Donald Trump’s signature border wall is morphing in strange and costly ways — even as it seems to play little role in stemming illegal migration.

Growing up I remember hearing the phrase “Have you no shame?” That question must have held some power back in the day. But if you asked that now, some shapers of our current political culture would respond with a resounding “No.” Hyper-partisanship has moved us into a post-shame world.

California has mandated that by 2035 all new vehicle sales must be plug-ins. A handful of blue states have fallen in line and copied the Golden State’s edict.

We aren’t whaleologists — actually, the term is cetologist; we just looked it up — but neither is Tucker Carlson. So take it with all the grains of salt in the ocean when the Fox News gasbag blames Joe Biden for an elevated rate of whale deaths off the Atlantic Coast. Carlson’s rant, “The Biden Whale Extinction,” claims an uptick in offshore wind exploration for a die-off. That exploration involves some targeted sound mapping that may be upsetting whales’ navigation systems.

The fact that the five Memphis former police officers accused in the beating death of Black motorist Tyre Nichols are themselves Black could actually clarify the issue of police violence, which is more complicated than just a few bigoted white cops.

Long before his own #MeToo demise as a U.S. senator, satirst Al Franken wrote a shocking investigative exposé of politicians and pundits who — prepare yourself — don’t always tell the truth. The subtly titled book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” caused upheaval in Washington and led to a bipartisan national shakeup in politics. Politicians forever ended the practice of lying.

I was shopping at Target last week. I needed a belt. Nothing fancy, just a nice, simple belt I could wear with a pair of jeans. When I got to the menswear department, I thought, “Eh, all they have is leather.” But no, the labels said otherwise. Faux leather has come a long way. Curious, I checked out a few other big retail stores, including Gap and Old Navy. Many of their belts were made of vegan materials, too. And they looked great.

Imagine that your picture of the U.S. economy came entirely from headlines and cable news chyrons. Would you know that real gross domestic product has risen 6.7% under President Joe Biden, that America gained 4.5 million jobs in 2022 and that inflation over the past six months, which was indeed high last winter, was less than 2% at an annual rate?

After weeks of diplomatic hand-wringing, the U.S. and Germany have decided to send battle tanks to Ukraine, a critical step toward helping the country take back territory seized by Russian forces during last year’s invasion. While President Joe Biden and Europe’s leaders deserve credit for maintaining solidarity with Ukraine, they should remain mindful of the risks of deeper Western involvement in the war.

Memphis’ police chief said video of the Jan. 10 beating by five police officers that killed 29-year-old Tyre Nichols included “acts that defy humanity.”

After much back-and-forth and strenuous behind the scenes hand-wringing, Germany has cleared the way for its Leopard 2 tanks to join the fight for democracy in Ukraine, pledging this week to send an initial company of 14 tanks and clearing the way for other European countries to do the same. This week, the U.S. joined in with President Joe Biden’s pledge to send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to the beleaguered forces of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

They’ve tried humiliating him, disgracing him and financially and ethically ruining him, but Donald Trump is still standing – like the boorish house guest that wouldn’t leave.

Six-year-old children should be learning to read, identify new words by matching letters to sounds, count to 100, and do basic addition and subtraction. But now we have a 6-year-old who allegedly shot his teacher in Newport News, Virginia.

Whether President Joe Biden’s misguided plan to forgive some $400 billion in federal student-loan debt goes forward will ultimately be up to the Supreme Court. For now, there’s more the federal government should be doing to rein in the costs of higher education — and thus reduce how much students borrow in the first place.

Across our country, people are standing up and demanding fair working conditions. These debates are about more than just pay and hours worked. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the fact that people’s lives do not solely revolve around their jobs.

Welcome to a new level of crazy in the culture wars.

It really was only a matter of time before the two rallying cries of the far right — election fraud and gun rights — came together in the most dangerous ways. The deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection offered just a taste of the radicalism that the Republican mainstream has nurtured by refusing to condemn extreme acts of violence and the political leaders who encourage it — including former President Donald Trump. All signs suggest this extremism is only going to get worse because GOP leaders fear losing power if they alienate the far right wing. Given the current trajectory, it’s not going to end well.

For thousands of fellow Asian Americans, Monterey Park is our home — even if we don’t live there.