The Debbie Blog

The Trump policy is new.  Separating families of those caught entering illegally is a brand-new practice.  And it's terrible. There are, however, some misconceptions.  Primarily about asylum seekers.  I was under the impression, based on the media, that asylum seekers' kids were also being separated.  Until I had a conversation with a public affairs officer within US Customs Protection and Border Patrol. This is how it works: Families who come into the US through a port of entry who are seeking asylum are vetted by the Border Patrol.  They go through an identification process, a medical screening process, and a criminal background check.  They're fingerprinted.  If they have medical issues, they receive medical attention.  If they have lice, they must go through a delousing process.  The officer explained to me that sometimes people coming in for asylum have children with them who are not theirs and sometimes accompanied with a not...

The American experiment has failed.   While it is widely believed and taught in US schools that our founding fathers attempted to consider all the ways our country could end up with an imbalance of power, and that they employed every possible strategy available to safeguard against that in the drafting of our Constitution, there were several ways they failed in that regard.   Within the original Constitution, slavery was legal, businesses were unregulated, and only property owners had the right to vote.   As our society progressed, these oversights were corrected via amendments to our Constitution and laws enacted by changing those who could vote to all free white men, then leaving it up to the states, then black men, then women.    Throughout the progression of voting rights in the United States, a variety of restrictions and methods of intimidation were employed to keep certain segments of the population from voting, including barring Indigenous Ameri...

With the high drama taking place in our government in crisis, I felt it necessary to travel to Delphi, climb the mountain and consult the great Oracle.  The Oracle told me that the following will occur with regard to the Mueller investigation: 1.  Trump will attempt to have Deputy AG Rosenstein fire Robert Mueller as Special Prosecutor.  Rosenstein stated in his Congressional testimony that Mueller is doing a superb job and he has no cause to fire him.  Rosenstein stated this because he was under oath and it’s the truth.  Rosenstein made it very clear in his testimony that he is not willing to go to prison or lose his license by undertaking an order from Trump to fire Mueller when there is no cause to do so. 2.  Rosenstein will be fired by Trump.  Trump will attempt to replace Rosenstein and have a difficult time doing so.  They will be unable to find an attorney who is willing to risk indictment, prison or loss of his or her law license....

MacArthur Park. Image Source: City of Los Angeles . If one were to look at the media portrayals of the City of Los Angeles, it is a city basking in good fortune, beautiful people, fantastic weather, and safety for undocumented workers – opportunities abound.  It is portrayed as a city that is unified in its support for the Dodgers, unified in its compassion for the less fortunate, and a fantastic example of how social justice and government can work together in creating a utopic society.  Mayor Garcetti’s public appearances and statements seem to support this perception. This portrayal is right out of Hollywood, ironically.  It is completely false.  For example, the image above is of MacArthur Park taken from the City of Los Angeles website. It looks beautiful in this photo.  What you aren't seeing are the hundreds of homeless who live in MacArthur Park on a daily basis. I'm not sure if they were asked to leave for the photo, or if the magic of Photos...

People on the right-end of the political spectrum believe that to stop Islamist-based terrorism, the US has to: 1.  Restrict Muslim immigration to the US 2.  Engage in military solutions and bomb them into extinction Both approaches are not only wrong, but they serve to grow this threat.  Islamist-based terrorism is powered by an ideology that is so vast, there is no way to eliminate the ideology by eliminating the people who subscribe to said ideology.  There are people who subscribe to this ideology all over the world, in every country on this planet.  The leaders of these movements who support this ideology have the power of the Internet to reach potential allies in every nook and cranny.  There is no end in sight to quelling this ideology with force.  There is no military solution to this dilemma. There are hundreds of thousands of US citizens who are Muslim and while most are peaceful and do not subscribe to the Islamist ideology of extreme...