Posts Tagged ‘Rubio’

My Disgust with GOP Politicians

Sunday, March 13th, 2016

princess wedding dressesOn Friday evening, as the staged riot at the UIC Trump event was in full swing, Ted Cruz came out to make a statement, that was carried live in several media outlets.  That statement began by briefly blaming the protesters, but then shifted immediately into blaming Donald Trump for the violence, asserting that he had created an environment ripe for violence, by effectively inciting it. First, let’s listen to Senator Cruz’s statement Friday evening:

I can’t describe how disappointed I am at this “blame the victim” meme being advanced in this video by Ted Cruz.  Naturally, both Rubio and Kasich made similar remarks to media, and it frankly disgusts me that they reverted purely to opportunists seizing on a chance to attack Donald Trump.  While it is true that it would seem at least superficially factual that Trump may have encouraged some violence with the “punch him in the face” remark during one of his rallies, the truth is that the statement “punch him in the face” is being considered here out of context.  What do I mean by “out of context?”

Consider that you’re throwing a party, or hosting an event, and ne’er-do-wells invade your event with the express purpose of causing trouble, or of creating mayhem.  As they’re being escorted out, or frequently as they’re being apprehended, they become a whirligig of flailing fists to either combat their removal, or to slow their removal or otherwise cause harm to others.  In this sort of context, some of these people would deserve, and would have earned a “punch in the face.” It’s not an aggressive use of force that Trump seems to have been advocating, but something of a response or defense against some of these very nasty folk who are stirring up trouble, intentionally, and by design of their attendance at the event of a person they obviously do not support.

If I support a cause, for instance, the Tea Party, and I attend the rally of a Tea Party group, I’m there to honestly support the cause and otherwise participate honestly in an event.  If I go to a rally of Planned Parenthood supporters, knowing I truly detest everything for which Planned Parenthood stands, secreting myself by disguise of clothing or signage, but then interrupt the program, and become violent as I am forcibly removed from the premises, I’m not a “peaceful protester” nor am I anything but what Trump has termed “disrupters.” I have used deception to gain entrance, and then by force of my active presence and demonstration against the purpose of the rally, I have placed the other rally attendees, security teams, and the host(s) of the rally in the position of having to use physical force or its implicit threat to remove me in order to continue the event for which they have every right to carry out as scheduled.

The people actually creating the “atmosphere” or “environment” of violence are not, in such a scenario, the host(s) of the event, the security staff, nor even other attendees who may wish to confront me or assist in my removal.  In such a scenario, the sole responsibility for violence lies with the person who instigated the incident, in my example above.  This is not really a logical controversy, and Ted Cruz is a smart enough fellow to have known better.  So are Marco Rubio and John Kasich.  Instead, they leaped opportunistically into the situation without regard for the truth.  In Chicago, at the scheduled UIC Trump rally that was ultimately canceled on Friday night, the responsibility for all of it, every bit of any violence, the rampage, and the canceling of the event, every stitch of it, lies solely with those who organized and participated in the riot for the purposes of interrupting, interfering, or otherwise diminishing the event for all those who were attending in good faith.

Ted Cruz had the opportunity to say that.  He had the chance to step in front of the cameras and microphones and be a champion of free speech, and to absolutely castigate the parties who were involved in this mob-oriented treachery.  Instead, what Senator Cruz did was to attack the victim(s).  Instead, what Senator Cruz did was to lend cover and excuse culpability of all these ne’er-do-wells who intentionally attended the event, using disguise and deception, for the explicit purpose of stifling the free speech of Mr. Trump, along with any other speakers scheduled, and naturally the crowd that was gathering to listen to him.  It excuses the damage done to attendees’ vehicles by the rampaging hordes of ne’er-do-wells and provides them with an out for their actions.

This is extremely disappointing to me.  Senator Cruz is an attorney, a man who proclaims his thorough-going support of the US Constitution, and yet I am to believe that he does not see this distinction?  It’s not as though Trump supporters were or are parading through the streets of Chicago looking for a fight, or that Trump himself were leading such a parade, aggressively seeking out protesters to confront and attack as a matter of aggression.  These supposed “incitements” to violence that Ted Cruz and the others have been citing all occurred within the confines of venues reserved by the host of the event in question, and solely for the participation of the invited, sincere participants.

