Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 2-8-18 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, February 8, 2018
In My Opinion
Breaking down the president's NState of the Union address
ewspaper deadlines being bonuses are crumbs. what they are, we fully Perhaps the rarified realize that by now The air of living such a
Fred Hall
sheltered, privileged life in San Francisco has affected her thinking.
Repatriated money, again because of
tax reform, will be returned to The
Fred Hall - Publisher Keven J. Geaney - Editor
President's State of the Union speech will have been analyzed to death by the pompous pundits from media and politicians as well. There has been much wailing about the perception of these learned people that there was not enough effort on the part of the President to “reach across the aisle” when it was blatantly obvious that those on the other side already had their negatively charged minds set. The “resistance.”
Let's begin with the fact that Donald Trump delivered precisely what the speech was entitled to represent. It
is a time set aside when the chief executive is scheduled to deliver
a report on THE STATE OF THE UNION. An area, in my opinion, where he did exceedingly well. It was never intended as an hour, set aside, for the leader of the country to pander to the opposition party. Accent this year is on opposition because they seem to oppose every thing which Mr. Trump says or does.
Tom Brokaw, from his perch at
the NBC news desk pontificated that perhaps the time had come to put an end to this annual ritual. He was so disappointed that Mr. Trump had not delivered on what this television has- been and Democrat operative, deemed as appropriate.
How else can one explain the lack of applause or any type of recognition when glowing reports are delivered on the almost euphoric state of the economy or the growing employment statistics in terms of ethnicity? Both black and hispanic job figures should make all Americans—as well as the media and politicians—smile. What's not to like? Can keeping the borders wide open be that important to Democrats?
Let's face it. The stock market was setting records, almost on a daily basis until the recent profit taking, meaning that 401 (K)'s for average people are experiencing a healthy growth. Tax reform will soon be placing more money in almost everyone's paycheck. That very same tax reform has resulted in many workers, throughout the economy, receiving pay raises and bonuses. This has led Nancy Pelosi,
of California, to declare that $1,000
The Truth Hurts
ATlways prepare for the worst
United States and invested in job
and infrastructure growth. Some firms have announced they will
be returning their plants to this country. Remember that President Obama famously declared that was impossible—even with a magic wand. Perhaps if he had used economic common sense instead of a liberal tax and spend magic wand he would have discovered that it is possible.
Ask yourself, just what do Trump's opposition from Democrats, media and “never Trumpers” actually stand for. Surely it must run deeper than the well being of millions of illegal aliens compared to hundreds of millions of American citizens. Personally it seems Trump has it just about right—America and Americans first! The Democrats have what seems to be a good solid offer on the table to take care of over a million of the so called dreamers.
Trump must be careful in
dealing with Democrat leadership
on this issue. Previously we've
seen Republican Presidents make concessions based on promises of a balancing, offsetting agreement which would be implemented later. Just give us what we want now and we'll take care of you later. Guess what? With these people that will never happen—whether it deals with tax cuts or promises of citizenship for illegals we've been there, done that and got burned!
I don't know about you but I was personally relieved that our President did not use the personal pronoun “I” 150 times as his predecessor had done. Mr. Trump's personal choice was we and our—he used I only 29 times. So much for the liberal proclamation that he is narcissistic.
But, as always, that's only one man's opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Sentinel
Guest Column
What Trump wants on iImmigration is ethnic cleansing
’ll be honest: I didn’t watch Trump’s State of the those latter two provisions would cut Union address when it aired. legal immigration by nearly half. Half.
Instead, I put my baby to bed and watched And to get that, Trump’s ransomed
reality TV with my wife. If that rattled a few brain cells, hopefully I saved a few more by not guzzling the bourbon I’d set aside to steel myself for the speech.
The next day’s headlines put an end to this brief indulgence in self care.
Trump had extended an “open hand” to work with Democrats on immigration, they reported. He crowed that he’d come up with a “bipartisan approach”
that “should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise.”
The first part of the deal should sound familiar: Trump said he’d support “a path to citizenship” for nearly 1.8 million undocumented young people, or Dreamers, in exchange for his border wall.
What Trump didn’t say was that he’d already removed deportation protections from the 700,000 young
people who rely on the DACA program, which Trump unilaterally revoked. And he’d already rejected an offer by Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer to fund the wall in exchange for authorizing those same people.
Democrat Luis Gutierrez, perhaps the staunchest wall critic and immigrant advocate in the House, even said he’d “take a bucket, take bricks, and start building it myself” if it saved the Dreamers.
Trump’s about-face on that deal is why the government shut down this January.
Now Trump wants two more enormous concessions: an end to the so-called “diversity visa” program and the end of family reunification policies for documented immigrants who are already here.
