yes, but only if you fail to take into account that it was the system
that Obama inherited – and has been unsuccessful in his attempts to alter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">THERE’S
A REASON that Latino activists with a particular interest in federal
immigration policy refer to Obama negatively as the “deporter-in-chief,”
acknowledging the fact that more people have been removed from this country for
immigration policy violations than during any other presidency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
idea spread amongst activists is that Obama was too weak and ineffectual to
stand up to the people who were the problem. A Trump presidency likely would
put those people in full control of any change that occurs in the near future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So
while Trump may think he’s going to be able to tone down his rhetoric in ways
that a few more people in the Latino segment of the electorate will consider
voting for him, it’s not likely to occur.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Because
the real changes desired to make sense of our nation’s immigration policy are
ones that acknowledge the fact that many of the people who are trying to come
to this country do have a worthy contribution to make to our society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">IN
FACT, IF we really wanted to judge a person’s right to U.S. citizenship based
on what they offer to society as a whole, we’d probably find that many of these
nativists and their xenophobic thought processes would be the first people in
line for deportation – regardless of how many generations ago their families
arrived on this continent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Besides,
my own thoughts about immigration policy are set largely based on the reality
that there isn’t any difference between the newcomers of today and my own
grandfathers – both of whom settled in the same neighborhood on the South Side
of Chicago about 90 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">A
time either before there was a specific federal immigration policy or when the
rules were loose enough that the restrictions of later didn’t apply to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Of
course, I don’t doubt that the Trump-ites will dismiss any such claim. They don’t
really seem to care about facts. In fact, I think the fact that Trump doesn’t
burden their thought processes with “facts” is a major part of his appeal to
them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">BESIDES,
IF TRUMP were to go too far in softening his rhetoric on immigration policy, it
probably would hurt him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Because
the kind of people who are determined to cast ballots for him come Nov. 8 are
the ones who want these kind of absurd immigration policy changes to become
real. They want someone who is willing to ignore sense because it fits with their
own view of our society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">There’s
no way he can say anything that will get him significant Latino support – heck,
he’s going to do worse than the John McCain of 2008 or Mitt Romney of 2012. He’s
going to create the false impression that Latinos love Hillary Clinton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">When
in reality, our regard for Trump is that we Latinos think he’s lower than any
soccer goaltender who faces off against the Mexico national team in a match at Mexico
City’s Aztec Stadium.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> -30-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">EDITOR’S
NOTE: This commentary was also published at the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3w75o7968kl2sSZnJKtE98WwNe7LLR64ZQN2la4gYODtkrFiRdU7ZzC8xfaZyoYa8uwrqGM5HdOWqHdldvzZbczZy7_VuE8mVyaAF4rMT5ERHUvZssa_1nmbWzvyJ7FSbg9RGyD8LTlk/s1600/donald+trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3w75o7968kl2sSZnJKtE98WwNe7LLR64ZQN2la4gYODtkrFiRdU7ZzC8xfaZyoYa8uwrqGM5HdOWqHdldvzZbczZy7_VuE8mVyaAF4rMT5ERHUvZssa_1nmbWzvyJ7FSbg9RGyD8LTlk/s320/donald+trump.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
sister weblog.Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-13238504369249753902016-08-16T00:02:00.000-05:002016-08-16T00:02:01.825-05:00Could even nativist elements pass the Trump immigration test?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump showed us all on Monday why his line of
reasoning makes him unfit to be president of the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG46U-HhJUSpi46PW0Bm9XhNQk3oj4iA4F4c13PRQJ-G4q_rDlTUHu-RSF5XJCrAV0TVGd7_fNAFU7M1I-NTZDNQUQ7owD2tQyvkCd106nLaivJxY8unkUsxsMhfV3ae3cuAI4QmF2jaY2/s1600/donald+trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG46U-HhJUSpi46PW0Bm9XhNQk3oj4iA4F4c13PRQJ-G4q_rDlTUHu-RSF5XJCrAV0TVGd7_fNAFU7M1I-NTZDNQUQ7owD2tQyvkCd106nLaivJxY8unkUsxsMhfV3ae3cuAI4QmF2jaY2/s400/donald+trump.jpg" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>TRUMP: Could even he pass his test?</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">That’s
the only way we can view his suggestion that we require tests of people from elsewhere
on Planet Earth who want to come live in this country. As Trump put it, we
should require tests to see where they stand on certain issues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">AS
FOR THOSE whose views on issues don’t pass the test, keep ‘em out!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t let ‘em in!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ban them!!!!!!!!!!!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Which,
of course, is nonsense. There’s no way we could ever devise a test on social
issue stances that would possibly make any sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Largely
because those are issues upon which we, the native born of this nation, don’t
agree. Just think how up in arms our own citizens would be if/when they found
out that the official stance required on an issue such as equal rights for gay
people is the one they can’t stand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
as much as I’d like to fantasize that we could deport all those people who
culturally want to live in a land motivated by the Dixie mentality and a return
to “our way of life” (which is the euphemism I have heard many aging
Southerners use to describe the segregation of old), I’m realistic enough to
know it will never happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">IN
