Category Archives: IMMIGRATION

Cruz On Countering Obama

SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS, SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, who, unlike Obama, is extremely smart, discusses steps Republicans could, but won’t, take to stymie the president’s plans on immigration:

CRUZ: Yes. Step number one. The new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, should stand up and say if you disregard the Constitution, if you disregard the law, if you issue this executive amnesty, the new Congress for the next two years will not confirm a single nomination, judicial or executive, other than vital national security positions until you end this illegal amnesty. Now, that is a big and it’s a dramatic step.

It’s never been done before in Congress. But the framers put in place checks and balances. And the confirmation power is a tremendously potent authority given to the Senate. The Senate Majority Leader has the unilateral ability to stand up and say, if you defy Congress, if you defy the Constitution, if you defy the American people, none of your nominees will be confirmed.

KELLY: All right. What’s point two?

CRUZ: That’s step number one. Step number two is we need to use the power of the purse, the most potent power Congress has. When we come back in January with a new Congress, we need to systematically pass appropriations legislations funding the Department of Defense, funding the V.A., funding one department after another after another and then once the vital functions are funded, we need to pass appropriations with writers specifically limiting the power of the Congress and the power of the President to spend money on illegal amnesty.

MORE.

The ‘Newspeak’ Of Immigration

IMMIGRATION, Propaganda

The phrase “our immigration system is broken” is statist semantics, “Newspeaks”; a linguistic trick to lead Americans to believe urgent action is required. Greg Gutfeld, the only intelligent, amusing neoconservative on Fox News’ “The Five,” is correct about “broken” being a euphemism for refusing to enforce immigration laws.

Among the multiplying procession of vacuous panelists plonked together on these God-awful, dual-perspective chat forums–Gutfeld stands out as, if not a great thinker, then certainly a comedic genius. And, as the great late Joan Rivers said, making someone laugh is like giving them a holiday.

In any event, so long as the TV viewer knows he is being entertained and not edified by most cable and nitwork current-affairs shows—he should be OK. For such an awareness, one presumes, will lead the viewer to seek in-depth information and analysis, rather than confuse mind-numbing banalities tumbling from the mouths of botoxed babes with big hair and an overbite for words of wisdom.

Don’t Get ‘Grubered’ By Immigration ILLOGIC

IMMIGRATION, Reason

As far as I understand it, the underlying reasons Barack Obama has given for his Brownian legislative motion around immigration is that: 1. Congress has failed to do anything, ergo, He, BHO, must do something. 2. That we can’t leave matters as they are.

The premiss for each is wrong:

On #1: From the fact that Congress has not passed an immigration bill—it doesn’t follow that one has to be passed.

On #2: Why precisely can’t matters be left as is? The New York Times has some ideas about the politics of immigration “reform,” which it is—surprise, surprise—voicing in “The Big Money Behind the Push for an Immigration Overhaul.”

I hope you see that from the fact that some sectional interests in the US have bought special favors—it doesn’t follow that the country needs an immigration bill.

Don’t get “Grubered” by immigration illogic.

Here’s the president’s Plan, as reported by Fox New in “Obama’s immigration plan: 10 executive actions being weighed by the president.”

Sobering Look At The Threat Of Ebola

Healthcare, IMMIGRATION, Science

“Six Reasons to Panic,” at the Weekly Standard, offers a sobering, scientific look at the threat of Ebola:

1. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, … this Ebola is related to, but genetically distinct from, previous known strains, and thus may have distinct mechanisms of transmission. … Not everyone is convinced that this Ebola isn’t airborne. Last month, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy published an article arguing that the current Ebola has “unclear modes of transmission” and that “there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles … even if this Ebola isn’t airborne right now, it might become so in the future. Viruses mutate and evolve in the wild, and the population of infected Ebola carriers is now bigger than it has been at any point in history—meaning that the pool for potential mutations is larger than it has ever been.

2. General infection rates are terrifying, too. … despite the fact that Duncan was a lone man under scrupulous, first-world care, with the eyes of the entire nation on him, his R0 [“‘reproduction number’ … how many new infections each infected person causes”] was 2, just like that of your average Liberian Ebola victim. One carrier; two infections.

4. … The worst-case scenario envisioned by the [CDC] model is anywhere from 537,000 to 1,367,000 cases by January. Just in Liberia. With the fever [is] still raging out of control. …

5. … Marine Corps General John F. Kelly talked about Ebola at the National Defense University two weeks ago and mused about what would happen if Ebola reached Haiti or Central America, which have relatively easy access to America. “If it breaks out, it’s literally ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.” …

6. … it’s a straw-man argument to say that a flight ban wouldn’t keep Ebola fully contained. No one says it would. But by definition, it would help slow the spread of the virus. If there had been a travel ban in place, Thomas Duncan would have likely reached the same sad fate—but without infecting two Americans and setting the virus loose in North America. … Ebola has the potential to reshuffle American attitudes to immigration. If you agree to seal the borders to mitigate the risks from Ebola, you’re implicitly rejecting the “open borders” mindset and admitting that there are cases in which government has a duty to protect citizens from outsiders …

It is quite something when an “elite institution” like the Weekly Standard concedes that, “We have arrived at a moment with our elite institutions where it is impossible to distinguish incompetence from willful misdirection.”