Thoughts from Peggy Noonan:
The president of course has rushed to the scene—to go, as always, to fundraisers. This is at the moment a scandal, but why? Clever people say it’s an unforced error. He has to show he cares! He ought to journey to an overwhelmed border area, stand there and point to the middle distance as a local official in a hopefully picturesque hat briefs him. It’s almost touching how much the press wants to see this. But why? Why do they want to see the president enact a degree of alarm he clearly does not feel?
For a quarter-century I have been puzzled by the press’s emphasis on “optics,” their stupid word—actually it is a consultants’ word they’ve lamely adopted—for how things look as opposed to how they are. Their criticism comes down to a complaint they’re not being manipulated well enough. It is a strange complaint.
Give the president points for honesty. He doesn’t want to enact an “I care and am aware” photo-op. He will pay a political price, but it is clearly a price he is willing to pay. He never has to face a voter again.
…There is every sign he let the crisis on the border build to put heat on Republicans and make them pass his idea of good immigration reform. It would be “comprehensive,” meaning huge, impenetrable and probably full of mischief. His base wants it. It would no doubt benefit the Democratic Party in the long term.
The little children in great danger, holding hands, staring blankly ahead, are pawns in a larger game. That game is run by adults. How cold do you have to be to use children in this way?
Actually, I think it’s charitable to call these people “adults.”
I’ve always thought that the notion that it’s the president’s responsibility to show up at a disaster and feel peoples pain was stupid, and part of the infantilization of the nation. I think it started when the media bashed the first Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Andrew, then Bill Clinton showed up to feel our pain, when he wasn’t feeling up women. But this isn’t a natural disaster — it’s one of the president’s own making. Standing on the Rio Grande and announcing that all kids being sent in the future will be returned to their nation of birth would send a powerful message, but it’s not one that his base wants to hear, so it won’t happen.
By the way, has Peggy ever apologized for her own role in foisting this incompetent malignancy on us six years ago?
Obama can’t go to the border or tour a contention facility because he can not bear to see the human effects of his policies. He isn’t man enough.
I think there’s likely precedent and reason for a president or governor visiting disaster areas, inasmuch as it provides them with first-hand knowledge of a situation when making a state or federal disaster declaration. Turning that into a PR opportunity, however, is somewhat offensive to my otherwise indelicate sensibilities.
He could not find a way to make it a positive photo op. Pure and simple.
How come this thread isn’t generating many comments whereas the latest “IRS” thread is up to #119?
I don’t have a theory yet, but I find intriguing the selection of topics on which the folks pushing back against Rand are making their stand. Is it that the IRS is more defensible than immigration policy, or is it that the IRS situation merits resources because it is much more critical?
“How come this thread isn’t generating many comments”
Good question. This is a bigger problem than the IRS scandal and the IRS scandal is huge.
This problem is more complex than what is going on with the IRS. We all love immigrants, even the ones that come here illegally, and want to see them treated well. But what we are seeing is like F&F, where Obama creates human suffering of foreigners in order to use it as propaganda for his domestic political policies.
What Obama and the Democrats want is open borders, at least for central and south Americans, but they can not be honest and say so. While they want open borders, they have no plan on how to deal effectively with the mass migration of tens of millions of people. We freak out when a couple hundred thousand are displaced in war zones. The UN sets up refugee camps. People around the world donate money. But in our case, the plan is just to fly the illegal immigrants to their city of choice. There is no help for local schools and there isn’t any help for the illegal immigrants to assimilate into our society.
On the contrary, there are efforts to prevent their assimilation and to indoctrinate them in the cultural and racial hatred preached by Democrats.
No one even asks if these people actually want to be Americans and assimilate or if they just want to live here and remain loyal to their home country. A key sign of where loyalties lay is what soccer teams people root for. Its ok to have a back up team but if you are not rooting for the USA as your main team, why do you want to live in our country?
We freak out when a couple hundred thousand are displaced in war zones
Do we? Millions were displaced by our invasion of Iraq — something like 1 in 6 Iraqis — and I don’t recall much of a freak out. Millions are displaced in and around Syria today, and again it isn’t the sort of thing that gets much media attention.
A key sign of where loyalties lay is what soccer teams people root for
That is, frankly, ridiculous. We’ve had centuries of immigrants come here and retain a cultural affinity for the old country. Just visit a pub in Boston and count all the Irish flags, listen to the Irish fiddlers, and order a pint of Irish ale and/or a shot of Irish whiskey. We have nothing to fear from Guatemalan-Americans rooting for the Guatemalan soccer team.
“Do we? Millions were displaced by our invasion of Iraq…and I don’t recall much of a freak out.”
What were you doing from 2000-2008? At any point, did you happen to notice what Democrats were doing? Hint: They were freaking the f out.
“That is, frankly, ridiculous. ”
No it isn’t. People should cheer for their country first and other teams as back ups when we get eliminated.
“We have nothing to fear from Guatemalan-Americans rooting for the Guatemalan soccer team.”
I never said we should fear immigrants. I did say you can tell where loyalties lie by what soccer team they cheer for and this is true.
