Tength Congressional District Democrats

LAS VEGAS, NV – APRIL 28: Chairman and President of the Trump Organization Donald Trump yells ‘you’re fired’ after speaking to several GOP women’s group at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino April 28, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Trump has been testing the waters with stops across the nation in recent weeks and has created media waves by questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

By Steven Gan

One of the things that I have never been impressed with is a braggart, and to say that Donald Trump takes being a self-centered, narcissistic, egomaniac to the stratosphere is an understatement. Whenever he speaks, he manages to bring the conversation back to his wealth and how much he has accomplished. Sorry to get a little graphic, but statements like, “You know, I’m really smart;” “You know, I’m really really rich;” “I have a Gucci store worth more than Romney;” and the like make me want to vomit.

We’re all aware of Trump’s outrageous, insensitive, and illogical comments at the time he announced his presidential run about undocumented immigrants who come into this country by way of Mexico. There’s no question that all of us, regardless of our party affiliation, want to prevent people from entering this country illegally. But from what I’ve read, heard, and watched, the overwhelming number of people who enter this country illegally from Mexico—not only Mexicans, but also nationals of other Latin America countries—are trying to escape extreme violence and poverty. To characterize all of these desperate people, as Trump did, as rapists, drug dealers, and criminals is dehumanizing.

Many years ago, when I worked in our family business, I hired a young high school student as an intern. “Maria” was originally from Guatemala, and at the time that she began to work for us, I knew nothing about her background, and, honestly, I probably was not particularly interested. What I needed at the time was someone to help in the office, and this young girl came in like a whirlwind. She turned out to be a remarkable employee who ended up staying on with us for almost 20 years. One time I asked her what motivated her and her family to come to the U.S. She responded very simply, “We just got tired of all of the gangs, the killings, and the endless violence to which we were continuously subjected.”

Here’s Maria’s story:  When she was 10 years old (about 1974), Maria ‘s mother took her and her seven-year-old brother away from Guatemala on the El Norte highway (a series of trains from Central America all the way to the Mexico-U.S. border where most of the hopefuls ride on top of the freight cars), hoping to reach the U.S. On the way, they were robbed, beaten, and even pistol-whipped. Once they arrived in Tijuana, they found very menial work for a few months and saved enough money to pay a coyote to take them and some others through an unchecked border area. The coyote left them at the point where they had to crawl through a mile-long sewer pipe until they reached the U.S. side of the border. During their harrowing trip through the excrement-and- vermin-filled pipe, they were bitten by hundreds of rats, not just on their bodies but also on their faces and hands. As Maria described it, the rats “just kept coming and coming.”

The idea of crawling on my belly through a mile-long sewer pipe and enduring attacks by hundreds of rats along the way is more frightening than any horror movie I’ve ever sat through. If that’s not enough to send someone into a psych ward, I just don’t know what would be.

When Maria, her mom, and her little brother finally made it through the pipe to the U.S. side of the border, another contact was waiting for them who took them to the jefe’s (big boss’s) house in southern California. For the next few years, they picked oranges, avocados, and other crops on a series of farms. They were often not paid their full wages (or not paid at all).  And, of course, they never complained—for fear of being cast out and deported. Apparently, this hard life on the very fringes was still better than what they had left in Guatemala.

Fortunately, Maria’s mother had a distant cousin in Chicago, where they eventually moved and settled. The cousin helped Maria’s mother get a job with a cleaning service and arranged for Maria and her brother to start school. From that point forward, their lives turned a corner and they settled in.

Sometime during the early ’80s (when Maria started working for us), a general amnesty was granted by the government to all undocumented immigrants who could prove that they had been living in the U.S. for at least five years. For Maria, her mother, and her brother, this was their lucky opportunity to move out of the shadows and into the daylight of living normally in America. Some years later, they all became American citizens. Maria’s brother joined the military and even fought in the Gulf War.

Now, I’m not advocating wide open borders, but how many people do you know who share Maria’s story? Although I only know Maria’s first hand, I’m sure there are millions like her who have endured similar struggles, putting their lives on the line (and in fact many do die each year trying to cross the border) to get into this country to make a better life.

For me, it comes down to trying to reconcile our immigration system with compassion toward other, less fortunate human beings.

Do you think Donald Trump knows any undocumented immigrants who, like Maria, endured life-and-death struggles to get to this country? Trump’s self-aggrandizing rhetoric, along with his empty threats to make Mexico pay for every “illegal alien” that he irrationally claims the Mexican government sends to the U.S., leads me to believe that he couldn’t care less about anyone but himself, let alone the poor and unfortunate on this planet who only want to work, be safe, and provide for their families. I’m forced to conclude that compassion towards those “illegals” who pick our nation’s fruits and vegetables, clean our office buildings, and perform many of the menial and dangerous jobs in our country is not an asset that is included in Trump’s financial statement.

