Left unchecked, the modern radical left is anexistential threat to our safety, our prosperity, and
our freedom. That means that the Wicked Witch of
the West, Kamala Harris, and Swampy Joe, running
as a "proud Democrat," must be defeated on
November 3. Anything less and America as we
know it is finished.... WELL, IT'S TOO LATE
AND NOW SEE WHAT NAFTA JOE IS DOING
TO AMERICA AS FAST AS THEY CAN!
Hawley: 'Mega Corporations Have Way Too Much Power in American Society'
(CNSNews.com) - "Mega corporations have way too much power in American society, way too much power in American politics, and they want to run our democracy...is the bottom line. They want to run our government," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Fox News Tuesday night.
Hawley was talking about corporations such as those bowing to the social justice crowd in Georgia, pretending to be "woke" by protesting Georgia's new voting integrity law, but actually causing harm to the same communities they pretend to care about.
The response should be to break the monopolies, Hawley told host Ben Domenech:
We see monopolies across a lot of industries in some of the farmer areas, banks. We need to break up the monopolies pure and simple. We've done that before in American history -- that has been a tried and true remedy for mega corporations that want to exert too much power.
But can I just say one thing about the corporations and racial justice since you bring it up? These corporations are delighted to give some money to BLM, to say that they are woke, to say that they believe in racial justice, but what have they been doing for the last 20, 30, 40 years?
They’ve been shipping jobs overseas, they've been hollowing out the urban core, they've been taking away good paying jobs for Americans of all races and backgrounds. And they want to be left to continue to do that. They want us to look the other way while they continue to pursue those policies that have devastated whole communities, including in the urban core and pretend that they are somehow socially just. It's a shell game. And it's time we called them on it.
Hawley said it's "absolutely vital" for the Republican Party to end its financial dependence on corporate America, "especially the multinational globalist" companies.
Our voters have been telling us for years that they don't like our jobs being shipped overseas. They don't like the way that these corporations kowtow to China on one hand and then turn around and lecture Americans about social justice at home when they are some of the worst offenders.
I mean, look at who is actually dependent on global slavery. It's a lot of these corporations who depends on slave labor or exploited labor. It's the same corporations and yet here they want to tell Americans what to do. So, we need to -- it's time for Republicans to get tough and to say that we are not taking orders from these corporations.
We're not going to base our policy around them. And it's time we listen to our voters. And we've got to get tough on the corporations themselves. And I say again for those that are monopolies, they should be broken up.
Hawley said trust-busting used to be the "signature policy" of the Republican Party, and "it needs to be again."
As conservatives, he said, it's "all about free, fair competition, robust competition."
"You know, monopolies, stranglehold by big business -- that's not competition. We need to get back to supporting competition, to supporting small business and medium-size business, to supporting real innovation.
"Having these big multinational corporations try to lecture the American people and try to dictate the political process, including basically blackmailing legislatures like Georgia and others, that's wrong, that's dangerous. It is a danger to self-government. And we can't allow it," Hawley said.
Earlier on Tuesday, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hawley called out the "powerful corporations" that have told so many "lies" about Georgia's election law.
Biden to Showcase Business Tied to Energy Sec Granholm
In infrastructure push, Biden promotes company in which Granholm holds multi-million dollar stake
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm owns up to $5 million in the electric battery and vehicle manufacturer President Joe Biden will promote on Tuesday as part of his push for a $1.9 trillion infrastructure bill.
Biden’s virtual visit to the electric battery producer Proterra comes days after Vice President Kamala Harris paid a visit to Thomas Built Buses, a North Carolina-based school bus company that counts Proterra as its main supplier of electric vehicles. The back-to-back White House visits to Granholm-connected companies risk at least the appearance of impropriety and demonstrate how lawmakers can use policy initiatives to pad their own wallets. Biden's infrastructure package includes a $174 billion investment in the electric vehicle market, calls for the replacement of "50,000 diesel transit vehicles" in favor of electric alternatives, and creates a Clean Buses for Kids program that will "electrify at least 20 percent of our yellow school bus fleet."
