Stunning Move by Sweden to Ban U. S. Immigrants and Refugees

In a stunning move yesterday, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven signed a promulgation closing Sweden to travelers and refugees from the United States.

Following an emergency meeting with King Carl XVI Gustaf and legislative leaders including Urban Ahlin, Speaker of the Riksdag, Lofven announced to a stunned Swedish media, “We felt we had no choice. Americans are too violent, too prone to shooting each other—and innocent bystanders—to risk letting them enter our country.”

“Luckily, we don’t need to build a wall,” Speaker Ahlin interjected, “because the Atlantic Ocean should suffice.”

Prime Minister vows to keep Sweden safe!

In 2015, of course, Sweden admitted 160,000 refugees, including tens of thousands of Syrians, which did tax the welfare system of a nation with 9.5 million people. There were problems related to the influx. But Löfven pointed to continued low crime in Sweden and compared the relative safety of Stockholm to carnage in American cities. “We know President Trump has talked about Chicago’s incredible murder rates, how African Americans and Hispanics are ‘living in hell.’ We know about mass shootings in U. S. theaters and churches and schools. It gives those of us tasked with keeping Sweden safe great pause.”

According to Löfven, the King agreed that the need for “extreme vetting” was clear. Even Americans posing as tourists should not be allowed to visit. “We were amazed this week,” Löfven continued, “when Mr. Trump talked about the crime wave sweeping our beautiful land. Frankly, we were stunned by his claim that a growing wave of violence had followed our decision to admit tens of thousands of immigrants and refugees, and our bafflement was redoubled by his dark hints that there had been some awful terrorist attack ‘last night.’”

“We had to act,” the Prime Minister explained to a throng of reporters, and offered supporting evidence. Sweden was significantly safer than the U. S. “According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U. S. homicide rate is more than five times that of Sweden. The rate in Sweden in 0.9 homicides per 100,000 people,” Löfven said.

“The rate in the United States is 5.0,” he grimaced.

Olaf Olafsson, a reporter for Aftonbladet, the leading newspaper in the capital, asked, “Don’t the Americans lock up more criminals than any other nation on earth? How bad would it be if all those people were still roaming the streets?”

At least one reporter in the audience was seen to shudder at the thought.

“It would probably be like living in hell,” Löfven replied. “The Americans incarcerate 710 people per 100,000. We have only 67 per 100,000 behind bars. We also know the Americans have terrible drug problems, and just about everyone old enough to hold a pistol owns one, or two or three. We don’t want these people bringing drugs and guns and violent proclivities with them, across the seas. We can’t know which Americans are violent and which are not. So we must ban them all until we can put a system in place that guarantees total safety to the Swedish people.”

To make his points more clear, Lofven turned to a stand where a set of charts had been prepared for press viewing. “As you can see, from Chart I, crime levels are lower in Sweden than America,” he noted. “This may have something to do with the fact we have more police officers per 100,000 people, 280.5 to 243.6. The drug threat to Sweden, if we allow Americans to enter, is clear. Americans are eleven times more likely to use cannabis, six times more likely to abuse opiates. King Carl completely agrees. We must keep these ‘bad hombres’ out.” 

“Chart II is equally sobering,” the Prime Minister continued. “We do have a problem with rape in 

“Then again, we may have to refuse any official visit from Mr. Trump, due to his admitted habit of groping women. Overall, violent crime is three times more common in the United States. For all these reasons and more we have decided to ban Americans traveling to Sweden, starting today.”

“The King and I, and lawmakers from all major parties regret the necessity for such action. However, until further notice all those holding American passports will be denied entry into Sweden. We hope the Swedish people—and the American people too—will understand our concerns.”

Before reporters could ask follow up questions, Prime Minister Löfven quickly exited the stage.

(PARODY; ALL STATISTICS, HOWEVER, ARE REAL.)

President Trump Equals Truth!

If you happened to miss President Donald J. Trump’s press conference Thursday, I am here to help you out. If you’re a masochist you can read a mind-boggling transcript of the entire 77-minute show.

Otherwise, I will save you the horror of wading through 13,025 words. Mr. Trump originally called the press together to announce Alex Acosta as his new pick to head the Department of Labor.

Done in 94 words.

Next, he mentioned Mick Mulvaney, who had just been confirmed by the Senate to head the Office of Management and Budget. Trump neglected to say Mulvaney had come close to being derailed because he failed to pay $15,000 in taxes for a nanny he employed. 