FACT, IT would be more likely that the official stance required for immigration
would be something along the lines of the Dixiecrats of old. Something that the
real majority of our nation would find repulsive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Something
that would go about splitting our society ever further than it already is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">For
the simple fact of our society is that we are a mix. We don’t have an
indigenous people in this country (and I’d say those people of native Indian
tribes aren’t numerous enough to be considered the base of our nation).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
while I know there are those who rant and rage and complain about how we can’t
all unite and be just like themselves, I have always thought of the fact that
we, the United States, are a cultural mutt is our greatest strength.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">ONE
BEING MADE even stronger in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century because immigration is
no longer about finding even more western Europeans who, within a single
generation, can be mistaken for someone who was native-born to this nation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
also have felt that those individuals who come from totalitarian nations with
close-minded views of the rest of the world are often the ones most in need of
some time living in this country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Exposure
to the real world is what they need.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Then
again, I suspect there are those living in parts of this country that keep
themselves as isolated as they can from urban America who also could benefit
from such exposure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">BECAUSE
A PART of me has always wondered if those social conservatives of our society
look at the totalitarian parts of the world and secretly feel a tinge of
jealousy, wishing that our nation would be just as strong-armed in opposition
to anything they don’t agree with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Maybe
we ought to think about deporting them to less-open places of the world? Nah,
that would be as logistically ridiculous as all of Trump’s talk about boosting
deportations and erecting a pointless wall (you never heard of tunnels?) along
the U.S./Mexico border.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">If
anything, I suspect that many of the people who actually are going to vote for
Trump for president come the Nov.8 elections are doing so because they like
this ridiculous isolationist vision of the world. Which is why Trump said what
he did on Monday during a campaign appearance in Ohio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
man will say anything, no matter how absurd, if he thinks it will get him
another vote. Meaning that the real majority of us who find isolationism to be
stultifying need to express our opposition on Election Day with a vote of
opposition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> -30-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at this weblog's sister site, the </span><a href="http://www.chicagoargus.com/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">Chicago Argus</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-44516636963541159832016-06-10T13:05:00.000-05:002016-06-10T13:05:24.199-05:00“Illegal” remains illegal, insofar as Congress’ ideologues think<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
goofs we send to Capitol Hill, or at least the ones who comprise the House of
Representatives, took what I’m sure they believe to be a bold stance with
regards to our nation’s immigration policy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2__tpgoDdDhQl9HACSTVsYp9sLhRhBQweBa7Cmf1XnWitIJdnCyha0FONiwjJYfY0r_daoyvx5-I4xfrnDNbtgogMFNy96sKbAzmAWPWYlOe9eSlZKlOaBr2fKeILPm7KnqrRyWW8X5j1/s1600/Illegal_Alien_Costume.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2__tpgoDdDhQl9HACSTVsYp9sLhRhBQweBa7Cmf1XnWitIJdnCyha0FONiwjJYfY0r_daoyvx5-I4xfrnDNbtgogMFNy96sKbAzmAWPWYlOe9eSlZKlOaBr2fKeILPm7KnqrRyWW8X5j1/s640/Illegal_Alien_Costume.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>'Illegal alien' has created stupid gags such as this</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">“Illegal”
remains a part of the official jargon. As in “Illegal alien” to describe
non-citizens currently in the United States without a valid visa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">THE
LIBRARY OF Congress had wanted to stop using the term in its official
documents, preferring to refer to such people as “non-citizens.” They also wanted
to refer to the issue in general as one of “unauthorized immigration.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Yet
the Republican-led House of Representatives, in a purely partisan vote, passed
a measure Friday forbidding the Library of Congress from imposing such a
change. For as far as the ideologues of Congress who have thwarted any effort
to make sensible changes in our nation’s immigration policy are concerned, “illegal”
is an official part of the jargon and they don’t want to hear from any
namby-pamby people who will claim that branding people as “illegal” just
because of their existence is offensive and makes our national policy appear
all the more absurd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Personally,
I think the whole concept of the term “illegal alien” is a matter of
bureaucratese and legal jargon being used grossly out-of-context by people who
want to demonize others whom they desperately want to believe are unlike
themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It
makes sense if one realizes that the official term for a non-citizen who has
obtained a valid visa to be in the country is a “resident alien.” The whole
concept of use of the word “alien” is meant to distinguish one from a person
who has actual U.S. citizenship – either through the accident birth or having
completed the naturalization process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">JUST
AS WE often try to eliminate overly complex acronyms and jargon to simplify the
English language in its daily use, these changes (which have already been
adopted by the Associated Press and followed by many newsgathering
organizations) are meant to reflect reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Except
that some people don’t want to accept reality when it comes to immigration policy.
