Kansas is ground zero of illegal voting, yet federal judge issues reprieve

Hundreds and perhaps thousands of non-citizens are illegally registered to vote in Kansas, a state that is at ground-zero in the conservative effort to police voter rolls and the liberal campaign to protect them.

The numbers are contained in a new study by Old Dominion University political science professor Jesse T. Richman. He gained fame as the researcher who put a national estimate on the number of non-citizens who register and vote. His contention that there are tens of thousands of illegal Democratic voters angered the liberal media and academia. Some professors signed an open letter blackballing him.

Mr. Richman did the Kansas study as an expert witness for Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the country’s leading elected official in the anti-voter fraud movement.

On Monday, the Republican lost his court case against the ACLU. A U.S. District Court judged ruled that his required proof-of-citizenship to register to vote was unconstitutional. He said he will appeal.

Mr. Kobach suffered another defeat in January. President Trump abolished his White House voter fraud commission co-chaired by Mr. Kobach. The aim was to try to capture an accurate illegal voting number by comparing registration lists with other data points, such as U.S. government rosters of permanent resident Green Card holders and visas.

But Democratic-run states refused to provide voter rolls, information that can be obtained by political parties for get-out-the-vote operations.

Mr. Richman’s Kansas analysis begins with the assumption that 115,550 adult non-citizens live in the state, based U.S. Census figures. From there, he relied on a number of different data sources to extrapolate numbers. Most important is the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) compiled by a consortium of universities and YouGov pollsters.

Based on actual names on registration lists, he estimates the number of noncitizen registered voters is between 1,202 and 3,813 based on the CCES from 2008 to 2016.

The numbers are much larger when the Richman study relied on surveyed noncitizens who said they were registered to vote.

Using the CCES from 2006 to 2016, the number is 18,488, about 15 percent of Kansas’ non-citizen population.

SOURCE

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Leftist scheme defeated in Massachusetts

SHED NO TEARS for the "millionaires tax" ballot initiative, which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck down on Monday. From the outset, the initiative was a cynical ploy to get voters to do something they have repeatedly rejected — replacing the state's flat-rate income tax with a system of graduated tax brackets. But nobody was fooled by the ruse, least of all the SJC.

Five times in five decades, Massachusetts voters have been asked to scrap the uniform tax rate required by the state's constitution. Five times they have refused. So activists this time came up with a two-fer: They proposed a "Fair Share Amendment" that would not only whack anyone earning more than $1 million with an 80 percent income-tax surcharge, but would also earmark the money raised for two popular purposes — public education and public transportation.

On both counts, the two-fer was illegal.

Article 48 of the Massachusetts Constitution allows private citizens to initiate ballot questions, but there are conditions: An initiative's provisions (1) must be so plainly "related or . . . mutually dependent" that they embody a single purpose, and (2) earmarking — a "specific appropriation of money from the treasury" — is disallowed. The proposed amendment met neither condition. Its provisions were obviously not closely related (public education has no inherent link to public transportation, and neither is connected to taxing the wealthy). And by specifying how the surtax revenue would be spent, the Fair Share Amendment was an exercise in blatant earmarking.

The rules for ballot questions have been in effect for 100 years. The millionaires tax initiative violated those rules, and it was Attorney General Maura Healey's obligation to say so. Instead, abdicating her duty, she certified the initiative for submission to the voters. It was not her finest hour.

Now the Supreme Judicial Court has cleaned up Healey's mess. In a 5-2 decision, it ruled that the proposed initiative, by jumbling together unrelated elements, was disqualified for the ballot. "It would be unfair to place voters in the untenable position of casting a single vote on two dissimilar subjects," the court held.

Reasonable people can disagree on the merits of a flat-rate vs. graduated income tax, on the wisdom of a millionaires surtax, and on how much the state should spend on education or the repair of roads and bridges. All are perfectly legitimate subjects for political debate; the court, quite correctly, didn't weigh in on any of them.

But while the justices may be nonpolitical, they aren't deaf and dumb. The SJC didn't just fall off the turnip truck. And its opinion makes clear that it understood perfectly well what the progressive coalition behind the Fair Share Amendment had hoped to pull off.

"We are not entirely unaware of the possibility" that the amendment was purposely drafted "to 'sweeten the pot' for voters," the majority remarked dryly. Knowing that every previous attempt to permit graduated tax rates had failed, activists this time around hoped to tempt voters with the prospect of more money for favored causes — and with a dash of eat-the-rich class envy thrown in for good measure. The SJC doesn't actually say that, of course. Instead it quotes someone who did: former Senate President Stanley Rosenberg.

"In the past, constitutional amendments have been very differently constructed," Rosenberg explained when he endorsed the initiative. "This one, because it is focused specifically on money for education and transportation, will stand a better chance of being approved. And also because it is very clear that it [affects] people who make more than $1 million."

It was just that kind of cynical "wheedling and deceiving," wrote the majority in spiking the proposed amendment, that Article 48 was designed to block. The place for jury-rigged legislation that cobbles together widely disparate provisions is the Legislature, not in initiative petitions placed before the voters. A ballot question isn't a wish list. It must present a unified and coherent statement of public policy. The millionaires tax missed the mark by a mile, and the SJC gave it what it deserved.

SOURCE

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Commentary seldom gives Trump an even break

Comment from Australia by CHRIS MITCHELL, a recently retired editor of "The Australian", well-known for his mockery of global warming

In 1989 when Frank Devine, former editor of the New York Post, was a newish editor-in-chief of this paper he asked me to arrange something we had never done in our daily editorials: he wanted to include a picture of the Berlin Wall and endorse president Ronald Reagan’s 1987 Berlin speech, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

It was an important lesson: presidents can change history and editors need to be alive to the power of political outsiders to drive that change. Many people have compared Reagan to US President Donald Trump. Bret Stephens, formerly of The Wall Street Journal but now at The New York Times, wrote a piece published here in The Australian Financial Review last Thursday saying Trump was no Reagan.

Sure, Trump is from another, brasher era. Where Reagan was a B-grade movie star, Trump is a reality TV icon. Yet both were Washington outsiders and both used force of personality and personal relationships to try to tear down what previous administrations had seen as facts of life. As Stephens wrote, “The Cold War didn’t need to last forever. The sec­urity paradigms that defined it weren’t immutable laws of history.”

People with long memories will recall how vicious the progressive media was about Reagan, who they treated initially as a buffoon. They mocked his challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev and ridiculed his plans to build a “star wars” missile defence shield that would have forced a financially strapped Soviet Union to respond.

The liberal media was wrong. Reagan and his ally, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, proved strong individuals could change history. The Soviet Union disintegrated. This was not a small rogue state like North Korea. It was a giant of 390 million people that included the Baltic states, the Caucasian states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the east European countries of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, and Soviet Central Asia.

So here’s the thing. When Trump faced down “Little Rocket Man” last year he was threatening “fire and fury” against a state with nuclear weapons, but only a fraction the size of the colossus Reagan and John F. Kennedy before him had faced down. Trump’s threats worked, and Korean peninsula denuclearisation is now possible. What to make, then, of media reaction to last week’s summit in Singapore between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un?

This paper’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan, no US-style left-liberal media type, was rightly cautious about what Trump might be giving away, especially in pledging to abandon joint military exercises with South Korea. It is in Australia’s interests that the US-led alliance system remain strong in the Pacific and South Korea is a key part of it. But Sheridan made another point: “Part of the problem with much analysis is that people approach it as pro or anti Trump.”

Just as they did with Reagan and Thatcher. The Pacific alliance has not solved the North Korean problem. Neither Kim nor his father, Kim Jong-il, or grandfather Kim Il-sung has ever been brought to heel by sanctions. Presidents since Bill Clinton have expended enormous effort and money to try, unsuccessfully, to prevent the hermit kingdom from acquiring nuclear weapons. Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, at least partly for his efforts to settle the North Korean issue. Yet he warned in 2016 that North Korea remained the world’s most intractable problem.

The North conducted its first successful nuclear test under Kim Jong-il in 2006 (after withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2003) and now probably has 20 warheads and missiles capable of travelling 13,000km. It is unclear whether they would be capable of carrying a nuclear payload that far.

No serious editor will want to be proved wrong in declaring Trump a failure or a success before either becomes clear. Yet as people gravitate to news they agree with, newspapers reap rewards for commentary that really is no better than last week’s puerile attack by actor Robert De Niro, who received a standing ovation for saying two words: “F..k Trump”.

This paper’s associate editor Chris Kenny, who visited North Korea when a staffer for former foreign minister Alexander Downer, wrote about Trump’s strategy last Thursday, arguing Trump could not receive a fair appraisal from most media. Trump was a dangerous warmonger last year when he threatened Kim Jong-un but is soft on dictators this year for giving Kim a place at the negotiating table. Surely decades of failure of talks and refusal to meet Korean leaders should suggest to a normal person (not of the foreign policy establishment) that a different course might be worth exploring.

Some commentators were even silly enough to point out the North Korean media had trumpeted the summit as a win for Kim. They would, wouldn’t they, given they are state controlled. And the US needs a partner to deal with so a positive reaction in Pyongyang is crucial to preserve Kim’s leadership. The media’s Trump derangement is just as bad in discussion of Trump’s business dealings with Russia and special counsel Robert Mueller’s examination of potential involvement by parts of the Trump campaign in Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Which brings us to Sarah Ferguson’s three-part series for Four Corners. The first two episodes have been entertaining even if they have revealed nothing new.

