I am talking to you, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Do your job or suffer the consequences. Take a trip into the 21st century. Pass the immigration reform bill.
Apparently Donald Trump has wooed the GOP base big time with his immigration proposal. Which is essentially a cruel and appalling effort to deport 11 million undocumented U.S. residents. As well as deport their American born children.
Not to be outdone in the extreme, other GOP Presidential candidates are also proposing to repeal of the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship.
Donald Trump: ”This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration,” he said in his immigration proposal.
Rand Paul: “This resolution makes clear that under the 14th Amendment a person born in the United States to illegal aliens does not automatically gain citizenship,” he said in 2011 about a constitutional amendment he proposed with Sen. David Vitter.
Rick Santorum: “Other enticements to illegal immigration, such as birthright citizenship, should be ended… Of developed countries other than the United States, only Canada has birthright citizenship,” he wrote back in May.
Lindsey Graham: ”Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake,” he said in 2010. “We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.” (He added to Kasie Hunt on Monday: “I’ve been saying for a long time that I’m willing to change birthright citizenship after we fix the current broken immigration system.”)
Chris Christie: ”I think all this stuff needs to be reexamined in light of the current circumstances,” he told Laura Ingraham this month. “[Birthright citizenship] may have made sense at some point in our history, but right now, we need to re-look at all that.”
Bobby Jindal: “We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants,” he tweeted.
Scott Walker: When asked by MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt whether birthright citizenship should be ended, he replied “Yeah, to me it’s about enforcing the laws in this country.” But Walker later appeared to walk it back: When asked if he misspoke on birthright citizenship, Walker said, per NBC’s Shaquille Brewster: “No, we had a three hour rolling gaggle there. It’s— you answer part of the question, somebody turns and asks you something. My point is, yeah I empathize with people who have concerns about that but until we fundamentally secure the border.”
Many of us cannot not believe this discussion is taking place. We all know that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants. Except in the case of Native American Indians all of us are descendants of immigrants. So why are Donald Trump and his wannabe front runner Republican Presidential candidates picking on undocumented residents?
Now I can understand the frustration that many of us have given the hopelessly craven U.S. Congress that refuses to address immigration reform. The Senate passed a bi-partisan bill last year that won't see the light of day in the House. This is simply because Speaker John Boehner is more worried about keeping his job and is therefore afraid to alienate the tea party wing of his Party. The Koch purchased tea party wing, of course, most likely supports Trump's deportation plan hands down.
And so nothing gets done. And when nothing gets done an opening arises for clever charlatans and carnival barkers with PR savvy like Trump. The snake oil dealers will successfully fabricate a bogey man on which to foment fear and hatred.
For the GOP tea party base and low information voters the snake oil is working like a charm. After all, this is the same group of the easily manipulated that loathes President Obama simply because of the color of his skin.
Sarah Palin worked this group into frenzies during the 2008 Presidential contests when her rallies became hate fests. Let's hate on Barack Obama! He pals around with terrorists! He's a Muslim! A Kenyan! Kill him! Donald Trump himself led the birther charge against the President. Fox "News" gave Trump an open platform on which to insult, disrespect and demean the duly elected President of the United States.
Haters gotta hate, disrespect and demean.
Most of us are horrified by Donald Trump's threat to deport millions of people most of whom are here for the same reason as our ancestors. Jobs, opportunity, escape from religious persecution, starvation and wars were among the reasons why so many arrived here.
But like most GOP candidates who have little substance to offer other than endless foreign wars and tax cuts for the rich, including those for some really despicable characters, there is always a need to gin up a faux evil doer of some sort. This evil doer is responsible for all that is wrong in our society. They, it, are doing the raping, robbing, murdering and inciting all of the gang violence in communities.
Yes indeed. Find an evil doer to cover up neglect and incompetence. Blame the Chinese for the recent stock market melt-down that took a hit on our retirement savings accounts.
Snake oil dealers like Trump, Walker, Bush, et. al. will also fabricate a myth that an evil doer is getting something, a perk or entitlement or worse, is taking something away, that ordinary hard working Americans cannot obtain.
Always play the resentment card whenever opportunity knocks.
Jeb Bush sank as low as to target "Asian anchor babies" as the real culprits of "unearned entitlement."
What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there's organized efforts—and frankly it's more related to Asian people—coming into our country, having children, in that organized efforts, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship. I support the 14th amendment. Nothing I've said should be viewed as derogatory toward immigrants at all.
Nope. Nothing derogatory at all, Jeb. Except that my ears are ringing from your Party's dog whistles and Donald Trump's fog horns.
But Trump, Bush and their cowardly GOP side kicks aren't going to win this fight. Fortunately, the sentiments of the majority of us is in a far more tolerant and compassionate place.
Read More