They’re determined to find people to exclude from this country – even though by
its very definition it is meant to be a collection of peoples from around the globe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Actually,
it is what is part of what makes the United States so unique and helps achieve
its greatness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTYaM3kjS2M5Hj6qbCKQP44yt9BK_6z3CLH0Q1XyXmcatHJqTY1HK3ySWF6fwm4_ZiD3z2IoSe_K9l3Kujdw7ThBWCLCxZdcDEc60Ke-0AJOe-96vAwofH44Zan278_IijDJ6sLYzbGNYU/s1600/castro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTYaM3kjS2M5Hj6qbCKQP44yt9BK_6z3CLH0Q1XyXmcatHJqTY1HK3ySWF6fwm4_ZiD3z2IoSe_K9l3Kujdw7ThBWCLCxZdcDEc60Ke-0AJOe-96vAwofH44Zan278_IijDJ6sLYzbGNYU/s320/castro.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>CASTRO: Speaking what ideologues fear</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Trust
me when I say that if this country consisted solely of people born here who fit
the vision of what an “American” ought to be as perceived by the conservative
ideologues, we truly would be on the verge of becoming a third-world nation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">AS
FOR THIS issue, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, (one of the people allegedly
under consideration by likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
for her V-P running mate slot) may be correct.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">This
is a change that is bound to be made, and the day will come when Congress will
have to change the official legalese of immigration policy – which would then
let the Library of Congress reflect reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But
for now, this is one of those issues in which we’re living through the era that
future generations will look back at us and wonder how we could be so
ridiculous as to want to go around putting the “illegal” label on everyone
except themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> -30-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">EDITOR’S
NOTE: This commentary also was published by the <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus </a>sister weblog to
this site.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-69285440641366217642016-06-07T00:02:00.000-05:002016-06-07T00:02:03.158-05:00Which of these politico pendejos will Latinos actually vote for?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
find it amusing these days to see that just about every presidential dreamer
thinks they have achieved the key to being the preferred presidential choice of
that segment of the electorate that is Latino.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaBz_CBiGUqBegH44ln0RVC4DekTa_U_giXB0yjI46uSowk7OQUKPs3qNMKy1Kf0T0yGFIzZQPw8igQvsO78wq2l89NKEEe_GiltDPJ9IojRu5Eie2Ld9v8vdL250u9ZEAzzYNvlTQIbm0/s1600/donald+trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaBz_CBiGUqBegH44ln0RVC4DekTa_U_giXB0yjI46uSowk7OQUKPs3qNMKy1Kf0T0yGFIzZQPw8igQvsO78wq2l89NKEEe_GiltDPJ9IojRu5Eie2Ld9v8vdL250u9ZEAzzYNvlTQIbm0/s400/donald+trump.jpg" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>No matter what he says, Trump in for Latino whomping</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Particularly
since I don’t think any of them have a clue as to what Latino voters are
thinking, or how to really reach out to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">OTHER
THAN SAYING a majority of Latino voters will ultimately pick the Democratic
nominee for president, nobody knows what will happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
quite frankly, that prediction doesn’t mean much. Let’s not forget that back in
2004, Democrat John Kerry took 56 percent of the Latino vote. Yet the real
story is that Republican opponent George W. Bush allegedly got 44 percent of
the Latino vote – a record high and a significant factor in his re-election
victory that year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Republicans
don’t have to win the Latino vote to win presidential elections. In fact, I
believe the last thing any of them would want to do is to appeal to a majority
of Latino voters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It
would mean Latinos would expect things from them in return, and that would
invariably offend their voter base of those white people who WANT to have a
presidential candidate who will neglect the Latino segment of our society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">IN
SHORT, SOMEONE like Donald Trump who kicked off his campaign with offensive
remarks about Mexican people and recently stepped up the rhetoric by
complaining about the federal judge who is presiding over a trial related to a
lawsuit against his Trump University programs that defrauded their students.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Trump
claims that because the judge is of Mexican ethnic origins (actually a native
of East Chicago, Ind. – that community just across the state line with a 52
percent Latino majority population) he naturally can’t be trusted to be fair to
Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Yet
Trump has also spewed nonsense rhetoric about how he can take enough of the
Latino vote to cut into any voter support that a Democratic challenger would be
counting on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It’s
true that some Latinos will vote for Donald, or any other Republican. Largely
because they’re so eager to be thought of as “white” (or more accurately, not
thought of as “black”) that they will tolerate whatever hostile rhetoric that
GOP officials spew about them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexldKjELvBznWS9fB111i1_QzcPFu7Z2E-Yaw2aE0ynzq2d4kpWEj5UdxliphDhux7P0zw_2u79-RO1EdLWW54dc0ZiJGJkdVOJJvIzKlV9Y92G1PfDDTKTCMFS8AytyILDHO9TJhiDBh/s1600/JohnKerry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexldKjELvBznWS9fB111i1_QzcPFu7Z2E-Yaw2aE0ynzq2d4kpWEj5UdxliphDhux7P0zw_2u79-RO1EdLWW54dc0ZiJGJkdVOJJvIzKlV9Y92G1PfDDTKTCMFS8AytyILDHO9TJhiDBh/s320/JohnKerry.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Kerry 'won' '04 Latino vote, but not by enough</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">BUT
TRUMP HAS a serious chance of sinking below the 27 percent of the Latino vote
that Republican Mitt Romney took the last election – one in which Barack Obama
got that overwhelming 72 percent of the Latino vote.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not
because we really thought that highly of Obama – all the rhetoric about him
being the “deporter in chief” existed back then too. It’s that we thought even