This is no different from the very nasty habit of current public schools and their widespread “zero-tolerance” policy on violence, in which they make no moral or logical distinction whatsoever between the attacker and the victim who defends his or her person from the attack.  Trump never said “go out in the streets, find those protesters, beat the hell out of them, and punch them in the face.”  That would be an actual incitement to violence.  That would be an aggressive appeal for an “atmosphere” or “environment” of violence, and that would be disclaimed by every sane and rational person. I am fairly certain that if Mr. Trump ever exhorted his crowds to such behavior, he would in short order find his crowds dwindling in size, but that’s not what he’s done, and Ted Cruz knows it, and so do all the other people who’ve been attacking him on this front over the last week or more.

Good and decent people know that they should not go into somebody’s birthday party, wedding reception dress, public meeting, church service, or any other sort of event and create disturbances of any sort.  They also know that if they would undertake to do such things, they risk making of themselves targets for a highly emotional and direct response that may become physical in the attempt to remove them. This is not rocket science.  This is common decency, and I think it speaks volumes about the character of candidates Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich, all who made similar statements on Friday evening, that the opportunity to attack their party’s front-runner “trumped” all other considerations in the formulation of their statements.  It’s utterly despicable, and I can’t support people who displace blame onto the victims while letting the perpetrators off the hook in any way. Period.

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Posted in Donald Trump, Election 2016, Featured, Ted Cruz | 5 Comments »

Stupor Tuesday

Tuesday, March 1st, 2016

cruz_v_trump_ftHere we are on another Super Tuesday election, and once again, there’s no clear answer to our troubles. Some things, however, do seem clear and unambiguous to me. Marco Rubio is unacceptable by any measure. His support of amnesty with the “GangOf8” immigration reform bill disqualifies in my view. There is no circumstance under which I could support Rubio.  Dr. Carson is finished, no matter how long he remains in the race. From here to the convention, I don’t think there’s any chance for his numbers to improve, and I don’t believe he’s a serious candidate.  Governor Kasich is running a pointless candidacy also, perhaps in some ways worse than Carson’s. Kasich should run for the exit, but he’s stubbornly remaining in the race so that he can be beaten in his home state of Ohio, perhaps slightly less thoroughly than Rubio will be flogged in his home state of Florida.  This leaves us with two remaining, plausible candidates.  At this point, considering any of the others is an exercise in futility.  I guess it comes down to what you believe, who you believe, and what it is that you think the election of 2016 will actually mean for the country.  This is where conservatives must wear their thinking caps and consider the whole of the race, and not just the immediate gratification of the primary vote.  It’s enough to make one consider intoxication as a potential antidote.  Myself, I’m in a bit of a stupor over it all.

Ted Cruz appears to be the most solidly conservative in the field.  He is not, however, without problems.  His support for increasing H1-B visas is very troubling to me, as is his support for fast-track authority(TPA) for the TPP for whomever may be sitting in the Oval Office.  There is no doubt that the TPP is a terrible deal for the American people, transferring wealth and sovereignty out of the country and essentially locking the US into a perpetual disadvantageous trade contract that imposes severe restrictions on our own economic independence.  I oppose the TPP for this and many more reasons, and I don’t understand why Senator Cruz, a self-professed “constitutional conservative,” would go along with such a deal.   I also don’t believe he’s been entirely honest with us about his role on the spiking of the “GangOf8” legislation.  It’s clear from video available that he wanted to do something (other than deportation) with the eleven or twelve million illegals(and I suspect many more) who “live in the shadows.”  All of these things are bothersome and worrisome to me.