The program has left itself wriggle room by airing background material on key players that runs counter to the prevailing narrative on the Russia story. Except so far for one person, and it is the one Ferguson has used as an honest broker, former Obama national intelligence director James Clapper. Whether discussing Trump’s attempted property dev­elopments in Moscow in episode one or the role of low-ranking Trump staff George Papadopoulos and Carter Page in episode two, Four Corners really should have pointed out some facts about Clapper’s role in the affair. He is accused of leaking the discredited Christopher Steele dossier about Trump to CNN, then lying to congress about it. Ferguson admitted her main source in part one, Trump property development associate Felix Sater, has been a 20-year informer for the FBI and intelligence source for other agencies. Part two also admitted Papadopoulos and Page were junior staff with almost no influence.

While Twitter took all this to be incriminating, I thought it raised an obvious question: how is some big-noting and financial cadging by staff on the periphery of the campaign the “story of the century”, as the series has been branded?

SOURCE 

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A Leftist "fact checker" at work

Confirmation bias damages reputations. It ruins credibility. It destroys lives

When researchers ignore contradictory data that undermines their assumptions, junk science prevails. When police conduct investigations with predetermined outcomes, wrongful convictions abound. And when reporters cherry-pick facts and distort images to serve political agendas, media outlets become dangerous weapons of mass manipulation.

Take Talia Lavin, a young journalist who has enjoyed a meteoric rise. Her pedigree appears impeccable on its face: She graduated with a degree in comparative literature from Harvard University six years ago. After graduation, she won a Fulbright Scholar fellowship to study in Ukraine. She “worked in all realms” of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency news agency and wire service, copy-edited for the feminist Lilith magazine, and contributed stories and translations for the Huffington Post.

Lavin has held the coveted position of “fact-checker” for the revered New Yorker for the past three years. The publication brags that its “fact-checking department is known for its high standards.” It demands the ability “to quickly analyze a manuscript for factual errors, logical flaws, and significant omissions.” The editorial department requires “a strong understanding of ethical reporting standards and practices” and prefers “proficiency or fluency in a second language.”

Impressively, Lavin speaks four languages (Russian, Hebrew, Ukrainian and English). Her abdication of ethical reporting standards, however, raises fundamental questions not only about her competence but also about her integrity — not to mention the New Yorker‘s journalistic judgment.

With a single tweet, the New Yorker’s professional fact-checker smeared Justin Gaertner, a combat-wounded war veteran and computer forensic analyst for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Lavin, the professional fact-checker, rushed to judgment. She abused her platform. Amid the national media hysteria over President Donald Trump’s border enforcement policies, Lavin derided a photo of Gaertner shared by ICE, which had spotlighted his work rescuing abused children. Scrutinizing his tattoos, she claimed an image on his left elbow was an Iron Cross — a symbol of valor commonly and erroneously linked to Nazis.

The meme spread like social media tuberculosis: Look! The jackboots at ICE who hate children and families employ a real-life white supremacist.

Only it wasn’t an Iron Cross. It was a Maltese Cross, the symbol of double amputee Gaertner’s platoon in Afghanistan, Titan 2. He lost both legs during an IED-clearing mission and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Combat Valor and the Purple Heart before joining ICE to combat online child exploitation.

When actual military veterans, whom Lavin failed to consult before defaming Gaertner so glibly, pointed out that the image looked more like a Maltese Cross, Lavin deleted her original tweet “so as not to spread misinformation.”

Too damned late. The harm to Gaertner’s name and honor is irreparable and cannot be unseen, unread or unpublished.

The New Yorker issued an obligatory apology and acknowledged that “a staff member erroneously made a derogatory assumption about ICE agent Justin Gaertner’s tattoo.” But what consequences will there be for her journalistic malpractice? Who is supervising her work at the famed publication? What other lapses might she be responsible for during her present and past stints as a checker of facts and arbiter of truth?

The magazine editors claim “we in no way share the viewpoint expressed in this tweet,” yet the abject ignorance of, and knee-jerk bigotry against, law enforcement, immigration enforcement and the military underlying Lavin’s slime run rampant in New York media circles. And they all know it.

Lavin has not commented on the matter and instead turned her Twitter account private. But we can infer her attitude about her present troubles from a defiant piece she published just last week in The Forward magazine, where she pens a regular column. Titled “No, We Don’t Have To Be Friends with Trump Supporters,” the piece, laden with Nazi allusions, decries asylum reform, strengthened borders and ICE agents enforcing the law.

Rejecting calls for decency in public debate over these contentious matters, she spat: “[T]ough nuts, sugar. When they go low, stomp them on the head.”

She further raged: “It is high time, when you find yourself next at a dinner party with someone who has gone Trump, to smash your glass to shards and leave. It is time to push yourself away from the table. It is time to cease to behave with subservient politesse towards those who embrace barbarity with unfettered glee.”

Better “gone Trump” than gone mad. In her unfettered haste to condemn those with whom she disagrees, the New Yorker’s professional fact-checker failed to check her own toxic biases. Lavin’s act was no innocent gaffe. Like the journalists-turned-propagandists who have falsely spread Obama-era photos of immigrant detention centers to attack the Trump White House, Lavin engaged in mass manipulation under the guise of resistance journalism.

Truth is collateral damage.

SOURCE 

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Lying media again



An image that went viral of a little Honduran girl crying after being apprehended in the US was not separated from her mother, her father says.

The Honduran toddler pictured sobbing in a pink jacket before US President Donald Trump on an upcoming cover of Time magazine was not separated from her mother at the US border, according to a man who says he is the girl's father.

The powerful original photograph, taken at the scene of a border detention by Getty Images photographer John Moore, became one of the iconic images in the flurry of media coverage about the separation of families by the Trump administration.

Dozens of newspapers and magazines around the globe published the picture, swelling the tide of outrage that pushed Trump to back down Wednesday and say families would no longer be separated.

"My daughter has become a symbol of the ... separation of children at the US border. She may have even touched President Trump's heart," Denis Valera told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Valera said the little girl and her mother, Sandra Sanchez, have been detained together in the Texas border town of McAllen, where Sanchez has applied for asylum, and they were not separated after being detained near the border.

Honduran deputy foreign minister Nelly Jerez confirmed Valera's version of events.

SOURCE

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500 days of unleashing our economic engine

Amazing growth – while protecting environment, health and welfare from actual threats

Paul Driessen

The “mainstream media” remains riveted on alleged Trump-Russian collusion and how the Trump-Kim Jong Un deal will fail. But it mostly ignored reports on Russia-environmentalist collusion and China-environmentalist collusion – and milestones reached during the Trump Administration’s first 500 days.

In that short time, the US economy has gone from the lowest labor participation rate since the 1970s to nearly the lowest Black, Hispanic and women’s unemployment rates in history. It added 223,000 jobs just last month. Many employers are struggling to find qualified workers, even though private sector salaries and benefits have been increasing to attract them. (Perhaps generous welfare and unemployment payouts still tempt too many?) More than 4 million Americans have received pay raises and/or bonuses.

Businesses large and small are investing billions of dollars in facilities and equipment, and the Dow Jones Industrial average skyrocketed from 18,800 points just after the November 2016 elections – to a record 26,617 on January 26, 2018, before falling to 23,533 and then rebounding to 25,200. IRA, 401(k), and private and government pension funds have gained hundreds of billions in cumulative value.

Economists predict a growth rate of 4% for the second quarter of 2018, while one of the best forecasters says we may hit 5% by year’s end, thanks to extensive investment capital flowing into the USA.

The primary reasons for these changes were anticipation of and reaction to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of December 2017 and the Administration-wide reduction in regulations: not enacting many new ones, while reversing past bureaucratic rules, obstacles and delays. Two departments led the way: EPA and Interior.

* The Obama Department of the Interior implemented numerous actions to curtail fossil fuel production, mining, ranching and other economy-enhancing programs. During his first 500 days, Secretary Ryan Zinke reversed, eliminated or streamlined many of those rules and decision-delaying processes.

In accordance with the 2017 Tax Act, he opened the narrow “Coastal Plain” of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to leasing and drilling, so that the area’s enormous oil and gas potential can be evaluated. Environmentalists had blocked access for nearly 40 years, denying America critically needed energy that can be developed safely under practices proven by decades of operations at the Prudhoe Bay oilfield.

Secretary Zinke also ended DOI’s war on coal and opened large tracts of valuable Utah coal reserves that had been closed off via abusive use of the 1906 Antiquities Act. He did so while fully protecting smaller monument areas of true historic, prehistoric and scientific value. Onshore and offshore, he opened millions of acres to oil and gas leasing, so that they can go through a full formal study and review process, with some of them ultimately being made available for exploration, drilling and production.

These and other actions have already helped send US oil production to a record (projected) 2018 output of 10.7 million barrels a day. They have created thousands of jobs and generated billions of dollars in lease bonus, rent, royalty and tax revenues to support essential government programs and services.

The new DOI and other government policies also helped the United States export a record $20 billion in crude oil, liquefied natural gas and refined products in April 2018 alone. US natural gas exports also increased – by 66% over their first quarter 2016 level.

After years of neglecting this critical obligation, Interior has dedicated tens of millions of dollars to restoring, repairing and maintaining national park lands, trails, lodges and visitor centers, so that families can continue enjoying them.

