Trump Insults Immigrants in an Obscene Way in Oval Office Meeting

The Washington Post reports:

Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting

"President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

'Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?' Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met Wednesday."

Does the fact that he thinks this way about those countries and the people who live there surprise me? No. It was already as clear as could be that he's a despicable bigot. Does the fact that he doesn't know any better than to talk that way in a bipartisan meeting surprise me? Actually, yes. But only a little bit. He's clearly coming unraveled. What really continues to surprise me is the way that top Republicans continue to act as if everything is just fine. But the longer they do that, the more we Democrats will gain in November. So, the human being in me is appalled, while at the same time the cold-blooded politician in me is delighted.

And both of me are curious about how Norway will react. (With more or less the same horror as normal decent people everywhere, I should imagine.)

"Christie Defends Trump's Immigration Policy"

That's a headline I read just now: "Christie Defends Trump's Immigration Policy."

Which immigration policy? The one with 11 million deportations and forcing Mexico to build a wall along its entire border with the US? Or the one after his recent flip-flop, in which he claims he will be somewhat reasonable, which would be incompatible with the wall and the 11 million deportations?

Or is it the policy of leaving all foreign and domestic matters in the hands of the Vice-President?

Or the policy of pulling policy statements out of his ass without worrying whether they make sense in and of themselves, or are compatible with other statements he's just pulled out of his ass?

Okay, maybe if we go beyond the headline, we will know a little better just exactly which immigration policy Christie means.

Okay: Christie says that Trump has been "completely consistent" in his immigration policy positions.

Here's the video in case you can't believe Christie actually said that.

So, the headline I quoted in the title of this blog post is not strictly accurate: it's not a matter of Christie defending a particular policy: what Christie is doing is following Trump's policy of pulling stuff out of his ass and expecting no-one to notice that he's not making sense.

This Man Is Right, Native Americans Got To Arizona First

Now the question is, who got there last: Mexicans or US-Americans?

The name of the state should give you a big clue. And the names of California, Texas, Florida, Nevada, Colorado: all Spanish names. The Mexicans were there before the gringos. Mexicans founded Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Antonio, San Diego, Sacramento and the bazillion other cities in the US with Spanish names. The US stole about one-third of Mexico, and that's about all there is to that. But if you want some additional detail, Imperialby William T Vollmann is a great place to start. The book focuses on the US-Mexico border in Imperial County, California, but also contains a lot of information about the history of the relationship between the US and Mexico generally.

Also, of course, learning a little Spanish, if you don't know any yet, would help. If you really want to know about US-Mexican politics and history.