May 18, 2018
MY CORNER by Boyd
Cathey
Illegal Immigration,
MS-13 Gangs, and Another Republican Sell-Out?
Friends,
Back
to the issue of illegal immigration this morning, and we begin with one of the
most unabashedly flagrant—but not surprising—examples of what is called “Trump
Derangement Syndrome” [TDS is defined as an uncontrollable, frenzied and violent
hatred, and irrational loathing of President Trump by the Mainstream Media, the
Left, Hollywood, most of academia, and most Never Trumpers].
Yesterday,
in a meeting with various California mayors and law enforcement figures who
oppose the open door immigration policies of Governor Jerry Brown and the
fanatical leftists who now dominate that state, the president fielded a direct question
from one of the visitors about very violent and murderous gangs—specifically
the MS-13 gang—that come across our borders, intermixed with other illegal
immigrants. Those gang members engage in the most heinous and violent acts of
murder and rape, they peddle killing drugs to our youth, they engage in extreme
gang warfare, and they participate in vicious human sex trafficking.
Indeed, to describe in detail their actions would be to descend into the worst
pornographic language.
The
president, in a specific response, called them “animals,” not really human:
that was his direct answer to the question (and literally quoted in the transcript).
But
that is not what The New York Times,
nor The Washington Post, nor CNN, nor
MSNBC—the Mainstream Media reported. Nope. For literally several hours their
headlines screamed that “Trump called ‘undocumented’ immigrants ‘animals’.” And, at that, the leaders of the Democratic
Party, including Representative Nancy Pelosi, piled on: “How dare Trump call
these ‘children of God’ animals,” queried Pelosi. “Doesn’t he believe they have
souls?” And so-called “Republican consultant” Ana Navarro compared the
president’s remarks to “Naziism.”
If
there was ever any visible and palpable proof of the sheer and unleashed lunacy
of the “#Resist Trump” opposition, here it is. In effect, they read into the
president’s remarks what they want to see in his remarks. What he actually
said, be damned.
And
when, finally, called inescapably on the “error,” rather than fully retract
what was reported, they attempted to “cover their behinds.”
Here
are two headlines and paragraphs from The
New York Times: the first one (May 16) reporting the “fact” that the
president called “undocumented immigrants” animals—no qualifiers, nothing about
the original question about MS-13 gang members, just the continuing effort to “get
Trump.”
Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants ‘Animals’ in Rant
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - May 16, 2018 - WASHINGTON — President Trump lashed out at undocumented
immigrants during a White House meeting on Wednesday, warning in front of news
cameras that dangerous people were clamoring to breach the country’s borders
and branding such people “animals.”
And
now follow that with the second headline and the Times’ “correction” paragraph (May 17), but again with that paper
phrasing the president as “defend[ing] his use of the word ‘animals’…saying
that he had been referring to members of the
brutal transnational gang MS-13 when he used language critics called
inappropriate.” Nothing about the transcript, nothing letting readers know that
the specific question was about the violent MS-13 gang; rather, the Times shifts the blame back to President
Trump—it was his fault, you see, not to have clarified what he meant
originally!
Trump Defends ‘Animals’ Remark, Saying It Referred to MS-13 Gang Members
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Niraj Chokshi -
May 17, 2018 - WASHINGTON
— President Trump on Thursday defended
his use of the word “animals” to describe dangerous criminals trying to cross
into the United States illegally, saying that he had been referring to members
of the brutal transnational gang MS-13 when he used language critics called
inappropriate.
Of
course, this is just one more recent example of the hundreds—thousands—of unbridled
attacks on the president, attempts to not only pervert his words, but—and let’s
be direct—literally lie about him, defame him, undercut his agenda, and if
possible bring him down. To doubt this is to countenance bald-faced deceit and
disinformation.
It
would be difficult enough to accomplish his promises if the president only
faced that broad panoply of Leftwing enemies arrayed against him, but he also
must confront enemies closer to home, many within
the Republican Party, itself, who remain completely unreconciled to “that
usurper”—that “brash bull-in-a-china-shop” from New York—who appears to be
attempting to take “their” party and “their” (conservative) movement away from
them.
And
the latest example of that comes in the effort by members of the “business wing”
of the Congressional GOP to bring up what essentially would be “amnesty” for
illegal immigrants by working out a deal with pro-amnesty immigration open door
Democrats. You see, there are 193 Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Pro-amnesty Republicans—most of whom continue to be NeverTrumper establishment
types, die-hard defenders of the DC Swamp—are hoping to get twenty-five
Republicans to sign onto a “release petition,” joining with Democrats so that a
vote can be had to push forward amnesty. If they can secure twenty—five votes,
added to the 193 Democrats, they will have a majority in the House and thus
able to engineer the release.