less of the guy with the delusions about “self-deportation.” We knew who was
more hostile toward us, and we voted against him in great numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Just
as will happen to Trump come November. We will vote against “el Donaldo” at a
record-setting rate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But
who do we vote for? That remains to be seen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">IT
WAS INTERESTING to see the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday that went solidly for
Hillary Clinton. How many Puerto Ricans on the mainland will follow the lead of
their country cousins?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">There’s
also the California primary scheduled for Tuesday, where news reports indicate
that long-shot challenger Bernie Sanders thinks that younger Latino voters will
split from their elders and support him – thereby making it possible for him to
win that state’s primary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">That
would be a blow to Clinton’s image of being able to unify Democratic voters.
But Hillary is still so far ahead in the delegate count that she likely still
wins the delegate count – and the presidential nomination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Also,
quite possibly, a majority of the Latino vote; unless we decide to collectively
fall asleep while wearing a sombrero, take a siesta and miss Election Day altogether
– which probably is the Trump campaign’s great fantasy. And also Trump’s only
chance <i>en infierno</i> of not getting his
clock cleaned by Latino voters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> -30-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary was also published by the South Chicagoan's sister weblog, the <a href="http://www.chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-87987718275589523282016-05-03T20:26:00.000-05:002016-05-03T20:26:00.255-05:00Cruz is gone – Ding dong, the Witch is dead!!!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I’ve
gone out of my way in the past few months to openly ridicule the idea that
anybody takes seriously the presidential aspirations of Donald Trump, which on
Tuesday became a probability with his overwhelming victory in the Indiana
primaries.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCSUZ1_g0oYREiKTnFYJi78YvF7E6roc4uToe9rDw4qw_4-ISYYkcMcA8_Jbobdw5aqaFzIpZ8JBkKinKkNoTXDy9YplLr_nwtTOgbeDt5JHBcP-YPs4linnPhhuNQvMcMl1EQurU28E2/s1600/ted+cruz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCSUZ1_g0oYREiKTnFYJi78YvF7E6roc4uToe9rDw4qw_4-ISYYkcMcA8_Jbobdw5aqaFzIpZ8JBkKinKkNoTXDy9YplLr_nwtTOgbeDt5JHBcP-YPs4linnPhhuNQvMcMl1EQurU28E2/s400/ted+cruz.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>CRUZ: Fell snort of toppling Trump!</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Yet
any disgust that I might feel at the thought that Trump will be the Republican
candidate in the November general election truly is tempered by the reality of
this day – Ted Cruz is gone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">CRUZ,
THE SENATOR from Texas who got elected by ideologue Tea Party types and
campaigned for president with the attitude that he was going to implement those
social conservative ideals upon all of us regardless of whether we had any
desire for them or not, is history.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">His
defeat in the Indiana primaries gives Trump so many more delegates at this late
stage in the primary election cycle that it is next to impossible for Cruz to
gain with the few primaries remaining.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So
Cruz, the so-called Cuban Canadian who always tried to make it seem as though
he was as true-blue Texan as any other white man in the southwest, stepped
back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">He
officially dropped out of the campaign. That leaves only John Kasich of Ohio,
who is so far back that he can’t even dream of overcoming the real estate
developer from New York who thinks the whole world needs buildings bearing his
name.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
HAVE TO confess feeling joy at the idea of Cruz’s political failure. Back when
there were 18 candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president, Cruz
and his ideological temperament was the one that stood out in my mind – as in
the absolute last one I would want to see gain the GOP nomination.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">From
my perspective, the fact that Cruz lasted so long and came so close, and wound
up being perceived by the Republican establishment as the voice of reason
compared to the ego-bloated nonsense of a Trump is truly the evidence of why I
could never seriously consider myself as a Republican.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Not
that I’m always “proud” to be a Democrat – the party has its share of
knuckle-heads. But I feel like I’d have to seriously be brain-dead to have to
choose from the Republican picks of 2016. I feel sorry for those who did do so.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It’s
not so much the written list of stances that one could put together of where
Cruz stands on certain issues. It’s more the attitude he gave off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">A
CERTAIN SMUGNESS of how he was going to do what he wanted, didn’t care what
others thought, and was prepared to ram his ideals down our throats. Kind of
like some parent thoroughly smacking his or her kid about and telling them it
was for their own good.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Of
course, there’s also a part of my attitude toward Cruz that came from the fact
I’m only a couple of years older than he is and that he and I were in college
back about the same time (although I’m not claiming I ever met the future
senator from the Lone Star State).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">He
reminds me of the kind of guy who used to annoy everybody else living on the
floor of the college dormitory – the one who came home one day from a part-time
job he had in town to find his bed, dresser and all personal belongings moved
down the hall to the men’s room.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
whom the rest of us secretly laughed our behinds off at the sight of him having
to move all his belongings back to his room all by himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">NOW
I DON’T know for sure if Cruz ever experienced anything like that in college.
