Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, January 27, 2018

B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 27, 2018 OPINION B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 27, 2018 OPINION 
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POTPOURRI 

Potpourri (n): A mixture of things 

ATTACK OF THE INVISIBLE VOTER APATHY MONSTER: 

Last week I mentioned that more than 157 million Americans who were 

eligible to vote did not vote for Trump. Of those, 65 million+ voted 

for Hillary Clinton and another 8 million+ voters cast their ballots as

Libertarians, Green Party Members, Independents, Write Ins or Others. (Please note: we do not 

have a two party system, just not enough people participating in other parties.) Anyway, when

you deduct those voters, that leaves us 83,562,525 eligible voters who DID NOT VOTE for either

lack of interest, lack of enthusiasm, or a general lack of concern. If you are one of those please take 

serious note, your voice is needed. Neither major party candidate received 80 million votes. What 

a difference you could have made! 

AND THE APATHY CRIPPLES IN OTHER WAYS TOO! 

Not only are citizens not voting, they are not stepping up to the plate to lead. Getting good candidates 
to run for office is next to impossible. In Arcadia, an open City Council seat drew 1 candidate. To 
the surprise of no one, the city canceled the election and just appointed the candidate to the vacant 
seat. (See story on page 5). 

In Sierra Madre, there is a vacancy for the office of City Clerk waiting to be filled. At press time 
there has been only 1 candidate to date, (there is still time to apply). The City Clerk vacancy doesn’teven require that you go through the election process for the next two years. 

And Yet……everybody wants to whine and complain about what is going on. 

BY THE WAY - MOSES WAS A LUCKY MAN! 

Timing is everything! It is a good thing that Moses, who was floated down the river WITHOUTPAPERS, didn’t live during the reign of Donald Trump. Whether you are Christian, Jewish, Islamic,
or an atheist, you probably know the story. Truth is, Moses was an undocumented migrant forall intents and purposes when he was rescued from the river. No one knew who he was or where 
he came from. When Pharaoh’s sister rescued him he was spared from certain death based on adecree from Pharaoh that all Hebrew boys be killed. Unbeknownst to her, the baby was in fact a 
Hebrew but her ignorance of that fact saved his life. In fact, Moses grew up to be a great prophetand historical figure whose legacy has lasted thousands of years and helped millions. Lot to learn 
from Moses’ story. One thing it brings to light in view of what is going on in this country regardingthe children who were brought into this country illegally by their parents, is how ridiculous andinhumane it is to hold a child accountable for the actions of their parents. (His mother turned himinto a migrant by sending him adrift with no ID in case you didn’t get it). Imagine kicking baby 
Moses out of the country because he didn’t have documentation! Would Trump and Company have 
put the baby back in the basket to drift on down the stream? And, take a look at what happenswhen a person isn’t judged based upon who people think they are or how they think they will act.
Moses grew up to do great things. Could someone send this as a reminder to the President and 
those in Congress who want to deport approximately 700,000 children (some who are now adults),
to where?, a country they have never known. Disgraceful. 

And last but certainly not least - Trump’s New Immigration Offer (at least as of Friday. It is subject 
to be totally different by Saturday morning!): He’s making an offer. Save 1.8 million Dreamers 
he won’t deport. The number of Dreamers has been 700,00 since the day he was sworn in. What 
did Trump do, count the undocumented workers on his various Trump resort and other businesspayrolls? 

People, this is our country from top to bottom and we have to get serious and take an interest in ourfutures. To quote my favorite teacher, Mrs. Hamilton, “Now you think about that”! 


LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN
TYRADES BY GRAHAM F. WEST 
DANNY TYREE 


THE FALSE CHOICE BETWEEN

STOP MISREPRESENTING THE 

THE DREAMERS AND

STATUE OF LIBERTY! 

THE MILITARY 

They’ll do it every time.

 Whenever Joe Sixpack (or Joe’s congressman) gingerly raisesWhile it is a pleasant surprise that last weekend’s shutdown was resolvedthe subject of hiring extra border guards, tweaking our brokenso quickly, there is hardly time for a sigh of relief. In just a few shortsystem of monitoring work visas or fine-tuning our vetting ofweeks, the latest continuing resolution will run out - leaving the government without funds once 


more. 

refugees from terrorist-infested countries, the cliché knee-jerk 

Before that happens, it’s critical to establish that Republicans presented a fundamentally false

responses are swift.

choice in last weekend’s battle: that between the DREAMers and our military.

Copycat editorial cartoonists, sanctimonious talk-show hosts and professional

The DREAMers are Americans in all but name. The term comes from the DREAM Act, a 

agitators bombard us with caricatures of an immigrant-loathing Statue of Liberty

years-old legislative effort to protect a group of people who were brought to the United States as

and parodies of Emma Lazarus’s 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus” (“Give me your

children - that is, not by their choice. Thanks to an Obama-era program called DACA (Deferred

tired, your poor, your huddled masses…”).

Action for Childhood Arrivals), DREAMers were able to apply for a sort of temporary citizenship

Joe and his ilk are savagely branded as haters and xenophobes and violators of

contingent on high standards of academic and career achievement as well as law-abiding behavior.

sacred promises.