Granholm has taken a leading role in the administration’s forthcoming infrastructure package. The president in February tasked her with "identifying risks in the supply chain for high-capacity batteries, including electric-vehicle batteries, and policy recommendations to address these risks."
The Department of Energy did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Granholm joined Proterra’s board of directors in March 2017; internet archives list her as a board member as recently as February 19, 2021, shortly before her confirmation on February 25. Her financial disclosures reveal up to $5 million worth of stock options in the green tech company, which went public in January through the special purpose acquisition company ArcLight Clean Transition Corp. Arclight, a NASDAQ-listed company, saw shares shoot up about 55 percent since its September IPO, a spike financial traders attributed directly to the acquisition of Proterra.
In a January 16 letter to the designated agency ethics official, Granholm vowed to step down from the board and sell her stock in the company, as well as the steps she will take "to avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest." The former Michigan governor has sold some stock, but has not offloaded any of her Proterra shares, according to a White House official. Granholm’s stake in Proterra represents her largest financial asset outside of a house in Oakland, Calif., that she values as between $1 and 5 million, according to her financial disclosures.
The White House confirmed that Granholm still holds stock in Proterra, but said she played no role in planning the president's visit.
"Proterra was selected for today’s virtual visit because it is the leading U.S. manufacturer of electric buses, employing 600 workers at its South Carolina and California plants," a White House official told the Washington Free Beacon. "Neither Secretary Granholm nor the Department of Energy were involved in selecting the Proterra plant."
The official said Granholm is "in the process of selling off all stock in the company" and will have it sold "within the 180-day window permitted by the ethics agreement."
After publication of this story, the White House cancelled Biden's planned remarks on infrastructure due to news of an incoming verdict in the George Floyd murder trial. Biden took part in a virtual tour of Proterra.
In a February 24 executive order, Biden placed Granholm in charge of "identifying risks in the supply chain for high-capacity batteries, including electric-vehicle batteries, and policy recommendations to address these risks." One of Proterra’s key products is electric-vehicle batteries.
Proterra’s website boasts that "our flexible design enables Proterra® EV batteries to be the best choice for commercial vehicles ranging from transit buses and trucks to delivery vehicles, construction equipment, and more."
Nearly 85 percent of Proterra employee
campaign contributions went to Democrats,
including Joe Biden, according to the Center
Collin Anderson contributed to this report.
The job insecurity problem comes from importing Brahmins into tech and illegals into everything else. Supply and demand, Democrats: you flood the job market with immigrants and native-born Americans suffer.
How the Obama Crew Makes Things Worse
The question confronting us Neanderthals during the present leftward lurch is: who exactly is the man behind the curtain pulling the levers of the Biden operation? Sundance thinks it’s the Obama crew:
Barack Obama and his ideologues (who took over the DNC) are now completely in control over the leftist policy execution...
Today, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, the former spokesperson for Obama’s State Department, essentially admitted that Obama’s network was in charge, and Biden receives his instructions from the crew.
In a way, I’m encouraged, because I don’t think the Obama crew is that smart. I think that if President Obama, the First Black President, had granted America absolution from the sin of slavery in 2009, he would have been nominated for bipartisan political sainthood and the Democrats would have owned the future. But he didn’t: instead he doubled down on his race card bet and lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014. He could have invented a new politics -- joining the lower class of all races and the middle class against the eeevil white gentry class and eeevil Brahmin tech. But he didn’t.
So now here we are in 2021 and the Obama crew are justifying gun control and anti-racism as “public health” measures. And everything else is “infrastructure.”
You racists and sexists out there will hear the dog whistles. “Public health” is directed at women who like nothing more than to terrify each other with health care horror stories. And “infrastructure” is an appeal to white males with mega trucks. Not that trucks will be allowed in our glorious future, because roads are racist.
The “tell” that I am getting from all this is that the Obama crew knows that their agenda sucks. But their polling tells them that “public health” and “infrastructure” are good ways to put lipstick on a pig.
I even read that the Biden gun control executive orders will teach the gun nuts a lesson and send them back where they came from.
In your dreams.