But he also reminds me of several people I knew back in college – the ones who
viewed their education as the credential that would give them the right to think
of themselves as better than everybody else.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
sense that Cruz on this Tuesday probably thinks his defeat was a great
injustice that his “superior intellect” did not prevail. Then again, let’s
remember “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” where Ricardo Montalban’s character
had the superior intellect that failed to beat Captain Kirk and wound up being
incinerated in an outer space explosion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Perhaps
if Cruz ever learns a little humility, he could have a political comeback.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">That,
and learns to take advantage of his father’s ethnic heritage (the Cubano side).
Latinos were prepared to vote against him en masse come November because of the
vibe he gives off of being anti- their interests – and probably would have
claimed to be Canadian before he’d ever seek their voter support.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">The Chicago Argus</a> -- the sister weblog to this site. </span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-32693999199564662542016-04-18T00:02:00.000-05:002016-04-18T00:02:09.675-05:00Illinois or Indiana – which way does our Supreme Court lean?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
Supreme Court of the United States is going to hear oral arguments come Monday
that will wind up determining just how effective our current president will
wind up being in terms of trying to revamp our nation’s immigration policies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">We
all know that Barack Obama hasn’t been able to come close to fulfilling the
promises he made of comprehensive immigration reform while campaigning for
president. The actions that have happened over-emphasize the desires of those
who think our policy ought to be one of increased deportation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">OBAMA
DID MAKE that effort involving use of his personal orders to impose certain
policies – although those changes do not last any longer than his presidency.
And it’s a good bet that the next conservative ideologue Republican president will
make repeal of those executive orders his highest priority.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">As
things are, attorneys general of 26 states that have Republican officials in
those posts filed a lawsuit in federal courts challenging Obama’s authority to
use executive orders to try to alter immigration policy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">As
things pan out, Illinois is among the 24 states that think there are better
things to focus attention on than federal immigration policy. While Indiana and
Wisconsin, our neighbors, are among the 26 who feel compelled to take up this
issue as a crusade of sorts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Then
again, Indiana is a state still trying to fight against gay people – viewing any
sympathetic acts toward them to be discrimination against religious people.
Whereas we in Illinois moved well beyond this quite a while ago.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">ILLINOIS
IS A place that cooperates fully with the Affordable Care Act, whereas Indiana
is a place that still fantasizes about doing away with health insurance for
certain of its citizens.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Indiana
is a place where one can find cheap smokes (usually at places with names like “Smokes”
and “Ciggies”), whereas Illinois tacks on so many local taxes for tobacco
purchases and strictly limits where one can light up because we respect the
rights of people who have to be around smokers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So
the idea that State Line Road is some sort of barrier where people can glare
across each other with such radical thoughts and differing perspectives is not
unusual. Not even for immigration.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">For
Obama was trying to come up with something that would let the people now in
this country without a valid visa remain – if it can be shown they make
worthwhile contributions to our society. And most of them do, regardless of
whatever nonsense people like Donald Trump spew.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">OF
COURSE, THE ideologues want to believe they don’t. They want to think their
very presence in this country ought to be regarded as criminal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">So
Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal jurisdictions where the
courts are inclined to back them up. The end result is that the lawsuit was
upheld and an appeals court backed the federal court.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Now,
it will be up to the Supreme Court to determine what ultimately becomes of this
overly partisan measure that has nothing to do with real immigration reform. We
have the potential for a real mess to occur because of the fact that the
ideologues in our Congress are refusing to fill the vacancy on the high court
that already has been in place for several months.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It
could easily turn out to be a 4-4 ruling by the high court --- which would mean
that the appeals court ruling would remain in place. It would take five supreme
court justices to rule to overturn for Obama to prevail.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">WE’LL
HAVE TO see how this prevails. Will this become a Supreme Court partisan mess?
