Understanding the pro-illegal immigration forces …

For a long time I’ve been puzzled by the strange coalition that’s risen in opposition to strictly enforcing our immigration laws and possibly tightening rules on legal immigration.

Think about it: rarely do you see rich white liberals in bed with rich white conservatives on the same issue. Or the Koch brothers aligned with liberals. Or small businesses siding with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Or small farmers joining with giant agribusiness conglomerates. Or top Republicans and Democrats working together on the one issue on which they apparently can agree: letting in more immigrants and giving amnesty to those illegals already here.   

What’s brought all these groups together?

Concern for the plight of poor illegal immigrants?  Moral outrage at the separations of children from their parents at the border?  Maybe the poem on the Statue of Liberty?  

Sorry.  It’s the promise of cheap labor.  

The reality of the immigration debate for these otherwise disparate groups is that for them it’s not so much about compassion or morality as it is about profit. Immigrants work cheaper than comparably-skilled American citizens. And illegal immigrants work even cheaper. 

Just look at the tech industry here – one of the richest industries we have.  It’s a big supporter of expanding H-1b visas for foreign workers.  It’s also opposed to any efforts to crack down on H-1b abuses, of which there are many.  Does anyone really believe our tech industry can’t find qualified American citizens to hire for its tech and customer support jobs? 

Of course it can, but not as cheaply as an import.

The food service industry claims it couldn’t survive without immigrant labor.  The hospitality industry makes similar claims. As does the ag industry.  Let’s not forget about the affluent who routinely employ illegals to be nannies for their kids, cook for their families, clean their houses, and keep their lawns and shrubs in tip-top shape.

None of these are employing those of uncertain immigration status because they feel empathy for them, or out of the goodness of their hearts.  It’s all about getting cheaper labor.  When these employers get caught they always claim they had no idea they were hiring illegal immigrants; they never thought to ask about their immigration status.  Really?   

The truth is they didn’t want to know.       

Ever wonder why so many of these groups resist using the fast and free E-Verify program to vet the immigration status of the workers they hire? And why the affluent – including many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, celebrities, and media hotshots – often turn a blind eye to the immigration status of the domestics they hire to work at their own homes?

Trust me, none of them will admit it but it’s always about the money.  Even the richy-rich and powerful can’t resist the lure of cheap labor.    

A central argument against tougher immigration enforcement is that those who come here illegally aren’t doing any real harm.  They are simply seeking a safer, more secure future for themselves and their families.  But by keeping them out – or kicking them out – we cause much more harm to them and their families.  They are far better off here than they’d be in the country they fled.

Besides, we’re told if we do crack down on illegal immigration and deport those illegals here already then who will harvest our crops, cook our food, clean our houses and hotel rooms, cut our lawns and do all those jobs American citizens don’t want anyway?

I love when someone brings all that up.  Especially the part about the willingness of illegals to do jobs no one else wants.  That’s always the supposed trump card; illegals are necessary because they do jobs American citizens aren’t willing to do.  Plus they keep costs down for consumers. 

Flash back a couple of hundred years or so.   Those arguments are eerily similar to the justifications for slavery cited by American slave owners in the 1800s. 

Go ahead, look it up.   

The only real difference is that mostly Southern slave owners were talking about the economic merits of slavery using Africans, not people from Central America and Mexico.  The rationalization then was that foreign slaves were necessary because there weren’t enough Americans to handle all the work, and even when there were, Americans weren’t interested in doing those jobs anyway. 

Oh, and the Africans they brought in worked cheaper and complained less, too.   

Some slave owners also claimed they had a moral imperative to employ slaves, who they considered simple, hardworking folk generally happy with their lot in life and actually better off – and safer – here than where they came from. If they weren’t employed here, how would they survive? How would they feed their families, without their benevolent American employers?    

The slaves they employed were thankful to have a job that fed, clothed, and housed them and their families.  And to be in a better place than where they were from. 

If all that sounds like complete nonsense back then, it’s also complete nonsense today. 

I’m sure there are many who look on stopping illegal immigration as a moral stain on our heritage.  But there also those – behind the scenes – masquerading as compassionate crusaders who have a much baser motive for encouraging unfettered illegal immigration.