Just a little “fake news.”

Besides: paying actual taxes to the actual government of the actual country you want to lead is a actually a low priority, where Trump is concerned.

He then described how he was “negotiating a lot of different transactions to save money on contracts that were terrible, including airplane contracts that were out of control and late and terrible. Just absolutely catastrophic in terms of what was happening. And we’ve done some really good work and we’re proud of that.”

Here the President was referring to Lockheed Martin’s contract to build the F-35 fighter jet, at a price liberals have long insisted was ridiculous. In fact, most liberals have argued that defense spending is too high—and that any giant corporation, given a chance to milk a contract for every penny it can, will do so without an ounce of red, white or blue pride.

See: Haliburton.

See: Haliburton again!

Next—what else—Mr. Trump complimented himself: “We have made incredible progress. I don’t think there’s ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what we’ve done.”

Abe Lincoln? Chopped liver.

How could Trump be so sure he was doing the best job of any president in the whole history of a nation? He cited a poll. This was a poll, apparently, that was not rigged. He explained: “A new Rasmussen poll, in fact, because the people get it, much of the media doesn’t get it, they actually get it but they don’t write it, let’s put it that way, but a new Rasmussen poll came out a short while ago, and it has our approval rating at 55 percent and going up.”

Okay: that’s true about one poll.

Sadly, in other “fake news,” five polls taken the same week showed Trump favored +1, -3, -4, -12 and -15.

Naturally, Trump mentioned the stock market was up. He took all the credit. He didn’t mention it was up something like 12,000 points under Obama during the last eight years. 

Later he would whine about “the mess” he inherited. Oh, it was hard! 

By comparison, I think he meant, Obama had it easy when he was handed an economy in free fall in January 2009. The Dow Jones stood at 7,949, having plunged from a high of 14,164, and would bottom out at 6,627 in March.

Since the media wouldn’t do it, Trump had to pat himself on the back:

Plants and factories are already starting to move back into the United States, big league, Ford, General Motors. I’m making this presentation directly to the American people with the media present, which, it’s an honor to have you this morning because many of our nation’s reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve.

At that point, Trump started to sound nuts. 

“The press,” he wailed, “has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out what’s going on because the press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control.”

Meanwhile, I hear GOP Representative Lamar Smith, from Texas, has insisted on the floor of the House of Representatives that we should all get our news straight from Mr. Trump. Smith (who also denies climate change is real) attacks the “liberal media,” explaining, “Better to get your news directly from the President. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.”

As for Trump, in his press conference, he isn’t yet done getting in touch with his inner-dictator. “Some of the media’s fantastic,” he admits. “I have to say, honest and fantastic—but much of it is not.” 

I am guessing here that he means Fox News—that Fox is fantastic because if he ran over a baby with a steamroller, Sean Hannity would still approve.

Anyway, it was time for Mr. Trump to complain about how hard his job has been, after almost a month:

As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. A mess. At home, and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. You see what’s going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places. Low pay, low wages.”

Again, I wonder. Who moved those jobs out? President Obama? Democrats? Or greedy corporate types, a backbone of the Republican Party?

Trump seems to believe Obama had it easy when he took office. In reality, the federal deficit for Fiscal 2009 was $1.4 trillion, before President Obama could sit down in the Oval Office and straighten his tie. The U. S. economy had been shedding jobs for twelve straight months—hemorrhaging jobs in November 2008 (-766,000), December (-694,000) and January 2009 (-793,000).

More recently, in “fake news” the Bureau of Labor Statistics “faked” this entire chart—showing that, starting in October 2010, jobs had been added to the economy for 76 successive months. Damn.

What a mess.

Next, the Complainer-in-Chief focused on “mass instability” in the Middle East. Everything was apparently fine when Obama inherited two wars back in 2009, which were so easy to deal with at the time. Remember how “good” Obama had it? Estimates of the cost of those two wars ran to $4 trillion—or one-fifth of the entire federal deficit for the last 200+ years. Again one expected Trump to dab a tear streaking his cheek. Oh, he had a mess to deal with in North Korea! But he promised “we’ll take care of it, folks. We’re going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know. I inherited a mess.”

He seems to forget that North Korea developed nuclear weapons when President George W. Bush was in office—and fails to mention that no new nation acquired nuclear weapons during President Obama’s eight years.