Meanwhile, many other Interior Department lands will now be managed under traditional “multiple use” guidelines that permit motorized access, non-wilderness recreation, grazing, forest management, timber harvesting, and responsible development of energy resources above and below the ground – all via expedited planning and permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws.

Finally, with an eye toward America’s current and future defense, renewable energy, communication and other needs, Interior issued a detailed report assessing the nation’s access to the “critical minerals” that are essential for manufacturing those vital technologies.

* Under President Obama, the Environmental Protection Agency was the most regulation-prone agency in government. Its heavy-handed rules cost the US economy billions and killed countless jobs. No longer.

During his first 500 days, Administrator Scott Pruitt’s EPA reduced or eliminated numerous burdensome regulations, likely saving America at least $1 billion a year in regulatory costs so far – while still protecting air and water quality and safeguarding human health against actual, demonstrable risks.

He helped persuade President Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Treaty, which would have forced the USA to slash its greenhouse gas emissions and thus its reliance on fossil fuels, and pay billions of dollars annually into a “green climate” slush fund. Meanwhile, China, India and other rapidly developing countries will continue expanding their oil, gas and coal use … and CO2 emissions. In short, Paris will bring no climate benefits, even if CO2 actually is a primary factor in climate change.

Pruitt also repealed the deceptively named “Clean Power Plan,” which used dishonest claims about particulate, mercury and carbon dioxide emissions, exaggerated “social cost of carbon” data, and dubious assertions about climate change to justify rules that forced numerous coal-fired generators to shut down.

Pruitt also proposed to end the longstanding EPA practice of using secretive, questionable, non-replicable, even deceptive science to support agency policy and regulatory initiatives. The new rules will ensure that any science underlying agency actions is transparent and publicly available for independent experts to examine, validate or debunk. Studies that do not comply cannot be part of the decision-making process.

Equally important, Pruitt ended the underhanded sue-and-settle tactic that allowed radical environmental groups to work with EPA officials behind the scenes, to devise policies, sue in friendly courts to force their implementation, and then settle the cases – without parties affected by the decision able to present testimony or have their day in court. (My only complaint here is that Pruitt perhaps should have waited until conservative groups had some opportunities to use the same tactic to advance their policy agendas.)

The Pruitt EPA has garnered bipartisan praise for moving to expedite the cleanup of Missouri, Montana, Texas and other Superfund toxic waste sites that have posed threats to local communities for decades. It received similar support (and environmentalist criticism) for rescinding the “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule that gave EPA effective control over every creek and temporary puddle in the nation

Those who still believe rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are causing dangerous manmade climate change will be happy to know that the United States has reduced its CO2 emissions more than any other country – even as America entered a new energy and economic renaissance under President Trump. In fact, they were down another 2.5% in 2016, on top of an 11% decline 2005 through 2015.

This is largely due to the Obama era war on coal, which resulted in hundreds of coal-fired generating units closing since 2008, with many replaced by increasingly efficient natural gas generators. With China, India, Germany and the rest of the world using fossil fuels to generate reliable, affordable electricity, it’s time for the United States to do likewise. Zinke and Pruitt are doing exactly that.

All of this represents enormous progress in returning to environmental common sense, restoring business and consumer confidence, and unleashing America’s powerful energy and economic engines.

However, there is still much to do: from immigration reform to renegotiated trade agreements that end the expanding tariff battles, and building more pipelines to get the nation’s increasing oil and gas production to power plants, refineries and export terminals – to ensuring a lasting Trump legacy through legislative deals, court victories and longer-term strategies, to augment executive orders and regulatory actions.

Using all this progress as a guide, imagine what could be accomplished over the next 500 days, the 950 days before Mr. Trump’s first term ends – or the next 2,400 days until the end of his second term!

Via email pkdriessen@gmail.com

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Just How Far Are Democrats Lurching Left?

The party's presidential hopefuls are leading the charge toward ever more socialism

The expected electoral Blue Wave in 2018 has been tempered a bit considering the positive economic news based on the tremendous reversal in unemployment that sweeps across demographics with wages rising, consumer confidence soaring and small business optimism through the roof. Democrats’ recourse has been to double down on the extremist #Resist movement to the point that they’re literally hoping for recession just to get Donald Trump.

This thinking has positioned Democrats against the sweeping Republican tax cuts that have opened the economic flow of activity, against real DACA reform and against sweeping diplomatic efforts such as the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Put another way, they’re against peace and prosperity.

Now that’s a party platform that appeals to the masses!

This past week, a large gathering of the political Left occurred in Washington, DC — the We the People Summit. The event can be best summarized by a quote made by one of the event’s moderators and president of Demos, a progressive Democrat policy organization: “We’re not just pulling the party to the left. We’re pulling the party into the future.”

The list of host sponsors, in addition to Demos, tells the story: Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Communications Workers of America, Center for Popular Democracy Action, MoveOn, People’s Action, 32BJ SEIU, Working Families Party, PICO National Network, Caring Across Generations Action Fund, National Domestic Workers Alliance, New York Communities for Change, Sierra Club and United We Dream Action.

It doesn’t take a political scientist or consultant to see the obvious: Democrats are moving further to the political left and, in their own words, working to “project a bold, transformative vision.” Anyone remember what happened for eight years the last time some smooth-talking politician promised an agenda rooted in “fundamentally transforming the United States of America”?

Interestingly, as the political Left demands more and more government control, intervention and, yes, socialism, the political Right has moved into a governing role that, while still motivated by principles, is not as ideologically driven as the days of the Tea Party’s beginnings almost a decade ago. But that’s another story.

Exactly what are these bold, transformative Democrats proposing?

At last Wednesday’s progressive pep rally, the main event revolved around the current pool of 2020 presidential hopefuls for the Democrats — U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Cory Booker (New Jersey), Bernie Sanders (Vermont), Kristen Gillibrand (New York) and Kamala Harris (California).

These politicians previewed issues that we should expect in the 2018 elections as well as the 2020 presidential cycle. Despite their passion, their platform was embarrassingly reflective of the mythical belief that government has its own money, can create jobs and is the institution that should, by default, replace all others that serve a civil society.

Let’s start with Medicare for All.

Remember that Medicare, the health insurance program funded by payroll taxes, surtaxes and some premiums from beneficiaries, is available to those 65 years of age or older and a select few more. Democrats want a single-payer (government) health insurance program for all citizens, and likely noncitizens, of the U.S., operating as Medicare for All. Universal health care sounds great because it covers all care. It’s the price tag of reality, however, that should deter us. Not to mention the inherent loss of Liberty.

Never mind that the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees released a report just two weeks ago that declared the health insurance program for seniors would be insolvent by 2026. That means Medicare’s debts and promised services will outnumber its funds in only eight years. But, to paraphrase Lady Margaret Thatcher, when you’re a socialist, you don’t have a problem until you run out of other people’s money. Medicare is almost there.

The “We the People” parade of progressive hogwash also featured the call for a “living wage,” with specifics offered that range from a $15/hour minimum wage to a universal wage for everyone to eliminate economic inequities. Let’s ask Seattle how its business head tax, ostensibly aimed to generate $48 million to address homelessness and housing costs, worked out. It’s exactly the same premise. Mandating that a business pay some type of universal wage is a tax on jobs.

On immigration, the wannabe Democrat standard-bearers boast of the humanity that only they possess with their view that an open-border policy is the answer. They insist the “rights” of illegals are in jeopardy as long as racist Republicans enforce immigration laws and the notion of sovereignty within our own country. Yet the truth is, Democrats stand with the “animals” of MS-13 — perpetrators of heinous crimes — against the citizens of our nation. They keep moving further to the left.

Other foundational topics addressed last week included the leftist sacrament of unrestricted abortion, the rights of the gender confused, “free” college tuition for all and the need to cut our military to make way for more welfare spending.

But the event and the upcoming elections can be easily summarized: Democrats hope to ride a Blue Wave by offering “Better Deal” socialism that fails every time it’s tried. And yet they accuse Republicans of moving to the right.

Via email

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Obsessive media coverage risks fuelling the rise of Donald Trump

Swiss journalist PATRIK MULLER below can see what the American Left apparently cannot: That the  ever-boiling media hate of Trump defeats their purposes.  Even before he was elected he dominated the news. The Left just cannot restrain their hate of him

As a Swiss journalist, I’ve followed US politics and media since the Clinton administration. But when I moved to Boston five months ago, I got a new perspective, and it has stunned me. I’m subscribed to several major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. Too much of the press is obsessed with the US President.

In The New York Times, I counted 14 articles dealing with Trump in a recent Friday edition. One of them, an editorial, was titled “The Cult of Trump” and accused Republicans of revolving around a man rather than ideas. Could it be that the media’s excessive Trump coverage is a kind of cult, too? Could it be that, as important as this presidency indeed is, other relevant issues are crowded out?

To be sure, the media must report and comment at length on events such as the G7 and North Korea summits. They must analyse in detail the withdrawal from the Iran deal, the imposition of tariffs, and turnover in the administration. It is journalists’ duty to investigate and criticise every president and administration.

Yet many news organisations allow Trump to dominate the news cycle even when it comes to trivialities. Do his tweets about Kanye West, Roseanne Barr, the National Football League’s national anthem policy and the latest twist in the Stormy Daniels case warrant the scale and scope of the coverage?