Will real justice have to wait for some point in the future when we cease
having a federal government overly anxious to play partisan politics?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It
is only if you regard all states as equal and not some containing the bulk of our
society while the rest being places where those who want to live in isolation
prevail. It wouldn’t matter if those in isolation wanted to be off by
themselves. Instead, they want to be sure their isolationist approach to
society is the one that prevails over all of us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Which
is why this fight literally winds up being a national version of the fight we
often see between Illinois and Indiana – and we’ll have to see which perspective
the Supreme Court winds up backing!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at the sister weblog <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">The Chicago Argus. </a></span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-52306787613564584712016-04-06T00:02:00.000-05:002016-04-06T00:02:11.140-05:00Illinois governor, or right-wing Latin American dictator, as Trump presidential model<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAADORH1uzwVRlZvPI_Q7pZE0PmaZaRBjcqkh0UoTfmGmJtroFYOd5gKZIXyUSlkNSmqcK4u9ODw2vF8l6s7TvZFLNhL4aLXIwTBSgzwd5R2xtfq-Lscv7gZ7WaqHBLVcCv9JKfeqtV2MR/s1600/pinata.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAADORH1uzwVRlZvPI_Q7pZE0PmaZaRBjcqkh0UoTfmGmJtroFYOd5gKZIXyUSlkNSmqcK4u9ODw2vF8l6s7TvZFLNhL4aLXIwTBSgzwd5R2xtfq-Lscv7gZ7WaqHBLVcCv9JKfeqtV2MR/s400/pinata.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>What does it say when the piñata ...</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Should
we wind up having to endure the presidency of a Donald Trump as a result of the
November elections, it’s quite clear what he’d wind up like.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">He’d
be Bruce Rauner times 50 (as in he’d have say over all the states, rather than
just Illinois). Or like one of those third-rate dictator types that have
imposed their will on too many Latin American nations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">IT
SEEMS THAT Trump thinks that stupid persona he created for the television
program “The Apprentice” is somehow legitimate – that he’d have the authority
to bark out orders and scream and screech “You’re Fired” at everyone who
displeased him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDkrYE6ZB6P84daUJJj6CQ6myBmv2laG1DG8YD6iwx6HZ1tHdHB5UjP7XZNNiPdUJuOQXx9NKH0Hm_vM8-SBHANubP7ek6KajM3fyCXktDX3B-th6cBopbbSyEbCz8xLLAAR7MAt3MRtSm/s1600/donald+trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDkrYE6ZB6P84daUJJj6CQ6myBmv2laG1DG8YD6iwx6HZ1tHdHB5UjP7XZNNiPdUJuOQXx9NKH0Hm_vM8-SBHANubP7ek6KajM3fyCXktDX3B-th6cBopbbSyEbCz8xLLAAR7MAt3MRtSm/s320/donald+trump.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>... has better hair than the man?</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Just
like we in Illinois have a governor now who thinks he can behave as some sort
of benevolent dictator whose instructions are to be followed explicitly by the
peons who actually have the nerve to think their election by the people to
represent them in Congress gives them any say in the process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">In
Illinois, we have seen how ridiculous this very notion is. Nothing gets done
here. We’re at a standstill. Do we really need a national version of this
happening as well?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">This
vision of Trump as a buffoonish president only got reinforced for me Tuesday
when I read the Washington Post’s report (complete with “Bob Woodward” byline)
that told us how His Trumpishness thinks he can force the government of Mexico
to pick up the cost of building that barricade along the U.S./Mexico border.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6yj3uRGZzdo5NAsiRROvSIEwC6LvMy8jriYDpekQP5Dx2N3B6nFk73SlQaoWPAOtn50mJcV9VZDBhV4DvvbBaB89tC67_MzuXJy1Y7gw_7cczSmg_jgCK11mV8m2tmnrhtvahR67xoQB/s1600/Augusto+Pinochet+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6yj3uRGZzdo5NAsiRROvSIEwC6LvMy8jriYDpekQP5Dx2N3B6nFk73SlQaoWPAOtn50mJcV9VZDBhV4DvvbBaB89tC67_MzuXJy1Y7gw_7cczSmg_jgCK11mV8m2tmnrhtvahR67xoQB/s320/Augusto+Pinochet+II.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Would a 'President Trump' be so ornate?</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">THE
ONE THAT will turn out to be just as unsuccessful in keeping the outside world
at bay as that one-time Berlin Wall was in keeping the Soviet sector of the
German capital free from the “evil influence” of capitalism!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">It
seems that Trump is eyeballing all that money earned by Mexican citizens or people
of Mexican ethnic ancestry in this country, then wired back to their relatives
in Mexico.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">There
is a significant number of Mexicans who actually rely upon that money, and it
does provide a measurable boost to the Mexican economy. Trump thinks he can
mess around with the ability of people to wire money to Mexico, which will then
cause the government to give in and make a one-time payment of some $10 billion
to build a wall along the 1,900 or so miles of desert that separate the two
