taxpayers

This graphic humorously references a trip that top state liquor regulators took to the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators in 2015 at a cost of more than $7,000 in taxpayer money. The illustration was created by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission during work hours on a state computer with input from top agency officials, records show. Pictured from left to right are TABC Director Sherry Cook, Licensing Director Amy Harrison, Analyst Jesse Valdez and then-TABC technology contractor Jim Harrison.

A protester dressed as a diabolical version of Uncle Sam holds a suitcase full of money at the U.S. border fence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017. (AP/Christian Torres)
The fiscal 2018 price for President Trump’s border wall is in: $2.6 billion. That’s a cost to U.S. taxpayers, not a cost many people any longer think will be picked up by the Mexican government.
As first installments go, it’s a pretty big number. Indeed, its size can be appreciated in one powerful way by setting it against some of the many budget cuts Trump proposed this week.

For a shamefully bloody example of how little single issue identity politics can mean, check out the unity of supporters and opponents of same sex marriage, supporters and opponents of abortion, and supporters and opponents of every other divisive issue clouding the minds of a population kept from acting as a democratic majority, we need look no further than the disgrace of this government’s congress voting to approve and finance the current Israeli slaughter in Gaza.