Trump’s ‘emergency at the border’ is red meat for his base

Emergency at the border? Not true.

Illegal immigration is down 76 percent since its peak in 2000.

So what exactly is the emergency?

President Trump needs this chaotic distraction to keep his base and far-right media sycophants motivated in the belief that he’s fighting the good – xenophobic – fight. Otherwise, the corruption, lies, investigations and indictment scandals would take center stage.

One must ask why George W. Bush didn’t take action at the peak of illegal immigration, or why the GOP House didn’t take up the 2013 bipartisan Gang of Eight immigration modernization act.

Apparently they prefer drama that resonates as political red meat for the base, rather than solutions. Sad!

Federal contractors deserve back pay

Meanwhile, not a single D.C. politician, the president included, lost a single dime in pay.

The president should be ashamed, but shows no sign that he is.

I want to wall off drugs, illegal entry

Weren’t the walls to keep people from leaving the Soviet Bloc countries? Not sure if there were many people fighting to get into those countries like they are the United States.

Also if thousands of illegal immigrants and massive amounts of drugs come pouring across the Canadian border, I would be in favor of building a wall up there too. But that’s not the case, is it?

U.S. must address global poverty

There is nothing complicated about improving living conditions for people suffering in abject poverty.

Why isn’t the U.S. doing more to address global poverty?

The general public drastically overestimates what is being done to address it. Americans incorrectly estimate that 20 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. In reality, less than 1 percent goes to assisting the world’s poor.

The U.S. should be preventing 25,000 children from dying each day because the U.S. absolutely can prevent them from dying. We should be taking a more proactive approach to help those in need in foreign countries.

California gets no pity from me

I have no sympathy for victims of floods, landslides, fire, etc., in California. Calif. voters elected the lawmakers who’ve exacerbated these problems with laws they’ve passed.

Council decision on boards was wrong

Given that a motion passed by an 8-2 vote of Charlotte City Council members last week allowing any Charlotte resident, documented or undocumented, to serve on Council-appointed boards and commissions, it’s now a proven fact: “The inmates are running the asylum!”

Bowing to the PC police on comics

I noted your discontinuation of the Non Sequitur comic with dismay. The offense you mentioned was trivial at best. I missed it entirely until it was gratuitously pointed out by the PC police; even then it did not offend me.

Wiley Miller simply expressed an opinion shared by the majority of Americans, not all of whom are Democrats.

The Observer produces no shortage of offensive content: Desiree Zapata Miller offends me with every column she writes, Kevin Siers has had no shortage of controversy, and the drivel you print in your Forum letters often leaves much to be desired.

The Observer needs to put on its grown up pants and realize that not everything in print will be without a negative impact on the more emotionally sensitive among us.