nations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkoT3eHGuFY4zucLWld-3rr92_AQMvxrYjR_7kF4z7fj4jEvqBYm9GA_zjnsuHW0NF0OMK9T1NvVslwUczoEcEBhPiIjwM9Da3P-vn4MfY9TGCca-SFbNj_d069JJAg0rr9ETzwjexKVO/s1600/fidel+castro.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtkoT3eHGuFY4zucLWld-3rr92_AQMvxrYjR_7kF4z7fj4jEvqBYm9GA_zjnsuHW0NF0OMK9T1NvVslwUczoEcEBhPiIjwM9Da3P-vn4MfY9TGCca-SFbNj_d069JJAg0rr9ETzwjexKVO/s400/fidel+castro.gif" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Mere fatigues wouldn't be befitting The Donald</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Of
course, federal laws concerning those payments do provide certain provisions
for the government to mess with them, but only under certain specific and
unique circumstances where national security or health is impacted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">IT
IS OF questionable legal grounds that we’re even close to fulfilling any of
those conditions! Unless you’re of the midget mentality that wants to believe
Mexico’s very existence on Planet Earth somehow represents a security threat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">But
as Trump perceives things, he makes his threat on Day One, on Day Two, “Mexico
would immediately protest,” but then would be forced to acquiesce because it
would have no choice. After all, no one says “No” to Donald Trump.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">Which
is such a laughable notion. Almost as laughable as Trump’s hair-do. Or if a
“President Trump” were to adopt a military persona like one-time Chile dictator
Augusto Pinochet!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">It
makes me wonder how big a meltdown he would experience the first time the
Congress tells Trump to “stuff it” on one of his goofy proposals. Does he
really think he can tell Congress, “You’re Fired!” and impose his will on us
unilaterally?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">IF
ANYTHING, I probably owe the Illinois governor an apology for bringing his name
into the equation. Both are corporate types who think they can bark orders and
think other officials are insolent for not meekly complying with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">But
I don’t think Rauner at his worst would concoct this nonsensical a scheme –
which really seems more intended to reinforce his backing among the segment of
the Wisconsin electorate with xenophobic and nativist sentiments. They did,
after all, cast their votes on Tuesday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qidc0iZwopU/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qidc0iZwopU?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">And
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was expected to win, even though he was publicly caught
on video refusing to wear one of those cheese head hats – which may be the one
thing he has done during this campaign that made any sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">It
would be more ridiculous than trying to put a sombrero on the head of Trump –
the man who on Tuesday reminded us that Mexico, “has taken advantage” of the
United States for years through “gangs, drug traffickers and cartels”
responsible for “the extraordinary daily cost of this criminal activity.” Even
though the demand for this criminal activity comes from the United States
itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary was also published at this weblog's sister site, The <a href="http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1614060349336630895.post-84153222199001166132016-03-22T00:02:00.000-05:002016-03-22T00:02:09.967-05:00Obama does Cuba; will it really boost our relations?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">I’m
sure there are some people to whom the only part of President Barack Obama’s
three-day sojourn to Cuba that matters is the ballgame being played Tuesday
between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba’s famed national baseball team.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEincIMHObXdQ4q05u_908YT_5vXLpD09b92fE-qQLSRJZ3mlddv0U_WqIwhyphenhyphen1WOSBgsxdxHwbGhdFBFgBqvL6LK7J60O6ZQtEfZhqOVQsvg9t6APK8yZ1OHbCgHzAIHXHnuNja6NkLNPxWn/s1600/estadio+latinoamericano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEincIMHObXdQ4q05u_908YT_5vXLpD09b92fE-qQLSRJZ3mlddv0U_WqIwhyphenhyphen1WOSBgsxdxHwbGhdFBFgBqvL6LK7J60O6ZQtEfZhqOVQsvg9t6APK8yZ1OHbCgHzAIHXHnuNja6NkLNPxWn/s400/estadio+latinoamericano.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>The Estadio Latinoamericano in Havana will be the site of confrontation between the remains of Cuba's best ballplayers and a U.S. major league ball club.</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Others,
I’m sure, are going to downplay even that factor – it is, after all, just a
pre-season exhibition (although the Cuban squad is filled with players who have
been active in a winter season for several months, they’re going to ‘give game’
and play to win).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">BUT
WHAT REALLY is the significance of the fact that Obama felt compelled to arrive
in Havana on Sunday, and spend the day at several sites around Havana of
cultural importance? And also include a couple-hours session meeting with the
brother of Fidel Castro?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">I
have long been a supporter of the idea of closer relations between the United
States and is neighbor nation in the Caribbean. I have always thought the trade
embargo our nation imposes on Cuba to be a failure – primarily because it has
not achieved its goal of breaking the Cuban economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Granted,