Donald Trump has ever been a liberal, and in many respects, this makes him worse.  He’s also made a career of marketing himself like a carnival barker.  His failures over the course of his whole career are legion, but that in and of itself isn’t necessarily damning: At least he was willing to take risks.  The problem is that in so many of these cases, he took risks with other peoples’ money, and squandered it.  One might argue that this is the nature of business, just as one might argue that paying off politicians is just a part of doing business, but I don’t see how we’re any better off having the briber rather than the bribed running the country.  His position on social and moral issues certainly seems less than solid too.  His continued support for Planned Parenthood is quite troubling to me.  I also find his mouth to be a volcano of bilge, with cursing o’plenty, although it seems in the last week or so that he’s cleaned some of this up, perhaps in recognition that it hurts him. That makes me wonder if a victorious Trump would return to form soon after.  He has a long history of saying things that are despicable in any context in which I’d care to be included.  His talk about his sex-life and his descriptions of women, and all the rest of his endless, lifelong debauchery seems to me a disqualifying problem.  The New York Times, certainly not the most reliable source, implies that it has in its possession “off-the-record” taped conversations with Trump that may indicate that he’s a good deal more flexible on immigration than his campaign rhetoric indicates. As he explained to Hannity on Monday night, “everything is negotiable.” Many of his larger problems won’t be revealed, conveniently, until the Republican Party is saddled with him as their nominee, by which time he may be embroiled in court over a lawsuit against him and “Trump University.” Mostly, the problem with Donald Trump is that he hasn’t done or said anything to relieve me of the fear that he’s completely untrustworthy, not just on social issues, but primarily with respect to his signature issues on which he has provided little specific detail.

Let us conservatives accept from the outset that there are no perfect candidates.  Still, we should be able to discern who is more perfect.  We should be able to rely on their records. Others rely to some extent on the character of those who have endorsed these candidates, although I think in many cases, this has led to a wholly unsatisfactory outcome in many instances.  I can think of a dozen or more candidates the Tea Partys have been urged to support who upon election, turned out to be more of the same, and often pro-amnesty jerks.  Marco Rubio is a grand example of the type, but he is hardly the only one.  The truth is that conservatives have been betrayed in one form or fashion in election after election, to the extent that many of us feel shell-shocked by it.  On the one hand, we have a Republican establishment that is clearly a syndicate of global elitists, who will side with their cohorts in the Democrat Party to ruin and wreck conservatives any time we can manage to get a leg up, but on the other hand, we have a situation in which it seems that the mathematics give us just two plausible outcomes.

If Rubio, Kasich, and Carson remain in this race, it helps Trump. If they get out, it helps Cruz.  Rubio cannot and will not be the nominee. The math in no way supports him.  This leads one to question: “Why are these guys staying in, when none of the three have won a state, or even seriously threatened to win a state?” Now we get to the nub of the issue.  We have had it told to us all through this primary season debacle that Cruz and Trump(along with Carson) are the outsiders.  Is this really the case?  We’re told that Rubio is an establishment stooge, and it makes plenty of sense, right until you ask: “Why is Rubio still in this race?” No Republican who hasn’t won Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina(first three contests) has ever gone on to win the nomination. History isn’t lying, so why is Rubio staying in?  It must be for another purpose, and I think we can take a reasonable guess at it.  Who is hurt by Rubio enduring in this race, and who is helped?  Based on the available polling data, there is a strong dislike of Trump in the Rubio camp. Cruz would likely capture something on the order of ninety percent or more of Rubio’s support, depending upon whose numbers you believe. In the Cruz camp, Rubio enjoys no such advantage. If Cruz were to exit, roughly half of his support would go to Trump and half to Rubio, with a few here and there for Kasich or Carson. What this means, in fact, is that the only two people presently having any chance at the Republican nomination are Trump, and Cruz.  This means that with every passing day in which Rubio, Kasich and Carson stay in this race, Trump becomes all the more inevitable.

With all of this in mind, we must ask reasonably once more: “Why is Rubio staying in?” It is the presumption of many that he is the “establishment track” candidate, but the GOP establishment isn’t going to back a guy they know has no chance of winning unless they’re using him to split the vote on behalf of a candidate they believe can win. Who would that be?  Cruz? Kasich? Carson? Or Trump?  Even if his financial backing flees, I suspect Rubio will stay around in order to secure a VP slot on somebody’s ticket.  I wonder who that might be.