By Steven Gan

Now that I have your attention, as most of you already know, Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) threw his hat into the ring in early June and is now one of the many Republican candidates for President of the United States vying for a position on the Fox News debate stage. Personally, I’ve never been impressed with Senator Graham, since he represents and promotes many of the conservative Republican issues that I feel are diametrically opposed to the best interests of this country.
But, as a gay American, what recently grabbed my attention was Graham’s response to a question about the former Olympian Bruce Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn Jenner.
“I haven’t walked in her shoes. I don’t have all the answers to the mysteries of life,” Graham said. “I can only imagine the torment that Bruce Jenner went through. I hope he’s — I hope she has found peace.”

Graham continued, “I’m a pro-life, traditional marriage kind of guy, but I’m running to be President of the United States. If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a Republican, she is welcome in my party.”

I was awestruck by his response, which is not in line with the usual mocking and sin-baiting that some of the other ultra-conservative Republicans, like former Governor Mike Huckabee, are keen to do. I also thought there was actually a little bit of compassion in his comment, which again is not part of a conservative Republican’s DNA.

I then started to think that maybe Lindsey Graham’s open-mindedness toward Jenner was in part based on his expectation that Republicans might start to judge his own marital situation, now that he’s a presidential candidate. Here’s a 60-year-old man who has never been married, does not seem to have a special person in his life at the moment, does not have any children, and talks about having a “rotating first lady” in the White House, should he be elected. His bachelorhood may not sit well with a large segment of his party’s voters – those very conservative Republicans who never miss an episode of 19 Kids and Counting and worry that religious liberties in this country are being quashed by the gay agenda.

From my standpoint, especially as a gay American, I couldn’t care less about Lindsey Graham’s marital status – or any other aspects of his personal life. However, unfortunately for Graham, despite how far we have come in this country on marriage equality and understanding diversity in general, many in his party will still view his lifetime bachelorhood as “weird” enough to constitute a big minus against him on his running-for-President report card.

Just take the comment from our own illustrious Senator Mark Kirk. On June 11, he was caught on a hot mic calling Graham a “bro with no ho.” And to compound what Kirk later claimed was a silly joke, he followed it up with the explanation, “That’s how we would say it on the South Side.” Kirk’s comments were anti-woman and anti-African American. But that’s not all.

Kirk, too, lacks traditional Republican marriage credentials: he married at age 40, was divorced eight years later, and has no children. Given his own marital history, Kirk is a perfect example of the hypocrisy we’ve come to expect from the GOP—Republicans who will find Graham’s singlehood noteworthy, despite their own divorces and other marital and parental anomalies.
Bigotry toward Graham’s lack of a perfect family photo by many in his own party will dog him during a long and arduous campaign, which once again will highlight the GOP’s true colors. As for me, I’m glad that my party cares about candidates’ policies and not their family photos.

By Eleonora di Liscia

Once upon a time, there was an era called the Middle Ages.  The Middle Ages were kind of like the teenage years:  a bunch of sullen peons having to listen to the dictates of their overlord parents.

In the Middle Ages, wealth and government were basically concentrated in the same hands.  Sort of like having a bunch of corporate execs running the government with the CEO as king.  But even being a corporate exec had its problems.  Just 800 years ago this June, in 1215, a bunch of the execs known as barons, got together and said to the English CEO, King John:  “Hey, we’re like the vice presidents here, and we don’t appreciate that when you say, ‘Jump,’ we have to say, ‘How high?’  We want rights!”

As a result, CEO King John was forced to sign Magna Carta, the forerunner of all corporate charters and our system of government.

The Middle Ages continued with the occasional hostile takeover.  During one particularly bloody period, known as the Wars of the Romneys, the CEO of England changed seven times, if you count  when King Richard sort of disappeared his nephew, the rightful king, thereby inventing  vulture capitalism.

Society in the teenage years was based on class.  Not the secret-donation-to-charity kind of class, but the I-get-the-Christian Dior; you-get-the-gunny-sack kind of class.  You had to be born into power and money, much like if your Dad went to Yale and became President, then you got to go to Yale and become President. Occasionally, a CEO would marry someone out of the steno pool and then decapitate her.  But otherwise, you were pretty much stuck in your social stratum.

Eventually, there were these people called Puritans who didn’t want to listen to the CEO about how they worshipped.  Instead, they came to America so they could tell other people how to worship.

The really cool thing about America, though, was that your standing in life was no longer based on heredity; it was based on contract, on the relationships you made.  You could become a CEO even if you weren’t the son of a CEO! (Unless you were a woman or a slave.  But that’s a whole other story.)

So the people running the government did not have to be born CEOs.  But history abhors a vacuum, so eventually the CEOs, while not necessarily running the government, decided to do the next best thing and turn their workers into peons.