Here
is how Breitbart summarized this effort:
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The List: Meet the ‘Never Trump’ Republicans Trying to Force a DACA Amnesty for Illegal Aliens
16 May 2018
Republican lawmakers from the failed “Never Trump” movement are spearheading the effort to force a vote in the House to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Thus far, a group of more than 15
Republicans has signed onto what is known as a “discharge petition” to force a
vote to bring an expansive amnesty plan for illegal aliens enrolled and eligible
on the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
program to the House floor. The group is largely made up of Republican
lawmakers who were key figures in the effort to oppose President Trump and his
“America First” agenda during the 2016 presidential election.
Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) is
the leader of the discharge petition. Curbelo, in Oct. 2016, announced that he
would not be supporting Trump during the presidential election. “I’m not
supporting any of the two major candidates,” Curbelo told McClatchy at the time.
“I’m as disappointed with this election as most Americans are.” Curbelo opposed
Trump so much during the election that he refused to attend the Republican
National Convention.
Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), who
supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) during the 2016 presidential election, has
also signed onto the discharge petition. Love told the Salt Lake Tribune
in October 2016 that she would not be voting for Trump for president. “His
behavior and bravado have reached a new low,” Love said at the time. “I cannot
vote for him.”
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), who
has signed the discharge petition, opposed Trump so much in the
2016 election that he ran ad campaigns against him. “I’m a Marine – for
me, country comes first. My duty is always to you. So if Donald Trump is the
president, I’ll stand up to him. Plain and simple,” Coffman said in his 2016 ad.
Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), also a
signer of the discharge petition, announced during the 2016
election that he could not “in good conscience support or vote for” Trump. Hurd
took his opposition a step further and asked him to drop out of the
presidential race in order for another Republican to step in.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), an
influential Congressman, signed the discharge petition as well. Upton refused to endorse Trump during
the 2016 presidential election, saying he was “gonna stay in my lane”:
“There is a
lot of things that folks are not happy about with either of these two
candidates,” Upton said at the time. “We’re running our own race. Don’t look
for me to endorse anyone in this race probably the rest of the year.”
A fellow signer of the
discharge petition is Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), who slammed Trump during the 2016
presidential election and said his various comments on the campaign trail were
“too much.” Dent is retiring from Congress and even partially blamed Trump for his
departure.
“Mr. Trump’s
incendiary comments fly in the face of our constitutional right to religious
freedom,” Dent said in 2015 of Trump’s travel ban. “Someone who is running for
president should be working to find ways to unite Americans.”
Another discharge petition signer,
Rep. Ryan Costello (R-PA), did support Trump against Hillary Clinton in the
2016 presidential election but backed off that support in the
months leading up to the election. Costello came out against Trump’s travel ban
in 2015 and dropped out as a delegate for the Republican National Convention
(RNC) in 2016.
Rep. David Valadao (R-CA),
also a signer of the discharge petition, dropped his endorsement of
Trump in 2016, saying, “I am disappointed with the divisive rhetoric coming
from this Presidential Election and cannot support either candidate.”
The other
signers of the discharge petition include:
- Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA)
- Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
- Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
- Rep. David Reichert (R-WA)
- Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY)
- Rep. John Faso (R-NY)
- Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV)
- Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY)
- Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ)
- Rep. Stephen Knight (R-CA)
- Rep. Diana DeGette (R-CO)
- Rep. John Katko (R-NY)
- Rep. Dave Trott (R-MI)
Months of polling has revealed that a
no-strings amnesty for illegal aliens is very unpopular with GOP voters. GOP
voters and swing voters have consistently told pollsters by huge majorities
that they want to see legal immigration levels decreased to raise wages for
America’s working and middle class.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And
how does the present GOP leadership in the House react to this effort? Of
course, they recoil at it: they realize, although they don’t wish to admit it,
that a pro-amnesty position is an immense losing proposition among grass roots
conservative voters. But their “opposition” appears not one based on principle,
but rather one of expediency, and the accustomed and utterly failed praxis of “compromise
on and avoid” the issue, get it off the table, don’t talk about it, lest those
fat cat donors and Business Round Table and Chamber of Commerce types become
anxious, or the loony left launch another assault on them as “racists” and “white
oppressors.”
Here
is how Speaker Paul Ryan is attempting to “head off” the issue:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ryan Sketches Plan for Amnesty Bill to Mollify Business-First GOP
16 May 2018Washington, D.C
House Speaker Paul Ryan offered President Donald Trump a plan that would let House legislators vote for an amnesty — and then vote against a bill containing Trump’s big three immigration reforms, sources tell Breitbart News.
The
retiring Speaker offered the debate plan on Tuesday to counter the group of
20-plus pro-migration GOP representatives who are pushing for an amnesty via a
discharge petition. The discharge petition would schedule a “Queen of the Hill”
debate around four bills which would ensure passage of an amnesty bill for at
least 2 million ‘DACA’ illegals.
