Enough

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Okay, enough of this stupid shit that has been going on since our election.  I can almost not stand the news on a daily basis.  If you are comfortable with what has been going on, then you must either be an ass, arrogant, or ignorant.  Or all three. I guess, after reading Rod’s comment, total lack of concern could be an excuse.

I heard that Muhammad Ali’s son was held up at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport by immigration authorities.  Do you understand that?  Muhammad Ali’s son, who is Muslim, and an American, with a US passport, was detained returning from Jamaica with his mother.   The guy is a millionaire, inheriting a huge amount from his father’s estate.  And, once again, an American.   And his issue was his religion.  We can not tolerate this.

Now our immigration problem.  I’ve been looking around about immigration and the majority of our illegal immigrants work in agriculture.  The numbers vary, but up to 78% of farm workers in many states are undocumented immigrants.  And we don’t have enough.  

Please feel free to comment here about your experiences of having bad experiences with undocumented workers.  Jobs that you’ve lost, crimes against you personally. Any bad experience that you’ve personally experienced.  And use your real name when you comment.

I travel a ton and interact with lots of different people.  I’ve never had a bad experience or know of a crime against me, by an immigrant.   The “illegal immigrants” I’ve had the pleasure to meet, have been super nice, polite and, I think, add to the ability to live comfortably in our country.

Plus, who out there thinks building a very expensive wall is going to address the immigrant issue one bit? Anyone? 20 billion dollars well spent?

Mr. Trump is calling the deportation of immigrants a “military operation”.  Huh?

I don’t personally know a person that would like a job that is currently being done by a illegal immigrant.    Feel free to comment about the job you’d like to be doing, except for so many immigrants doing them.

We, here in the US, have many problems.  But the stupid shit President Trump has been addressing aren’t those problems.

Transgender kids.  Anyone out there had a problem here? Other than the kids that are struggling experiencing this?

How about dismantling the EPA?  I sure don’t like clean air or water.   Or all other environmental regulations.

How about not allowing certain press to attend daily briefings at the White House?  Or this “fake news” rhetoric?    I don’t think that Mr. Trump understands the need for press in our society.  If he is so worried about fake news, then he should just stop talking so much.

Americans, historically, have taken pride in being fair.  And treating others fairly.  At least trying to.  We’re doing neither now.  Just because we were born here, doesn’t make us entitled to treat others badly. Especially poor people, with little options.

Don’t be leaving comments about sticking to cycling here.  We all have a personal mandate to speak up for those that don’t have that ability.   President Trump isn’t doing that.  He is doing exactly the opposite.  He is a horrible reflection of what a true American is all about.

What he is trying to do, so far, isn’t what needs to be addressed in our country.  It is embarrassing on so many levels.  More than embarrassing, it is scary.

Want this job?

156 thoughts on “Enough

  1. Bryan Barber

    Because a huge amount of Americans prefer to make their own health decisions and would rather the government stay the fuck out of it.

     
  2. Larry T

    You nailed it! Back when W was prez we introduced ourselves in Italy as Americans…to not frowns, but not smiles either, until we said, “But we’re against Bush” which then brought out the smiles…and more. When Obama was prez (or Clinton before) the response was overwhelmingly, “We LOVE your president!” and this was during the time they had “Bunga Bunga” Berlusconi who was Trump without the nukes. We’ve already received the “WTF? How could you elect a guy like this?” emails from our Italian friends and we’ll have to face them soon with, “Well, like you didn’t vote for Berlusconi, we didn’t vote for Trump.” But we’re stuck with him just the same. Gawd help us all.

     
  3. Tim

    I live in California and have had many interactions with illegal immigrants — generally laborers. They have all been positive. They are hard working people.
    However, there are an awful lot of people in our country who are not working and could be. Maybe some of them should be out in the fields picking vegetables or pruning fruit trees. It might be the best thing that ever happened to them. Suppose you lose a hundred pounds and start feeling better about yourself. I know not everybody could do this, but necessity is the mother of invention as they say. I am going to keep an open mind on this as it appears that is the direction we are headed.