Yes, I’m pointing the finger at the unholy alliance of business groups advocating for less stringent immigration policies. I know what they really want.  Now you do as well. 

More legal immigrants can help us and are needed, but more illegals depress wages for American citizens. More illegals also put a much greater strain on our limited resources to support schools, healthcare, public safety, and public assistance programs. 

That’s a big price to pay over time for cheaper labor in the short term. 

Much as there eventually was for slavery here.

You won, now get over it …

Donald Trump has many faults. 

A big one is that he doesn’t know when to put a sock in it.  There are too many times he gets carried away and says some stupid crap he’s sure to regret.  Most often it’s when he’s goaded by the press to comment on what’s obviously a gotcha question.  He should know when to STFU.  

But the one that makes me most nuts is his inability to get over the last election. 

Hey Donald, you won.  You’re the President.  It’s over. 

Why he keeps going back to his victory is baffling.  Sure, there are a lot of Democrats, establishment Republicans, and folks on the left who wish he hadn’t won. There are the whiners who claim he didn’t really win because Hillary got more of the popular vote.

The fact of the matter is, he got elected. He got inaugurated. He’s the President.

We all know that. Even his fiercest critics concede it.

It’s long past time for him to still be a sore winner. Give it up.  Move on.  Constantly revisiting why Hillary lost is demeaning and petty. Hammering on and on about her 33,000 missing e-mails and why the FBI cut her a break – which clearly they did – doesn’t accomplish anything. 

It’s all irrelevant now. The election’s over. 

Everyone understands why Trump hates the Mueller probe.  It's a cloud over his Presidency; but only because Trump keeps obsessing over it.  By now it’s pretty clear there will be no evidence of collusion between his campaign and the Russians.There's also no case for obstruction; he was well within his rights to fire Comey.  He should simply let it go. 

On the other thrust of the probe – whether Russia tried to meddle in the past election – does anyone with half a brain think they didn’t? Seriously?  Is there any doubt at all? Of course they tried to influence our election; they always try to influence other countries’ elections, as do we.  That’s nothing out of the ordinary. Anyone who thinks it’s something new is either hopelessly naïve or downright stupid. 

Did the Russians change a single vote? Nope. Even the FBI and DOJ concede that. 

That’s why there’s not a lot to the Mueller probe anymore.    

Yet Trump can’t resist beating the same dead horse and conflating the collusion issue with the Russian meddling.  He constantly attacks Mueller’s investigation, and especially Mueller’s team. That keeps the probe in the spotlight for no good reason. 

As one Republican said, if you’re innocent, act like it.  Trump needs to take that advice.  He needs to separate the obvious Russian meddling from the issue of collusion.

Acknowledge the former; ignore the latter. 

Everyone knows the Russians meddled so go with it. And despite the manufactured frenzy on the left and in the media, everyone else – including Mueller and his team, I suspect – knows the collusion thing is dead. Let it lie. 

Also, stop trying to keep the FBI treatment of Hillary, her server and e-mails on the front burner. Tell Republicans in the House and Senate to call off the dogs.  Yes, FBI officials sandbagged the original investigation. Yes, there was bias from investigators.

Yes, Hillary got a pass. 

Everyone knows all this.  It doesn’t make any difference now. 

Because she lost. You won.  Get over it.  

Gaslighting the American public ...

The verb “gaslight” comes from a 1940s movie by the same name.  The villain artfully manipulates events and situations to make his victim doubt her sanity. Near the end she’s not certain what’s real and what isn’t because he’s controlled her perception of reality.

I think the media and the left are trying to do the same to the American public. 

They are actively trying to make us question what’s real and accept their alternate reality.

In that alternate reality, Trump is a racist, a bigot, sexist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, and a homophobe. He’s doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin by dismantling NATO, criticizing our European allies, and constantly attacking the integrity of the FBI and our other intelligence agencies.  He may also be a Russian agent since 1987.   

Trump colluded with Russians to steal the last election, which he really didn’t win anyway.  He hates all Muslims. He hates all people of color, especially brown and black people.  He uses ICE to terrorize illegal immigrants by breaking down their doors, raiding their workplaces, and deporting them, often ripping families apart.  He also favors tearing babies from the arms of their mothers at the border to discourage other possible illegal immigrants from trying to come here.

