Biden follows Trump in defending Puerto Rico benefits exclusion

Almost 500,000 I-130 applicants in a backlog

The hurdles people looking to come here have to jump makes immigration almost impossible. Proving everything, the invasive questioning, the denial of admittance by an unregulated CBP (happened to my wife in February), and a society that knows nothing about it cause the problem.

To obtain my spouse visa (which is still active) in China, I needed to prove the marriage, fill out a form, take a photo, pay a fee, and wait ten days.

Ten. Solid. Days. My wife and I are on our sixth month waiting and we're still no where near anywhere. And trying to call and get answers or emails (which never get responded to) go nowhere.

Of course there are the people in charge of making these laws, but my two Senators are two of the most Republican-friendly Democrats in the Senate, and my Rep just wants money and hangs up on you if you challenge him.

Our immigration system is completely broken. And fixing it breaks it more. No American citizen should be separated from their family. No American citizen's spouse should have to wait to be with their family. No American's family member should be denied the ability to be with their loved ones.

On a final note, while my wife was in airport jail the CBP put her in, they subjected her to anti-Chinese slurs and bigotry, and tried to convince her that her American husband didn't want her, which is why they were doing what they were doing to her.

QAnon Slowly TAKING OVER United States

On the State of Mental Illness Recognition and Mass Shootings (very long post)

As I reflect on all these mass shooting, I turned inward. Eventually, as always, pundits and people will start looking for excuses and the most common excuse used will be mental health. It's a obtuse, nebulous phrase that is used as catch-all. Mental illness.

Please don't blame mental health for this. We will hear it all the time. Most Americans scream mental health and all they understand is "that guy is crazy."

Mental illness is not an explain all. And there are literally hundreds of mental "illnesses." I have been diagnosed with two: Bipolar Disorder #2 (mental illness) that has manifested Borderline Personality Disorder (personality disorder).

Mental illness BD#2 means I will get into severe depressions, but never truly hit a maniac episode. Personality disorder BPD manifests itself in a a distorted body image (I always think I am fat and ugly), easily frustrated, self-destructive behavior, paranoia, disassociation, abandonment issues, and "black and white" logical thinking. It's taken me years to deal with these, and everyday, just like a recovering addict, it's a struggle to not let the "monster inside" take you over for a day. It's pull is strong and it's power is great.

Mental illness is not a catch-all for school shooting, yet we all lump it together as a "that's the reason. He was crazy and needed help." MENTAL ILLNESS ISN'T A CRY FOR HELP!!! Acceptance and getting help doesn't cure it either. It's an illness one will struggle with for their entire lives.

You wouldn't say to a cancer patient "buck up. get over it and get help." You wouldn't pill shame a heart disease patient. And you wouldn't dismiss the manifestations of an asthma or sickle-cell anemia attack. Mental illnesses have attacks too, just like all illness. Mentally ill people are much more likely to end their lives than take others. Mental illness needs a medical doctor, not a "it's okay. You can get over it" brass ring pep talk.

What most of these mass shooters have are personality disorders, not mental illnesses. Psychopathy is a personality disorder. Psychosis is a mental illness. Narcissistic personality disorder is a personality disorder. Schizophrenia is a mental illness.
Please understand that acknowledging mental illness isn't a "first step." This isn't a chemical dependency or an addiction. No one will say "acknowledging Tay-Sach's disease is the first step to recovery." Mental illness isn't a 12 step recovery. It is a lifetime of dealing with a disease that occurs in a person's brain and not the body. No, they are not fatal, unless something severe happens (like suicide). Yes, they do control your lives, like tumors and addiction. Yes, it takes years to remedy because they reoccur, like cancer. No, you cannot just get over it. Like an addict, people with mental illnesses live one day at a time, sometimes minute by minute because the monster can rear it's ugly and take over in an instant.

Mental illness is NOT causing mass shootings. That is pseudo-science. What causes them?
1: The idea that a gun solves all problems.
2: Unable to deal with emotions without using violence
3: Sometimes, even an itch for fame because everyone remembers the names of serial killers and mass shooters.
4: The lack of caring of Americans for anything that doesn't involve them and our selfishness that has taken over since the Me-Generation of the 1980s.
5: The glorification of violence and anti-social behavior in our media (yes, I am putting the blame on them because of things like reality shows and modern music that show that psychopathic and psychotic behavior is rewarded, and that guns are the answer to everything).
6: The politicians and NRA that have made purchasing a gun as easy as buying bubble gum.

Mental illness is NOT the cause. It's the scapegoat. The real causes would are things Americans avoid, because it will damage our okey-doke story of how great we are and there is nothing about us that needs to change. We have allowed the very nihilistic, sociopathic, narcissistic, selfish, greedy, and megalomaniacal members of our society to be rewarded and given advance (with one of the worst being elected president in 2016). These are normally people with limited empathy (most of the time, empathy is a laughed at trait) and little integrity, traits that are reinforced constantly and given praise because they are actors playing a rule and realize that bullying is seen as strength.

