Showing posts with label border. Show all posts
Showing posts with label border. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Randy Rainbow Update: This Week He's Channeling Madonna In "Border Lies"

In his latest video, Randy Rainbow channels Madonna with
his new song "Border Lies."
One of my most favorite Madonna tunes is "Borderline."

But I have to say Randy Rainbow, in his latest video that was dropped today, has improved upon the song greatly with his new version, called "Border Lies."

It was inevitable that Rainbow would take on the so-called national emergency Trump declared over the border.

He didn't get his money for his stupid wall, and his predictable tantrum took the form of declaring a fake emergency for his border wall, or fence or whatever.

You have to admit, Trump gave Rainbow a nice assist with his sing-song speech about how his "emergency" will wend its way through the courst. "I love this song," Rainbow gushingly stage whispers to his journalistic colleagues in the video.

Then the performance of "Border Lies" gets underway.

Sample lyric:

"Border lies
Great for distracting from Russian ties 
More insulting than your skin tone 
Talkin' 'bout border lies."

The video has everything, even a Nancy Pelosi style clap back.

My only quibble is I don't think Randy Rainbow can pull off a 1980s style hairdo as well as Madonna could back in the day, but oh, well.

Here's the video, so enjoy!

Friday, June 16, 2017

Be An International Citizen By Buying House In 2 Countries: Vermont/Quebec

This apartment building straddles the U.S./Canadian
border in Vermont and Quebec. If you want it, it's for sale. 
Imagine waking up in Canada walking just a few feet to the bathroom to brush your teeth in the United States.

You can do that if you buy a 3,000 square foot apartment house in the fine village of Beebe Plain,  Vermont.  The same house is also in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada.  (Beebe Plain is a village within the town of Derby Line, Vermont.)  

Confused? Don't be. It's a rare building that straddles the international border Vermont and Quebec. The building is for sale for a low, low price of $109,000, but it's a major fixer-upper that probably needs three times that much money to renovate.

Plus, there's the whole international border thing. Border officials, especially on the United States side, have gotten a lot more pickier over the years about who crosses the border and when and why.

"In the day it wa a normal and natural thing,' Brian DuMoulin told the Associated Press. He grew up in this house. When he was a kid, nobody thought twice about crossing the border over and over again in one day. "Now it stresses everybody out," DuMoulin said.

This is the state of affairs now in Beebe Plain, Vermont/Stanstead, Quebec, according to the AP:

"Residential streets that used to be open were blocked by gates. The back doors of an apartment building straddling the border iin Derby Line village have been locked shut. The street next to the Haskell Free Library and the Opera House, deliberately built in both countries, is blocked by flower pots, although Canadians are still allowed to wak ot the library's U.S. entrance without going through a border post."

Plus, as you can imagine, border agents might be suspicious of people who want to move into the apartment house that staddles the border. (The current owners are in their 70s and inherited the building, but now want to move to Ontario to be closer to their grandchildren.)

The apartment building, currently vacant while it awaits a buyer, is monitored.

Border agents try to know the people who live in the house and let them move back and forth across the border if they stay in the house or its tiny yard. So no need to show your passport if you really, really have to urgently move from the kitchen in the United States to the bathroom in Canada.

Despite the renovation costs and the border stickiness, several would-be buyers have expressed interest in the building. So if you want it, better hurry up and make an offer.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Seems Like Trump Administration Doesn't Want Anybody Who's Not White Into The Country

Manpreet Kooner with her fiance. She recently wanted to take
a one-day trip from Canada to a Vermont spa, but was turned
away at the border, possibly because of her race.
I keep hearing all these disturbing reports of border patrol agents not letting people in this country based just on the color of their skin.  

And that's no matter how safe or unsafe or legal they might be.

Some of this is happening close to home, as I live near the Canadian border in Vermont.

One of the more disturbing incidents occured at the Highgate Springs, Vermont border crossing, which is just a 10 minute drive up the road from my house.

Recently, a Canadian woman from the Montreal area with a Canadian passport tried to get across the border into the United States via Highgate Springs because she was taking a day trip to go to a Vermont spa.

Manpreet Kooner, 30, was born in Canada to Indian parents who had become Canadian citizens. Kooner has always lived in Canada. She has a good job in a science lab at a local college and has no criminal history.

So what's the harm in letting Kooner into Vermont to get her nails done or whatever.?

Kooner, with her Indian heritage, has darker skin than the two white friends she was with when she tried to cross the border into Vermont Sunday, says the Canadian broadcaster CBC.

U.S. Border Patrol was going to let her white friends through, but they held Kooner for six hours. She got no explanation why, and the border patrol isn't talking. Border agents said they don't about individual cases.

A statement from the Border Patrol adopted a policy in 2014 that "prohibits the consideration of race or ethnicity in law enforcement, investigation, and screening activities, in all but the most exceptional circumstances."

Looks like that policy is out the window. CBC said Kooner told them one of the border agents told her, 'I know you may feel like you've been Trumped,' in reference to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Kooner said the problems started in December when she tried to enter to the United States, and was subject to a random check, which happens to all of us sometimes.

This time the border agents noted Kooner was stopped in December, though there were no red flags in her file, CBC said. 

On Sunday, in addition to being detained for six hours, Kooner was photographed, fingerprinted and told to sign a document withdrawing her application to go into the United States.

She was also given confusing advice to go to the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to get a visa to enter the United States in the future, but she was told by them to go to U.S Customs and Border Patrol.'

In other words, Kooner has dark skin. Stay the hell out of the United States.

At least it seems that way.

So, if Kooner, a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, with no criminal record, with a good job, no red flags, wants to enter the United States briefly as a tourist and is barred, what about other people?

What if, unlike Kooner, somebody is a Muslim with no criminal record who wants to enter the United States from Canada? There area already plenty of reports of that kind of thing going on.

Draw it to its logical conclusion, do the Trumpsters want only white English speaking people to enter the United States, even as tourists? That seems pretty limiting doesn't it?

I guess there's a crowd of Trumpsters out there who really want to turn us into a whites-only Fortress America.