Okay. But what should the Obama crew be doing? My answer came to me as I finished up Andy Ngo’s Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. He wrote of Antifa members that
While some are indeed highly educated and in white-collar professions ranging from law to academia to health care, those who are involved in the street violence are disproportionately individuals dealing with housing insecurity, financial instability, and mental health issues like gender dysphoria...
Grievance ideologies resonate with millennials and Gen Z because of an economic reality they experience: crushing student debt, job insecurity, and the inability to ever afford a home.
So any decent politician should be solving the student debt problem, the stagnant wage problem and the housing price problem. Right?
Now, you tell me: what have the Democrats done lately to help millennials and Gen Z with all this, other than encourage them to protest and riot?
The student debt problem arose when colleges discovered they could raise fees and increase diversity bureaucracy with all the free government money that comes with students.
The job insecurity problem comes from importing Brahmins into tech and illegals into everything else. Supply and demand, Democrats: you flood the job market with immigrants and native-born Americans suffer.
Housing affordability goes all the way back to the New Deal and the Fannie Mae secondary market in long-term mortgages. It was great for the Fifties generation that bought suburban homes for $10,000 apiece. But not so good when the mortgage subsidy had increased prices to $1,000,000 for a nice suburban home in the months before the Democrats make single-family homes illegal.
Why aren’t we discussing the utter failure of higher education? Why aren’t we outraged by the ruinous cost of housing? Why aren’t blacks rioting against the Great Society programs that put ‘em all back in chains?
It can’t just be because the programs have failed. After all, you can always blame it all on Trump. It goes deeper than that.
I believe that government and politics cannot get beyond going to war against a dastardly enemy and then sharing out the loot among the supporters. When there’s no real war, then it’s a fake war against plutocrats or patriarchs or white supremacists -- and then sharing out the loot among the supporters.
In real war, the savior of his country can never admit a mistake. In fake war you can’t ever reform your failed programs. Instead, you pile on more loot and plunder and call it “public health” and “infrastructure.” You tell your supporters that their troubles are all the fault of “white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism,” as Antifa does in “Unit Five: Class Struggle & White Supremacy” from Unmasked. And you blame systemic racism and the colonization of the curriculum as BLM does.
And you haughtily proceed to Make Things Worse.
Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.
Image: Ari Levinson
Need a reason not to vote for Biden/Harris? Here are 50
The modern left must be stopped and thoroughly discredited before it destroys America. Is it too late?
Consider that the modern left and the godless Marxists stand for, actively promote, and/or have accomplished the following:
1. Legalized murder in the womb, AKA abortion
2. Legalized many street drugs
3. Encourage releasing prisoners into the cities
4. Renaming streets and places in the name of cancel culture
5. Renamed sports team
OBOMB OPERATED AND FUNDED THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY OF LA RAZA 'The Race' NOW CALLING ITSELF UNIDOSus OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
Unlimited immigration. Obama issued an unconstitutional executive order – an action he repeated routinely to counter Congressional action – that instituted mass immigration of poor, uneducated third-world people into the U.S., not to assimilate with our culture but to keep their own and demand that U.S. taxpayers subsidize them. Deportations of illegal immigrants under the new policy were dramatically reduced, even as scores more poured across the southern border as the number of border patrol agents decreased.
The Unhinging of America
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/the_unhinging_of_america.html
Since my return from the war in Korea (1950-53) I have witnessed America sink into a state of insanity unknown in its history:
Kids shooting classmates at school, people like zombies gazing at little screens while they walk, stand, sit, shop, talk, drive cars, watch TV telling them what to think, women blaming men for not being treated like men, men having their genitals “replaced with vaginas,” women leaving dependent children behind to join the military, mothers having their babies killed when they are ready to be born . . .
By the 1980s the moral and cultural swamp that America was sinking into made me wave red flags in newsletters I published. The acceleration toward and past the turn of the century has been breathless! Many Americans have wondered what happened to America?
Well, to begin with, anti-American activists have pushed hard to fulfill a mission launched by early 20th century Marxists to establish a new world order. It would be a God-free world under a global government run by amoral men smarter than everybody else in the world, past and present. Soon after the start of the 21st century, Barack Obama, latest edition of this breed of visionary, positioned himself to lead the team in Washington to help “transform America” – make it ready, that is, for the new world order.