The Trump hysteria extends to the President’s family and friends. When a reporter from The Boston Globe disclosed that “a small number” of Harvard alumni mocked Jared Kushner in their 15-year reunion book (“Shame on you!”), the newspaper ran the scoop on its front page.

From a Swiss perspective, this all seems familiar. In the 1990s, my country saw the rise of a man later described as the first populist in Europe, Christoph Blocher.

The billionaire entrepreneur took over the Swiss People’s Party and transformed it into a conservative, Eurosceptic and immigrant-weary movement. Blocher dominated the headlines for years, much the way Trump does in the US. Amid dire warnings by virtually every Swiss news outlet, Blocher’s party increased its share of the vote constantly, from around 10 per cent to 30 per cent.

In retrospect, it’s accepted that Blocher’s exuberant media presence, and his demonisation, helped him rise. While meaning to do the opposite, the media made him the hero against the “political class”. Similarly, Trump’s approval numbers are higher than when he was elected, and many Republicans who once were ambivalent now support him. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a private conversation, reported this month: “I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump. I have become more and more convinced that there is method in his madness.”

Johnson is a former journalist, and it’s worth thinking about how the method works on the press.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

***************************

Frightened, alone and locked up… Not children in Trump's border camps, but young migrants who were detained under Obama

Frightened, alone and locked in 'cages' - at first these images of migrant children appear to be straight from Donald Trump's America.

But in fact they show thousands of youngsters detained at the US border under the Obama administration in 2014. 

The youngsters were locked up at shelters in Texas and Arizona after arriving unaccompanied at the border in their tens of thousands that year.

The problem faced by both presidents is what to do with children who arrive at the border with no adult or legal guardian alongside them.

While unaccompanied youngsters from Mexico can be immediately turned back, those arriving from further afield - such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador - have to be granted a legal hearing.

That leads to the children being locked up in shelters while the cases work themselves out, and caused a barrage of criticism for both leaders.

Under Trump, 32,372 unaccompanied minors have arrived at the border in the 2018 fiscal year, which is more than triple the number which arrived last year.

By comparison, an estimated 60,000 unaccompanied minors arrived under the Obama administration in 2014, almost four times the number that arrived in 2012. 

At the time Obama faced protests from both sides of the aisle and was accused of encouraging minors to chance the crossing with soft-touch immigration policies.

Meanwhile Trump has been accused of using the children as political pawns to force Democrats to sign tougher immigration laws.

SOURCE 

************************************

Trump signs executive order to end family separation

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the practice of separating children from their families in detention centers for illegal immigrants. The order will likely be challenged in court, however.

“I'll be signing something in a little while that's going to do that," Trump said on Wednesday morning. “I'll be doing something that's somewhat preemptive and ultimately will be matched by legislation I'm sure.”

The “something” is an executive order to keep families together in immigration detention facilities, which Trump signed on Wednesday before departing for his scheduled trip to Minnesota.

The current practice of housing children at facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services stems from a 1997 Flores settlement, under which the Clinton administration agreed not to hold children in immigration jails for more than 20 days. Subsequent administrations chose to implement that law by releasing the families into the US with a promise they would appear before immigration courts. In most cases, that would never happen.

“We’re going to keep families together, but we have to keep our borders strong,” Trump said.

The temporary measure will allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain families crossing the border illegally together, except "when there is a concern that detention of an alien child with the child’s alien parent would pose a risk to the child’s welfare."

It also instructs the Department of Defense to provide "any existing facilities available for the housing and care of alien families, and shall construct such facilities if necessary."

Meeting with GOP lawmakers at the White House earlier in the day, Trump brought up that a deal on immigration with the Democrats was almost done in January, but a federal judge ruled in favor of keeping an Obama-era executive action shielding some illegal immigrants, known as DACA.

“All of a sudden they weren’t there anymore,” Trump said.

Democrats have refused to support any of the proposed immigration bills in Congress, saying that Trump can fix the family separation issue through executive action.

“There are so many obstacles to legislation and when the president can do it with his own pen, it makes no sense,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Tuesday. “Legislation is not the way to go here when it’s so easy for the president to sign it.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already announced it would challenge reunifying children with their parents, since that would mean effectively putting them in jail, violating the terms of Flores.

SOURCE 

******************************

The sewer that is a Leftist mind

He had to apologize but he gave us a view of the disgusting  maggot-infested cesspit that is his mind

Peter Fonda proposed kidnapping the president’s youngest son. His tweet has been deleted, but its authenticity was initially corroborated by Twitter responses and multiple screenshots before Fonda himself apologized for it. He wrote:

WE SHOULD RIP BARRON TRUMP FROM HIS MOTHER’S ARMS AND PUT HIM IN A CAGE WITH PEDOPHILES AND SEE IF MOTHER WILL STAND UP AGAINST THE GIANT ASSHOLE SHE IS MARRIED TO. 90 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE STREETS ON THE SAME WEEKEND IN THE COUNTRY. FUCK

On Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. ripped actor Peter Fonda. Here’s what Barron’s big brother had to say:

“I didn’t think it was possible but Peter Fonda has found a way to be as disgusting as his sister Jane as when she stood with the enemy in Vietnam. Doesn’t get more vile than wishing for a young boy to be raped by pedophiles. There’s a special place in hell…”, Don Jr. tweeted.

As we reported earlier, the Secret Service has officially been called on Peter Fonda after his threat to Barron:

In another shocking all-caps Twitter rant, Fonda had this to say:

“WE SHOULD HACK THIS SYSTEM, GET THE ADDRESSES OF THE ICE AGENTS CBP AGENTS AND SURROUND THEIR HOMES IN PROTEST. WE SHOULD FIND OUT WHAT SCHOOLS THEIR CHILDREN GO TO AND SURROUND THE SCHOOLS IN PROTEST. THESE AGENTS ARE DOING THIS CUZ THEY WANT TO DO IT. THEY LIKE DOING THIS. FUCK.”

He then followed up with this now deleted tweet:

“Sounds great. We don’t have to take the agents kids, we only need to surround their schools and scare the shit out of them and worry the fuck out of the agents frm CBE ICE & REGULAR BORDER PATROL AGENTS. WE NEED TO SCARE THE FUCK OUT OF THEM! NEED TO MAKE THEIR CHILDREN WORRY NOW

Paul Joseph Watson correctly said this about Fonda’s twitter rants:

Things @iamfonda has encouraged in the last 24 hours;

- Showing up at schools to "scare the shit out of" children of Border Patrol agents.

- Putting Barron Trump "in a cage with pedophiles".

- Hacking a government database.

This is gonna be an interesting test of Twitter's TOS.

SOURCE 

*****************************

On Tuesday, President Trump slammed the media during a speech to the National Federation of Independent Business Leaders

“We don’t want people pouring into our country. We want them to come in through the process, through the legal system, and we want ultimately a merit-based system where people come in based on merit. Keep in mind, those who apply for asylum legally at ports of entry are not prosecuted. The fake news media back there doesn’t talk about that.”

As the audience laughed, Trump noted, “They are fake. They are helping, they are helping these smugglers and these traffickers like nobody would believe. They know it, they know exactly what they’re doing, and it should be stopped.”

The audience ate it up.

Trump finished by talking about the dangers of MS-13 and gangs.

“People that come in violate the law, they endanger their children in the process and frankly, they endanger all of our children. You see what happens with MS-13, where your sons and daughters are attacked violently. Kids that never even heard of such a thing are being attacked violently, not with guns, but with knives because it’s much more painful,” Trump said.

He continued, “Inconceivable that we even have to talk about MS-13 and other gangs. They attack violently, the most painful way possible. And a bullet is too quick.”

Trump added, “And we are allowing these people into our country? Not with me. We are taking them out by the thousands. We are taking them out by the thousands.”

SOURCE 

**********************************

Trump rips media for ignoring Americans 'permanently separated' from loved ones by illegals' crimes

President Trump slammed the media Wednesday night for ignoring American families “permanently separated” from their loved ones in crimes committed by illegal immigrants, on the same day he reversed a much-criticized policy that separated illegal immigrant children from their parents.

At a packed campaign rally in Duluth, Minnesota, the president tried to change the focus from his immigration policy backpedaling by spotlighting cases such as Kate Steinle, a woman shot and killed by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco in 2015.

“The media never talks about the American victims of illegal immigration — what’s happened to their children, what’s happened to their husbands, what’s happened to their wives,” Mr. Trump said. “The media doesn’t talk about the American families permanently separated from their loved ones because Democrat policies release violent criminals into our communities.”

He said TV networks “don’t bring cameras to interview the ‘Angel’ moms whose children were killed by criminal aliens who should have never been here in the first place.”

“But as your president, I will always fight to protect American families,” Mr. Trump said. “I will never be silent in the face of vicious smears and attacks on the heroic agents and officers of ICE and the border patrol who save thousands and thousands of lives.”

He turned that theme into a campaign issue, telling the boisterous crowd, “If you want to create a humane, lawful system of immigration, then you need to retire the Democrats and elect Republicans to finally secure our borders.”

SOURCE 

**********************************

Gowdy Blasts FBI And Comey For ‘Textbook Bias’

Gowdy blasted former FBI director James Comey for his handling of the rigged Clinton Investigation, noting FBI agent’s prejudgements on the outcome of the Hillary investigation and prior to the Trump investigation.

