Broken Branch

A man's home is his castle. That's about as conservative a mantra as you'll ever find. It puts a nice capsule around the trinity of American ideas that were so cherished by the Founding Fathers - life, liberty, property (some silly liberal actually changed that last one to "pursuit of happiness", whatever that means).

My castle has been invaded. Twice now, both times during what we used to call dinner hour, my phone has been blown up by a robo-call. Was it a sales call? No. Dial-a-Prayer bugging me again? Not that, either. It was a recorded message from Bob Branch.

Bob Branch is (I now know) running for Congress, hoping to represent the great state of Arizona. He made sure to mention, numerous times, that he's a Christian conservative. Because I can read and understand the establishment clause, it occurs to me that Bob may as well be a Shinto anarchist where the First Amendment to the Constitution is concerned.

He has no other credentials. Bob Branch lays out all of his inexperience on a website for us to read. Based on the number of fingers he has, Bob Branch lays out his ten-point plan for the United States.

Homeland Security: It starts with securing the border, of course. Never mind that all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were in the country on visas. And he quotes "President Regan" (sic) as having said, "Government's first duty is to protect people, not run their lives." Perhaps President Regan was speaking of the Iraqi people; who knows?

Transferring terrorists to the United States: Don't do it! Of course, without actual trials, we don't really know if the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are terrorists or simple goat herders. Following Bob's path, we never will.

Education: Bob, a college professor with one of those elitist degrees with lots of letters in it, wants to eliminate summer vacation for the kids. And he wants to rearrange the timeline for completing their education. It is worth noting that the state he wishes to represent is dead last in education funding per pupil and leads the nation in dropouts.

Health Care: Bob, himself a rather overweight fellow, knows how to handle this one. His advice is to get a job. If you lose that job, you should be able to pay both your end and the employer's end of the bill to keep your health insurance until you get another job. The health care bill that was signed into law by President Obama is errantly referred to as "socialized medicine".

Balanced Budget: Bob wants to balance the budget. His many position papers, railing against the record deficits run up year after year by the Bush administration - which didn't even put the funding for two wars into the equation - can be found at... Hang on... I'll find it... Ah, never mind.

Same-Sex Marriage: Anybody want to take a stab at Bob's position on this one? He's against it, because he believes that the sanctity of marriage (and the joy of divorce) is reserved for one man and one woman. He also believes that marriage is a union blessed by God, further exposing his ignorance of (or contempt for) the separation of church and state.

The Right to Life: Bob doesn't agree with the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in America. He refuses to acknowledge that abortions have been declining for decades as a result of better birth control (which he also opposes). Wonder what other Supreme Court decisions he doesn't like?

Energy: Bob's first step to energy independence is literally taken from his website. "Drill, baby, drill". So original... With no more than 3 to 5 percent of the world's oil supply in our hands, and with the BP oil spill plaguing the Gulf Coast, Bob may as well take a Sharpie and write the word "Moron" on his own forehead.

Cap and Trade: Bob says that cap-and-trade legislation (effectively a tax on corporate polluters based on the amount of carbon they emit) "will kill us as a nation". So Bob Branch is either entirely delusional about this, or he's hoping to attract some corporate polluter money to his campaign. Or both.

The War on Terror: I actually expected him to say, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out", but Bob's logic is even hazier than that. Clearly define our goals, he says, without doing so. Then provide the troops with the resources they need (while balancing the budget, mind you). Once the goals are achieved, we can bring them home to a grateful nation. In other words, he would do what Barack Obama has already done.

Looking at this raw tripe, anyone can see that Bob Branch is in no way fit to represent any state other than Arizona. For us, he's a true par. One thing, though, struck me as odd each time my dinner was interrupted by his telephone solicitations. The phone number that popped up on my caller ID came out of North Dakota.

Bob Branch, in his bid to represent Arizona, outsourced the job to North Dakota. Arizona has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. North Dakota actually has the lowest, at 3.9 percent, and now we know why.

Bob Branch for Congress, anyone? Anyone? That's what I thought. You never know, though, as elections are funny things. He may yet win one for the Giper.

pH 8.22.1o

Hard Hat Area

"Obama lacks leadership," my friend said, and it was not a criticism so much as it was a statement of dismay. "Where is he?"