Start with solving those problems. Then work on ending bullying at home, at school, and at work. Finally, start funding an education system that teaches the entire student (academics, psychological, physical, emotional) to be a laudable human being and not just a soul dead, brain dead worker bees that believe that stepping on people and using them is the only means for success.

As I said, I am a mental illness sufferer. When I was 24, I went in for testing. I knew something was wrong with me, but I needed to find out what. Psychological testing, developmental testing, physical testing. . .it took a day or two.

I kept the results to myself most of the time, but I figured why should I keep them quiet. I may be running for office, and I am usually honest to a fault. I am not perfect and never claimed to be. But the fact that mental illness and health is so misunderstood, I wanted to touch on mine.

Psychological.
Bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder. This means I get super low (Bipolar) to the point of self destruction, and I lash out when things get overwhelming (BPD). These are in the APA handbook as mental illnesses.

Developmental.
I am Asperger's, a condition that didn't exist and wasn't understood when I was in school in the 1980s and 1990s. It can be summed up as High IQ/Low EQ. Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory.

Physical:
I am severely anemic. You can see this from the color of my fingernails (pink to the point of white) and the fact I have next to no blood under my eyelids.

How does the rest of the world deal with this when I mention it? Well, like good understanding people, they either ignore it, tell me I am faking everything, tell me I just "like drama," or tell me to grow up and deal with it because "I am a man" and I "need to act like one." How does one do that? How does one "deal with" mental illnesses? How does one deal with developmental issues that start in utero?

The lack of knowledge and understanding is overwhelming. If I were a child, there are mechanisms to diagnose, adjust, and support. Where is this for adults? It doesn't exist. It it probably never will. It's dismissed, misunderstood, or the sufferer is gaslit or bullied into submission.

One of the reasons is adults think bullying only happens in school and hazing only happens in Greek Life and sports teams. It doesn't. Bosses routinely bully, browbeat, and gaslight their employees. Older coworkers normally haze the newer ones. No one lifts a finger to stop it because it's part of the work culture, corporate America, education (yes, teachers and principals haze and bully other teachers all the time), and American culture.

All of this comes down to psychopathy. We are losing the ability to feel empathy. Empathy is for the weak. Empathy is for the naive. Look at people who have made it big showing no empathy at all. The former Orange idiot in charge. Gordon Ramsay is a sociopathic narcissist through and through. NFL star Antonio Brown and every pampered athlete and celebrity you can think of. Even in TV shows, the most narcissistic and sociopathic character tends to be the most liked (Dan Fielding from Night Court, Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory, Niles Crane from Frasier, Louie from Taxi if we want to go that far back. . .Cedric the Entertainer's character from The Neighborhood. . .Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother, etc).

These are a reflection of us as a people and a nation. Psychopathy has become our national shame, but it isn't shameful. We reward it, we honor it, we lionize it. How does this come back to my original point of being an adult with developmental issues and mental illnesses? Who do you think are the bosses and the principals? Who do you think oversees us? The psychopath. The bully without empathy.

To be honest, we still haven't left the elementary school playground, except we're older, have hair in funny places, deeper voices, bigger tits, and can make love. We still treat those that are different with the psychopathy and bullying we did when we were in school. "Boys being boys" and "stick and stones." Only, as adults, we have less recourse.

As a result, the cycle never ends. I am bipolar. I am BPD. I am Asperger's. I am also someone who has attempted to take his own life on more than several occasions where the monster took over my life. I am also someone who has nightmares due to the PTSD of bullying I received as a child, and the bullying I have received as an adult.

Yet, there is no where adults in this position can turn. No employer will adjust themselves for that. Schools only to it reluctantly because of the ADA and IDEA. So, adults with mental illnesses. . .with developmental issues. . .are not understood. And no adult will even attempt to understand what people (and there are millions) go through every day.

In my life, my mental illnesses have burned many bridges. Most will probably never be rebuilt. Whether intentionally because I felt they were idiots, or unintentionally because, being Asperger's, I have little filter from brain to mouth and tend to be cruel when I speak until someone brings it to my attention, then with the bipolar, I internalize and put myself into a depression, and with the BPD, I beat myself up until I look in the mirror and hate what I see.

But don't worry, as soon as most with mental illnesses come back to reality from their "meltdown", their boss, manager, supervisor, principal, agent, or whomever, will reinforce the mental illness emotional grip and the feelings of worthlessness one has as they bully and gaslight the mental illness sufferer into submission. And no one will do what even children on a playground sometimes do. . .tell the person to stop or turn them in for what they do.