“If prejudging the outcome of an investigation before it ends and prejudging the outcome of an investigation before it begins is not evidence of outcome determinative bias, for the life of me, I don’t know what would be,” Gowdy stated.

Gowdy has previously admitted his belief, “Former Director Comey violated Department policy in several significant ways.”

“The FBI’s actions and those of former Director Comey severely damaged the credibility of the investigation, the public’s ability to rely on the results of the investigation, and the very institutions he claims to revere.”

Gowdy ultimately declared,“we can’t survive with a justice system we don’t trust.”

The American people should be able to trust that the FBI will run fair investigations on behalf of the United States of America. Clearly, that’s not the case.

SOURCE 

****************************************

Trump takes on airline unfairness

American aviation transcends multiple industrial sectors, including the service industry and manufacturing. For decades, U.S. airlines and workers have been attacked by foreign competitors that skirt fair competition provisions in our aviation trade deals, known as Open Skies agreements.

By providing massive subsidies to their state-owned airlines, the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have violated these agreements and destabilized the marketplace for American competitors. The Trump administration, as it has on other key fronts, including tax reform, took decisive action and brought both Gulf states to the negotiating table. It extracted promises of financial transparency and an end to mass subsidization, putting a stop to the “capacity dumping” that Qatar Airways, Emirates, and Etihad Airways have used to push U.S. domestic airlines and other foreign competitors out of air travel markets.

It is astounding that previous administrations failed to stand up for American workers and ensure a level and fair playing field. The failure to enforce our Open Skies agreements with these two countries put 1.2 million American jobs at risk. President Trump has thankfully shown that he understands the stakes. But that hasn’t stopped special interests, operating on behalf of the Gulf state airlines, from trying to muddy the water with misinformation and political brinkmanship. They’ve used shady tactics for years to try to prevent the U.S. government from taking any action.

The Gulf carriers are backed by K Street fronts that have been accused of carrying water for foreign interests. As the Associated Press and others have reported, the U.S. Travel Association (which has led the opposition) is “funded by the Emirati airlines.” Breitbart News has exposed the foreign ties of U.S. Travel land its cohorts, many of whom – including public relations flak Jonathan Grella – have also been outspoken critics of President Trump. Grella, per Breitbart, has referred to President Trump as a “nasty bully.” The Air Line Pilots Association has requested that the Department of Justice investigate U.S. Travel for its failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act due to its ties to the United Arab Emirates.

Thankfully, the White House and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have seen through this hackneyed ruse. Over 300 lawmakers called for enforcing our Open Skies agreements with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. At the end of the day, President Trump has proven that he is a staunch ally of American workers – unwavering in his commitment to ensure free and fair competition and to put our economy in the best position possible. It is doubtful that any amount of mudslinging and misinformation peddled by foreign interests and opponents of President Trump’s agenda will change that.

SOURCE 

*********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

***************************

Trump is a genuine original

Let me risk a prophecy:  Future Presidents are now going to feel that they have to do this too



Donald Trump gave an impassioned speech Tuesday to a group of business leaders in Washington, D.C., in which he hammered the recent outrage over immigration policies.

Recent media outrage over the administration’s enforcement of America’s border laws — that result in the separating some families at the border if they seek asylum after crossing the border illegally at non-checkpoint locations — has captured the nation’s attention.

Trump took the fight directly to the media in the speech, saying they were on the side of the smugglers and human traffickers who operate on our borders. The president also hit back at Hillary Clinton for attacking him over open borders criticism.

The president also hit Obamacare taxes and regulations and lauded his tax cuts in front of the business leaders. “Cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts,” Trump said.

The room was enthusiastic toward Trump and his attacks on various political opponents, regularly applauding and cheering passionately.

As Trump exited the stage, he took a moment to wave at the audience. Then, the president approached an American flag in the corner of the room and gave it a hug.

It was not the first time that Trump has given a hug to the American flag. He also did so on the campaign trail.

SOURCE 

*********************************

Trump blesses House Republicans' new compromise immigration bill

A lot of GOP congressmen were initially skeptical of Trump but his successes have now given him authority.  So we see that his support is expected to change minds towards voting for the bill

President Trump blessed House Republicans’ new compromise immigration bill “1,000 percent” Tuesday, giving political cover to conservatives looking to back the bill and creating momentum ahead of a showdown vote expected later this week.

He said the legislation, which grants citizenship rights to illegal immigrant “Dreamers,” funds his border wall, limits the chain of family migration and ends the visa lottery, checks off all the boxes on his immediate immigration wishlist.

Meeting with Republicans for an hour Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump told them he would welcome a fix to the family separation issue that’s engulfed the immigration debate this week. But he made clear any action will have to come from Congress, not from the administration.

His blessing clears up the mess he left last Friday, when he said he “wouldn’t sign” the bill. The White House later said he misunderstood the question, but his wavering had left a number of conservatives fearful of voting for the bill only to have the president walk away from the legislation, leaving them on a political ledge.

“He says I am behind you 1,000 percent and I am not going to leave you out to dry,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, chair of the House Republican Conference.

Whether that’s good enough to win 218 Republicans — the number needed to approve the bill — is unclear. “It’s going to be close,” said Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who helped craft the compromise bill. “This is a very challenging issue, very controversial. All members are going to have to take some risks to make this happen.”

Rep. Mark Meadows, head of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, said he’s still weighing his own vote, but the bill is a no-go for some conservatives. “I think there are some who believe that it is amnesty and they don’t want to vote for amnesty,” he said. He also said there are some on the liberal side of the party who wanted a more generous legalization for Dreamers.

“We represent very different districts,” he said. “The thing that motivates me to stay involved is I think the moderates negotiated in good faith - whether we get to 218 or not I don’t know.”

GOP leaders released the official version of the bill Tuesday evening while Mr. Trump was meeting with them.

The bill would grant full legal status and a path to citizenship to people who qualify for the Obama-era DACA program. The bill also ends the visa lottery and limits the types of family members that can be sponsored for immigration — then takes those visas and uses them on the DACA population and other children brought to the U.S. by their parents.

In terms of enforcement, the bill allows Homeland Security to detain more people and deport them faster, and it increases the threshold for people attempting to claim asylum, with a goal of cutting down on fraudulent claims that have clogged the system.

GOP leaders tucked in a new fix for the family separation issue, allowing the government to hold children and their parents in immigration detention facilities for longer than 20 days. The bill also says that illegal immigrant parents charged with misdemeanors, who normally would be sent to the criminal justice system’s jails, can be held in immigration detention — meaning they can remain with their children.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told The Washington Times Mr. Trump got a good reception from the party. “It was great,” he said.

Outside the meeting a group of Democrats marched along the corridors holding signs that said, “Families Belong Together,” and that depicted some of the now-iconic photos of children and their parents at the border.

As the president walked through one of the Capitol’s corridors a heckler shouted at him “Mister President, F– you!” An NBC reporter said on Twitter that the culprit was a congressional intern.

Earlier Tuesday some of the president’s key supporters warned him against embracing the bill. The National ICE Council, the union that represents officers at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the bill falls short on a number of the president’s campaign promises.

Chris Crane, the council president, wrote a letter to Mr. Trump saying the bill would open the door to massive fraud, would allow people who defied judges’ deportation orders to get on a pathway to citizenship, and fails to make good on Mr. Trump’s promise of a deportation force of 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

He labeled the bill the “Ryan amnesty” and said it also repeats the same mistakes of the failed 2013 “Gang of 8” immigration bill.

“You pledged publicly to ‘have the backs’ of the men and women of ICE law enforcement. I am asking you to keep that promise,” Mr. Crane wrote. The ICE Council endorsed Mr. Trump on the campaign trail in 2016.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia said he is “sympathetic to their concerns” but that the compromise is better than alternative proposals that they would have “hated.”

“But we really have to do something that can get to 218 votes and some of the people who are in that negotiation did not support their request,” Mr. Goodlatte said. “This happened very quickly and if they don’t think they were consulted enough I understand that.”

GOP leaders plan two votes later this week.

One would be on an enforcement-heavy bill written months ago by Mr. Goodlatte and Rep. Michael McCaul, chairmen of the two key committees. That bill includes a renewable DACA permit but doesn’t give Dreamers a pathway to citizenship. It does include a host of new enforcement measures such as requiring businesses to use E-Verify to check their workers, cracking down on sanctuary cities and making it a misdemeanor to overstay a visa.

Those measures went too far for many Republicans and the Goodlatte bill struggled to reach 218 supporters.

So GOP leaders pushed Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. McCaul and moderate lawmakers to work on the compromise bill.

Mr. Trump had previous backed the enforcement-heavy bill, but his full-throated support for the compromise was critical.

“Folks that would have been against it, I think it’s harder for them to be against it now,” said Rep. Bill Flores, Texas Republican. “I think he probably changed a lot of minds.”

SOURCE 

**********************************

CNN Tries To Shame Border Patrol Agent — He Flips The Script And Leaves Host Speechless


The dear little lady interviewer has got her lashes on, her blusher on and her hair just right but she forgot to fill her head up with knowledge of her subject

CNN brought on Chris Cabrera, a spokesperson for the National Border Patrol Council, Tuesday to discuss the Trump administration enforcing America’s border laws.

The Trump administration has enacted a policy of zero tolerance when enforcing America’s border laws. The laws result in separating some families if they cross the border illegally at non-checkpoint locations.