Meanwhile, President Trump hastens to tell gathered reporters, Secretary Mattis is working on a plan to defeat ISIS, which seems odd, because Candidate Trump said he had a plan to defeat ISIS long ago.

“Another mess I inherited,” he squeals. 

I think he hopes Jim Acosta from CNN will give him a hug.

Next, he says he loves the military—hopes he never has to use the military—but, if he does, “They don’t have the right equipment, and their equipment is old…Depleted. It’s depleted. It won’t be depleted for long. One of the reasons I’m standing here instead of other people is, frankly, I talked about we have to have a strong military.”

I wonder. 

How did we spend at least $500 billion annually, eleven years in succession, and end up with a “depleted” military and a giant mess on our hands? In his State of the Union address in 2016, President Obama called this kind of claim, that the United States was weak, “hot air,” and said we spent more on defense than the next eight countries combined. 

Well, that was “fake news” for sure!

PolitiFact checked his math—and actually, we spent more than just the next seven countries combined.

Still, if Trump claimed our military was “depleted” who was I to question? Representative Smith had already made it clear.

Trump = truth. 

Trump Brings the Alligators to Town

As a candidate Donald J. Trump made a big deal about what he was going to do, just as soon as he plunked his chunky butt down in the Oval Office. He was going to pull the plug. He was going to watch water swirl down the drain. 

He was going to drain the swamp and return control of the government to the American people. At least the grumpy old white ones.

That was then. 

This is now. 

It looks increasingly likely that the plan all along was actually to put new alligators in charge of the morass. Here, then, are a few of the leading characters charged with bringing “change” to the nation’s capital:

“Call Me, Maybe” Alligator: Remember when “Call Me, Maybe” (a.k.a. General Michael Flynn) led chants of “Lock her up!” aimed at Hillary Clinton? Sadly, “Call Me, Maybe” was busy calling the Russians, undercutting American foreign policy, which some people, such as “so-called” judges, might argue constitutes treason.

“Joseph Goebbels” Alligator: At this point, you might suspect Kellyanne Conway lies when she talks in her sleep. A CNN reporters points out that, globally, 2014, 2015 and 2016 have been the three hottest years on record. “Does Donald Trump still believe climate change is a Chinese hoax?” the reporter inquires. Conway replies, “People were attending Trump’s inauguration in swimsuits! President Trump saw them. Those are the ‘alternative facts.’ Why don’t you write about something people care about, like falling ratings for The Apprentice, or the gory Bowling Green Massacre?”

“Same Old, Same Old” Alligator: Remember when Trump attacked Clinton for sticking around Washington for thirty years and not getting anything fixed? “Same Old” Alligator, Mitch McConnell, first took a seat in the U. S. Senate in 1984 and has been in charge of the Senate since 2015. Try to think of something he’s done. Give up? Well, don’t worry! He's thinking about coming up with a really good health care plan. Congress hasn’t cracked the 30% approval rating since 2011.

Fracking Alligator: When Scott Pruitt served as Oklahoma Attorney General he liked to receive letters written by oil and gas industry executives. He loved his mail! He would then copy them to state letterhead and send them to Washington, D. C. This was how Pruitt made “his” opinions about environmental protection known! Does fracking cause earthquakes? No! Can’t you read the letter I sort of wrote? 

Actually, fracking has been responsible for a 4000% increase in earthquakes in his state. Well, who cares! Not oil and gas industry corporations; and as the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United corporations are people too. 

They have free speech protection, they feel pain if you tax them and when you regulate them they’re sad.

Corey “The Consultant” Alligator: During the campaign “The Consultant” insisted Trump would drain the swamp faster than an ordinary lobbyist could shout, “Show me the money!” Also known as Corey Lewandowski, once the election was decided, “The Consultant” started his own lobbying firm in—Washington, D.C. 

Now he offers access to top people in the new Administration. He isn’t a lobbyist, though, he assured one conservative commentator. He’s just a consultant. In fact, he was shocked anyone would question his motivation. The claim that I “got into this business so I could make money is absolutely disgusting.”

Then he headed for the nearest bank.