We want people to identify as Americans not Irish or Mexican or German. That doesn’t mean you don’t have an appreciation for your heritage but it does mean that being American takes precedence. For far too long Democrats have sought to dived people based on ethnicity, to create sub-groups and prevent them from being part of the larger group. Know what brings people together? Cheering for the same team.
I didn’t notice this thread, so I didn’t post any comments for everyone to disagree with. I can try to remedy that…
Standing on the Rio Grande and announcing that all kids being sent in the future will be returned to their nation of birth would send a powerful message
It would also violate current law on the handling of asylum seekers, and the longstanding principle that the United States will provide safe harbor to those fleeing persecution.
I suppose there is a parallel between the IRS and border situations in that in both cases the administrative apparatus responsible for executing the law is failing to do so effectively. The IRS needs clearer guidelines, and both need more resources.
“It would also violate current law on the handling of asylum seekers, and the longstanding principle that the United States will provide safe harbor to those fleeing persecution.”
Violate current law? Name the law. Nevermind yu can’t be bothered to actually read anything here it is:
8 CFR Part 208 – PROCEDURES FOR ASYLUM AND WITHHOLDING OF REMOVAL
Jeez Jim do you EVER check things out first before you spout idiocies like that?
Again you are clueless (quelle surprise) and are either knowingly lying or just THINK you know something…anything……
It is really astounding how you make declarations and pronouncements without the slightest knowledge about what you are talking about.
JUST because someone asks for asylum doesn’t bind the US to give it to them:
“The U.S. agreed to be bound by the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol and the U.S. attorney general has the authority to grant asylum to persons with a well-founded fear of persecution, defined in federal law. The right to enact laws governing asylum is reserved for the federal government, and U.S. states may not do so.
Applications for asylum are evaluated and administered by a federal agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which has the power to make eligibility rules and procedures for individuals seeking asylum. Those rules are part of the Code of Federal Regulations and may be found at 8 CFR § 208. Previously decided asylum cases also govern which individuals may be granted asylum protection. ”
Note well the words ” …authority to GRANT asylum…” and “well-founded fear” and “Applications for asylum are evaluated and administered”…. .
People just can’t walk in here, ask for aylum and get it…UNLESS the Obama administration decides to circumvent the procedure (another surprise).
By the way JIm you learned well from Obama. Your statement above is a classic case of his saying something in a speech that simply IS NOT TRUE and expecting everyone to lap it up.
You know, like how the Congress has done nothing.
Yes, Comrade Jim is right. That’s why Bill and Hillary Clinton personally refused to send Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. They stood up for his rights against persectution by a…wait, isn’t Cuba a Communist country? They don’t have persecution. There would be no possible way that anyone on earth could ever stand in the way of repatriating a person to the welcoming Socialist arms of a Communist country. So what really happened? I’m confused.
Comrade Jim, Comrade Bob-1, Comrade Chris Gerrib, please help me!
You know, since Chris served in the US Navy during the first Gulf War, it wouldn’t surprise me if Chris joined the Navy during the Cold War.
“It would also violate current law on the handling of asylum seekers, and the longstanding principle that the United States will provide safe harbor to those fleeing persecution.”
Obama regularly decides that some people fleeing persecution are not allowed to stay in our country and Obama engages in the same types of persecution that many of these illegal immigrants are fleeing.
If this is true, I wonder if there are any jihadists among the crowd boarding the airplanes?
MCALLEN, Texas—Illegal aliens are being allowed to fly on commercial airliners without valid identification, according to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC). “The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,” NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas. ……………
The Notice to Appear form has no photo, anyone can make one and manipulate one. They do not have any security features, no watermark, nothing. They are simply printed on standard copy paper based on the information the illegal alien says is the truth.”
Spokesman Garza continued, “We do not know who these people are, we often have to solely rely on who they say they are, where they say they came from, and the history they say they have. We know nothing about most of them, ICE releases them into the American public, and now they are boarding aircraft at will with a simple paper document that anyone can easily alter or reproduce themselves.”
Who knows it could be our Afghan translators taking maters into their own hands since Obama wont protect them. Or it could be Muslims fleeing other Muslims.
It is kind of jacked up that illegal immigrants are treated better by our government than American citizens. The illegal immigrants should have to go through the same security hassles as the rest of us if they want to be Americans. It isn’t surprising that Obama would co-opt the TSA into his political campaign considering he put VA staff on processing Obamacare applications rather than helping veterans.
I realize that the Democrats’ concern for illegal aliens is simply to swell the ranks of people who will vote Democratic in return for free stuff (“free,” of course, unless you’re a taxpayer); but I’m curious. What is supposed so onerous about current immigration laws and the rules about entering the country and becoming a citizen that suddenly waves of people from South of the Border can no longer abide by them? Did the immigrants who played by the rules have some unfair advantage that now has to be rectified? Just wondering.
Zero talk from Obama, or anyone else really, about fixing the legal immigration system. Amnesty wont do anything to solve the underlying problems, which is why I think so many people are against it. Democrats view a broken system to their advantage, so they wont do anything to fix it and will actually block all attempts to do so.
Oh, that’s nice:
“As long as (U.S.) immigration reform is not approved, the exodus of children to the United States will continue,” Jorge Ramon Hernandez, the senior representative of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, said at the talks.