Ryan also wants an amnesty,
and his plan, sources said Wednesday, leverages the discharge-petition
push to persuade Trump to allow his four-part package of immigration reforms to
be split into a proposed amnesty bill and a three-part reform bill.
That Ryan
two-bill split would allow roughly 40 business-first GOP legislators to
vote for an amnesty and allow them to block Trump’s reforms on border security,
chain-migration, and the visa-lottery. One source said the amnesty
bill would be an add-on amendment to the reform bill — and neither measure
would pass unless both won a majority.
The two-bill
plan emerged from leadership efforts to manage the discharge petition, but it
leaves Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in a difficult position. McCarthy
initially accepted Ryan’s two-bill plan, which aids the GOP’s pro-migration
members, including his fellow Californian, Rep. Jeff Denham.
But the
leaders have now recognized that Ryan’s two-bill plan creates many new
problems. It alarms the growing conservative side of the caucus, it alienates
the GOP’s 2018 voters, and it threatens McCarthy’s plans to quietly slip into
the House Speaker’s job after Ryan’s scheduled departure in January, a source
said. It also torpedoes Trump’s reform strategy by splitting the
business-backed amnesty from the voter-backed reforms.
“Our numbers
are better,” McCarthy told House GOP members, per a source in the room. “If
election is today we win. Will we continue to grow. But few things can disrupt
us. We cannot disrupt ourselves. Intensity levels are still not there, and
discharge petitions release the power of the floor that the American people
gave us the responsibly to hold. When you release that power the majority goes
to Nancy. If you want to depress intensity this is number one way to do it. We
can debate internally but don’t let someone else like Nancy decide our future.”
The
recognition that Ryan’s two-bill plan is no fix for the petition’s four-bill
debate has left GOP leaders scrambling for alternatives which are acceptable to
Trump, the mainstream GOP legislators and also to the pro-migration,
business-first faction, the sources said Wednesday afternoon.
Ryan’s plan would gut Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s
(R-VA) compromise “Securing America’s Future Act.” That bill has been endorsed
by the White House because it follows Trump’s strategy of pairing popular,
pro-American, wage-boosting reforms with some benefits for business, Democrats,
and illegals. Currently, the Goodlatte
bill — supported by pro-American immigration reformers — trades an enforceable,
small amnesty for only the roughly 800,000 illegal aliens enrolled in DACA,
plus extra white-collar workers for business, in exchange for a package of
immigration reforms.
These reforms
include mandatory E-Verify to ban employers from hiring illegal aliens, a
reduction of legal immigration by ending both the process of “chain migration”
and the Diversity Visa Lottery, and also authorizing — but not funding — the
construction of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Ryan has not
supported any of those policies during his long career but has supported
many measures to import cheap migrant workers for U.S. companies.
John
Binder @JxhnBinder Republican House Bill Exchanges DACA Amnesty
for Mandatory E-Verify, Legal Immigration Cuts http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/10/republican-house-bill-exchanges-daca-amnesty-for-mandatory-e-verify-legal-immigration-cuts/ … 8:02 PM - Jan 10, 2018
The Goodlatte bill also
creates a new work-visa program for the agricultural industry in exchange for
making use of the E-Verify program mandatory. The program would allow a resident population
of up to one million, low-wage guest-workers.
Sources tell
Breitbart News that Ryan’s plan is to gut the Goodlatte bill of E-Verify and
the agricultural worker program, and perhaps many more features. Then, what is
left of the Goodlatte bill — perhaps including the proposed elimination of
chain migration and Diversity Visa Lottery — would get a House vote alongside
the DACA amnesty.
The DACA
amnesty would pass because of support from a group of at least 40
business-first Republicans and universal support from Democrats. But the gutted
Goodlatte bill would likely be blocked — although narrowly — by the same
tacit alliance of business-first GOP and pro-migrant Democrats.
Ryan’s alleged plan
would nullify the current so-called
“discharge petition” where pro-immigration Republicans have teamed up with
Democrats to force a vote on an amnesty ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
Other sources told Breitbart News that House Majority
Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) was the only member of the House leadership who
opposes the discharge petition and Ryan’s two-bill fix.
Ryan, insiders say, has done little to stop the discharge
petition and is even expected to campaign for the leader of the discharge
petition, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), in the coming weeks
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What we
witness through this process is, one more time, what has been the essential
weakness, the fatal flaw in the GOP for decades: craven compromise, failure to
follow through on promises, and, in effect, enabling the success of the far
Left—it is the same GOP that gave us such paragons of “conservatism” as
presidential standard bearers George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John
McCain, and Mitt (the Twit) Romney—twenty-eight years of a muddled message and
a continual advance to the Left (even if at times the rhetoric “sounded” good).
The best
thing conservative grass roots voters can do is send those establishment GOP
congressmen one way bus tickets back home in November---or, better yet, one way
tickets to Honduras or Mexico. Let them prattle on below the border.
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