Some things are so absurd that you can only shake your head.

Some other things are so very absurd that you can only laugh.

So it was on Feb. 6–Ronald Wilson Reagan’s birthday, no less–when Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. said the southern border of the continental United States is not secure, because of Donald John Trump Sr. and the Make America Great Again Republicans.

Yes, really.

Really.

Here’s the exact language: “The only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”

Let’s take a stroll, as the saying goes, down Memory Lane.

Biden is the one who opened the border right out of the gate in his term of office.

Because of him, millions upon millions of people have entered the country illegally.

Because of him, drugs, terrorists, and criminals have surged into the United States of America.

Because of him, border-surge-related crime has skyrocketed.

And on and on the list goes.

It takes no genius to understand that many such problems affect the most vulnerable Americans the most.

And now, after all of this, Biden says, “The only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”

Oh, please.

Puh-leeze.

The only serious question about Biden here is not whether what he’s saying is false. Rather, it’s whether Biden knows it’s false.

There are but two possible answers to that question.

One of them is “yes,” in which case Biden isn’t being candid.

The other is “no,” which is even worse, because it may be further evidence of his cognitive impairment, which is serious, not funny.

♦♦♦

Before turning to the alleged border-security bill that the U.S. Senate released late Feb. 4, let’s back up and make sure we have a term straight.

You, faithful reader of the column, will recall that there’s no such thing as an “illegal immigrant.”

Why? Because an immigrant is, by definition, someone who has entered a country legally.

Whatever label you want to assign to those who enter a country illegally, they’re not immigrants.

They’re not immigrants.

They’re just not.

♦♦♦

The alleged border-security bill that the U.S. Senate released late Feb. 4 has two sets of problems.

One is procedural. One is substantive.

�–� The procedural problem is that a few people released the bill late Feb. 4 and then wanted to start considering it Feb. 7.

But the bill had several hundred pages. Two full days–Feb. 5 and 6–were simply not enough time for anyone seriously to digest a proposal that was as thick as a telephone directory.

And remember: Reading law–or in this case, proposed law–isn’t like reading a novel. It’s more like reading a math textbook. You can’t speed read through it. You have to read every word–not just every sentence, but every word–and understand how it affects every other word. Then you have to see the big picture.

You can’t do that in two full days and expect to get all of it.

This smacks of what then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said years ago about the ObamaCare bill: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

No, thank you.

This procedural problem alone is enough to justify opposing such a bill.

�–� But there’s more.

Whatever good things may be in such a bill, it–among other things and according to press reports–waits to close the border until there are encounters with 5000 on average per day for a week, or 8500 in a single day.

No, thank you.

Really, now. How hard is this figure out? The threshold should not be 8500. Or 5000. Or 4000. Or 3000. Or 2000. Or 1000. Or 100. Or even 10.

The threshold should be zero.

Set the threshold at zero.

Zero means no drugs, no terrorists, and no criminals.

Does that mean we expect perfection from border agents? No. But it does mean that we have a serious goal of zero. There’s nothing–absolutely, positively nothing–wrong with that.

How many more drugs, terrorists, and criminals need to come across the border before Biden and the Biden administration get it?

Or will they never get it?

Or do they just not want to get it?

Randy Elf joins those who get it.

COPYRIGHT © 2024 BY RANDY ELF