That's a fair question. Not an hour has passed without our nation's 44th president being assailed like no other before him, in every form of media available, and from our Republican elected officials as well. There hasn't been one decision that has been met with anything so positive as a shrug. No matter what he does, it's either too much for one side or not enough for the other.

That's not exactly an environment conducive to grand-marshaling a national parade. There's also the matter of style to be considered. Barack Obama has proven to be a bit aloof, above the fray, cool and calm when others feel as if their heads are about to explode. That's just how he is.

Look at the situation in Arizona, where a federal judge has gutted the infamous SB 1o7o. This is one of the biggest stories in the country; why hasn't Obama come down here to see it for himself before having his Department of Justice throw Arizona into the defendant's chair?

Finally, decades after he left the scene, it seems as though Americans are pining for Lyndon Baines Johnson. His penchant for Capitol Hill skullcrackery was legendary. Everyone assumed that, because BHO came out of the rough-and-tumble political junkyards of Chicago, this president would be an ass-kicker along the lines of LBJ.

Even conservatives seem taken aback by his unwillingness to pull the gloves off. They are enboldened by his lack of bloodthirst. If leadership is measured by the same metrics as accomplishment, Obama is right up there with Kennedy, Roosevelt and Roosevelt. If it's measured by his left jab, then he's left his own base wanting.

Again, using Arizona as an example, just ponder for a moment what LBJ would have done to any state guilty of pushing a stick into his eye. Punishment would have been swift and certain and terrible. From civil rights to Medicare, he built a legacy that no Democrat since has wanted to rival. Can't we all just get along?

Were Obama to channel Johnson, the retribution would be righteous and personal. First, he'd head off these crazy Arizona confederates - sorry, conservatives by granting outright amnesty to every undocumented immigrant in the United States. It could be called the "Ronald Reagan Memorial Taxpayer Creation Act".

(He could embellish this properly by imitating George W. Bush's WMD farce, looking under the rostrum and saying, "Nope, no illegals there!")

Then he'd announce that Luke Air Force Base is no longer needed, because the F-16 is an obsolete fighter plane, and that we can just outsource the training to whatever countries have already purchased most of our F-16s. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base would be relocated to New Mexico, because they need the jobs more, and have more available land to boot. He could call it the "John McCain Honorary Base Re-alignment Act".

After that, he might consider laying federal hands on the Colorado River, nixing the Central Arizona Project Canal (which brings water from the river all the way to the Valley of the Sun). This only makes sense - the "American Riparian Conservation Act".

Closing the Grand Canyon would be the next logical step. It's expensive to operate such a vast national park. The 'Zonies can't say anything, because Jan Brewer and the GOP-led legislature have already closed most of the state parks. This would be known as the "Size and Scope of Government Reduction Act".

In fact, all federal funding could be halted, since Arizona has long been home to such conservatives as John McCain and Jeff Flake, who rail against earmarks as if they really mean it. As a result, we're already last in federal spending per capita. Call it the "This is What You Ingrates Can Expect Act".

Then, if President Obama were truly to channel President Johnson, he'd have Governor Jan Brewer audited by the IRS. Extensively. Same goes for Russell Pearce. And Cindy McCain.

As it stands, LBJ would probably be proud to see an African-American in the White House, no matter how he pulled the levers of power. His legacy stands, even against the kinds of stiff racist winds blowing today in places like Arizona.

It's been too long in coming for the man who had the decency to neither seek nor accept his Party's nomination in 1968: Hail to the Chief. It's just that... Where did he leave that billy club?

pH 7.29.1o

Letter to the Duh

I just got an e-mail, from someone who loves me, depicting a local Letter to the Editor. The tag line went, "What Has America Become". It was drearily predictable right-wing screed, hardly deserving of a response, but that's never stopped me before. So I replied.

***

Hey. I got your e-mail containing the hysterical rant about "what has America become", and just thought I'd take the time to refute some of this paranoid crap. To wit:

"If we lie to Congress it's a felony and if Congress lies to us it's politics."

Bank executives were less than forthcoming in Congressional inquiries about the ways in which they bankrupted our economy. Then they took bonuses straight from the taxpayer purse. BP's ability and willingness to dissemble has also been on recent display. But if we think our representatives are lying to us, we can easily un-elect them.