Let’s look at that again: Trump has a long and storied history of supporting liberal Republicans and a whole host of Democrats.  If Rubio’s candidacy was genuinely anti-Trump, as he now pretends is the case, why would he stay in? In a head-to-head in Florida, Rubio loses to Trump, and Trump walks away with all ninety-nine delegates because it’s a winner-take-all state. Cruz, by contrast, could actually beat Trump in a head-to-head absent Rubio. That would give Cruz all the Florida delegates, and place him on the fast-track to the nomination.  What you can learn from all of this is that the people who are still bank-rolling Rubio via the SuperPACs aren’t doing so because they think Marco can win, but because they actually want Trump, and will use Rubio’s continuing presence to split up the vote that would otherwise go almost entirely to Cruz.

Do you see the point here? Given the nature of Donald Trump’s support from the endorser-class, one might have concluded he was the only genuine outsider, but the question we must now ask, as Rubio is being used as a lever to depress Cruz is: “Who is spoofing whom?”  I believe the real establishment candidate is he who benefits from the continued presence of somebody other than himself in the race. Who is that? Does Cruz benefit from Rubio, Kasich, or Carson remaining?  No.  Does Rubio benefit from Cruz, Carson, or Kasich remaining? No. Does Trump benefit from Cruz remaining in? No.  Does Trump benefit from Rubio, Kasich and Carson’s remaining in, so long as Cruz is an active candidate? YES!

There are only two viable candidates remaining in this race. I will not tell you how you ought to vote.  You’re all grown folk, and you hardly need me to offer you advice.  What I will tell you is that what I see implicit in the numbers is that Rubio, Kasich, and Carson are remaining solely to be spoilers.  The question must be only: “For whom?” Only Trump and Cruz have a shot at winning this race.  The question before you is whether you will a.)support Cruz, b.)support Trump, or c.)support one of the spoilers who gives/helps give it to Trump. Of course, you can also sit home. As I said, this has been a disturbing primary season, and any conservative would probably be somewhat justified if they wanted to just drink their frustrations away, but escape into an inebriated stupor won’t solve the problem.  Conservatives must now think, and think carefully, in order to choose.  Wait until the day after the general election in November to imbibe. By then, we may all need a drink.

 

Editor: This column was supposed to auto-post at 7am this morning, but for some reason failed. My apologies to readers. I usually vote on the way in to work, didn’t this morning, after work, my precinct ran out of ballots while in line, still waited 20 minutes after polls closed, fairly certain my precinct was strongly pro-Cruz.

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Posted in Donald Trump, Election 2016, Featured, GOP Candidates, GOP Establishment, News, Ted Cruz | 9 Comments »

Jeb Bush and His Beasts of Burden

Saturday, June 15th, 2013

Road to the Minority

Jeb Bush was addressing the Faith and Freedom Coalition on Friday when he inexplicably said something that is almost certain to give him grief for a long time to come, and I promise to be among those reminding you.  His remark was aimed at the question of immigration reform, and his general point, I think, may have been that immigration sparks a certain vibrancy in an economic system(assuming it meets certain conditions,) but what Bush’s remark reveals is the reason I don’t think immigrants will wind up supporting him.  Establishment Republicans imagine immigrants as the way out of our budgetary morass, because they expect that an influx of working-age people having children will grow the tax base to the extent that it will overpower the generational problem presented by the retiring of the “baby boomers.”  The problems with this theory are many, but Republicans of the establishment mold like Bush have put on blinders.  For the better part of a half-century, the powers in post-war Europe adopted immigration policies aimed at the same basic problem:  The welfare state was unsustainable and the only way to prop it up would be by bringing in immigrants.  Europe is now paying mightily for this policy, and it is evinced by the riots we have seen across the continent as Muslim immigrants run rampant through the capitals of Europe.  Said Bush:

“Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.”