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin brought on Cabrera to grill him over the enforcement of the policy. However, it was Baldwin who got the grilling when Cabrera fact-checked her over the status of immigrants at the border.

“There’s so much being thrown at people who don’t know as much about immigration certainly as you do as a border patrol agent, but there a a couple of ways to come into this country if you’re an undocumented immigrant and you come out on the Rio Grande river, that’s illegal,” Baldwin said.

Cabrera countered, “Even if you’re a U.S. citizen, it’s illegal.”

Baldwin then asked specifically about delays for asylum seekers.

Cabrera said bluntly, “We’ve had this situation going on for four years now. I don’t think you can necessarily blame it on one administration or another. It started under one and is continuing under another. It hasn’t been fixed and it needs to be fixed.”

He continued, “Right now we have this beacon of, ‘We’ll leave the light on for you and let you come illegally into the country.’ If you’ve seen some of the stuff we’ve seen, you’d understand how important it is to have a tough stance to divert people from coming here.”

Cabrera then bluntly told Baldwin some of the horrors he has seen.

“When you see a 12-year-old girl with a plan B pill, her parents put her on birth control because they know getting violated is part of the journey, that’s a terrible way to live. When you see a 4-year-old girl traveling alone with just her parents phone number written across her shirt. We had a 9-year-old boy have heat stroke in front of us and die with no family around. That’s because we’re allowing people to take advantage of this system.”

The retelling of the child horror stories elicited an audible gasp from Baldwin.

Cabrera went on to say that it’s up to Congress to change the law, but until then his agents will continue to enforce the laws on the books.

“Most of our agents are parents. I’ve seen guys and I’ve done it myself, you give your last bottle of water to a kid, you’ll take a toy out of your car to give to one of these kids because you know the situation they’re in.” Caberera said. “Agents are very sympathetic. We’re human, we’re fathers, we have families. We do a lot for the communities here, whether or not a camera is involved. Our agents are very involved. And nobody saves more lives along the southwestern border than the U.S. Border patrol.”

SOURCE 

***********************************

Border Ranchers Shock MSNBC With Facts On Illegal Immigration

A husband and wife who ranch on the Rio Grande river told MSNBC on Tuesday that they believe President Trump is doing the right thing by enforcing border laws.

MSNBC tried to ask the couple a multitude of leading questions about the separation of families when they cross the border illegally, but the ranchers continuously smashed their narrative.

“When you see parents and children separated why do you support the policy that, to many people, appears to be heartless?” MSNBC’s Kerry Sanders asked.

“It’s basically the laws of our land,” Presnall Cage said. “Trump I believe is going in the right direction. I believe it’s going to be a deterrent to keep this from happening.”

Sanders asked Stephanie Cage, “You’re a mother, you’re a grandmother of seven, um, how do you react when you see that the families are being split apart?”

“Of course it is very upsetting, but I’m as equally upset with the parents for exposing their children to the dangers of smuggling their children across the border,” Cage replied.

The Cage family also debunked the notion that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are fleeing violence, retorting, “That’s very much exaggerated … very few cases are caused by that, I think most of them are coming over here to try to make a better life in this country and all this country has to offer.”

SOURCE 

************************************

US leaves UN Human Rights Council

They should leave the corrupt UN entirely  -- or at least stop funding it

Washington has decided to walk out of the UN Human Rights Council.  The US has long cited concerns about the body’s “anti-Israel bias.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley announced the decision at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

This is the first time a member of the council would leave the body voluntarily. The US was halfway through its three-year term on the 47-member panel.

On Monday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein criticized Washington over the “unconscionable” policy of separating children of immigrants who cross the border illegally and holding them in detention centers. “I call on the United States to immediately end the practice of forcible separation of these children,” al-Hussein said.

While the timing of the US exit from the UN body coincides with this criticism, Washington’s objections to the Human Rights Council over the years have mostly been in regard to Israel. Ambassador Haley has accused the council of a “relentless, pathological campaign” against Israel, and said the US would leave unless the body gets rid of its “chronic anti-Israel bias.”

Shortly after its establishment in 2006, the council voted to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every session, known as Agenda Item 7. Likewise, the body’s special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only expert whose mandate is not time-limited.

SOURCE 

*********************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

***************************

Trump is a genuine original

Let me risk a prophecy:  Future Presidents are now going to feel that they have to do this too



Donald Trump gave an impassioned speech Tuesday to a group of business leaders in Washington, D.C., in which he hammered the recent outrage over immigration policies.

Recent media outrage over the administration’s enforcement of America’s border laws — that result in the separating some families at the border if they seek asylum after crossing the border illegally at non-checkpoint locations — has captured the nation’s attention.

Trump took the fight directly to the media in the speech, saying they were on the side of the smugglers and human traffickers who operate on our borders. The president also hit back at Hillary Clinton for attacking him over open borders criticism.

The president also hit Obamacare taxes and regulations and lauded his tax cuts in front of the business leaders. “Cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts,” Trump said.

The room was enthusiastic toward Trump and his attacks on various political opponents, regularly applauding and cheering passionately.

As Trump exited the stage, he took a moment to wave at the audience. Then, the president approached an American flag in the corner of the room and gave it a hug.

It was not the first time that Trump has given a hug to the American flag. He also did so on the campaign trail.

SOURCE 

*********************************

Trump blesses House Republicans' new compromise immigration bill

A lot of GOP congressmen were initially skeptical of Trump but his successes have now given him authority.  So we see that his support is expected to change minds towards voting for the bill

President Trump blessed House Republicans’ new compromise immigration bill “1,000 percent” Tuesday, giving political cover to conservatives looking to back the bill and creating momentum ahead of a showdown vote expected later this week.

He said the legislation, which grants citizenship rights to illegal immigrant “Dreamers,” funds his border wall, limits the chain of family migration and ends the visa lottery, checks off all the boxes on his immediate immigration wishlist.

Meeting with Republicans for an hour Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump told them he would welcome a fix to the family separation issue that’s engulfed the immigration debate this week. But he made clear any action will have to come from Congress, not from the administration.

His blessing clears up the mess he left last Friday, when he said he “wouldn’t sign” the bill. The White House later said he misunderstood the question, but his wavering had left a number of conservatives fearful of voting for the bill only to have the president walk away from the legislation, leaving them on a political ledge.

“He says I am behind you 1,000 percent and I am not going to leave you out to dry,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers, chair of the House Republican Conference.

Whether that’s good enough to win 218 Republicans — the number needed to approve the bill — is unclear. “It’s going to be close,” said Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Florida Republican who helped craft the compromise bill. “This is a very challenging issue, very controversial. All members are going to have to take some risks to make this happen.”

Rep. Mark Meadows, head of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, said he’s still weighing his own vote, but the bill is a no-go for some conservatives. “I think there are some who believe that it is amnesty and they don’t want to vote for amnesty,” he said. He also said there are some on the liberal side of the party who wanted a more generous legalization for Dreamers.

“We represent very different districts,” he said. “The thing that motivates me to stay involved is I think the moderates negotiated in good faith - whether we get to 218 or not I don’t know.”

GOP leaders released the official version of the bill Tuesday evening while Mr. Trump was meeting with them.

The bill would grant full legal status and a path to citizenship to people who qualify for the Obama-era DACA program. The bill also ends the visa lottery and limits the types of family members that can be sponsored for immigration — then takes those visas and uses them on the DACA population and other children brought to the U.S. by their parents.

In terms of enforcement, the bill allows Homeland Security to detain more people and deport them faster, and it increases the threshold for people attempting to claim asylum, with a goal of cutting down on fraudulent claims that have clogged the system.

GOP leaders tucked in a new fix for the family separation issue, allowing the government to hold children and their parents in immigration detention facilities for longer than 20 days. The bill also says that illegal immigrant parents charged with misdemeanors, who normally would be sent to the criminal justice system’s jails, can be held in immigration detention — meaning they can remain with their children.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told The Washington Times Mr. Trump got a good reception from the party. “It was great,” he said.

Outside the meeting a group of Democrats marched along the corridors holding signs that said, “Families Belong Together,” and that depicted some of the now-iconic photos of children and their parents at the border.

As the president walked through one of the Capitol’s corridors a heckler shouted at him “Mister President, F– you!” An NBC reporter said on Twitter that the culprit was a congressional intern.

Earlier Tuesday some of the president’s key supporters warned him against embracing the bill. The National ICE Council, the union that represents officers at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the bill falls short on a number of the president’s campaign promises.

Chris Crane, the council president, wrote a letter to Mr. Trump saying the bill would open the door to massive fraud, would allow people who defied judges’ deportation orders to get on a pathway to citizenship, and fails to make good on Mr. Trump’s promise of a deportation force of 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

He labeled the bill the “Ryan amnesty” and said it also repeats the same mistakes of the failed 2013 “Gang of 8” immigration bill.

“You pledged publicly to ‘have the backs’ of the men and women of ICE law enforcement. I am asking you to keep that promise,” Mr. Crane wrote. The ICE Council endorsed Mr. Trump on the campaign trail in 2016.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia said he is “sympathetic to their concerns” but that the compromise is better than alternative proposals that they would have “hated.”

“But we really have to do something that can get to 218 votes and some of the people who are in that negotiation did not support their request,” Mr. Goodlatte said. “This happened very quickly and if they don’t think they were consulted enough I understand that.”