Puzder Alligator: Andy Puzder recently addressed the matter of illegal immigrants taking jobs from American workers by firing the Guatemalan he employed for years as his very own housekeeper. That’s how you create jobs for U.S. workers! Also, he paid back taxes he owed to Social Security since he forgot to pay them until now. Puzder is going to help workers by making sure there will be no increase in the minimum wage, by crushing unions, and by bringing a pro-oligarch attitude to his job as head of the Department of Labor. Puzder once referred lovingly to his workers at Hardees as “the best of the worst.”

Paul, the Workout Alligator: This buff fellow, famous for piercing blue eyes and ice-cold smile, has been working for seven years to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Now, with Trump in office, with “Same Old” Alligator controlling the Senate, he’ll have a health care plan ready next month. Or is it next year? Or in 2019? Also, he promises everyone will love this mythic new plan, just as soon as they see it.

Betsy, The Clueless Alligator: Clueless (Betsy DeVos) won Senate confirmation, 51-50, after Vice President Mike Pence raced to the Capitol to cast a tie-breaking vote. Now, she’s in charge of the nation’s public schools. Clueless has not spent much time in the public schools because she hates the public schools, but if she has her way she will march down the hall at a public school near you, head for science class, and ensure the teacher is emphasizing Creationism—but climate change, not so much. DeVos has a strange aversion for children with special needs showing up in public schools, and thinks the decision to allow them might best be left up to the states! She also believes guns are needed in every school, to keep out Muslims, agnostics, and grizzly bears.

*

As you have probably already guessed, draining the swamp is going to take longer than expected, particularly in view of the fact that so far President Trump is just dumping fresh alligators in the place. So policy changes will have to suffice. Bold new ideas include:

1. Build a wall around the swamp. Tell supporters the alligators will pay for it.

2. Dump truckloads of sewage in the swamp; with enough sewage you can fill the swamp to the top (the EPA won’t complain).

3. Do nothing; but rename the swamp; call it Trump National Park.

4. Build a university in the middle of the swamp. Call it Trump U. (If it sinks out of sight, blame a “Mexican” judge.)

5. If any alligator anywhere in America eats a baby, blame Muslims all over the world. Also, shoot a bunch of moose. It won’t make babies safer; but it will look like you are getting the job done!

6. If none of your plans work, complain about the media, the liberal media, the media that hates moms, and point out how mean reporters keep asking you to supply actual facts. Your dumbest supporters won’t notice the swamp isn’t being drained until an alligator bites them in the ass.

Current Politifact rating of President Trump's nost important claims.

President Trump Claims Bigfoot Voted for Hillary!

After almost a month in office, is is too soon to ask: Is President Trump operating under the influence of powerful hallucinogens?

We know Trump has seen huge inaugural crowds where none existed, spotted terrorists under every bed and claimed three to five million undocumented immigrants voted. Bigfoot in California, the Ghost of Christmas Future in New Hampshire and Barack Obama’s Kenyan grandfather in Virginia all showed up at the polls. 

In a fair election, Mr. Trump insisted he’d have won the popular vote, the electoral vote, and People magazine would have voted him “Sexiest Man Alive” every year for the last decade.

On the morning after the election Trump proclaimed that he was ahead in the popular vote and would remain so when all votes were tallied. The numbers kept piling up for Hillary and it became clear he would not finish ahead. Within days, he was tweeting, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” He tweeted again, “So why isn’t the media reporting on this? Serious bias—big problem!”

(Big problem: A hallucinating President?)

Even after his inauguration, when Trump sat down for his first interview as President, he was still grumbling. David Muir of ABC News asked if it might not be dangerous to talk about millions of illegals voting, without...um...evidence.

“No. Not at all,” the leader of the greatest democracy in history replied, “because many people feel the way I do.”

“Believe me, those were Hillary voters,” Trump continued. “And if you look at it, they all voted for Hillary. They all voted for Hillary. They didn’t vote for me.” He singled out Virginia, California and New Hampshire as states where illegals marched to the polls in whole brigades and battalions.

Naturally, reporters set out to uncover the truth. Who saw Mr. Bigfoot and why did he vote for Clinton? Could it be he didn’t want to vote for a man who might gleefully grab Mrs. Bigfoot, you know where? “Virginia’s election was well administered by our 133 professional local registrars, with help from hundreds of election officials and volunteers who worked to guarantee a good experience for eligible Virginia voters,” state Commissioner of Elections Edgardo Cortés assured Fox News. “The election was fair and all votes cast by eligible voters were accurately counted.” 

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla labeled Trump’s allegations “absurd.” 