"If we dislike Blacks we're racist, but if Blacks dislike us it's their First Amendment right."

Blacks have historically not been merely disliked, but also enslaved, whipped and raped. Harry Truman desegregated the military in World War II; the South didn't follow suit until 20 years later, and only then under the gentle supervision of the National Guard. Blacks are routinely sentenced to longer terms of incarceration than Whites who commit identical crimes. By the way, Native Americans aren't so fond of us either, so maybe it isn't a Black thing after all.

"The government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals while doing nothing for victims."

Every single state has victim compensation laws, and has had them for decades. California's was enacted, for example, in 1965. We also have the highest incarceration rates, and recidivism rates, in the free world. Much of our prison system has been turned over to private-sector profiteers, who donate heavily to the GOP at election time.

"Schools can teach that homosexuality is OK, but they can't mention God in the process."

The Pledge of Allegiance is still recited in schools, and it still includes the phrase 'One nation, under God, indivisible'. The Declaration of Independence, also part of the curriculum, begins by saying that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. It does not say, 'unless they're gay'.

"You can kill an unborn child, but executing a mass murderer is wrong."

We are one of the only civilized nations that still executes people. For instance, Christian conservative Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City Bomber) killed a good many born children, and was executed shortly thereafter. Beyond that, the state of Illinois had to put a moratorium on the death penalty because of the shocking number of innocent people found on Death Row. Meanwhile, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control (because it offends their morality), resulting in obviously unwanted pregnancies.

"We don't burn books in America, but we re-write them."

Conservatives, actually, burned Dixie Chicks CDs when that group disagreed with the Bush administration's misguided and illegal invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, in Texas, schoolbooks are being written by conservative school boards that do not mention the name Thomas Jefferson. Wonder why.

"We got rid of Communist and socialist threats by renaming them as progressives."

Our trade deficit with Communist China increased tenfold under the Bush administration, which granted them Most Favored Nation status. This was long after Mao Tse-Tung had rid his country of artists, teachers, scholars and the like. Stalin killed over 30 million of his own people, chiefly through starvation. He also turned Siberia into a prison-state. Progressives tend to build HUD homes, give health-care to people, stuff like that. See the difference?

"We can't close the border with Mexico, but we protect the 38th Parallel in Korea."

The Mexican-American War ended with the Treaty of Hidalgo, in which we awarded ourselves the states now known as Utah, Nevada and California. Nevertheless, Mexico remains one of our biggest and most important trade partners. The Korean War never ended, but resulted in an armistice. North Korea (which developed nuclear weapons in the Bush-43 era) routinely threatens the U.S. and its allies in the region, and in March torpedoed a South Korean battleship, killing 46 sailors.

"If you protest Obama's policies you're a terrorist, but if you burned a flag or George W. Bush in effigy it's your 1st Amendment right."

Again the disdain for the First Amendment... Anyway, no protestors of President Obama's policies have been charged, to date, with terrorism or anything like it. Bush protestors, however, were penned up miles away from his public appearances in what were laughably called 'Free Speech Zones'. Many were arrested, and some were shot in the face with rubber bullets.

***

I could keep going, but reading this rote, redundant missive makes my forehead feel fat. Suffice it to say that he made absolutely not one single point, good or otherwise, but did reinforce the widely-accepted notion that conservatives are uninformed, backward, bigoted morons.

There's a lot to be said for the company you keep.

pH 7.24.1o

Long Hot Summer Nights

It's summertime, and the living's easy. This is especially true in Arizona, where the brutal desert heat actually wafts through your transom like a comfortable breeze compared to the hot air that erupts regularly from our public officials.

State Senator Russell Pearce, in between social engagements with white supremacists, remains active in the only game in town (immigration). The architect of the infamous SB 1o7o now trains his sights on newborns, to whom he would deny birth certificates if their parents happened to be undocumented aliens.

Got that? They would literally remain in the ranks of the unborn - the only form of childhood that seems to concern any conservative.

I know... The Fourteenth Amendment states very clearly that anyone born in (and subject to the jurisdiction of) the United States is an American citizen. Pearce apparently either cannot read or cannot comprehend the words at which he stares with slackened jaw; flip a coin.