GOP leaders plan two votes later this week.

One would be on an enforcement-heavy bill written months ago by Mr. Goodlatte and Rep. Michael McCaul, chairmen of the two key committees. That bill includes a renewable DACA permit but doesn’t give Dreamers a pathway to citizenship. It does include a host of new enforcement measures such as requiring businesses to use E-Verify to check their workers, cracking down on sanctuary cities and making it a misdemeanor to overstay a visa.

Those measures went too far for many Republicans and the Goodlatte bill struggled to reach 218 supporters.

So GOP leaders pushed Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. McCaul and moderate lawmakers to work on the compromise bill.

Mr. Trump had previous backed the enforcement-heavy bill, but his full-throated support for the compromise was critical.

“Folks that would have been against it, I think it’s harder for them to be against it now,” said Rep. Bill Flores, Texas Republican. “I think he probably changed a lot of minds.”

SOURCE 

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CNN Tries To Shame Border Patrol Agent — He Flips The Script And Leaves Host Speechless

CNN brought on Chris Cabrera, a spokesperson for the National Border Patrol Council, Tuesday to discuss the Trump administration enforcing America’s border laws.

The Trump administration has enacted a policy of zero tolerance when enforcing America’s border laws. The laws result in separating some families if they cross the border illegally at non-checkpoint locations.

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin brought on Cabrera to grill him over the enforcement of the policy. However, it was Baldwin who got the grilling when Cabrera fact-checked her over the status of immigrants at the border.

“There’s so much being thrown at people who don’t know as much about immigration certainly as you do as a border patrol agent, but there a a couple of ways to come into this country if you’re an undocumented immigrant and you come out on the Rio Grande river, that’s illegal,” Baldwin said.

Cabrera countered, “Even if you’re a U.S. citizen, it’s illegal.”

Baldwin then asked specifically about delays for asylum seekers.

Cabrera said bluntly, “We’ve had this situation going on for four years now. I don’t think you can necessarily blame it on one administration or another. It started under one and is continuing under another. It hasn’t been fixed and it needs to be fixed.”

He continued, “Right now we have this beacon of, ‘We’ll leave the light on for you and let you come illegally into the country.’ If you’ve seen some of the stuff we’ve seen, you’d understand how important it is to have a tough stance to divert people from coming here.”

Cabrera then bluntly told Baldwin some of the horrors he has seen.

“When you see a 12-year-old girl with a plan B pill, her parents put her on birth control because they know getting violated is part of the journey, that’s a terrible way to live. When you see a 4-year-old girl traveling alone with just her parents phone number written across her shirt. We had a 9-year-old boy have heat stroke in front of us and die with no family around. That’s because we’re allowing people to take advantage of this system.”

The retelling of the child horror stories elicited an audible gasp from Baldwin.

Cabrera went on to say that it’s up to Congress to change the law, but until then his agents will continue to enforce the laws on the books.

“Most of our agents are parents. I’ve seen guys and I’ve done it myself, you give your last bottle of water to a kid, you’ll take a toy out of your car to give to one of these kids because you know the situation they’re in.” Caberera said. “Agents are very sympathetic. We’re human, we’re fathers, we have families. We do a lot for the communities here, whether or not a camera is involved. Our agents are very involved. And nobody saves more lives along the southwestern border than the U.S. Border patrol.”

SOURCE 

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Border Ranchers Shock MSNBC With Facts On Illegal Immigration

A husband and wife who ranch on the Rio Grande river told MSNBC on Tuesday that they believe President Trump is doing the right thing by enforcing border laws.

MSNBC tried to ask the couple a multitude of leading questions about the separation of families when they cross the border illegally, but the ranchers continuously smashed their narrative.

“When you see parents and children separated why do you support the policy that, to many people, appears to be heartless?” MSNBC’s Kerry Sanders asked.

“It’s basically the laws of our land,” Presnall Cage said. “Trump I believe is going in the right direction. I believe it’s going to be a deterrent to keep this from happening.”

Sanders asked Stephanie Cage, “You’re a mother, you’re a grandmother of seven, um, how do you react when you see that the families are being split apart?”

“Of course it is very upsetting, but I’m as equally upset with the parents for exposing their children to the dangers of smuggling their children across the border,” Cage replied.

The Cage family also debunked the notion that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are fleeing violence, retorting, “That’s very much exaggerated … very few cases are caused by that, I think most of them are coming over here to try to make a better life in this country and all this country has to offer.”

SOURCE 

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US leaves UN Human Rights Council

They should leave the corrupt UN entirely  -- or at least stop funding it

Washington has decided to walk out of the UN Human Rights Council.  The US has long cited concerns about the body’s “anti-Israel bias.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley announced the decision at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

This is the first time a member of the council would leave the body voluntarily. The US was halfway through its three-year term on the 47-member panel.

On Monday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein criticized Washington over the “unconscionable” policy of separating children of immigrants who cross the border illegally and holding them in detention centers. “I call on the United States to immediately end the practice of forcible separation of these children,” al-Hussein said.

While the timing of the US exit from the UN body coincides with this criticism, Washington’s objections to the Human Rights Council over the years have mostly been in regard to Israel. Ambassador Haley has accused the council of a “relentless, pathological campaign” against Israel, and said the US would leave unless the body gets rid of its “chronic anti-Israel bias.”

Shortly after its establishment in 2006, the council voted to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every session, known as Agenda Item 7. Likewise, the body’s special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only expert whose mandate is not time-limited.

SOURCE 

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Can unemployment go lower?

The facts:

"The US unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent in May 2018 from 3.9 percent in the previous month, and below market expectations of 3.9 percent. It was the lowest rate since April 2000, as the number of unemployed decreased by 281 thousand to 6.07 million and employment rose by 293 thousand to 155.47 million. Unemployment Rate in the United States averaged 5.78 percent from 1948 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 10.80 percent in November of 1982 and a record low of 2.50 percent in May of 1953"

So, in a sense you see the answer to my question before you. Just 4 months after escaping decades of "Progressive" administrations, with the election of Ike, the American economy went wild in 1953. Though progress had also been made under the preceding moderate Truman administration.  Clearly there was a big catchup with business projects that would have been risky under the Democrats being suddenly seen as safe for investment.  Much the same has happened under Trump.  Conservative administrations are good for business confidence and confident businessmen expand their activities -- creating jobs.

The good figure for 2000 was under Bill Clinton, a passing era in which budgets were not only proposed and adopted but were actually  in surplus for three years, partly by way of cutting back the military. Clinton was a moderate in many ways and in relation to the economy ran very conservative policies.

So back to normality.  As the summary of facts above shows, the average rate of employment over the years is over 5% and economists have long proclaimed that 5% is a "frictional" or natural level of unemployment -- a level which you can't go below for long

So is that right?  There is no sign of it. People thought the 3.9% figure recorded in April was as low as you could go but now we see a further fall to 3.8% in May.  And, despite Democrat denials, it is an effect of the present administration.  In May 2010, the second year of the Obama administation, the figure was 9.6% -- a large gap indeed.  So Trump has got an amazingly successful recipe for American prosperity.  Whatever he has been doing must be given great credit for creating jobs

Yet what Trump has been doing runs completely against conventional economic wisdom.  Economists preach free trade as the highroad to prosperity -- but Trump has been a champion of tariffs and import restrictions.  But Trump has recently said that he learned the free trade story while he was at Wharton and still regards it as the ideal.

So it is clear that free trade alone is not enough for prosperity in the real world we have at the present.  You actually have to sponsor jobs -- by protections if necessary -- in order to get good job growth.  There was striking evidence of that in the 19th century -- when American industry prospered mightily behind high tariff walls.  But there is no such thing as a free lunch and the penalty in that case was a civil war, when Northern manufacturers faced the threat of losing half of their markets in the South. They could not and did not allow that

But although the opposition to Trump is as furious as anything seen in the old South, the powers of a modern president are too great for Trump opponents to challenge.  The fact that the military is strongly pro-Trump is also a barrier to armed rebellion.

But economists are not very good at factoring war into their equations so how do they explain the 19th century boom?  It is to them a classic case of the "infant industry" exception.  American technology and industry were still very new and well behind the mature industries of the old world. So it had to be given time to catch up. And that does seem to be what happened.  So the 19th century experience is no guide to the 21st century.  It gives us no assurance that Trump's policies will continue to succeed. As initial optimism wears off and the costs become evident, one could argue that America will rebound to the old 5% level of "frictional" employment.  You cannot square the circle for long.

So is there any other precedent which would lead us to believe that the Trump good news will continue?  There is: Australia of the 1950's and '60s.  The Prime Minister of Australia from 1949 to 1966 was the avuncular Robert Menzies, a very conservative man. Many people who remember those years recall that era as a golden age.  And what were his economic policies?  They were very protectionist and focused on creating and preserving Australian jobs. So that sounds a lot like Trump, does it not?  So what was unemployment like in his era?  It was almost always UNDER 2%.  It was regarded as a political crisis if it looked like it would go over 2%.  Frictional unemployment barely existed.

So the lesson is clear:  Maximum jobs requires some protection of industry.  Both Trump and Menzies have demonstrated that.  It could be called the "Trump Rule".  And the Australian precedent says that we can even hope for 2% under Trump.  How good is that? 