He’s nominating people chosen by powerful alt-right extremists to the SCOTUS who will repeal Roe v. Wade, rollback voting rights and civil rights for minorities, take away protections and rights for the LGBTQ community, put women in prison for having abortions, let corporations poison the environment, and turn America into a police state.    

Of course, none of that is true. There’s no proof at all.  Not a scrap.   

Trust me, if there was I’d know about it. I’m a news junkie. Every day I read the hard copy of the Wall Street Journal – Monday through Saturday, check out everything online on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC for balance, and sometimes go to Snopes to check things, as well as do my own research. I’ve been doing all this every day for years to validate what’s real and what isn’t. 

If there were any “proof” of any of the above, somebody would have shown it by now. It would be the scoop of the century.  You have to believe thousands have been desperately trying to find something, anything, substantive to support any of these allegations.  

The best anyone has come up with is that various reports and rumors “suggest” these might be true, which is a clever way to get around admitting you don’t have any hard evidence.  

You can’t prove a negative hypothesis – you can’t prove something will never happen.  But you sure as Hell can prove something has happened, especially when it’s by someone as extensively scrutinized for decades like Trump, if, in fact, it ever did. 

The truth is, it’s all made up nonsense. At best it’s speculation about what he might have done or might do, but again, there’s nothing to indicate he has or will or even wants to.  If anything, there’s a mountain of evidence that supports the exact opposite conclusion. 

However, the media won’t ever report that.  Even when facts are staring them in the face and readily available to anyone who cares to look.  It’s not what the left and the Democrats want. 

Instead they’ll all continue to push their alternate reality and hope we fall for it.

It’s called gaslighting. And they are all gaslighting the American public. 

Not who we are as a country ...

We hear that a lot these days.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, loads of Democrats, and of course the talking heads in the media, say this constantly. And always in a preachy, accusatory manner.    

Which prompts me to ask, just who are we as a country? 

Well, that depends largely on where you live and which media outlets you trust. 

Outside our biggest cities and their close-in suburbs, and excluding college towns, we are essentially a right-of-center country – more traditional and conservative, in other words, than more urban areas and the liberal pockets around colleges. This America is quite a different place – politically and philosophically – than the America routinely portrayed by our media. 

This other America transcends state lines and geographic constraints. It’s in every part of the country, including what are called deep-blue states such as California and New York. Just view the map of the US below showing which counties voted for Trump (red) or Hillary (blue) in the last election: it’s a sea of red across the country with isolated pockets of blue. 

The biggest surprise is that it’s pretty normal.  It’s more representative of the country as a whole than the picture painted by the media.  It’s not overwhelmingly rural, not populated mainly by illiterate rednecks, gun nuts, racists, white supremacists, religious fanatics, and bigots, and certainly not extreme.  In fact, it abhors extremists of any stripe, whether that’s Antifa, neo-Nazis, Black Lives Matter, white supremacists, or any group that relies on bullying, intimidation, or the threat of violence to advance their agenda.   

It’s often baffled by what the national media choose to cover. Not that it doesn’t understand what’s reported; it’s more why things of so little consequence to them and their neighbors are made out to be such a big deal. Like whoever is protesting in the streets over whatever, who had sex with whom a decade ago, who once groped whom, and whatever Trump tweets at 3AM.

What this America actually worries about is putting food on the table, soaring healthcare and prescription drug costs, a good education for their kids, and keeping their families safe. Pretty basic stuff – and the same stuff they’ve worried about for years. The national media don’t spend much time on those issues; the media would rather obsess over the plight of illegal immigrant kids and made-for-TV manufactured outrage over something Trump said at a rally somewhere. 

The opinions of the national media don't carry the same weight here as in the blue dots. 

Most career politicians and bureaucrats are not admired in this America, either.  Nor is there great affinity for public sector employee unions.

The prevailing thought is that many in government are increasingly out of touch with ordinary citizens and operate in a virtual vacuum, which makes them oblivious at times to what’s happening outside that vacuum.  They have little in common with ordinary working citizens – they are paid better, get better benefits, get more time off with pay, worry less about losing their jobs, and are protected from facing the consequences even when they commit serious misdeeds. 