He and other local right-wing yokels argue that, for all this time, we've just been misinterpreting that particular section of the Constitution. Those Framers who wrote it, they opine, did not intend to bestow citizenship upon the offspring of illegal immigrants.

I suppose they believe that. So what if the Supreme Court has historically disagreed? Chasing down their scattered logic, one might present the same case against much of the Bill of Rights.

The Second Amendment should be limited to flintlock muzzle-loaders, because the Founding Fathers could never have predicted the obscene power of the machine gun. The First Amendment should be scrapped, as well, because someone who merely discovered bifocals and electricity could never have envisioned the spectacle of the Internet.

The Fourth Amendment can go out the window, because hey, the signers of the Declaration didn't know squat about wiretapping. The Fifth Amendment, well, that just mollycoddles these obvious criminals in a manner unforeseen. And we don't need any of the other Amendments, either, because we're just too stupid to understand them.

This explains, in advance, why SB 1o7o will be found un-Constitutional in the coming days by a judge reviewing numerous claims against the State. We'll say she's an activist jurist. We'll say she doesn't understand. We'll say she's a liberal. And we'll devise a solution that ventures even further off the charts - Latino concentration camps, something.

The only jewels to be found in all of this garbage can be found in our demographics. A decade from now, hundreds of thousands of loony white-haired bigots (we've built entire cities in which to house them) will be dead. Replacing them at the poll booths will be young Hispanic voters, who will have grown up watching this ugly stage play.

Slow or not, it's suicide on the part of the Republican Party, and they don't want to be bothered while they're doing it. Let's all do them a big favor and oblige.

pH 7.2o.1o

Off With Her Head

It's hard to know, at this point, more of which has been spilled in the Gulf of Mexico since April 2o: Oil or ink. An impartial observer would have to say the former. The quantity of reporting has not left us wanting so much as the quality.

BP security guards have routinely turned away the press from public beaches. This is a first-rate affront to the Fourth Estate, which doesn't seem to mind, as it was trained so meticulously by the Bush adminstration. It is disappointing to see that the sons of the South have become so lax in repelling agents of a foreign country from our soil.

Southern spigotry is still alive and well, though, with all manner of regional Republicans trying desperately to blame BP's mess on President Obama. One lawmaker, Joe Barton of Texas, even had the gall to apologize to BP for the indignities they have endured by being asked to pay for their mistakes.

Through it all, the arrogance of BP has been personified by CEO Tony Hayward. First he said he wanted his life back. Then he said that Americans were inherently fraudulent and would try to weasel unwarranted money from the oil giant. His latest whereabouts: Sailing on a yacht in a race 'round the Isle of Wight, sponsored by the good people at J.P. Morgan.

So it becomes clear, what the proper response should be by the United States as it responds as best it can to the worst disaster to face us as a nation, worse even than 9/11. We must sack England.

These bloody snarky bastards have had it coming for a long time. Never mind that they "sexed up" the war in Iraq; they've been rather nasty to us ever since the Revolution. Look at the War of 1812. And whose side did they take in the Civil War? Only in World Wars I and II did they make nice, and that's because they were on the brink of defeat.

World War II would have been the optimal time to bring the Mother Country into the Union fold. They were beaten up. We were strategically placed. Churchill was too drunk to notice. Nobody would have cared. That doesn't mean it can't be done today.

A quick review of global defense spending tells us that any conflict would be brief, to be sure, but it would more likely be a bloodless coup. It's like our filibuster.

Whenever the Republicans don't want something to pass in the Senate (pick any example), they merely threaten to filibuster said legislation. They don't actually have to filibuster. Just the thought of Mitch McConnell speaking without end is enough to make the Democrats cave.

In the event that the British actually wanted to engage us in battle, well, it would be mercifully quick. It's not like they have any friends left in the world. Who would intervene? Ireland and Scotland? Those would be our forward operating bases. Germany? Please.

France would let us launch the big invasion from their side of the Channel. Only Australia would pose a problem, and they've already demonstrated their loyalty is for sale.

We'd be able to buy plenty of it, too, with all that royal plunder. How much is the House of Windsor worth these days, anyway? That would be the pound-sterling silver lining in all of this. Our economy needs the cash (especially at today's exchange rate).