The particularly egregious use of the term “fertile” aside, what Bush is here saying confirms every word I have alleged: This wave of immigration they’re now pursuing is intended to prop up our welfare state.  Bush, like his brother and father before him, doesn’t have any intention of slowing the growth of government, but merely wishes to increase the revenues available to it.  That’s it.  That’s all there really is to this, and all there’s ever been to this, and notions like assimilation go careening out the window.   There will be no border security, and no effort at assimilation, but instead a patently shrewd attempt to pad government revenues with the labor of young, “fertile” people.

I wonder if prospective immigrants understand, either waiting lawfully in line, or trying to short-cut around it, that all of this talk about compassion and coming out of the shadows is really about them taking on the yokes of beasts of burden, with nothing more or less than their ability to drag this nation along through the mire of the welfare state as as the object.  As if this isn’t bad enough, Marco Rubio now explains that we need the immigrants as new, legalized employees to pay the taxes that will fund border security.  If you have had any misunderstanding about the motives of this entire “immigration reform” bill nonsense, this must clarify the matter: It’s about funding the leviathan that has become our federal government.

People who are less politically-engaged frequently ask me what is the difference  between a Republican and a Conservative.  While the explanation is certainly worthy of an article or two all its own, the simplest way to view it seems to be that conservatives concern themselves with principles of right and wrong, while Republicans concern themselves only with how to make a thing work in a very pragmatic, morality-agnostic manner.  It doesn’t matter to Jeb Bush why existing Americans have a lower fertility rate than recent immigrants.  It doesn’t matter to him why it is that they create fewer new businesses than recent immigrants. He merely accepts it as is, and then looks for a way to fill the short-run or mid-term gaps, consequences be damned.

Since pinheads who call themselves “Republican” seem not to understand why Americans would slow their rate of reproduction, or why they would create fewer businesses, let me make it perfectly clear:  People like Jeb Bush and his family are the reason.  Rationally, once invested in life in America, it’s rather more difficult to decide to have more children if each successive child adds a substantial burden that may affect the prospects of each existing child.  When my own daughter was born, Mr. Bush’s father was President, preparing to break his “read my lips” pledge.  The economy was doing poorly, and this acted to shake up our view on whether it was proper to bring more children into the world.  We wondered if we wanted to bring more children into a world in which they would become beasts of burden for a welfare state  George H.W. Bush’s OMB director at the time projected that the net tax rate on children born in 1990(like our daughter) would wind up being around eighty percent!  Why did we have only one child?  We couldn’t afford two!

Immigrants don’t realize this yet, because they’re unaware of the nuts and bolts of our escalating welfare state from the paying side, at least initially.  Over time, they learn it, as their rate of reproduction or business creation likewise slows.  As they struggle to make a little ground against the economic forces weighing down upon them, they become disinclined to add new economic burdens to their own family situations.  Reproduction slows.  What Bush and those like him are gambling is that a new sea of immigrants freshly legalized will still be too poor, too uneducated, and too busy to notice this until they’ve created another generation or two of workers who will struggle to fill the coffers of government.

What Mr. Bush and those like him will not do is to consider why our existing population’s reproduction rate has slowed to below replacement.  What Mr. Bush will not concede is that finding new ways to fund the welfare state is not the answer.  It doesn’t need more funds.  It needs to be demolished.  The problem is that as people obtain slightly more prosperity, they tend to focus on how to maintain and extend it.  Part of obtaining that prosperity is education in one form or another, and all of these things lead people to slow their reproduction.  These things tend to make them more risk-averse, so until they cross another significant threshold, starting a new business venture is also unlikely.

What Jeb and the other members of his family(both real and political) wish for us to believe is that there is something innate about immigrants that makes them more “fertile.”  What they are unwilling to admit is that the problem isn’t with the “fertility” of existing Americans, except that in a struggle to maintain their standard of living, they have policed themselves, unless they are captive client-members of the welfare state, in which case, they’re another burden for the rest of us to carry.  Even if one is able to rationalize Jeb’s views as merely misguided pragmatism, one must confront the fact of how he views people.