There has never been a place in my mind for anyone in public office who would harm America and the people he or she is elected or appointed to serve, which is the inevitable consequence of pushing for a moral-free, God-free world. Such action, no matter how packaged, serves evil. They who use their talents to harm their fellow human beings – they’re known as traitors – are placed by Dante in the deepest circle of hell [Inferno].
Now there was someone who wanted to be president who could and would utilize Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book that salutes the devil in its opening pages – to take down America, while pretending to make it better than ever!
Could Obama in truth and honesty have, as president, served “one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all”? Could he have been sincere when he took the oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”? I don’t think so.
My worst fear, that Americans might lose their country if they did not stand up to and shout down the God-haters and Leftists undermining their country – what culture warriors have been fighting for decades – seemed closer than ever to becoming a reality.
Among the warriors “with balls” who saw what was happening, the firebrand Andrew Breitbart rallied converts and fighters against political traitors scheming to destroy America, a first step in establishing their New World Order. (I called it Global Oz.) By the time Breitbart crashed into media and news reporting, a bloated and flabby federal government had enabled the anti-American Obama to run for president. Breitbart was ruthless in exposing this two-faced candidate for president. Shortly after he pledged to release a video showing college-age Obama alongside notorious Weather Underground terrorists, Breitbart died in Los Angeles.
And so a treacherous candidate for president beat a “she’s-not-fit-to-be-president” (Obama.’s words) Hillary Clinton to the White House. Well, Hillary became part of the “America-transforming" team as Secretary of State and Obama, with solemn face and ready platitude, repeated the lie that he would unify America and transform it into a better place for all.
The deeds did not match the words. Regarding unity, Obama stoked the fires of racial division, using his bully pulpit to turn every news event that could be spun into “discrimination against blacks” into an official denunciation of racism. And the corporate media did their part to help bring about a hatred of cops that heedlessly endangered the lives of men and women who daily put their lives on the line to ensure the safety of a public increasingly divided.
Regarding improving the lives of all, the following overview of Obama’s “transformation of America” is based on “The 10 Ways Obama has actively sought to destroy America” by J. D. Heyes (Natural News, December 25, 2015):
ObamaCare was sold on false pretenses by people who knew it wouldn’t work as promised. Failed scheme or intentional failure? The bill was so sloppily crafted that Democrats were basically signing blank sheets of paper when they rushed it through Congress. [“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.] ObamaCare’s designers precipitated a constitutional crisis with a provision to cut subsidies for states that didn’t set up health-care exchanges – a provision that would have killed the entire program stone-dead if it had been enforced as written. And whoever was uninsured that did not enroll had to pay an annual penalty fee!
Unlimited immigration. Obama issued an unconstitutional executive order – an action he repeated routinely to counter Congressional action – that instituted mass immigration of poor, uneducated third-world people into the U.S., not to assimilate with our culture but to keep their own and demand that U.S. taxpayers subsidize them. Deportations of illegal immigrants under the new policy were dramatically reduced, even as scores more poured across the southern border as the number of border patrol agents decreased.
The Constitution. Obama was a bigger enemy of our founding document than any president in history. Acting dictatorially, Obama unconstitutionally “legislated by executive order” whenever his will was in conflict with that of Congress or the constitution. [His “liberal” activist judges would back him up, if needed.]
Military madness. Obama pushed social experimentation in the military to a level that could cause lasting damage, such as permitting people to serve who have no idea what sex they are, and allowing women to serve in combat roles despite increases in injuries, mental health issues, effectiveness and morale problems.
Packing the federal courts. Obama “packed” the federal court for the D.C. Circuit with activist, like-minded judges [who place themselves above the Law of the Land they are charged to uphold].
Economic damage. Obama issued more regulations than any president before him, with tens of billions in burdensome new costs such as those incurred by the expensive EPA regulations. His packed D.C. Circuit ruled against states suing to get those rules tossed.