Annexing the United Kingdom might just be the shot in the arm that America needs right now. We could easily absorb the real estate inventory. Our culinary institutes and schools of dentistry would thrive. And it would give us a much-needed island upon which to deposit our nuclear waste as we cruise out of the fossil-fuels era.

This is the Bush Doctrine. The people of England would no doubt herald us as liberators as we drove our tanks the wrong way down their streets. We could blast it from the bullhorns to our new citizens: Sam's your Uncle. We have killed your queen and you are free.

History would treat us kindly. Diplomats the world over would greet us with warm smiles on their faces. The tragedy in the Gulf would remain unresolved, but the military-industrial complex would be pleased. Everybody wins... Or at least everybody that matters.

pH 6.22.1o

BIg Oil Wins

Experiment: Go to your local auto parts store and pick up a case of motor oil. It could be Quaker State, Pennzoil, Valvoline, it really doesn't matter which brand. Actually, make it two cases. Take all of this motor oil down to the beach. It could be the ocean, the Great Lakes, the nearest river or local watering hole - it makes no difference.

Pull out a bottle of oil, unscrew the cap, and dump the oil all over the ground, right at the shoreline. Now do it again. And again. Until all of the oil is gone. Now wait for the authorities to arrive and see what happens.

There will be fines, oh, yes. There might even be jail time; if not that, then certainly community service. Littering and polluting, it turns out, are fairly serious crimes in communities all across America. Unless you're a corporation.

British Petroleum, a foreign company, has destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. Let's not be gentle about this anymore. We're fucked. The environment is fucked. The seafood industry is fucked. The charter fishermen are fucked. The sea turtles and dolphins and brown pelicans, they're all fucked, too.

"Corporate America" isn't just a catchy slogan anymore. It's a reality that tops all horror movies. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are actually people, you see, extremely wealthy people to whom the laws of the land do not necessarily apply.

For instance, BP was ordered by the EPA to stop using the dispersant known as Corexit 95oo, which has an unpleasant toxicity to it that will certainly be deadly to marine life, perhaps to a greater extent even than the crude will. BP replied with a memorandum that read, essentially, "No, thanks".

When a major network sent a news crew out to report on the extent of the damage being done to the Gulf Coast, they were turned away by the Coast Guard, who explained that they were protecting the interests of BP. All of the cleanup data is being vetted, as well, through the watchful abacus of the giant energy company.

The ripple effects have been enough to elicit short barks of laughter through the tears. Blowhard conservatives, stuck for so long in their anti-big-government gear, are now blaming the feds for not managing BP's mess. Anyone else would get dizzy from such a thing, but not them. By now they are immune to their own hypocrisy, as if they had never chanted Drill, baby, drill.

Now it's the government's turn to drill. In the ultimate act of lip service, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced criminal probes into the explosion that caused the disaster, as if there were still a crime scene thereabouts to investigate. Still, even the threat of such an inquiry caused energy stocks to tumble.

The fact is, though, that our government is beholden to corporations. No other donors can cough up the kind of money needed to buy the television ads (from broadcasting corporations) that get politicians elected. You and I do not have lobbyists with briefcases stuffed full of cash to give to our representatives. Corporations do, and have been given the green light to bribe freely.

It is a guarantee, therefore, that oil gouting from the ocean floor will seem insignificant compared to the damage that will be done by corporations down the road. There is nothing to stop them. There is noone to hold them accountable. Ask the people of Prince William Sound. Big Oil doesn't care about wildlife or people or ecosystems or anything except their profit margins. Nobody disputes this.

Certain things, in the face of this atrocity, would seem to make sense. Nationalizing the oil industry makes sense. Putting BP into receivership makes sense. Breaking up the petroleum industry into separate categories (gas stations, refineries and drilling outfits) makes sense. None of it will happen.

Short of turning loose the Unabomber, there is no way for the American people to attain any measure of justice against our corporate masters. Slavery was abolished a century and a half ago, on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, and old John Brown lies a-mouldering in his grave. They might as well have wrapped his corpse in the American flag.

pH 6.o2.1o

Little Crow Peep

Frustration has given way to disgust in Arizona's great immigration debate. Basis for argument aside, any criticism is met (by conservatives mostly) with the same 18-letter response. It's like dealing with sheep. They all flock in the same direction. They all bleat the same thing.