This meant that workers slaved all day and night; their children slaved all day and night; they didn’t get weekends or any other time off, ever; and they were still really poor while having to listen to people like Ron Paul tell them they weren’t working hard enough.  If they got hurt on the job, well, too bad!  You should have been more careful and not let those phosphorous matches you work with rot off your jaw.

Eventually the peons thought that something about this situation wasn’t quite right.  It wasn’t terribly, well, democratic, and after all they had been taught on television that America was a democracy. They didn’t want to be peons any more than people in the teenage years wanted to be, but unlike people in the teenage years, they could do something about it.

Because in America, the government and the CEOs were not necessarily one and the same.  For starters, the peons in the modern age could decide not to go to work.  En masse.  “Find someone else to make your cheap consumer goods!  Ha!”  (China was not yet a viable alternative.)

The first American general strike was in Philadelphia in 1835.  You see, the carpenters wanted to work only 10 hours a day.  As a matter of fact, so would many of our friends today, but we’ll get to that later.  The powers that be—in this case the liberal media—felt that less than a 60-hour week would hurt the working man who would have too much time to get into trouble, perhaps creating more employment for DUI attorneys.  The carpenters said, “Thanks for your concern, but we’ll take that risk.”

Oddly enough, many other working groups at that time actually showed something called “solidarity.”  This means that when one group went on strike, other groups, not having Facebook accounts upon which to “like” the carpenters, thought it might be a good idea to go on strike, too.

In 1842, the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Hunt came to an amazing realization. The court woke up one day and said, “By golly, we’re not in England anymore!”  Therefore, the English common law, which made “combinations” to increase wages illegal, need not apply. Thus, forming a union to increase wages was not an illegal conspiracy in the U.S.  To which we say, it’s about time!

In 1866, the first national labor federation was formed, the National Labor Union, the daddy of groups like the AFL-CIO.  Not satisfied with a slothful 10-hour day, the NLU pushed for eight hours—even more time off for working people to get into trouble and line the pockets of DUI attorneys.

In 1909, the women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory went on strike.  Why?  Nitpicky complaints about working conditions.  Like being locked into a poorly ventilated workroom 65-75 hours a week at low wages while having to buy their own supplies and equipment. The women were fined if they were tardy or damaged a garment.  Sometimes they were fined more than they made and went into debt to their employers.  And the women actually had to ask permission to use the restroom, as breaks were only allowed once a day.  Often, these requests were denied, forcing the women to pee on the floor. Such working conditions are now known as “Gov. Scott Walker’s dream universe.”

In 1932, Congress passed the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which protected workers’ rights to form a union by barring employers from requiring workers to sign a pledge not to form a union on pain of execution. This breakthrough was followed by the Wagner Act, or National Labor Relations Act, which further protected unions and set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB gave workers a place to go if their employers were really, really mean, which is sometimes called an “unfair labor practice.”

In 1971, the Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed by radical left-wing President Richard Nixon. OSHA was intended to help those persnickety workers who were making a fuss about breathing toxic chemicals all day or losing a limb or torso to faulty equipment.

All these reforms came at a price.  People were beaten, even killed, while fighting for the right to earn a decent wage without having to pee on the workroom floor.  In the 1913 Ludlow Massacre, 20 people, among them 13 women and children, were massacred during a coal miners’ strike.  It took unions, and eventually government, to balance the power of the CEOs and make the world just a little more fair.

And what about our friends who are working those 10-hour plus days today?  Well, thanks in part to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the corporate execs are taking over the government (hello, Bruce Rauner!), dismantling the unions, and undermining labor laws.

Here is the part where we say “all kidding aside.”  All kidding aside, do we want to go back to the teenage years?  Because, all kidding aside, that’s where we’re headed.

A recent Last Week Tonight with John Oliver reported that 98 percent of our clothes are made overseas. To maintain their huge profits, clothing outfitters use overseas sweatshops mirroring many of the same conditions that led to the Triangle Shirtwaist strike. Conditions at a Chinese sweatshop making Apple products were so bad that nets had to be placed around a building to catch suicidal workers.

Think how much more profitable these companies would be if they could save those overseas shipping costs by using forced labor at home!

What stops these companies is our unions and our labor laws.  For example, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries website reported that “Working families lose billions of dollars to wage theft each year, when crooked employers fail to pay legal minimum wages or overtime rates, require off-the-clock work, or simply bounce checks.”  Our state’s Attorney General recently filed criminal charges against one such employer.

Republicans want to go back to the teenage years, running their corporations without annoying union or government interference.  Why, Wisconsin Republicans have introduced a bill to abolish an employee’s right to have at least one day off a week.

For most of us, the teenage years were a bummer.  Let’s not relive them.