Politidrivel

Celebrities and others spawn strange logic.  This photo and comment, for example, have circled the country and beyond.

If you care about refugees, you don't care about homeless, according to the message.  Nonsense.

The issues are separate.

• The homeless -- Poverty and inequality in the U.S. are inadequately addressed by either party; the results are devastating with more than 20% of our children living in poverty. (UNICEF, 2012, the United States ranks second highest child poverty rate of 23.1% among developed nations, just under Romania's 25.6/%.)
• The refugees -- On the far side of the world, displaced people fleeing for their lives are a life and death crisis. At latest count, the U.N. has identified 13.5 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance (food, shelter, medical help).  Included are more than six million inside the country and five million outside who have been driven from their homes.  Half of them are children.  Millions have had to quit school.  They've left their jobs, their possessions, their communities, and fled for their lives while 11.5% of the country's population has been injured in the conflict or killed.

Both issues are relevant to Americans as individual and national conscience concerns. Neither can be ignored or swept aside as part of some political rhetoric.

Either we have a heart of compassion for the disadvantaged and oppressed, or we do not. Criticising compassion for one as a neglect of the other is political wordplay. Both issues are critical humanitarian concerns, and the list is much longer than just these.

Shallow, inflammatory political statements are not helpful, are they.