     
  4. Tim

    It is “advice” not advise, and he probably works harder at what he does than you do at whatever it is you do.

     
  5. Tim

    It sounds like you probably have a good health insurance policy through your job. A lot of people don’t and are at the mercy of the market, which can be downright cruel if allowed.

     
  6. Rick

    Right, because conservative, Christian values align with a man who brags about grabbing women by their genitals. Just like Jesus.

     
  7. Bill K

    Mark…What “massive” problems???????…More Europeans die falling out of bed that are killed by “foreigners”.

     
  8. Glen A Miller

    Couldn’t agree more Steve Tilford.
    I’ve got all the same complaints and then some extras. Most people say I have no right to complain because I don’t vote but I tend to go along with the late George Carlin’s philosophy in that those who vote someone in office actually have no right to complain, leaving those that don’t vote all the right in the world to.
    As for Mr Trump, the man’s been caught in so many lies within such a short stint in office without the slightest mention of impeachment it boggles the mind and is a huge slap in the face to much more loved and worldly past leaders of ours. Case in point, former President Clinton. He got takes over the coals for something that should’ve been handled in-house meaning within their family and not the political supreme Court’s with the inevitable impeachment over one lie that had nothing to do with worldly matters, not like all the controversial crap swirling around this bafoon.
    I swear when he was running for office it was actually a joke but as he gained popularity he figured ‘why not’ and went for it. He was a huge joke surfing the primaries and he’s an even bigger one now in office and I don’t understand why no one’s doing anything about it.
    I realize I’m not a political person and don’t know much about how this crap works but, if the public vote one IN office, why can’t the public vote someone OUT!? Am I that stupid or does this make too much sense?

     
  9. Bryan Barber

    Right-on, Tim!
    I live in Southern California along with 1,000,000+ illegal Mexican immigrants. That’s about 10% of the entire country just in Southern California. Southern Californian’s have a higher quality of life (“live comfortably” as Steve said) than the rest of the country does in good part to a black market of cheap Mexican labor. We have cheap houses, cheap food, cheap cleaners, cheap landscapers… of course we don’t want that to go away, no one in California does. (Or Texas)
    The problem is, since we are a country that balances laws and liberty, these illegals are very vulnerable because they don’t have the protection of the law.
    I work in residential construction which is massively comprised of illegal labor. When you employ illegal immigrants you pay them cash(under the table). This means, no workers comp, no insurance, no payroll tax and nobody to complain about it. Even if you decide not to pay them. About 10% of illegals have college degrees. About 40% have high school diplomas. Typically, no money, no education and no skills puts them in a very difficult position to assimilate in our society.
    Most of the people I’ve worked with in the last 20 years are Mexican. More than half of my riding friends are Mexican. Most illegal immigrant Mexicans are great fucking people, Most Mexicans are great fucking people! But none of that justifies are broken immigration position. Illegal immigration is a bad thing for our country. That doesn’t mean people who are here illegally are bad people. It just means they broke the rules to get here. And as fair minded people it goes against our form to allow this to continue. It just doesn’t make sense!
    Can we at least start by agreeing on deporting illegal immigrants who are also convicted felon’s?

     
  10. Bill

    First of all less than 12% work in agriculture. The rest work in construction, retail, manufacturing or where ever they can find work. Secondly, everyone one of them is committing a crime because they use fraudulent documents, including SS numbers and DL’s to get employment. Its a widespread use of identity theft.
    Over 1 million of them are convicted of serious crimes.
    They burden our hospitals and schools. When your kids teacher is spending the bulk of their time dealing with kids who don’t speak English, then the rest of the kids are getting shortchanged on their education. I saw this first hand with my own kids.
    The line about them paying taxes is also overstated. In fact in California, over 1 million illegals are non-filers, which means they haven’t paid their taxes. They know the scam about declaring maximum deductions and then don’t pay what is owed. They don’t care because they’re using someone else social security number. Hope your number isn’t getting used when it comes time to get your benefits. You’re going to have to prove the money was contributed by you.
    Mexicans remit 25 Billions dollars a year back to Mexico, which is money not spent in our economy. That impacts job creation.
    Finally, we have a system in place for legal immigration. People wait for years to come to this county and now cannot because we have to slash legal immigration because 12-15 million people jumped to the front of the line.
    Either we are a country of laws or we become no better than the corrupt countries in the world where law enforcement is bought and paid for.
    I hope you realize that Mexico is not only shipping their own people North, but facilitating the movement of thousands of illegals from other countries. There are currently thousands of Haitians in Tijuana trying to get across. Guess who let them stay? Mexico, which isn’t even bothering to enforce their own immigration laws.
    ENFORCE THE LAWS!!

