By Doug Porter
Reasonable voices are making themselves heard over the rabble clamoring for a quick and dirty solution to the Central American refugee crisis. Carl DeMaio, who’s running for San Diego’s 52nd Congressional seat, isn’t one of them.
The failed mayoral candidate and former city councilman has posted a “Secure Our Borders Now” petition on Facebook. You’re supposed to think that by signing this appeal the gov’t will know that you support “ ensuring the United States remains secure from the threat of drugs, guns, and criminals coming through our borders.” Fill out the form, hit send, and voila! Carl’s donation page appears, while your plea goes into a virtual dumpster.
It took some effort but Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis got DeMaio’s actual position (beyond weasel words) on this issue: “Send them home. Don’t give them hearings for asylum. Don’t screen them to ensure they’re not being trafficked.”
I suppose we can now add “send me money” to that list.
The “Secure the Border” BS
Earlier this week the League City, Texas city council passed a resolution to deny any request to assist the federal government in the ongoing immigration crisis,specifically barring detention centers for children inside the city limits.
Yesterday CNN host Ashleigh Banfield invited council member Heidi Thiess to discuss the measure she’d sponsored. What followed was an astonishing exchange, one that really lays bare the moral bankruptcy of the “secure the borders” stance so popular with certain politicians.
Here’s the relevant transcript, as published at Raw Story:
As the councilwoman began to explain that the solution was for “the federal government to start enforcing the laws,” Banfield cut her off.
“Ms. Theiss, please stop with this, you know full well that these people aren’t escaping into America!” the CNN host exclaimed. “They’re volunteering at the border to be caught. No one is getting through the wall of those who are there. This is a different circumstance. It’s the desperate who are begging for help. It’s not those who are sneaking in. You understand the difference, right?”
“The children, right now, who are arriving at the border are volunteering, surrendering themselves to the border agents! The border agents are actually doing their jobs! It’s being enforced!” Banfield continued. “The problem is there’s so many, it’s overcrowded. They’re being raped, they’re being beaten, and they need help! Some of them don’t even have water. And in at least one case, 100 of them are sharing one toilet that doesn’t even have a door.”
“And that’s why I’m asking you if you would really turn your backs if the federal government asked you to help?”
Her answer was yes.
Three Billionaires Walk into a Bar…
A casino owner known for his largess with the GOP, a hedge fund owner who backs the President and the richest man in the world jointly submitted an op-ed to the New York Times on the subject of immigration reform.
The unlikely trio of Sheldon Adelson, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates managed yesterday to put aside their broad philosophical differences to urge congress to take action.
AMERICAN citizens are paying 535 people to take care of the legislative needs of the country. We are getting shortchanged. Here’s an example: On June 10, an incumbent congressman in Virginia lost a primary election in which his opponent garnered only 36,105 votes. Immediately, many Washington legislators threw up their hands and declared that this one event would produce paralysis in the United States Congress for at least five months. In particular, they are telling us that immigration reform — long overdue — is now hopeless.
Americans deserve better than this.
The three of us vary in our politics and would differ also in our preferences about the details of an immigration reform bill. But we could without doubt come together to draft a bill acceptable to each of us. We hope that fact holds a lesson: You don’t have to agree on everything in order to cooperate on matters about which you are reasonably close to agreement. It’s time that this brand of thinking finds its way to Washington.
Meanwhile, Back at the Border
From today’s Los Angeles Times:
The Minutemen Project says it’s recruiting volunteers to guard the U.S.-Mexico border from illegal immigration, claiming the government has failed to do so properly.
The activist organization is expecting at least 3,500 non-militia volunteers to participate, “plus uncounted groups of militia from all over the country,” according to the Minutemen Project website.
Chris Davis via Facebook
An earlier militia-type effort calling itself “Operation Secure Our Border” organized by 37 year old truck driver Chris Davis has fizzled out as have three copycat “calls for action.”
From the Southern Poverty Law Center’s HateWatch blog:
Within a few days, though, Davis had dropped out of view entirely. Scheduled to appear on a web talk show on the conspiracist Truth Broadcasting Network called Death to the New World Order, Davis simply didn’t show up. The host, Harry Link, told listeners that he called Davis himself and was told he simply couldn’t do the interview.
Link was furious, and spent the bulk of his remaining hour-plus of airtime ranting against Davis, claiming that the militia presence on the border not only was “fake” but actually comprised a New World Order “psyops” program designed to fool true Patriots like himself.
Gov. Rick Perry and Sean Hannity’s Selfie
Texas Gov. Rick Perry & Fox host Sean Hannity
Impeach Obama for What?
Just when you thought Republicans might want to get off the We Hate ObamaCare train, this lawsuit comes along, by way of Jed Lewison at Daily Kos:
House Speaker John Boehner has finally revealed what the focus of the GOP’s pre-impeachment lawsuit against President Obama will be … and you’ll be stunned completely unsurprised:
Today we’re releasing a draft resolution that will authorize the House to file suit over the way President Obama unilaterally changed the employer mandate. In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it. That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own.
Yep, it’s back to Obamacare, and it’s ironically for doing something that Republicans claim they wanted. Which means that if they’re successful in their lawsuit, their victory will have achieved … a faster implementation of Obamacare. Bunch of geniuses, they are.
But Wait! There’s More! …from Think Progress
However, even if Boehner wins his legal challenge, which Republicans plan to vote on before leaving for August recess, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would reach a final decision on his case until June 2016, months after the employer mandate is supposed to go into effect anyway.
Republicans Who Like Obamacare; It’s a Thing…
If you’re not already convinced of the insanity of the GOP’s strategy, check out this tidbit from the Huffington Post:
Republicans who signed up for Obamacare this year are liking their new insurance coverage, according to a new survey.
A poll of Obamacare enrollees published Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund found that 74 percent of newly insured Republicans are happy with the plans they bought. Overall, 77 percent of people who had insurance prior to the rollout of the Affordable Care Act said they are pleased with the new coverage they obtained in the last year.
The survey revealed the current uninsured rate among working-age adults in the U.S. has dropped to 15 percent, down from 20 percent in July-September 2013 — meaning an estimated 9.5 million people have gained coverage since then.
On This Day: 1804 – The United States’ first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel. 1959 – Joan Baez made her first recording. It was a duet with Bob Gibson which was recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival.1983 -A nine-year strike begins at the Ohio Crankshaft Division of Park-Ohio Industries in Cleveland. Overcoming scabs, arrests and firings, UAW Local 91 members hung on and approved a contract in 1992 with the company—now under new management—that included company-funded health and retirement benefits, as well as pay increases.
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Doug Porter
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Let’s hear it for the three billionaires!!!!
Anything like “The Three Amigos”?
(sorry, couldn’t resist ;-)
If the three billionaires think that they hold any sway to get the Republicans to do anything at all except to attack President Obama, they have another think coming. What the Republicans want is as big a crisis as possible at the border. That way they can blame President Obama for it. His asking them for $3.7 billion dollars to help resolve the situation is a joke because the last thing the Republican controlled House will do is try and resolve anything. The more you stir a turd the more it stinks and Republicans are stirring it furiously. And then they’ll probably impeach him.
Great picture of Hannity and… oh, what’s his name… the governor of Texas. I’m wonderin’ why old what’s his name has to wear a bulletproof vest on a hunting excursion, and why he needs that constant feed of big ammo hunting ducks. Or… is he hunting children ?
I think he should run for Mayor of Murrieta. He would fit right in. Lets make sure we remember this at election time. Latinos even if you ae Republican you can not think this is ok.