The Singapore Summit

Even if you were determined NOT to know anything about the historic Singapore Summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un yesterday...not sure you could pull it off. It is everywhere today. All over social media and as the saying goes, like assholes, everyone has an opinion. Including the news media. Fox News is giving its version of it (while slamming the left at every opportunity). The left wing media is giving their version critical of Trump and the right.

I hope Trump and Jong Un manage to come to some kind of agreement that moves the needle backwards to a world with a few less nucs. But there are some things that bother me a lot about the summit.

One thing is the row of flags behind the two of them. Every other one is an American flag. Touching or very close to touching the North Korean flag. How did the dictator of a country like North Korea elevate himself and his flag to equal standing with the United States? Everyone who is so concerned and outraged about dishonoring the flag and the pledge and the anthem, tell me...are you okay with that? Does that not demean our flag?

Remember when Obama visited Cuba and there were a few pictures that showed the likeness of Che Guevara in the background? People criticized him very strongly for that. "Mr. President, you're a disgrace," Ben Shapiro tweeted. Check out this article in Time Magazine.

Another thing ...Trump's hearty endorsement of the North Korean dictator after the Summit

"He's got a great personality. He's a funny guy, he's very smart, he's a great negotiator. He loves his people, not that I'm surprised by that," Trump said. "I think that we have the start of an amazing deal. We're going to denuke North Korea."

Please take a few minutes and watch this video of a young North Korean girl who escaped from North Korea. She tells of witnessing the execution of her friend's mother for watching a "Hollywood"movie.  Tell her how much Jong Un loves his people. There is poverty, lack, wide spread human rights abuses. From all appearances, Kim Jong Un mainly loves himself.

Asked if he had a message for the North Korean people, Trump said, "I think you have somebody that has a great feeling for them. He wants to do right by them and we got along really well. We had a great chemistry."

Great chemistry? Really? As Saturday Night Live's church lady used to say many years ago..."isn't that special."

We take their rosaries...

I came across a meme making the rounds on Facebook. It is a picture of neatly arranged rosaries that have been confiscated by the border patrol from undocumented immigrants trying to enter the United States.

Although the meme includes a partial link to the story that ran in the New Yorker in March of 2017,  it gives the impression that this is some new atrocity. Not hard to believe when there are so many new atrocities every single day. Please let me be clear...no one is more outraged, frustrated and shocked by this administration...by this president...than I am but this is something we cannot lay entirely at his feet. We have been doing this stuff for a long time.

Tom Kiefer is the photographer who took the pictures. He collected the personal items that were confiscated from undocumented immigrants by the border patrol. Most of the stuff ended up in the trash. He collected the items from 2003 to 2014. Below is the introduction on his website. El Sueño Americano (The American Dream)

Lurking beneath the bright and shiny dream of a better life, El Sueño Americano is a deeply disturbing reflection of our treatment of fellow human beings. As a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol janitor, part of the job was removal of trash bags at just one of our 136 facilities, where personal belongings are seized from migrants at or near the border. One day I looked into the bags. I glimpsed personal items, carefully chosen to support their owner’s desperate and dangerous journey. Items confiscated and trashed as ‘non-essential’; rosaries, bibles, wallets, clothes, coins, phones, food, soap, blankets, and family photos. Spending time with the confiscated items, organizing them, photographing them -- profoundly moved me. How precious were these to their owners? Disposing of them, I realized, was an act of dehumanization. El Sueño Americano is a visceral snapshot of what is happening, in direct defiance of those who would sweep it out of sight.

I am not really an advocate of totally open borders although I welcome immigrants. Yes, I know the immigration process is so broken and if my kids were suffering I'm sure I would make the trek to the US Border praying for mercy. But the heartlessness of the process that strips these people of their rosaries and little blue Spanish new testaments...and toilet paper, toothpaste, shoelaces, blankets, wallets and extra clothing is horrible.

I don't have the answers. I wish I did......

Here is the link to the New Yorker article. This is the link to a true/false discussion of the FB meme on Snopes.