     
  11. Steve Tilford Post author

    Bill – I disagree with you on many levels. Our agricultural industry would fail miserable without “illegal immigrants” working.

    Here’s what I found, without much looking –

    In terms of overall numbers, The Department of Labor reports that of the 3.5 million farm workers in the U.S., over half (53 percent) are illegal immigrants. Growers and labor unions put this figure at 70 percent.

    And –

    The chief actuary of the Social Security Administration claims that undocumented workers have contributed close to 10% ($300 billion) of the Social Security Trust Fund.

    Those numbers don’t jibe with what you posted. Whatever your issues are, it is a fact that we, as a country, need these people to work here. No one else will do their jobs if they are deported. It isn’t that hard to understand.

     
  12. Bryan Barber

    Steve,
    Agro moved to California from the Midwest because of cheap labor that were treated nearly as bad as slaves. Now an industry has grown in California that depends on cheap labor that can’t afford to participate like normal Americans. This is crazy disfunctional and has put thousands of hardcore American independent farming families out of business to boot.

     
  13. Steve Tilford Post author

    Bryan – I don’t really know enough about it to disagree. I do know that in California, there has always been “cheap labor”. And they grow much different crops than what we do in the Midwest. And that is the situation we currently live in.

    If you want to try to make the undocumented immigrants legal, then that should be the focus. But deporting them, when they are an integral part of the system is not prudent. Not for anyone involved.

    I was going to look up and state that independent farming families have been put out of business from corporate farming. But that isn’t the case. Here’s what I found.

    96.4 percent of the crop-producing farms in the U.S. are owned by families, and they represent 87 percent of all the agricultural value generated.

    So, you’re statement that agriculture has left the Midwest because of cheap labor can’t be true if close to 100% of the farming is done by family farming.

    It is an undisputed fact that a certain amount of immigrants are needed here in the US. To do the jobs that they are currently doing. Treating them like criminals and thieves is complete utter bullshit. That isn’t what they are.

     
  14. Rey Ellin

    I always loved your stand about doping, but this makes you even a better human. If americans (whites) knew what many imigrants do to work here. I worked in the fields in Calexico 25 years ago, I had it easy drove a tractor, the wotk there is so back breaking is nuts. The 4am start, 60 hr work week no overtime but at least you get a pee break.
    Most people don’t understand, that if you petition to bring a family member to the US the wait is around 20 years.
    Now the whole religion thing is insane, I’m very far from religious. But I try to get along with everyone. But blanket statemens are wrong and acomplish noghing. When you are a fringe group, for whatever reason. You have to take stand, because at firstvus the fringe group, then the famlies, after that friends and so on. The you reward, the ones that turn people in.
    Remember this was the same party(person), that obama was not a citizen. That he had fema camps, all the weapons were going to be confiscated and so on.
    I’m sure some are bitter that a robot is now working in a plant some were. No more public lynchings, or the not allowed signs. But that America is never coming back, Mayberry is dead get over it.
    Enough rant.

     
  15. Bryan Barber

    I don’t have any evidence to back it up but I believe most of those families are multimillionaire mega farmers and the number of individual self sustaining family farms has been drastically reduced over the past several decades.
    You are absolutely correct no one is going to move their family from Michigan to a mobile home in California to pick strawberries for nine dollars an hour. If we could import a few million Chinese people we could build cars better than Japanese and cheaper and we could dominate the auto industry as well.

