Of tamales and refugees...

Right off the bat, I thought it was great that in the hours following President Obama’s announcement that he would veto a bill requiring a tougher screening process for Syrian refugees, two Syrian refugees were busted trying to enter the U.S. from the Mexican border. Which is more impressive, I wonder- the fact that two Syrian refugees were actually prevented from entering the country, or the fact anyone illegal at all was stopped from entering the country from the Mexican border? Then, some 450 pork tamales were seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Los Angeles International Airport two and a half weeks ago, so there’s that- still can’t stop Mexicans from illegally entering the country, but the batting average against Mexican food is climbing.​

Human-looking boy puppet Marco Rubio skips terror attack briefing to continue fundraising. I'll pause now for your "shocked" reactions...

— Thomas Keister (@thomaskeister) November 19, 2015

For someone who is already taking quite a bit of heat for missing a ton or work in the Senate as of late, Rubio really showed where his priorities are- mainly raising money to keep himself relevant as a potential running mate. If I were in Rubio's tiny wooden shoes, I would damn sure be at a briefing like this. I would be there because it is my job, and with recent events, who would be willing to call me out for going back to work? Not to mention, the inside baseball would certainly improve my positioning in foreign policy, something else I believe has been mentioned a lot recently.

I have said in the past I respect Rubio for deciding not to run for reelection while focusing on his Presidential bid, but this is a prime example of putting all your chips on the table and leading with a pair of twos. 

Clinton: "We cannot allow terrorists to intimidate us into abandoning our values..." You mean like we did with Patriot Act? Shut up, Hills.

— Thomas Keister (@thomaskeister) November 19, 2015

Not sure what values Mrs. Clinton is talking about- the value where we can have our representative government pull out breathless fearmongering and a full deck of patriotism cards to get away with civil rights swindles like the Patriot Act, or nonsensical, expensive, and laughably ineffective boondoggles like the TSA? We should value immigrants, we should support refugees, but there is no way we should do so by just letting whoever in and then waiting for something bad to happen before figuring maybe we should have done some homework., With millions of people illegally in the country, the fact there are complaints about the demand for some background information is puzzling.

I know the argument is there, these people are refugees, and didn't have time to clean out safe deposit boxes when they ran for their lives. I understand all that, but there should not be so much to do about the simple subject of merely undertaking the effort.