Trump rattled off these demands like they
were perfectly reasonable — “a down-the-middle compromise,” he called them. They’re not. In fact, one former speech writer for the last White House called them “a white nationalist wish list.”
That’s because, according to immigration analysts,
Peter Certo
nearly 2 million Dreamers, whom 80 percent of Americans support legal status for.
He’s taking them hostage, he says, “because Americans are Dreamers, too.” All you need to know about that last remark is that former KKK leader
wo incidents last week made KEY pulled out while me realize I need to discuss shopping. Since then something crucial that I have I have been making
David Duke quoted it right back on Twitter, adding “Thank you, President Trump.”
Let’s put all this in context. Trump’s offering a fig leaf of legal status for a relatively small slice of the undocumented population. In return, he wants to permanently — and drastically — reduce the number of all immigrants who come to this country.
What Trump and his GOP backers want is ethnic cleansing.
It’s not just the Dreamers Trump has endangered, after all. He’s unleashed his ICE stormtroopers on hundreds of thousands of immigrants with no criminal backgrounds, often in hospitals, churches, and schools.
And wherever he can, he’s turned perfectly legal residents into deportable immigrants overnight.
With the stroke of a pen, he ended protections for 200,000 Salvadorans and 60,000 Haitians, while 57,000 Hondurans wait in limbo. And he’s brought refugee admissions to their lowest levels in over three decades, despite a global refugee crisis.
All that tracks perfectly for a guy who called darker- skinned countries “s—holes” and wondered why we can’t have more immigrants from Norway.
Democrats who’d offer a border wall in the face of all this miss the point: That “open hand” is full of poison pills.
Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of OtherWords.org.
learned over the years as a parent. I have learned that it only takes one time for something bad to happen and that you always need to be prepared for the worst.
The first incident that made me think about this was two Saturdays
ago when I took my daughter with me shopping. I used to bring her diaper bag, emergency backpack and suction machine with me everywhere I went. But now that she's trach-less I usually just bring a diaper bag with an extra MIC-KEY [a button attached to the stomach to connect a feeding tube] and supplies for it. Well, on this occasion
I was making a quick trip to the store so I just took my daughter and her feeding pump backpack. As it turned out, I needed her bag.
As we approached the minivan, after our trip to the store, I took my daughter out of the cart. As I lifted her up I noticed something hanging from her feeding bag and realized it was her MIC-KEY. The feeding line must have snagged on the cart and the MIC-KEY pulled out of the hole in her stomach.
I quickly laid my daughter down in the car to stop her stomach's contents from spilling out. I then frantically looked around the vehicle to see if I could find a syringe, but to no avail.
Note: A syringe is needed to take out the five milliliters of water in a balloon that goes into my daughter's stomach to hold the MIC-KEY device in place.
I quickly decided to put my daughter in her car seat and race back home, which was less than two miles away. My daughter even kept her hand covered over the hole to help prevent any leaking. I drove home faster than
I should have, and called my wife on the way. As I drove up to our house my wife was waiting to deflate the balloon, put the MIC-KEY back in, and inflate it.
The reason for quickly putting the MIC-KEY device back in is because we were told that after a half an hour the hole will start to close up on its own.
This was only the second time, in four years, that my daughter's MIC-
Keven J. Geaney
sure I don't forget to take a syringe with me wherever I go.
The crazy thing was that less than two days later we had a similar, but even more intense,
situation. On Monday morning, at 5:30 a.m., my wife smelled milk coming from my daughter's room. When
she smells milk it usually means my daughter's medicine port opened up during the night and her clothes and bed are drenched in milk, depending on how long it has been unhooked.
My wife went to make breakfast
and I went into her room with my phone's flashlight to see how badly the situation was. I noticed that her bed and clothes were soaked. I felt for the medicine port, but it was closed. I then felt the line to see if it unhooked from her MIC-KEY, but instead discovered the entire MIC-KEY out. I was shocked. I quickly grabbed a syringe and told my wife what happened. I frantically tried to put the MIC-KEY back in, but observed that the hole was smaller than normal. As I tried
to get the device in with my daughter moving around in pain, my wife is behind me saying, “We need to go to the emergency room.”
After a couple of minutes of futility, I decided to take out a back-up MIC- KEY, hoping that a totally deflated new MIC-KEY might work. I also lubricated the MIC-KEY. After a few attempts it still wouldn't go in.
I decided to try one last time, and used my thumb to help push it in. It worked. The device went in. The only problem was my daughter was in even more pain. Luckily, the pain subsided after a minute and she smiled and hugged me.
Whew. Another hospital visit and surgery avoided.
Keven J. Geaney is the editor of the Sentinel. He can be reached at editor@thedinubasentinel.com
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