The New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State explained that there was no evidence of wide-spread voter fraud, but, yes, there were cases. Lorin Schneider Jr. did vote illegally in 2008 and 2012.

Alas, for President Trump, Schneider was not an illegal immigrant.

As far as Trump was concerned, it didn’t matter what election officials said, not even when The New York Times contacted officials in all fifty states, and not one cited evidence of widespread fraud, and no one had seen the Ghost of Christmas Future floating up to cast a ballot.

I decided to check out a few facts myself. First, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has declined from 12.2 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2014. According to a Pew Research report, illegals spread across all fifty states. Vermont and North Dakota have a few. California has roughly 2,350,000, Texas 1,650,000. Florida has 850,000, Virginia, 300,000, New Hampshire 10,000.

A sensible person, with the math and reasoning skills of a second grader, might immediately wonder about Trump’s complaints. First, who organized this massive turnout of as many as five million illegals? Did those who showed at the polls impersonate voters who were already dead? Did Juan, who picked apples in Virginia, but spoke little English, show up and vote as Shamus O’Brien?

Secondly, why would any illegal risk voting in California? Clinton crushed Trump in the Golden State, winning 8,754,000 votes (rounded off), or 61.7%. Trump pulled in 4,484,000 votes, or 31.6%. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein combined for 758,000 and Bernie Sanders had 79,000 write-in votes.

Even a cursory glance at previous elections indicates nothing untoward. Trump did poorly, compared to Mitt Romney and John McCain and far worse than George W. Bush in 2004. In California the vote totals indicated that Trump’s problem was Trump: 

2012   Obama 7,854,285 (60.2%)              Romney 4,839,958 (37.1)

2008   Obama 8,274,473 (61)                     McCain 5,011,781 (37)

2004    Kerry 6,745,485 (54.3)                        Bush 5,509,826 (44.4)

Even internal evidence showed Trump was the problem. 

In Orange County, the richest in the United States, a Republican bastion in every election from 1936 to 2012, Trump lost. Trump lost, but all four GOP representatives to Congress were returned to Washington by the same voting blocks.

Similar patterns were clear in New Hampshire, where Trump said he was screwed. The polls, he said before the election, were rigged. In New Hampshire there was no evidence to support even that claim. 

The actual vote perfectly mirrored what polls had predicted: Clinton 348,521 (47.6); Trump 345,789 (47.2).

Again, there was no evidence to indicate waves of Guatemalans appeared at Granite State polls. Clinton fared best in Grafton County, winning 28,500 votes to 19,000 for Trump. Still, she did worse than Obama in 2012, under-performing by 400 votes. Trump did better by 800 than Romney. Obama received 44,800 votes in Merrimack County in 2012. Clinton scored only 40,200. 

Romney had 34,500 votes in the same county. Trump piled up 37,700.  

In Cheshire County the same trend appeared: Obama 25,400; Clinton 22,100; Romney 15,200; Trump 16,900.

Strafford County was more of the same: Obama 36,000; Clinton 34,900; Romney 26,700; Trump 29,100.

So, where had Trump turned to for evidence to support his claims? Was he math-challenged? 

Or was he loaded with drugs?

A White House official cited a widely-debunked study done in 2008, which purportedly showed that 6.4% of non-citizens might have voted. But this study, which questioned tens of thousands of participants, included only 21 “yes” responses from individuals who said they were non-citizens but cast ballots, a total so minuscule, one researcher said it fell within the normal margin for error when people are filling out any survey, even one asking them if they like Rice Krispies or Captain Crunch.

Had he not been so busy tweeting, Mr. Trump could have pulled out a calculator and done the math. If there were 11.1 million illegals—and even if the 2008 survey was correct—then the total illegal vote would be:

11,100,000

           x .64

      719,400

But math didn’t matter. Trump believed Bigfoot was real. So did his poor fans. One right-wing website ran a story with the scary title: Here’s What Voter Fraud Looks Like in 23 States. If you actually read the story, however, the example offered for Colorado was one person, Sara Sosa, who died in 2009, but voted in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. In other words, someone was stuffing the ballot box, with one entire ballot! 

In California primaries, in just three counties, there were reportedly 194 people who voted twice. 

In Florida, Deisy Penton de Cabrera was convicted in 2013 after she was found with twelve absentee ballots belonging to others and shown to have “a list of elderly Hispanic voters, many [of] whom were deaf, blind, or had Alzheimer’s.” 