     
  16. JP

    Dude it’s not 20 years or even close to that. Stop the exaggerating. There is a legal process and it works. Follow it. I am married to, and have another first gen immigrant in my house. There are a couple of hoops to jump through, but it isn’t that bad. Too much misinformation passed around.

    Trump is married to a first gen immigrant!!!

    I sort of agree with the other stuff you said though

     
  17. JP

    Ask a European citizen. Many of them don’t like Trump, but they are unified in their dislike for the open borders. “It’s a Big problem” I’ve heard from family and co workers living in London and Germany.

     
  18. carlos

    Barb,

    have you actually spent some time in Europe? What you write is totally misinformed. You don’t have a clue.

     
  19. Brian Davies

    The pot needs to be stirred. Every day, for the next 4 years.
    His chief advisor was the head of Nazi news source.
    His head of education is a rich idiot with no experience, that just asked if children should get lunch.
    His vice president thinks that gays can be “cured”.
    He is trying to get rid of the EPA.
    Every new edict he throws down is more childish/bullying than the last. What good does taking away protections for trans students do? Why abolish the ACA, without a replacement? Why detain foreign nationals, from ANY country?

    As for “biting your tongue” while Obama *actually* improved the state of our country – do tell what things upset you. Job growth? Gas prices dropping? Improved relations with most of the world? Or is just that he’s brown, and that makes you angry?

     
  20. Brian Davies

    Yeah Steve – what about assholes that base all their major decisions on a really old book of fiction, that are, pretty much NEVER moral, or in line with said book of fiction?
    Alternately, what about good-hearted all-American racists, bigots, and misogynistic scumbags? And pedophiles?! They’ve got things in common with the Prez – what about their thoughts and feelings?!?!

     
  21. Martin

    “Formpayinf” Really? Your post is nonsense, at least put some effort in if you feel the need to weigh in.

     
  22. Bryan Barber

    Many white people voted for Obama to help bridge conflicts between white and black in our country. Whether or not this was Obamas intention, he failed miserably!
    Massive humanitarian failure in Syria.
    Obama care is a massive failure! Everyone’s premiums have gone up substantially except for those with pre-existing conditions and those who didn’t have insurance to begin with. That is unsustainable. If you’re a white person and you speak out against Obama you’re immediately branded a racist. So, White people bite their tongue.

     
  23. Bryan Barber

    So you’re playing the military vet card in order to tell someone else not to play the military vet card? Is that not hypocrisy?

     
  24. thomas prehn

    Mike

    Actually the report does not come the conclusion that “illegal immigration has a negative impact”. Some of the panelist make that point but other show that immigration has a positive impact on the US economy.

    I am glad that you are so concerned about low wage earners of color though!

     
  25. thomas prehn

    Mike
    I think it is Steve’s opinion that of those millions of us who are appalled by having a president that is so… (fill in the blank…), those of us that are not pleased are not going to wait 4 more years to make sure everyone knows.

     
  26. William Comer

    So Steve,

    Once again you refer to him being mean or saying mean things? Where was your moral outrage at the hollywood elites calling him “President Agent Orange” and other hateful names at the emmies? That is just one example.

    I’m proud I voted for pTrump and I hope every illegal alien (not undocumented immigrant as you liberals refer to them) criminals are rounded up and removed from this great country.

    I fully encourage them and would love to have them here through the legal channels.

     
  27. chuck martel

    Steve says: “Americans, historically, have taken pride in being fair. And treating others fairly. At least trying to. We’re doing neither now. Just because we were born here, doesn’t make us entitled to treat others badly. Especially poor people, with little options.”

    Tell that to the native Americans.

     
  28. ScottO

    Glenn and Mike
    This specific issue is not a “debate” – there is not another valid side to the “fake news” and “enemy of the people” issue.

    There is no moral relativism about how “all politicians lie” – Trump is a glib liar, he lies casually, he makes shit up during interviews and press conferences and doesn’t care when he’s corrected. He repeats things he hears that sound good to him without curiosity as to their truth. He doesn’t care about the truth.