Bush, like his brother and his father, seems to hold a worldview that permits him to see the issue as one of how to fulfill a need to keep the beast alive.  The fact that the beastly welfare-state is destroying the country is a matter of little significance if he can find enough human lubricant to keep its wheel turning a while longer.  Generations of Americans struggling against the growing weight of the state are of no consequence to him.  Lives of real people demolished in the process of building the leviathan are of little or no concern.  Neither his view of native-born Americans nor the legions of waiting immigrants offers any comfort when considering the future he envisions, in which the state continues to escalate as a burden upon the populace.

Some number of years into the future, Jeb Bush and those like him will appear before us to try to give us the next round of amnesty.  By then, the country will be in crippling poverty with few exceptions.  Civil strife will be rampant. The welfare state will reign supreme in all aspects of life.  The problem with his view is that he’s more interested in making it to that next occasion than he is in preventing it in the first place.  If you really wonder about the difference between a Republican and a Conservative, this then may serve as the key: Republicans don’t make waves, and go along with the flow because they wish to maintain the status quo indefinitely.  Conservatives know it cannot last.

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Posted in Amnesty, Bush Clan, Featured, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, News, Politics | 8 Comments »

The Dishonesty of the Gang of Eight

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

Water Carrier?

Breitbart is carrying informative stories on the bogus “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” bill that is being pushed by the “Gang of Eight” senators.  I would urge readers to pay close attention to Breitbart.com for more news on the issue.  Byron York of the Examiner is also doing fantastic work exposing the gaping holes in this bill.  Breitbart’s William Bigelow has revealed another fatal flaw in the supposed reforms offered by the Rubio-Schumer/Gang-of-Eight bill that will leave a giant opening for the administration to do absolutely nothing in enforcing the allegedly strict measures contained in the new law.  As reported by the Byron York, via the Examiner.com, the feature of the bill described by Marco Rubio on Mark Levin’s show last week that would create a commission including the four border-state governors is nothing less than a sham.  There are no teeth to the provision, and no means by which to guarantee that provided there are recommendations by a commission of four governors, but also six bureaucrats selected by the President, any of these recommendations would see the light of day.  York explains:

“It sounded tough, intended to convince skeptical conservatives that reform would be based on stringent border security.  But as it turns out, the structure Gang sources described is simply not in the bill.”

York continues:

“In the legislation, the Commission would be formed if the Secretary of Homeland Security “certifies that the Department has not achieved effective control in all high-risk border sectors during any fiscal year beginning from the date that is five years after the enactment of this Act.” The Commission’s “primary responsibility,” according to the bill, “shall be making recommendations to the President, the Secretary, and Congress on policies to achieve and maintain the border security goal” of 100 percent surveillance and 90 percent apprehension.  The Commission will have six months to write a report “setting forth specific recommendations for policies for achieving and maintaining the border security goals [specified in the bill].”  That report shall contain, according to the bill, “recommendations for the personnel, infrastructure, technology, and other resources required to achieve and maintain [those goals].””

As if this isn’t bad enough, York then delivers what should be the final nail in the coffin of this horrible legislation:

“The bill requires that the head of the Government Accountability Office then review the report to determine whether the Commission’s recommendations are likely to work and what they will cost.  And then — the process stops.  “The Commission shall terminate 30 days after the date on which the report is submitted,” says the bill.

“There is nothing about the Commission going from “being an advisory panel to a policy-making one.”  The strict trigger that Gang sources advertised as being in the bill just isn’t there.

“As far as the “money set aside in escrow” for the Commission and its enforcement plan, the bill specifies that $2 billion “shall be made available” to the Secretary of Homeland Security “to carry out programs, projects, and activities recommended by the Commission.”  It is not clear whether there is any directive for the Secretary to actually do anything.”(emphasis added)

What this all means is that when Marco Rubio appeared on Mark Levin’s show on Wednesday of last week to explain the bill, he misled the audience and presumably the host. Levin asked tough questions despite being friendly with the Senator, but it seems that Senator Rubio “dissembled” a bit on some of the details.  The Daily Caller quotes Rubio from his appearance on Dr. Levin’s show:

“If, in five years, the plan has not reached 100 percent awareness and 90 percent apprehension, the Department of Homeland Security … will lose control of the issue and it will be turned over to the border governors to finish the job …. which is not a Washington commission, made up of congressmen or bureaucrats.  It’s largely led by the border state governors, who have a vested local interest in ensuring that that border is secure … and there’s money set aside in the bill for them to do it.” [Emphasis added]

You can listen to the audio of the segment here, from Mark Levin’s Audio Rewind:

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Unfortunately, as the Daily Caller goes on to detail, this is a bit less than fully honest:

“True, the bill does create a $2B pot of money for the DHS to use to carry out the commission’s recommendations–but there’s nothing that compels the DHS to actually spend it on all of them, or any of them, let alone to actually achieve the “90 percent apprehension” goal.

“Nor, if the goal isn’t reached, does the bill delay the issuance of green cards to the already-legalized former illegals (as Rubio at one point seems to suggest to Levin).

“Oh, and the commission isn’t “made up of the governors” of the border states–they only control four of the 10 commission seats. The other six are “Washington” appointments (see pages 14-15)

“Aside from those things, everything Rubio said about the commission was true.”

Whether the statements of Senator Rubio were intentionally misleading, or whether he is simply being led around by the nose by staff or other senators on the plain language of the bill, what is deeply troubling is that by appearing on the Mark Levin Show, repeating falsehoods(whether or not he knew them to be falsehoods,) Senator Rubio has done much to contribute to the lack of ill will and distrust over this legislation.  Whatever other supposed virtues this legislation may have, it’s wrecked by the propaganda being spread in this instance by Senator Rubio.

As this goes on, Rubio’s own spokesman, Alex Conant, is on Twitter comparing immigrants, legal and illegal, to slaves, H/T Twitchy:

Alex Conant @AlexConant

@conncarroll We haven’t had a cohort of people living permanently in US without full rights of citizenship since slavery.

If this is the attitude of Rubio’s spokesman, one must wonder about the strategy being employed by Rubio. The claim that immigrant are akin to slaves is a ridiculous notion, and frankly, Rubio should fire Conant.  It leaves open the question as to whether Senator Rubio might endorse such notions, and while I doubt that to be the case, it won’t help the Senator’s cause. Likewise, it isn’t helpful when one sees a conservative senator going around arm-in-arm with Charles “Chuck-U” Schumer(D-NY,) one has every reason to believe that Rubio may have relied on the characterization of the bill provided by the likes of Schumer.  I wonder if Rubio isn’t being made a patsy, but then again, I’m not sure it matters because there is something disturbing about a purportedly “conservative” senator relying on the explanations of the legislation of anybody.  Why isn’t he reading the language?

Schumer has taken a slightly different approach, going on the offense and claiming that some would use the occasion of the Boston Marathon Bombing to stall or obstruct the Immigration Reform legislation.  I must say that given the disclosures about the actual provisions of the bill revealed over the last week, I sincerely hope some conservative senators will do precisely that.  It makes no sense to pretend that this ridiculous immigration bill will accomplish anything but to make our nation less secure, and the Boston bombing clearly exposes that for the average citizen. The dishonesty being employed by proponents of this legislation is very much like an Obama campaign, and that’s all the more despicable when you think that a rising star in the Republican party may have diminished himself into nothing more than a flash in the pan.  That’s a sad prospect, one that could be headed-off if these politicians would simply read the legislation they’re advocating.  Senator Rubio owes us an explanation for the incomprehensibly misleading statements made on Levin’s show, but one probably won’t be forthcoming.  Draw your own conclusions as to the reason(s).


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Posted in audio, Conservatism, Featured, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Mark Levin, Politics | 1 Comment »

Obama’s Leak of Immigration Plan an Endorsement of Rubio’s

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013

Conservatives should not be swayed by theatrics. whether they are born in the bowels of a Rove operation, or inside the Obama administration.  Open collusion with Republicans on “comprehensive immigration reform” isn’t necessary, and in fact, it’s not desirable.  Obama understands that to get Sen. Marco Rubio’s proposal through the Senate, and also the House, it will be a matter of positioning.  It’s not as though the two proposals are substantially different, but that conservatives around the country will be treated to the few ways in which they are dissimilar as the critical differences that have caused Senator Rubio to come out and call the President’s leaked proposal “dead on arrival.”  If you ever fall for the belief that there’s no bipartisanship in Washington DC, think again, because the two parties are quite capable of coordinating, not for the good of the American people, but strictly against them.

