Trying to negotiate with Jell-O.

• 

As of the writing of this post, the American government is still officially shutdown. 

Both sides are pointing the fingers and playing the blame game, but I think that Stevie Wonder can see who is at fault here. Of course it's the man who says that he is the greatest deal- maker of all time.

His deal making skills clearly leaves a lot to be desired, because those in his own party have no clue what he wants, and those on the other side of the table declared that dealing with him is like trying to negotiate with Jell-O.  Let's face it, all trump knows how to do is play us versus them, and demonize his opponents.

The latest example of this is the trump campaign ad being played around the shutdown. Instead of coming to the table with dems and trying to find real solutions, the president is running a misleading ad that implies that democrats are complicit in murders committed by illegal immigrants.

Go figure, it's the latest in a long line of political scare tactics that is used by republicans and those on the right to scare their mostly white base into voting for them. As if somehow their tougher laws will shield white Americans from the black and brown bogeymen out there. 

The sad part about all of this is that the facts and statistics speak to a totally different reality:

Trump has repeatedly sought to paint immigrants as dangerous, talking about transnational gangs, such as MS-13, and implementing a travel ban on travelers from some countries in the Middle East and Africa over what he said were concerns about terrorism.

But some studies have shown that immigrants, including those here illegally, commit crimes at lower rates than do native-born Americans.

For example, a March 2017 study by the pro-immigration Cato Institute found that “all immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population” and that “even illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans.”

As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker reported in 2015, one study showed that between 1990 and 2013, “the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent and the number of unauthorized immigrants more than tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.

“During the same period, FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent – which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary,” according to the American Immigration Council.

The violent crime rate was cut nearly by half during a period in which unauthorized immigrants tripled, according to the council."

Facts are wonderful things. It's a shame that they are antithetical to our president and his minions.

(Dear white people living in America, you are more likely to be hit by a meteorite than you are to be attacked by a MS-13 gang member.) 

I am almost finished with my post and the government is still shutdown. I feel bad for the folks who will be affected by this, and I hope that the politricksters in Washington can work something out in a reasonable manner.

Wait, did I just say that? Sorry folks, for just a minute there I forgot that Donald trump is the president of these divided states of America.  Reasonable and that guy just does not go together.