Cuba’s economy is in the gutter. But the powers-that-be there have managed to
use it as propaganda material to inspire distaste for the United States. We play
right into the stereotype of the “Ugly American,” and our business interests
lose out on the chance to gain from Cuba’s assets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Which
is why I found it interesting to read the news accounts of Obama’s arrival on
Sunday, to find crowds chanting and cheering “U-S-A, U-S-A” as enthusiastically
as any sports crowd watching a United States team beating up on some batch of
foreigners!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">COULD
WE BE on the verge of a significant thaw in the ice that has developed between
the two nations? Or will the partisanship motivated by too many generations of
ideologues be enough to keep things a mess for years to come?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU0Gi2BRSuCzo_VLwlq9waYOlY_lkeIevNN5BcUo-hhPIXJ2yVHRaGxnHDU7iFlh-aSJ0KKwZGR1w6LRMCj8kuoUamrq4S-Q05cvTV0M3HTk6Dpt0rncW39ttJSI5loV1E7acXAnE-vQD3/s1600/obama+castro+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU0Gi2BRSuCzo_VLwlq9waYOlY_lkeIevNN5BcUo-hhPIXJ2yVHRaGxnHDU7iFlh-aSJ0KKwZGR1w6LRMCj8kuoUamrq4S-Q05cvTV0M3HTk6Dpt0rncW39ttJSI5loV1E7acXAnE-vQD3/s320/obama+castro+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Even Fidel has read Obama's book</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Will
the laying of a wreath at the monument to 19<sup>th</sup> Century Cuban patriot
Jose Marti (who actually lived a large chunk of his life in exile in New York
City) be seen as a magnanimous gesture? Or as some sort of social surrender by
a U.S. president?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">I
can already envision the rants that will come from some political people –
those determined to see that nothing changes; likely because their own
livelihoods depend on continued hostilities and keeping the image of Fidel
Castro alive and thriving to frighten our masses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Just
think of how little has changed since that day in 1999 when then-Illinois Gov. George
Ryan led a delegation to Cuba in hopes of putting Illinois at the head of the
pack when the day came that the trade embargo was lifted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">THAT
EMBARGO STILL remains, even though Obama has taken actions to ease relations
between the two nations – such as restoring the U.S. Embassy in Havana and
permitting an exhibition such as the Tampa Bay ball club getting a spring
training sojourn to Cuba.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Although
a part of me still thinks it would have been more interesting if it had been
the Chicago White Sox and Cuban star Jose Abreu doing Havana to play the Cuban
national team!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">But
back to our relations, which remain unsettled because of those people
determined to undo anything Obama has done during the past seven years, One of
those people is Republican presidential dreamer Ted Cruz – who is one of those
eager to keep alive the image of Fidel as a tyrant threatening world freedom;
instead of the third-rate, penny-ante, sorry excuse of a dictator he always has
been.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">U.S.
foreign policy has done much (even more than those Soviet Union subsidies) to
keep alive the Castro regime in Cuba, and it likely is a step (or several) in
the Obama direction for us to truly give Cuba the boost in the direction toward
the freedom we’d like to see them have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">OR
AT LEAST something not so openly hostile to our nation’s interests as what
currently exists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Because
I do realize what our nation’s primary interest will be is in creating economic
opportunity for U.S. businesses in Cuba. Whether the Cuban people gain a
less-oppressive government isn’t something we really care about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKijl_pXA3iniLYRyAM50qC5mok2mPWH7hgq4M4W7n-I1rshyGwUBrcmrg1IRLEqD5W0hFznTcniuCFBt9fj-VTCEk6O6mqTihUpphavrlIuxf5STZ2u0Kmh3Ar_lB9taCuIWXw2vjn2Fi/s1600/abraham+lincoln+stamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKijl_pXA3iniLYRyAM50qC5mok2mPWH7hgq4M4W7n-I1rshyGwUBrcmrg1IRLEqD5W0hFznTcniuCFBt9fj-VTCEk6O6mqTihUpphavrlIuxf5STZ2u0Kmh3Ar_lB9taCuIWXw2vjn2Fi/s320/abraham+lincoln+stamp.jpg" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Honest Abe revered in Cuba as well</em></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s
nice if it happens, but we’ve been willing to do business with tyrants in the
past. Let’s not be hypocritical about that point. We’ll have to see if Obama’s
presence in Havana these past few days will do anything to make a difference,
and perhaps push Cuba in the right direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">It
makes me wonder if, a century from now, Obama’s legacy in Cuba will be
remembered somewhere close to the way Cubans actually revere the memory of
Abraham Lincoln – a thought I’m sure infuriates the ideologues of U.S. of
today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-30-</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">EDITOR'S NOTE: This commentary also was published at the <a href="http://www.chicagoargus.blogspot.com/">Chicago Argus</a>, the sister weblog to the South Chicagoan.</span></div>
Gregory Tejedahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03233009340333100205noreply@blogger.com0