BUILD WALL, END SHUTDOWN AND ADDRESS IMMIGRATION
By MARK WOHLANDER
Posted Monday, January 14, 2019
Build the wall, the fence, the barrier, or whatever name members of Congress believe is necessary to get the job done; and please, please end the shutdown. End the suffering; end the more than 70,000 reported drug overdose deaths in 2017 alone. End the billions of dollars in drug money which is being spent each year to purchase drugs from the drug cartels, cartels which do not care about the devastation which has been brought to our communities as a result of selfish and childish members of Congress who are unwilling to do their jobs. End the billions of dollars which are being smuggled out of the country each year, billions of dollars which end up in the coffers of drug cartels, cartels which do not care who lives or who dies from the poison which is destroying America.
Build the wall, the fence, the barrier, or whatever name members of Congress need to call it and begin to get the job done, begin to address the immigration problem in America. It is time for our selfish and childish members of Congress to end the name calling, and instead of throwing childish temper tantrums, it is time for members of Congress to begin to act like adults.
It is not only time to end the impasse and name calling by members of Congress, it is time to bring the millions of immigrants living and working in America out of the shadows and finally address their status. It is time to create a legal status for these individuals, a status which would allow them to begin assimilating into our communities. If nothing else, and from a purely selfish point of view, it is time to bring them out of the shadows of our communities, so they can begin to pay federal, state and local taxes which will alleviate the costs for all taxpayers and the communities where they now live in the shadows.
As part of the debate over immigration and the wall, all Americans should ask themselves the rhetorical question of just exactly what could be the single reason which has contributed to today’s unwillingness of members of Congress to act like adults? Well, at the risk of oversimplifying the likely reason, could it just be the more than 26 billion dollars which the more than 11,000 lobbyists have spent to literally influence the votes of members of Congress, and members of every legislative body in America since 2010?
In the words of Andrew Jackson, “I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.” One is left to wonder how many members of Congress consider that what they do when they accept money from a lobbyist is nothing more than barter away the rights of the people, the rights of all Americans without any concern for the impact on every community across America.
Sadly, unless your head has been buried in the sand these past few days, an example of government corruption at its worst is the recent trip by members of Congress under the guise of investigating a matter of utmost importance to the American public on the beaches of Puerto Rico, an event attended by more than 100 lobbyists, an event which should sicken all Americans. More importantly, this political junket under the guise of a fact-finding trip should be especially offensive to the more than 800,000 dedicated public servants who do not know how they are going to put food on the table this week or pay the rent as result of the shutdown.
The question which all Americans need to ask these members of Congress, and every member of Congress on both sides of the aisle who accept these paid junkets under the guise of investigating this or that so-called important matter, is have you no shame? These members of Congress must really think that American voters are stupid. Or worse yet, these members of Congress simply do not care.
So, at the risk of offending all those members of Congress who have chosen to corrupt themselves and barter away the rights of the people to line their pockets with lobbyist dollars and corrupt themselves without any concern for the rights of the people who voted them into office, it is time for all Americans to say that it is time to build the wall, the fence, the barrier, or whatever name members of Congress believe is necessary to get job done; it is time to address immigration; it is time to end the shutdown.
So, as I often do, I would invite each of you to join me on my imaginary mountaintop, a place where all Americans can join me and shout as loudly as possible to all members of Congress that it time build the wall, the fence, the barrier, or whatever name members of Congress believe is necessary to get job done; it is time for members of Congress to stop acting like children; it is time for members of Congress to act like adults; it is time to address immigration; and, it is time end the shutdown and send 800,000 dedicated public servants back to work.
Oh, and by the way, if you decide to join me on my imaginary mountaintop, take a moment to listen closely and you might just hear Andrew Jackson as he weeps loudly as he looks down on the halls of Congress and those members of Congress who have chosen to barter away the rights of Americans for a few pieces of silver.