Changes to society. Obama’s open-border policy and unlimited importation of third-world poor and Middle Eastern “refugees” [a gateway to anti-American terrorists] could change the face of the country, culturally and economically.
To object to any of this insanity is a way to get hit with a legal penalty.
The founders of our country and its legion of heroes surely tossed and turned in their graves over the America they had struggled, sacrificed, and died for.
If there is a silver lining to the dark clouds hanging over America it is the hope that the young of every description will turn on the mindless haters of America and launch a course correction. A reset for any semblance of progress starts with a return to the Constitution and the forces that inspired it, which include age-independent Judeo-Christian wisdom.
Anthony J. DeBlasi is a veteran and lifelong defender of Western culture.
Image credit: Abductit, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0
Biden and the Immigration Trap
'Uncle Joe' Agonistes
By Andrew R. Arthur on May 21, 2020
On Tuesday, the Washington Post ran an article detailing the struggles confronting the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden with respect to immigration. There are a few things that the article leaves out, but it is notable (and somewhat shocking) for what it contains. What it ultimately shows is that the former vice president is boxed into an immigration trap.
Specifically, the article details the competing forces that are pulling "Uncle Joe" on immigration as he seeks to wrest the White House from Donald Trump (whose immigration stance, the paper admits, helped propel him to the presidency in 2016).
On the one side is the presumptive candidate's desire to capture the votes of white blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (all won by Trump in the last election), while on the other is his need to turn out the Hispanic vote, particularly in Florida and Arizona. The article states that Latino voters "are expected to become the country's largest nonwhite voting bloc this fall."
Although the Post alludes to Biden's immigration proposals (which are somewhat out there, as I have described here, here, and here), and discusses his more outré ideas, such as suspending deportations for his first 100 days in office and then deporting only felons (which would essentially nullify much of the Immigration and Nationality Act), the Post simultaneously fails to note that those proposals would likely not resound with much of the voting populace, while at the same time contending that these policies don't go far enough for "significant segments of his own party".
Those "segments" are, the paper contends, clamoring for Biden to commit to "removing criminal penalties for those who cross the border illegally, removing barriers from the border [,and] abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement." There is likely a reason that Biden does not want to talk about those ideas on the campaign trail.
Polls don't show support for Biden positions
Polling from August 2018 — when the "Abolish ICE" fever was likely cresting — showed only 24 percent of voters supported the idea, with Democrats, Republicans, and independents staking out that position about equally. Some 40 percent disagreed, while 34 percent had no opinion.
Not to say that Democrats wildly supported the agency — 57 percent of Democrats had an unfavorable view of ICE, with an equal percentage of Republicans in favor of it, and 46 percent of independents took no view. Many of those opposed to abolition but who also don't like ICE likely were concerned about the law of unintended consequences, and by May 2019 Buzzfeed News reported: "'Abolish ICE' Was The Call Of Last Summer. 2020 Democrats Have Moved On".
Further, in July 2019, The Hill noted that a poll found "a plurality of voters, 41 percent, thought those crossing the border illegally should face criminal punishment, while 32 percent said it should just warrant a fine." With respect to independents, 36 percent favored criminal penalties, while "33 percent ... think it should be treated as a misdemeanor, with just a fine as punishment."
I note that this response shows a certain misapprehension of the current state of the law (initial illegal entry is already a misdemeanor, with a fine as an optional but rarely, if ever, imposed punishment, and most of those prosecuted are sentenced merely to time served while awaiting prosecution), suggesting that even those voters — if they knew the facts — would actually want stricter punishment than most aliens who have entered illegally already receive. No wonder the former vice president does not want to discuss the issue, let alone make it a key point for his campaign.
On barriers at the border, the polling is a bit more mixed. In February 2019, Gallup reported that six in 10 Americans opposed a border wall, but that poll was taken directly after a bruising government shutdown that largely focused on the issue. I will note that last Monday, KXAN (the NBC affiliate in Austin, Texas) released a poll showing that excitement for Donald Trump in Texas swamped enthusiasm for Biden in the Lone Star State. Most significantly:
When broken down by party, 19.5% of Democrats said they were extremely excited about Biden and 22.6 said they were "not that excited." Meanwhile, 49.4% of Republicans said they were "extremely excited" about supporting Trump and 9.5% reported they were not that excited about him.