In early 2015, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele announced, “there’s potential voter fraud in Pennsylvania.” 

She went on to say that 731 people may have double-voted in her state.

In this way, right-wing nuts built a case: 194 in California, 731 in Pennsylvania, Bigfoot, Sosa, maybe returning again from the dead. 

My god, we were talking bazillions of illegals voting!

Eventually, Snopes, a non-partisan fact-checking site, traced the three-to-five-million claim back to one source, a gentleman named Greg Phillips, who said he was founder of VoteStand, and who reported he had “verified” three million illegal votes within five days of the November 8 election.

Sadly, he refused to release sources or data or explain methodology until such time as it felt right.

(Probably: never.)

In fact, the absence of evidence for concern was crystal clear. Consider the case of Florida, for a moment. With an estimated 850,000 illegal immigrants residing in the state, Governor Rick Scott set out before the 2012 election to purge voting rolls and protect democracy at its roots. First, the Florida Department of State created a list of 182,000 men and women who might be voting illegally. 

Scary! 

A second careful check of records, duplicate names, wrong addresses, and more, quickly cut that figure to 2,700. 

Less scary! 

Then more checking reduced the total to 200 possible illegals, one of whom turned out to be an 85-year-old World War II veteran. 

Eventually, after many tax dollars wasted, the state did manage to purge 85 names from the rolls.

Not scary at all!

Nevertheless, in similar fashion, President Trump now pledges a massive effort to catch millions of illegal voters, promises to spend millions and millions in taxpayer monies on his hallucinatory quest.

Bigfoot must be stopped.

For the good of the country.

Bigfoot, a Canadian beast by birth, heads (illegally) for the polls.

Trump and an Irrational Fear of Muslims

With the “Bowling Green Massacre” apparently in mind, carried out by Muslim immigrants from Yemen or Westeros or Munchkin Land, President Trump has implemented a ban on travelers from seven Muslim nations.

A logical question: “Why?”

“Fear of Muslims is rational,” General Michael Flynn, a top adviser in the administration once explained. Only it’s not. No one who has ever watched an ISIS beheading has any doubt that fear of ISIS killers and thugs is rational. No one who remembers watching the Trade Towers crumble would argue we don’t need to be vigilant. 

To fear all Muslims? That’s nuts.

Consider the good citizens of New York City. How do they function? There are an estimated 80,000 Yemeni-American citizens and green card holders living in the five boroughs today. Yemen is one of seven countries to make the Trump list. There are 36,000 taxi drivers in the city who are native to Bangladesh, 15,000 from Pakistan, both Muslim nations, neither on the list. 

Are all these people threats? 

Rationally speaking you might argue it makes more sense to worry about cows and dogs and bees and never visit a farm, pet a pet, or smell a flower in a garden. Cows kill 20 Americans ever year, dogs 28. Bees, wasps and hornet kill 58. Does fear of bees keep Kellyanne Conway up late at night?

There are 38,000 individuals of Somali descent now living in the Columbus, Ohio area. One Somali-American did attack a group of Ohio State students in November, an assault inspired by ISIS. So we need to guard against such attacks. Still, one need not fear all Muslims, just as we need not fear all young white men simply because Dylan Roof, 22, walked into a South Carolina church and gunned down nine black parishioners. One may fear white supremacists and with real cause.

Consider Iran, also on the list. At least 500,000 people of Iranian descent live in the United States. Did you know 9,000 are doctors? Canada is home to another 163,000 individuals from Iran. So, if we really want to be safe, we’re going to need another wall along our northern border.

Setting bees and cows and Iranian doctors aside, it might help if we had a clear view of reality. There are 1.6 billion Muslims round the world and most have no more interest in killing you than you do in killing them. Most Americans probably don’t even know what nation has the largest Muslim population. That would be Indonesia—which is not on the list. What nation has the second largest Muslim population? India. 

India is not on the list.

The Indian census in 2011 found that the Muslim population of that nation totaled 172,000,000, or 1/7th of the population. An estimated 133,000 students from India currently attend U.S. institutions of higher learning. Roughly speaking, that would mean 19,000 are Muslim. They are interested in books, not bombs.

What about Saudi Arabia, an ally (but not always a good one) of the United States? Saudi Arabia is not on the list. In fact, the U.S supports ongoing Saudi attacks on Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. 