    There can be no common ground when facts don’t matter.

    This is my big problem with this administration – policy needs to be grounded in facts, not opinions, and the administration is trying to grind truth into dust and turn all debate into popularity contest about “beliefs” – belief is for your house of worship, not for policy making.

    There is no freedom without truth. Do you care about the constitution? The dudes who wrote it were scientists, their faith lay with truth, science and progress. If your candidate acts like that doesn’t matter, their and your opinions don’t count.

     
  29. T.Lyle Ferderber

    Glenn, saying both sides do it can be a false equivalency: the right wins this one. You reference Obama: if you had been branded as a non-citizen, Muslim, non-Christian for hours of coverage, as well as “terrorist fist bumping” your wife, you too might call Fox “opinion” and not news. And when “liberals”, of non-Trump voters said something was up with the election, well, they may be right: the investigation has already uncovered enough for Flynn, Manafort and Page to resign and it is just getting started, in terms of Russia’s participation.

     
  30. orphan

    No agro moved to California because of the longer growing season and the aquifer for watering the crops.

     
  31. orphan

    Steve your right but what you haven’t thought about is who owns the land they are farming and how much of the profit they are taking. The family farmer owns very little land now. They rent or share crop. a family can still survive by farming if they do it right. They need to farm about 2000 acres to afford the equipment that it takes.

     
  32. John Armijo

    Steve- if your idea of doing research for your facts is from the internet, you’re wrong from the beginning. Educate yourself. You tend to just focus and spit back information that you only agree within. Open your mind.

    Do us a favor and get a job and contribute instead of just taking and complaining.

    Oh yeah, before you assume you know me, I didn’t vote for our current president. However, different than you he won the election and we need to support the office and President Trump.

     
  33. Steve Tilford Post author

    John – Sorry if I disappoint you with my “uneducated” posting. Do you ever watch the news? Do you think the things that Mr. Trump has done the last month is presidential? I care less about your political view, the guy is not reflective of what we Americans deserve from a president. Even a bunch of Republican senators and congressmen have nearly jumped ship, which is almost unheard of this day and age. I predict it gets worse, not better. Maybe then you might take notice?

     
  34. Chapo

    Our country has been screaming for changes to the “same old” politicians in Washington and now that we have it they can’t handle the change. We weren’t on a good path and i’m willing to have an open mind here.

    The media at best is full of half truths and i am tired of being told how to think by them. We Americans deserve our laws to be enforced and not to be taken advantage of by freeloaders like you Steve.

     
  35. Steve Tilford Post author

    Chapo – I have to say I disagree with your comment on many levels. But, it is America and you can post what you want, as I can. I was just wondering about you last sentence. I was wondering if I know you? I assume not. Either way, that’s fine. Let me know what you think I’m doing that classifies me as a ‘freeloader”. Just interested in your qualifications for this. I assume you meant it in a derogatory way? I’m not pissed, just wondering.

     
  36. numbnuts

    all mostly hype and fear mongering… america makes a lot of money from both…

    without immigrants, who would work the farming jobs? americans won’t work for under 12 bucks an hour that’s for sure. Most americans can’t fartt without putting up a sweat.

     
  37. Barb

    I’m citing facts, it has nothing to do with me or what you consider being self-righteous…, all you have to do is read the news from a variety of sources (I’ll repeat that, from a variety of sources -not just from bike websites) and the “real news” becomes evident. Do you see any old people in this video? and NO, this is not the only source for this information.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAivyEazJQ0
    “Even their parents are alarmed”
    It’s only a logical idea, that it could happen here. You need to take your head out of the bike stand for a minute and look around.

     
  38. Barb

    Isn’t creationism annoying? LOL Not to mention the idea that science will be rejected and suppressed. That’s what they did in the Dark Ages.

     
  39. Barb

    Here you go, do you think the parents are out doing this shit? This is SECOND OR THIRD GENERATION.

     

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