Texas and Arizona are currently the primary sites for new border wall construction, and if Texans were that opposed to what is and has been the president's key immigration proposal, it would likely be reflected in their lack of enthusiasm. It does not seem to have moved the needle, however, or if it did, it is in Trump's favor.
I will note that I spoke on the issue in a debate in February before a largely liberal crowd, and opposition to the wall was an applause point (from an audience that all but defined the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" on the issue), but a lot has changed in three months. The Post itself reported on April 28 that 65 percent of Americans were in favor of a temporary suspension in immigration during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, with 34 percent opposed.
Polling found that 83 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of independents were in favor of temporary restrictions, and Democrats were split 49-49 on the issue. Significantly, 67 percent of whites, 61 percent of "nonwhites" (presumably including Latinos), and a majority of 18- to 29-year-olds were in favor. Now again, "temporary suspensions on immigration" and "border wall construction" are two different things, but an influx of illegal entrants during the (traditional) illegal travel season of April to December while lockdowns are still in place could tie the two issues in voters' minds, and gubernatorial inter-state travel restrictions may have done so already.
And voters stuck at home as a result of Wuhan coronavirus restrictions could be only temporarily less inclined to support the entry of aliens, legal or otherwise. That said, the transit of the illness from China could give them pause to take a slightly more charitable view toward Donald Trump's opposition to open borders.
Sound tough on China, or not?
Lest you think I am casting aspersions with respect to the last point (I am not, and consider anyone who blames any American — citizen or immigrant — for the virus to be an idiot), I am really just channeling the former vice president. The Post article on Biden notes: "Some were alarmed when the Biden campaign began airing an ad in battleground states that accused Trump of having 'rolled over for the Chinese' amid the pandemic and 'let in 40,000 travelers from China.'" That is an apt description of the response to that ad on the part of progressives.
In particular, an April 23 Politico article captioned "Biden ad exposes a rift over China on the left: The former vice president's effort to hit Trump as soft on Beijing is backfiring among parts of his base" states:
Joe Biden's effort to outflank President Donald Trump on China is leading to blowback from within his own political base.
Some worry the rhetoric in a new Biden campaign ad could spur anti-Asian bias already on the rise because of the coronavirus pandemic. Others argue that Biden's effort to sound tougher on China than Trump could backfire diplomatically in the long run.
...
"I acknowledge and understand the need and desire to defeat and beat Trump, however, my question is 'Who is the Biden campaign willing to sacrifice along that way?'" said Timmy Lu, executive director of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment.
So why did Biden release the ad? Because he was in a box over his earlier statements criticizing the president for his response to the Wuhan coronavirus the day that the White House announced restrictions on travel from the People's Republic of China. Specifically, Biden, campaigning in Iowa, stated: "This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science." (Curiously, the YouTube link to the video of those comments states: "Video unavailable, This video has been removed by the uploader." Hmmm.)
The Post notes that Biden has sought insight into handling the issue of immigration as a candidate from, among others, Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.). Casey fought off Republican Lou Barletta — an immigration hawk — in a 2018 challenge for Casey's senate seat, and:
He urged Biden to emphasize the economic benefits of immigration while pledging to secure the southern border to keep drugs and criminals out.
"You have to make it very clear that you stand for border security — and not just that you stand for it, but that you voted for it," Casey said, citing past measures that have won Democratic backing.
But, at the same time, he said most voters want an immigration system that is humane and fair. The separation of families at the border was a wake-up call for some voters, Casey said.
I am not sure how that border security advice squares with Biden's promise that "the only deportations that will take place" under his administration "are commissions of felonies in the United States of America" (meaning that Mexican cartel members who enter illegally will not be deported, for example), but for some reason the Post fails to mention the discrepancy.
That said, such advice is easier given to the former vice president than it will be swallowed by the American people, because of Biden's record.