This sense of a disconnect between the governed and those who govern and regulate them comes not from jealousy, but a sincere belief that it’s no longer a government of the people, by the people, for the people, but becoming a government for the people of the government, including politicians. In short, a new political aristocracy is being created, seemingly above the laws that apply to everyone else, and many citizens in this America don’t like that.  

The last Presidential election reflected this. An absolute outsider – not a former member of Congress, not a a former bureaucrat, and not a former politician on any level – carried this other America, despite opposition from practically every establishment party politician, practically every labor union including the public-sector unions, and the majority of pundits and the media.

Or perhaps he won because of their opposition.

This terrified the country – those blue dots – Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer represent.  At the same time it gave new hope to this other America.  And this other America is not a bad place.     

Like most other Americans in the blue dots, there’s genuine admiration for immigrants who come here legally – often with very little – work hard and build a good life for themselves and their families. But there’s little sympathy among virtually all racial and ethnic groups – including native born and naturalized Hispanics – for immigrants who come here illegally, take jobs from citizens, fraudulently obtain benefits, and commit other crimes.   

This other America wants laws to be applied equally to all by an objective, impartial legal system based on the laws on the books and the actual text of the Constitution. Someone’s immigration status, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation should have no bearing on how existing laws are applied to them – that’s what equal justice under the law is all about to them. 

This America sees our country as a force for good in the world, an extraordinarily generous country, and one of the rare places on Earth where who your parents were, or where you went to school, matters less than what you make of yourself.  Here you can start with nothing and become successful by your own labors – they’ve seen it happen again and again – so they have no animus toward anyone who does that and becomes rich in the process, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity.

That’s the American Dream, after all.  And they believe it’s real. For everyone. 

So this America is not opposed to legal immigration.  It believes in equal justice under the law for everyone. It thinks most politicians, public service employees, and government bureaucrats are more concerned with helping themselves and keeping their own jobs than helping ordinary citizens. And it still believes we are the land of opportunity for anyone willing to work hard and play by the rules. 

It’s a pretty good place with pretty decent people.  There’s no other place in the world like it. 

I believe this is really who we are as a country.     

When hate is all you’ve got …

 A lot of people hate Donald Trump. I get it. They’ve made that abundantly clear. 

But hate’s not enough to win people over; that is, if those who hate even care to win over others. And there’s nothing to show they do.

Their hate is apparently designed simply to intimidate, not persuade.  That’s all I can see.

Some people hated Obama, too, when he was in office.  Still, I don’t remember the Obama haters going to the extremes Trump haters are.

Obama haters didn’t target Obama Administration officials and harass them and their families in restaurants and at their homes. Nor did anyone burn the carcass of a decapitated animal outside someone’s home. Nor did anyone shoot at members of Congress playing baseball just because they were in the same political party as the President they hate.  

There have always been nutjobs among us.  There are more today; it’s a function of the law of big numbers.  If the crazies are always a fixed percentage of the population, then the absolute number increases as the populations grows. 

Believe it or not, bad behavior and threats of violence against politicians and their families by nut-case leftists wasn’t always praised by Democrat party leaders, Hollywood types, and the media. Now it is, except when it doesn’t suit their narrative – then it’s buried. Any bad behavior by anyone on the right, however, makes headline news for weeks.    

When Democrat Gabby Giffords was shot the media raced to pin the blame on far-right extremists; when it turned out the shooter was actually a leftist loon the media quickly forgot about the politics.  A Sanders-supporter nutjob exclusively targeted Republicans and their staffs practicing for an annual baseball game with Democrats, and seriously wounded Republican Steve Scalise; the media downplayed the political aspect. 

A crackpot white supremacist – with no ties to Trump or Republicans – crashed his car into protestors at Charlottesville killing and maiming people; the media and Democrats quickly blamed the politics of Trump and Republicans for encouraging and condoning right-wing violence. 

There seems to be no limit to the hypocrisy. Or available proof.  Democrats and the media seem to forget that in this digital age, there’s always a video record of everything.  