According to Charles Krauthammer, the only substantive difference between the proposals is when the alleged “enforcement” provisions kick in, but the truth is that enforcement will never arrive if either is enacted.  You’re being set up, and that’s all there really is to that.  These proposals are simple reiterations of the Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986, when Ronald Reagan was deceived by pro-amnesty sorts in his own party.  Just as with that Act, either of these two proposals will provide for a virtual Day One legalization of illegals already in the US.  It’s made cosmetically more acceptable by pretending the legalization consists of two steps, but the fact remains that a legal status to remain in the country is conferred on the first day.  There will be no enforcement of any law against the scoff-laws already in the country, with only a legislative head-fake in that direction.

If conservatives were fully aware of the details of Senator Rubio’s bill, they would flee from him as though from a leper colony, but the whole point of the Obama administration’s leak of their own plan is to present one against which conservatives can rally, so that Rubio’s will be seen as the more conservative bill.  It’s funny to hear news analysts contend that Obama getting into the middle of this is a mistake because he’s such a polarizing figure, and that his involvement will poison the well of “good faith efforts” being made by Rubio and others.  That too is a misdirection, and a false narrative you’re supposed to swallow, hook, line and sinker.  If either of these plans makes it through, Washington DC and the Democrats win, as well as a handful of GOP establishment types.

You see, the thinking in Washington DC goes that anytime they wish to put something over on us, they must make a big show of the fight between them, so that we’re tricked into believing every one involved made their best efforts, and that whatever the result, somebody was fighting the good fight on our behalf.  Nonsense!  In fact, in Washington DC, the only thing that happens to the benefit of your best interests is when the Congress goes out on recess, and the President takes off for some foreign destination, because these are the only times they may not be acting from a legal footing to harm you.

Senator Rubio’s proposal is a sham and a lie because of the provisions that create an amnesty, but they intend to give us a good show and stuff it down our throats.  If Rubio’s plan passes rhe Senate and the House, going on to be signed into law by the President, you can bet he will happily sign it.  Much like the maneuvering over the debt ceiling in 2011, the deal has been done for some time, and all that remains is to put it over on you in such a way as to prevent conservatives from discovering that they have been had.  Be prepared for some last-minute wrangling that will lead to the ultimate bait-and-switch in which Obama’s plan winds up being the one to go forward, though in real terms, it makes damnably little difference.

Obama’s slightly more radical plan is intended to make Rubio’s plan more palatable.  There will be much apparent gnashing of teeth, as Republicans attack the President’s proposal, but in the end, they will be duped into supporting Rubio’s bill as the lesser among evils.  If you think that’s a stretch, ask yourself how many times the opaque Obama administration has ever leaked anything to its actual detriment.  How frequently does the media report on leaks detrimental to the Obama administration’s agenda?  Isn’t it stunning that the typically flat-footed Republicans had in place a ready response in the person of their State of the Union responder whose big issue is currently “comprehensive immigration reform?”

If we are to believe these are coincidences, and that Marco Rubio wasn’t waiting for the leaked story he knew would come, I think we may have problems with what might be termed “excess gullibility.”  In short, we’d need to be suckers.  Just as with the debt ceiling, and the deficit, it’s understood in Washington DC that the Republicans alone cannot pass the bill, so that in order to get something in front of the President, a piece of legislation will need bipartisan support in both Houses of Congress.  Washington DC intends to win this round, and they’ll play upon the partisan reflexes of the grass roots, when the truth of the matter is that both plans are abominable.  Conservatives should begin assailing both plans now, focusing their efforts on House members as well as Senators.  The real fight will be in the House, if there’s to be a fight at all, and only the House stands even a slim chance of stopping this.  They’re doing it to us again, but this time, we have no excuses to pretend we hadn’t seen it coming.

 

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