A large number of Saudis practice the most extreme form of Islam, Wahhabism, and use oil wealth to spread the most radical tenets of the faith. In Saudi Arabia drug dealers can have their hands chopped off. Women cannot vote or drive or go out in public without male escort. Beheading is still practiced. Stoning of adulterers can be ordered by courts. Osama bin Laden and fifteen of nineteen hijackers who struck on 9/11 were Saudi. In other words, some Saudis should scare us.

Then again, there are 61,000 Saudi students studying at colleges and universities in the United States.

The Kurds are Muslim. Their population spreads across large areas of four countries, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. If the Kurds had their way there would already be a Kurdish state. Kurdish troops, the Peshmerga, have been doing some of the best fighting against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, so our servicemen and women don’t have too. In the battle to recapture Mosul, an effort Mr. Trump calls “a total disaster,” the Peshmerga are dying every day.

Every day...

We can try to ban all immigrants from Libya, Sudan and Iraq. That won’t necessarily make us safer. Since 9/11, 151 Americans have died in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. None have been killed by immigrants from the seven banned nations. Meanwhile, accidental shootings kill 3-4 American children every week. That means an additional 3,000 dead since 9/11, a tragedy of a different sort.

(Insert typical NRA claim: “Guns don’t kill people; toddlers kill people.”)

You can focus on the Muslim threat. Or you can add up the red, white and blue carnage caused by Americans of other faiths or no faith at all. A list of bloody incidents since 9/11 would include:

Massacre at Virginia Tech, 32 dead

Sandy Hook Elementary School, 27

Binghamton, N.Y., 13

Aurora, Colorado, 13 (and because the shooter had a 100-round magazine, another 58 injured)

Washington Navy Yard shooting, 12

Dylan Roof (mentioned above), 9

School shootings: Red Lake High School, 9; Umpqua College, 9; Oikos College, 7; NIU, 5 killed, 16 wounded; Amish school in Pennsylvania, 5 killed, 5 wounded

Workplace slaughter: 8 in Manchester, Connecticut; 6 in Goleta, California; 6 in Minneapolis; 5 in Meridian, Mississippi
Seal Beach, California, 8

Killing of 8 family members in Pike County, Ohio

Shopping mall attacks, Omaha, 8; Salt Lake City, 5
Tucson, Arizona, 6

Isla Vista, California, 6

Attack on Sikh temple in Wisconsin, 6

_________

216 killed

You could focus on gun-related suicides, which totaled 19,392 in 2010 and 21,344 the next year. 

It seems likely, in fact, that 300,000 gun-related suicides have occurred in the U.S. in the last fifteen years.

We need to follow a rational course if we want to protect our people from grievous harm. Are there evil followers of Islam in our midst? Yes. There are evil Catholic priests, public school teachers, police and plumbers.

There are 3.3 million Muslims living in the U.S.  Almost all are law-abiding citizens. Mohamed Sanu, a wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons, is Muslim. His dream was to win a Super Bowl. Several of my former students at Loveland Middle School were followers of Islam, great young people. Hakeem Olajuwon, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, is Muslim. He won an Olympic gold medal as a member of the U. S. men’s basketball team.

At least 5,000 Muslims serve in the U. S. military. One right-wing website calls this number “insignificant” and rattles off a bit of math to explain why. But if Muslims are underrepresented in the military, as the right-wingers like to say, they still serve in greater numbers than members of President Trump’s direct line.

The total number of Trump heroes serving over the last three generations: 0.

Those who serve or have served include Captain Humayan S. M. Khan, killed in action in 2004, whose family Mr. Trump vilified. They include Captain Mohsin Naqvi, who joined the U.S. Army four days after 9/11 and was killed during a combat tour in 2008. Finally, when I think of Muslim Americans, I think of my daughter’s old boyfriend. He was not Muslim; but his mother was. Born in Pakistan, she came to this country decades ago. I remember the day she sat in my kitchen and asked if there was any way I could convince her son not to join the U.S. Army. As a veteran, she thought I might be able to offer my advice. I told her that I was almost sure her son’s mind was made up; and it was. So he enlisted. Mom had to worry her way through her beloved son’s three combat tours in Afghanistan, where he served on the front lines as a U.S. Army medic.

Think of people like her when you think about Muslims. Those who lump all members of a faith into one category are fools.

They’re not even good Americans.