I would posit initially that recommendations like Casey's are likely the reason that Biden's immigration proposals begin:
It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely. When our government argues in court against giving those children toothbrushes and soap. When President Trump uses family separation as a weapon against desperate mothers, fathers, and children seeking safety and a better life.
The Obama-Biden administration's record
Again, easily said. It will, however, be very difficult for Biden to distance himself from some very similar policies enacted under the "Obama-Biden administration".
There is likely a reason why Biden does not (directly) fall back on the "kids in cages" trope that has become a standard for tendentious discussions of immigration by political hacks. As I have previously noted:
Snopes (not exactly a Trump-friendly outlet) examined the following fact: "The Obama administration, not the Trump administration, built the cages that hold many immigrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border." They deemed that statement "true", explaining:
Pictures of children behind chain-link fencing were captured at a site in McAllen, Texas, that had been converted from a warehouse to an immigrant-detention facility in 2014. Social media users who defended Trump's immigration policies also shared a 2014 photograph of Obama's Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, touring a facility in Nogales, Arizona, in 2014, in which the fencing could be seen surrounding migrants there as well. That picture was taken during a spike in the number of unaccompanied children fleeing violence in Central American countries.
That said, there is a direct line from "children ... locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government [that] seeks to keep them there indefinitely", who cannot access "toothbrushes and soap" and the decisions of the previous administration to erect fencing in Border Patrol processing centers to protect unaccompanied alien children (UACs). One that Biden would likely prefer to be forgotten.
And a direct line to the Obama-Biden administration's 2014 "blanket policy to detain all female-headed families, including children, in secure, unlicensed facilities for the duration of the proceedings that determine whether they are entitled to remain in the United States," which prompted Judge Dolly Gee of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to find President Obama's Department of Homeland Security in breach of the Flores settlement agreement in July 2015.
Plus, as I have previously noted ad nauseam, the fact that UACs were stuck in the conditions Biden describes had everything to do with Congress's (and especially congressional Democrats') failure to provide funding Trump and his acting Homeland Security secretary had sought for more than a month, and nothing to do with a volitional decision by the administration to keep them there.
These facts may have been elided by a compliant press (the Post did not mention them at all in its Biden immigration piece), but I doubt that they will escape notice during a presidential campaign when the president and independent interest groups can throw money at ads highlighting them.
Pandering to Latino voters
Then, there is the pandering by Biden and his surrogates themselves. Much of Biden's outreach to Latino voters appears to focus on immigration, but is that really the most important issue to those voters?
In a June 2019 survey by Unidos US, "jobs and the economy" was the most important issue an ideal candidate would address (23 percent) for 1,854 eligible Latino voters in Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, and Texas, followed by "healthcare" (17 percent) and then "immigration" (15 percent). "Gun violence" (8 percent) and "climate change" (7 percent) together equaled that total.
BLOG: OBAMA FUNDED AND OPERATED LA RAZA 'The Race" NOW CALLING ITSELF UNIDOSUS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE. IT IS A MEX FASCIST ANTI-AMERICAN POLITICAL MOVEMENT FOR SURRENDER OF AMERICA TO MEXICO.
Unidos US, for those who are not familiar, is the current incarnation of the "National Council of La Raza", which bills itself as "the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization". Hardly a MAGA front group.
Given these numbers, it is no surprise that the Atlantic magazine in February stated that 30 percent of Latino voters support the president, in an opinion piece captioned "Latino Support for Trump Is Real: And that's a problem for Democrats" (not to be confused with the outlet's January 2020 article captioned "Democrats Should Be Worried About the Latino Vote: Political organizers have a warning for the 2020 candidates").
In this vein, in early May, Slate ran an article captioned "Biden Has a Real Latino Problem", which stated:
A recent Latino Decisions poll reveals a clear enthusiasm gap among Latinos for both Biden and the 2020 election itself, with only 49 percent of registered voters currently committed to choosing Biden over Trump, and just six out of 10 planning to go to the polls in November.
That article focuses on Biden's initial reluctance to distance himself from what the outlet deems "the controversial immigration policy of the first two years of the Obama administration" (perhaps too good a sales job by a president whose rhetoric on removals did not match his actions), and Biden's inability to present himself to Hispanic voters due to the current pandemic.