So WHY is an actively protectionist administration needed for businessmen to be maximally enterprising?  It's dead simple.  It gives businessmen throughout the country the feeling that government has got their back.  It gives them the feeling that government will at least be on their side if there is a push for change of any sort.  Democrat administrations are, by contrast, enemies of business -- and blind Frederick can see that. Hence 9.6% unemployment under Obama compared with 3.8% under Trump. Businessmen are people too.  They respond to incentives and recoil from attack -- JR.

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DACA kids approved by Obama despite murder, rape and sex crimes arrests

Ten people who’d been arrested on murder charges were nonetheless granted permission to remain and work in the U.S. under the Obama-era DACA amnesty, according to new government data released Monday.

Thirty-one “Dreamers” had rape charges on their records, nearly 500 had been accused of sex crimes, and more than 2,000 had been arrested for drunken driving — yet were approved for DACA status.

All told, 53,000 people who have been approved for DACA — 7 percent of the total — had a criminal record when the government granted them status. Nearly 8,000 racked up criminal charges after they’d been approved, according to the data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

DACA turned six years old on Friday and is back in the news as the House of Representatives begins to debate whether to grant a broad amnesty to Dreamers, and as courts across the country grapple with the legality of the 2012 program.

The new data will likely affect both the legislative and court action, since it gives some indications of the levels of screening, and waivers, the government is willing to offer for Dreamers who apply.

All told more than 888,000 people have applied for DACA status over the years. Of those, more than 770,000 were approved. Nearly 67,000 were rejected — and of those, about 31 percent had criminal records, the data show.

SOURCE

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Dems Exploit Children of Illegals for Political Fodder

Appealing to emotions with false assertions, Democrats and their propaganda mouthpieces in the mainstream media have manufactured a campaign issue they seek to ride all the way to the November elections. As President Donald Trump has cracked down on illegal immigration, Democrats are shouting about his zero-tolerance law-enforcement policy that sometimes separates children from parents who illegally cross the U.S. border. As Democrats have increasingly run to the fainting couches, some have even ridiculously compared Trump's law enforcement to that of Nazi Germany. It's a classic case of uninformed emotions leading to calls for changing a policy few even care to understand.

First and foremost, the Trump administration has not changed any rules that govern the nation's immigration and border enforcement. As Rich Lowry of National Review explains, "Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child's parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings."

The Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy is simply a change from Barack Obama's policy of limited enforcement in which his administration deliberately avoided enforcing the nation's immigration laws consistently.

What has caused all the commotion over separating children from their illegal alien parents is something called the Flores Consent Decree, which mandates that children can be held by the government for no longer than 20 days. This law has been effectively exploited by illegal aliens, who, after crossing illegally, request asylum, a process often exceeding the short window of 20 days. Paul Mirengoff of Power Line notes, "Since asylum petitions take more than 20 days to process, the government must either release the adults and children together into the country pending the adjudication of the asylum claim or hold the adults and release the children, thereby separating them. If the adult illegal immigrant is released while the claim is pending, it's extremely unlikely that the government will find him or her again. Thus, releasing the adult is tantamount to allowing the illegal immigrant to live in the U.S. regardless of the merits of the case." That explains why Democrats want to keep the racket going. Worse, their "sanctuary cities" serve as beacons attracting even more illegals.

A clear first step to end the issue of separating families would be the elimination of the Flores Consent Decree. But aside from all the absurd over-the-top emotional criticism of the practice of separating children from adults who have illegally crossed the border, the fact of the matter is that separating children from their parents is not at all unusual law-enforcement policy even for U.S. citizens. In 2016, more than 21,000 children were separated from their parents and placed into foster care after their parents had been incarcerated. Where are all the emotional calls to end the practice of separating children from their criminal parents? Should the children live with their parents in prison? Obviously the question is absurd on its face, so why isn't the reaction the same with regard to those who break our nation's laws by entering the country illegally? There are legal means by which families can seek asylum within the U.S., and parents who do so are not separated from their children.

By the way, Trump has repeatedly called on Congress to come up with solutions to the illegal immigration problem, including funding for the construction of a border wall. But Democrats now oppose what they once supported.

This issue boils down to Democrats and the Leftmedia claiming to take the moral high ground while at the same time attacking the very laws that enable a nation to secure its borders. Noncitizens do not have a right to enter the U.S. Trump's enforcement of the law is what every American should desire, and if a majority want the law changed, then they can lobby Congress to make that change. Don't fault Trump for doing his job. Unfortunately, Democrats seeing nothing but an opportunity to exploit emotions for votes.

SOURCE

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Backdoor to illegal immigration closing: U.S. clears more asylum cases than it receives in May

The government is making headway on the asylum backlog for the first time in years, clearing more cases in May than it received, as officials finally think they have hit on ways to tamp down on people abusing the system as a backdoor method of illegal immigration.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services took in 7,757 cases last month, but completed 7,959 cases.

The success came on both sides of the ledger. New cases have been cut nearly in half when compared to the peak years during the Obama administration, while the number of cases closed more than doubled compared to the Obama years.

And those achievements came even before the Justice Department’s decision this week to tighten standards for asylum. That move should speed USCIS’s ability to reduce a backlog that’s reached nearly 320,000 cases, as would-be illegal immigrants figured ways to use the asylum system as a loophole to gain a foothold in the U.S.

“Asylum and ‘credible fear’ claims have skyrocketed across the board in recent years largely because individuals know they can exploit a broken system to enter the U.S., avoid removal, and remain in the country,” said Michael Bars, a spokesman for the agency.

Asylum is the protection given to people already on U.S. soil who say they fear being sent back home. Refugees are people who make that request from outside the U.S.

In recent years the number of asylum-seekers has soared, with illegal immigrants from Central America in particular turning to the asylum system. They say they’re fleeing poor conditions back home. Security experts say they’re exploiting a loophole-filled U.S. system to avoid being deported.

In 2011, before the surge of Central Americans took hold, USCIS ended the year with fewer than 10,000 cases pending. By the end of 2015 the backlog was more than 125,000 cases, it leapt to 233,000 at the end of 2016, and topped 300,000 late last year.

Someone who lodges an asylum claim at the border must clear an initial “credible fear” screening by saying he would be in danger if sent home. It’s a low bar that most meet.

Take the recent migrant caravan, most of whose members said they were claiming asylum. As of June 1 USCIS had reviewed 357 of their cases, and had granted positive credible fear decisions in 337 of them — a 94 percent success rate. Among the broader population, credible fear approval rates hover above 75 percent.

From there, the applicants are supposed to pursue their asylum claims with USCIS or with the Executive Office of Immigration Review. But officials say as many as half of them won’t pursue those claims — particularly if they’ve already been released into the U.S. and can disappear into the shadows.

Of those who do pursue cases, most won’t be approved.

The Washington Times reached out to several immigrant-rights groups to run the backlog numbers by them, but didn’t receive comments.

More generally, though, administration critics say they believe the government has become too hawkish in doling out asylum denials, preventing people with potentially valid claims from having a chance to make their case.

“We don’t know for sure, because none of the agencies have responded. But we hear that parents are going to court in mass trials and having their asylum claims denied – not heard, but denied — and then the parents are deported,” Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat, said in a speech on the floor of the U.S. House this week.

The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, released an analysis this week arguing the administration is making it tougher to claim asylum on the front end, and pressing for faster decisions on the back end, which the analysts said lead to errors and an increased risk of deporting people who should have received asylum.

Administration critics were further enraged this week after Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a ruling that domestic violence or fear of gangs is not, on its own, enough of a reason to be granted asylum.

Mr. Sessions said the U.S. asylum system isn’t a solution to rough conditions across the globe, but rather a special protection for people facing persecution by a government, or people whose governments are essentially endorsing the persecution by looking the other way.

Immigrant-rights advocates and congressional Democrats said that will mean a “death sentence” for some women living in abusive relationships or children in dangerous neighborhoods in Central America.

USCIS, though, says the changes will bring clarity to a system in need of firm guidance about how far asylum protections can be stretched. “The attorney general’s decision will be implemented as soon as possible,” said Mr. Bars, the agency spokesman.

USCIS officials credited several changes for this year’s successes in controlling the backlog.

In January the agency reversed an Obama-era policy that focused on the oldest cases, and instead went to a last-in-first-out, or LIFO, approach that makes quick decisions on people showing up at the borders or lodging claims in the interior right now. LIFO helped cut a backlog in the 1990s, and it’s already making a dent now, officials said, by changing the incentives.

Under the Obama approach, someone who showed up demanding asylum might have waited two years for a first interview. During that time they could apply for a work permit, giving them a foothold in the U.S.

With the new LIFO policy applicants are getting their first interview in three weeks. And since most people interviewed are ineligible, and can be put into deportation proceedings once their claims are rejected, it’s discouraging those who had been taking advantage of the system, the agency says.

The agency has also more than doubled its team of asylum officers over the last five years, to nearly 700, and has borrowed another 100 people from the refugee caseload — similar work — to help on the asylum backlog.

USCIS says about a quarter of the backlog are people who know they don’t qualify for asylum, and want to get rejected. They feel they have claims they want to make before an immigration judge, but the only way to get a day in court is to lose their asylum claim and be put into deportation proceedings, where they can argue their other case.

USCIS has come up with a method for trying to identify and clear those people through faster.

SOURCE

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Two scumbags: Harvey Weinstein and friend



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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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