Not that many years ago, prominent Democrats Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and even President Obama railed against illegal immigration, and supported securing our borders to keep out illegals.  They saw illegal immigrants as criminals and a threat to jobs and wages for American citizens. Now, stopping illegal immigration and securing our borders are a crime against humanity because these same Democrats sense it’s a good political issue to work.

Democrats and the media were also on the bandwagon for more “civility” and respect for the office of the President throughout Obama’s term. When one Republican Congressman interrupted then-President Obama’s address to Congress by shouting “You lie” when Obama said illegals wouldn’t be covered under ObamaCare, the left and the media were outraged.       

Now, however, the media is perfectly fine with Democrats in Congress taking to the air waves to denounce this current President as a liar, a racist, a fascist, and a clone of Hitler.  One compared Trump’s policy on separating minors from illegal immigrant adults at our border to Nazi tactics at Auschwitz.  So much for civility and respect for the office of President. 

The hatred on the left is all consuming.   

When a train carrying Republicans and their families to a retreat derailed, causing multiple injuries and the death of a truck driver, there were celebrities and also talking heads in the media who suggested the derailment was divine intervention to punish Republicans. Seriously.

In fairness, civility in American politics is a ship that sailed long ago. 

Also in fairness, Trump himself doesn’t help matters. 

A major part of the current horrific behavior on the left is because they don’t have any reasonable alternatives to Trump’s policies. More importantly, they are seeing for the first time that a significant portion of America – perhaps even a majority at times – doesn’t support the left’s and the Democrats’ agenda. Rather than adjust their position to match popular sentiment, they are resorting to bullying tactics. They don’t have anything else.

And that’s clearly not working.  Which makes them even crazier.   

No matter how many times the media tries to make the case for them, that’s failing, too.  The public is simply not buying it anymore. 

In terms of the dust up over minors detained for illegal immigration, the public doesn’t blame our immigration laws for the troubles at the border – it blames the parents who brought those minors, and especially those who put their kids in the hands of human traffickers to get here. 

While the public has sympathy for the children, it still generally supports cracking down and deporting people coming here illegally.  It doesn’t think minors should be separated from their parents, but it’s okay with detaining and then deporting the parents and their kids together. In terms of unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors, it thinks we’re doing the best we can.

The public doesn’t want open borders; Democrats and the left do.  The public wants to tighten security and enforcement at our borders; Democrats and the left don’t. Democrats and the left support allowing sanctuary cities to shield illegal immigrant criminals from deportation; the public doesn't. Now Democrats and the left want to abolish ICE, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws and deporting illegal immigrant criminals; most Americans don't.    

The Democrats hated the Trump tax cuts; the public liked getting more money back.  Democrats and the left claimed these would only make greedy corporate executives richer and do nothing for the common working people; many corporations and small businesses instead gave bonuses and raises to their employees, and pumped up their 401(k)s, which those employees appreciated. 

When Democrats held control, Harry Reid changed the rules on confirming Federal court appointments to stop Republicans from using filibusters to delay approval of left-leaning judges. Now Trump has the opportunity to use the same “nuclear option” once again to replace Anthony Kennedy with a conservative Justice.  Democrats and the left are beside themselves with outrage. The public, not so much. 

Here’s the worst part for Democrats and the left: the public may not like Trump as a person, but the public generally approves of what he’s accomplished. For the first time in many years, most Americans think the country is headed in the right direction.  Unemployment is down, wages are up, and the economy is booming, which should never have happened according to the Democrats, the left, the media, and the never-Trumpers.  That’s a complete repudiation of the progressive agenda favored by Democrats and the left, and the dogma of establishment Republicans as well.

So with the mid-terms approaching, Democrats and the left are apoplectic.  

They can bash Trump, harass his people all they want, and ridicule his behavior, but what Trump is doing, what he’s accomplishing, is more important to the public than whether he is the type of person you want your kids to grow up to emulate. 

Talking heads and pundits say the problem is simply that Democrats and the left haven’t clearly articulated their message to the public. 

In truth they have. It’s the opposite of whatever Trump favors, no matter what that is. And they hate Trump, hate his policies, hate the people in his administration, and hate his supporters.  

They’ve done an exceptional job of getting that message out.    

They’re working with the only thing they’ve got: irrational hate.