"Ha-a-ve you read the bi-i-ll?"

Oh, I've read it. On paper, meaning without regard to the behavior and motives of each rugged individual out there, one cannot definitively say that SB 1o7o is a racist bill. No. It is, however, a stupid bill.

I understand its proponents when they say that illegal immigration has cost Americans their jobs, even though so many more have been lost to corporate outsourcing. Seldom is that concern followed logically, or we'd see more business licenses revoked, a thing rarer than a bighorn in these parts.

As with the war on drugs, conservatives have it backward on this issue, focusing on demand (people who want work) instead of going after supply (employers who willingly hire them). The new law mandates - sans funding - that any city, county or otherwise politically incorporated entity question the citizenship of anyone upon reaching the point of "reasonable suspicion" during any "lawful stop" or arrest.

Ask any cop how far he or she has to follow you before finding a reason to lawfully stop you. The one I asked said half a mile. As for what comprises "reasonable suspicion", we may as well ask former Bush administration attorney Kris Kobach of Missouri, who wrote the bill for the Republicans in the Arizona legislature (we know this because it was not written in crayon).

An accent. Fluency in English (or lack thereof). Certain clothing. The number of people in a vehicle. Stuff like that. Never the color of their skin, no. Or their national origin. Why would a cop need to consider one's national origin when determining one's status as a citizen? All of this takes place "when practicable", according to Kobach's legalese.

"Practicable", by the way, has two definitions. One is capable of being used or done. The other refers to a theater prop that is a workable part of a stage set. Alas, SB 1o7o doesn't specify.

These are not the only problematic vagaries in the bill - not hardly. The section allowing citizens to sue any agency they believe to be running afoul of the new law is meritless on its face. In order to sue anyone, one has to have legal standing. One has to prove one has been damaged. Judges will rightly consider this to be a waste their time, and worse.

The provision that denies any sort of plea bargain for an illegal immigrant is an outright assault on the judicial branch. It does provide a 20-30 day jail sentence for a misdemeanor offense of being here illegally (read: Three hots and a cot on the taxpayers' dime). It's ridiculous to the point that Esquire Kobach should be called before the Bar and made to answer for himself.

Even if this joke of a law somehow passes Constitutional muster, it creates layers of legal nightmares across the state, twisting the knife already buried deep into our economic aorta. The burdens that SB 1o7o places on the Attorney General's office should also be filed in the basket of really bad ideas. Like it says on the money, e pluribus unum - one out of many.

SB 1o7o makes it a misdemeanor for an illegal immigrant to apply for a job. It makes a criminal out of ordinary citizens for soliciting work from a non-citizen. How were you to know that worker's legal status? Doesn't say. Employers, however, will only be prosecuted (snort) when they "knowingly" hire an illegal immigrant.

If you get caught transporting illegal aliens, your vehicle will be impounded. It does not say anything about impounding your animal. To borrow a few peas from J.D. Hayworth's brain, one can just as easily smuggle immigrants in on horseback... Maybe that's just another corporate loophole.

(And why not? There are vast expanses of language throughout the bill that threaten to do what has never been done in Arizona before. The only thing left out by the lawyers were the actual words "wink" and "nod" in parantheses.)

SB 1o7o is filled, however, with lines that boggle the minds of even junior varsity legal scholars. Section 2, Title 11, Chapter 7, Article 8 explains that an officer may transport an illegal alien to la Migra, "notwithstanding any other law" (rape, murder, what have you). It does not allow us to sue said officer if we come become victims of a crime (rape, murder, what have you) while he or she is wasting his or her time doing that.

Section 6 begins with the words, "Arrest by officer without warrant". This is why those textbooks out of Texas don't put the words "Thomas" and "Jefferson" next to each other.

So, we can ask, is it fair to label Arizona's new law Jim Crow? Perhaps not. Still, it doesn't reflect well on us when the state pulls the wool over our eyes, fleecing us all with sheer stupidity. We should all be sheepish when asked, "Ha-a-ve you read the bi-i-ll?"

As for the poor folks who just want a better life than what they left behind in their home countries, well, they're on the lam now.

pH 5.26.1o