These 800,000 men and women are woven into communities across the nation, many of them

But “The New Colossus” is not a covenant Moses brought down from Mount

now having children who are Americans. Hundreds of DREAMers serve in our military, and still

Sinai. It is not an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a landmark Supreme Court

more work in local government, philanthropy, public safety, and every other profession. Theyruling, an executive order, a treaty, a trade pact or even a local zoning ordinance.represent no economic or security threat to our nation - in fact, they benefit us all in both ways

It is a poem. It is an inspirational poem that has stood the test of time (althoughand more. 
most people remember only about 13 words of it), but it is still just a poem. It is notUnfortunately, they are now at risk because last September, Attorney General Jeff Sessionsa contract that leaves Joe legally and morally bound to suffer public shaming at therescinded DACA, their only legal protection. DACA is set to phase out officially by March, andwhim of elitists living in gated communities.with President Trump’s draconian Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chomping at“The New Colossus” no more obligates Joe to accept wide-open borders thanthe bit to expel more people from the country, their futures are in a terrifying legal limbo.
Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” means I must surrender my 10 acresThis is part of the reason for last week’s shutdown: Democrats refused to authorize fundingof private property to vagrants or “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” mandates thatwithout a permanent fix for the DREAMers. The Republican Party, which controls both chamberssomeone owes me peanuts and Crackerjacks.of Congress and the White House, could not pass a bill alone due to a split between immigrationThe “Dreamers” rightly assert that they had no choice in being brought into thehardliners and moderates. Naturally then, the Democrats argued that any bipartisan budget deal

U.S. illegally by their parents. Similarly, no one living today had any input into 
must take into account both parties’ priorities, including protection for the DREAMers.
The Republicans - most loudly President Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, whose
Emma Lazarus’s stanzas. No one living had veto power over the War Department

ending of DACA and inability to control his own members, respectively, precipitated the crisis in

bureaucrat who accepted the plaque of “The New Colossus” in 1903. No one has ever

the first place - chose a less honest portrayal of the problem. Time and again, they accused Senate

gotten to vote in a referendum about the values expressed in the poem.

Democrats of ‘playing politics’ with funding for our military and, by extension, our national

Let’s use the trendy “living document” theory on Lazarus’s poem. She wrote with

security.

no idea that we would amass a national debt in the trillions, that gangs would fight

This is partly spurious because the Department of Defense does not completely shut down

with machine guns, that greedy employers would abuse H-1B visas, that some

even when the government does. Worldwide U.S. military operations continue, and many

immigrants would refuse assimilation in the American “melting pot,” that some new

(though not all) employees are deemed ‘essential’ and protected from furlough. There are however

arrivals would try to retain their own legal system, that intoxicated undocumented

consequences for military and DoD civilian pay - namely that it stops during the shutdown and

immigrants would kill pedestrians with a “car,” that terrorists could walk across the

only arrives later as backpay, a burden for those living paycheck to paycheck.
border just as easily as refugees genuinely fleeing poverty or political torture.So the meat of the Republican attack was not just that Democrats were leaving the nation

Let’s use some common sense where hospitality is concerned. Even if you arevulnerable, but that they were willing to hose the troops for a bunch of illegal immigrants too.
sincere when you tell a friend “Drop by for a visit when you’re in town” or “LetExcept that it was actually the Republican Party who kept the troops from being paid in the firstme know if there’s any way I can help in your time of grief,” your friend shouldplace.
bargain in good faith and not abuse your generosity. Likewise, let us assume there’sAfter the funding clock ran out last Friday night, Missouri’s Democratic Senator Clairean implicit “Reasonable restrictions apply” clause in Lazarus’s invitation.McCaskill put forth a bill to ensure that military members would keep getting paid. Such

Citizens advocating a careful, sensible approach to immigration are being vilifiedlegislation was proposed and passed with flying, bipartisan colors during the last shutdown inas the moral equivalent of the politicians who shamelessly broke treaties with Native2013. Nevertheless, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (a Republican, of Kentucky)
Americans. refused to even allow a vote on the measure. 

But if we Americans are bullied into sacrificing our security, our economic stability,There is publicly available video from the Senate floor of the Republican Party refusingour rule of law and our best traditions, immigrants will be arriving in an America farto ensure pay for our military members - yet they still had the gall to attack Democrats fordays afterwards as hostile to national security. And what’s more, based on President Trump’s

worse than the one they dreamed of. We will be perpetuating a shameful bait-and


recent tweets lumping in the word “military” with discussions of immigration and border

switch scam. 

security, it will likely be the same attack line next time around.

And in the process, people already living in America will become the tired, the

Thankfully, the American people know better than to believe this lie. And with support

poor, the huddled masses. 

for DACA and the DREAMers at an all-time high, they also know better than to fund the

-

deportation of good people who have known no country but the one we share for their

. Danny welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook

whole lives. If the government heads for shutdown once more, the Democratic Party

fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” 

must stand firm against these bad-faith arguments by the very people who are creatingthe problem - and that means soundly rejecting the Republicans’ false choice between theDREAMers and the military. 
-

Follow us online at 
www.mtnviewsnews.com 
Graham F. West is the Communications Director for Truman Center for National 
Policy and Truman National Security Project, though views expressed here are his own.
You can reach West at gwest@trumancnp.org. 

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com