Sufferers of mental illness and developmental issues, as children, get all the help one can get once it's determined. As adult, sufferers get browbeaten, told they're faking it and to get over it. Bullies never change. . .they just get older and more powerful.

On this day of remembering the Tulsa Massacre

I call on people to remember three other events:

The Waco Lynching of 1915 of Jesse Washington
The execution of the youngest person in the 20th century, George Stinney Jr
And the worst attack on a African-American child in the 20th century in the murder of Emmett Till

African-Americans have been brutalized for decades and this needs to stop. Brutalization isn't just physical violence, but economic violence with "red-lining," social violence in the stereotypes used for African-Americans (some that African-Americans put on themselves), and legal violence in the police brutality/longer sentences for African-Americans convicted for the same crimes as their white counterparts.

TON Reservation feels like an occupied Nation

In traveling the 22 mile round trip from my home to my high school, I passed no less than 18 border patrol SUVs and one border patrol helicopter flying overhead.

The Tohono o'Odham Nation's land and population crosses the border into Mexico and because of that, many on The Nation do not recognize the border since the border represents something similar to the Berlin Wall to them.

My students and their parents abhor the Border Patrol treating their land as the BP's occupied land while disrespecting their property (students have told me BP car park on their land and refuse to vacate when asked) and disrespecting their traffic laws by speeding down they roads driving like maniacs (I normally drive 70 on a road marked for 65 MPH and Border Patrol car pass me like I am standing still).

CBP, ICE, and the BP have little oversight and are arrogant and smug when you have any interaction when them.

This needs to change and I plan on working to do that if elected, even though this is a federal issue.

No American citizen should feel like their backyard is being dominated by people who act as an occupying force in a war zone.

My campaign has a cyber stalker. . .I'm sure his name on Facebook is a fake name.

He informed me not to associate with DU on my website anonymously, and he attacked me on the Arizona LD4 Democrats Facebook page before his post was deleted and he was banned.

In his attack, he questioned my judgement and called this website a place for "leftist losers."

On my website he mention people here who lost their jobs due to being on this site, and two posters by their screen names.

First, they ignore you. Then, they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

On this Memorial Day, I reflect on the liberties and freedoms all Americans are granted

Freedom of speech,
freedom to vote,
freedom to practice or not to practice religion,
freedom to criticize,
freedom to protest things that you do criticize,
freedom to change the government on election day,
freedom to read news that is no censored or filtered by government,
freedom to do on the internet things that are not illegal and not worry about a governmental firewall stopping you,
freedom to choose your life and what you want to do with it,
freedom of economic mobility,
freedom to be who you are which laws forcing you into the closest
freedom of due process of law if accused of a crime

I've lived in countries where some, if not all, of these freedoms are pipe dreams. Malaysia has a national religion (Islam), as does Thailand (Buddhism). To criticize or question them can land you in prison.

South Korea has a been moving in the right direction, but since Lee Myung Bak (who Koreans I knew living there called Lee Myung Bush), the country has been tilting towards making Christianity a state religion.

I will not go into China, since we know none of those freedoms exist there and few people I know there (including my wife) don't see the problem. Judaism isn't one of the six recognized religions, so if I when to the Chabad House in Shanghai, my wife would be forbidden to enter because she doesn't have a foreign passport.

As I reflect on the freedoms I gave up living overseas, I come to realize that while we do have our flaws and problems (as all countries do), I do love my country and what it is supposed to be and stand for internationally. I expect some arguments which I accept, but I truly believe in my heart that we are that example, willing to expose our dirty laundry to the entire world, show our faults and our strengths, and always work to overcome them.

Those we remember on Memorial Day embody that. Those we look to for defense and protection (no, not you police agencies) are truly the ones who are the best among us. We owe them everything and they should be given everything we, as a people, can give because of what they are willing to give up: Their lives.

This Memorial Day, I ask all Americans, to truly dedicate it to those who have served, alive or dead. My brother served for years and lost friends in wars overseas. One of my good friends visited the grave of his son who contracted cancer while on deployment and died fourteen years ago just two months after his 22nd birthday.

These are the true role models. The 58,000 names on the Vietnam War Memorial. The 351,000 lost being the original ANTIFA and fighting Hitler, Mussolini, and Imperial Japan. The 21,000 in Korea. Iraq01. Afghanistan. Iraq02.

We are at our best when those that served and lived are taken care off completely. . .and those that fought and died are honored completely.

Have a great Memorial Day wherever you all live. Thank an active duty GI. Thank a veteran. Remember those who never came home.

Aram S. Katz
Candidate
Arizona House of Representatives
Leglislative District #4.

From my campaign website: Arizonans deserve top notch health care

From my campaign website: John Joel is no good for Arizona education