Speaking of which, Slate notes that: "According to the Latino Decisions poll, almost half of all respondents approve of Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis, with 47 percent saying Trump was delivering 'clear and helpful' information about the pandemic." Again, showing that "immigration" is not the only concern of Hispanic voters.
Back to the pandering, however. The Post notes that Biden's "wife Jill, who is learning Spanish while stuck at home by the pandemic, has begun meeting weekly with small groups of Latino members of Congress, taking notes on a range of issues to share with her husband" (I don't have the heart to tell her they speak English), and the article is accompanied by a photo of Biden "at a campaign stop at King Taco in Los Angeles, with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti".
The paper also reports that "Biden campaign officials have promised to significantly increase outreach to Latinos and further diversify the staff now that they have raised more money, although," the Post notes, "they declined to provide target numbers."
I suppose that a Spanish-speaking spouse, an ethnically diverse staff, and a documented hankering for regional cuisine may win Biden some votes, but the fact is he is stuck in an immigration box.
If he ties himself to the "Obama-Biden" administration on the issue, it appears that he will alienate both immigration activists and those who favor the Trump administration's reversal of those policies. But, if he panders to those activists, he will likely turn off many of the voters in swing states who supported Trump in 2016 (and especially those who were swayed by the now-president's promises of border security and immigration limitations).
A January article in the Post contained a list of "Bidenisms", folksy aphorisms that the candidate uses on the stump. One is: "My dad had an expression ... 'Joey, don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.''' Most voters already know that the president has his flaws and imperfections, but once voters get to know Biden's immigration record and his proposals, they may pull the level for Trump as the better alternative.
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6. Tearing down monuments and memorials
7. Rioting
8. Looting
9. Arson
10. Murder
11. Mayhem
12. Revisionist history
13. Atheism
14. Marxism
15. Communism
16. Socialism
17. Activist judges
18. Spying on American citizens
19. Race-baiting
20. War on cops and disrespect for rule of law
21. Spying on a presidential candidate
22. Spying on a sitting president
23. Weaponizing intelligence agencies
24. Weaponizing the IRS
25. Sanctuary cities
26. Sanctuary states
27. Leaking of classified information
28. Co-opting the media for partisan propaganda purposes
29. Ballot-harvesting
30. Entitlement programs for illegals
31. Open borders
32. No cash bail
33. Usurping the presidency in 2008 and 2012
34. Green New Deal
35. AOC and the squad
36. Shredding the Constitution
37. Redefining marriage
38. Destruction of the family unit
39. Embrace of BLM and Antifa
40. Disrespecting the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem
41. Boys participating in girls' activities and vice versa
42. Destruction of the Boy Scouts
43. Bogus and destructive climate change policies
44. Climate Change fear-mongering based on lies and bogus scientific claims
45. Clinton pay-for-play corruption
46. Biden pay-for-play corruption
47. Destruction of evidence
48. Russia collusion hoax
49. Phony impeachment
50. Barack Hussein Obama and Joe Biden: the most corrupt administration in American history
This list was amazingly easy to compile and nowhere near dispositive. I can come up with many, many more items to add to this list of shame. But this list should be persuasive enough to give anyone pause and provide a clear indication of the threat the modern left poses to the American way of life and our future as a free, secure, and prosperous society.
The unprincipled progressive politicians, the Marxist academics, the race-baiters, the anti-Trumpers, and the despicable media propagandists who constitute the modern left are selfishly pursuing a radical agenda intent on destroying America and its founding principles. This anti-American leftist agenda must be stopped and thoroughly discredited before real and irrevocable harm is done.
Left unchecked, the modern radical left is an
existential threat to our safety, our prosperity, and
our freedom. That means that the Wicked Witch of
the West, Kamala Harris, and Swampy Joe, running
as a "proud Democrat," must be defeated on
November 3. Anything less and America as we
know it is finished.... WELL, IT'S TOO LATE
AND NOW SEE WHAT NAFTA JOE IS DOING
TO AMERICA AS FAST AS THEY CAN!
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