Warnock: Some Republicans Not Willing to Support Ukraine Cynically Using Border Issue
Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that some Republican lawmakers were cynically using the issue of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border to block funding for the Ukraine-Russia war.
Anchor Joy Reid said, “I want to start with Ukraine. In the House, as well as some in the United States Senate, there is this resistance to providing funding for Ukraine, which is still suffering this attack from Russia. They are trying to trade things like border policy border security for funding. J.D. Vance saying basically, Ukraine should cede land and cut a deal. What is going on on the other side of the aisle?”
Warnock said, “That’s a very good question. This is politics in the worst sense of the word. There is no replacement for American leadership in the world. I have had occasion now on a few opportunities to hear President Zelenskyy, to meet him, and I think he’s just a very impressive person who is standing up in a critical moment, not only for his country but in terms of the world order.”
He continued, “It’s unfortunate that I have colleagues who are reducing such an important geopolitical crisis to typical political horse-trading. Look, there are issues at the border, and they need to be addressed. I, for one, am open to any reasonable bipartisan proposal that will get there on the way to what we really need is: comprehensive immigration reform. But this is one of the most fraught issues in our political system. And so unfortunately, not everybody, not all the Republicans, but on the other side, you have some Republicans who are not willing to support Ukraine, no matter what.”
Warnock added, “They’re just using this issue of the border, which is very serious, in the most cynical way. I hope that, at the end of the day, cooler heads will prevail. Certainly, we don’t want to see American soldiers on the ground as Putin continues his aggressive move across Europe. I think it only makes sense for us to support our friends in Ukraine.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Joni Ernst: Biden’s Shipping Illegal Aliens to U.S. Cities Is Displacing American Military Families
President Joe Biden’s Catch and Release network at the United States-Mexico border, responsible for sending millions of illegal aliens to cities across the country, is displacing American military families, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) says.
In October, reports circulated that American military families were having their hotel rooms canceled in the Boston, Massachusetts, area for the nation’s annual Army-Navy football game on Dec. 9 because the hotels were being used by state officials to house newly arrived border crossers and illegal aliens.
“It is flatly unacceptable for our veterans and military families to be displaced because of your administration’s failure to secure our southern border,” Ernst writes in a letter to Biden. “Military families who have scrimped and saved to be able to afford a trip to the Army-Navy game should not have to compete with illegal immigrants for hotel room space.”
Ernst said the fact that military families are now being impacted by the administration’s Catch and Release network makes it “abundantly clear” that “change is needed.”
Ernst wrote Monday in a letter to President Biden:
It’s clear: These cancellations are due to your administration’s decision to ship illegal immigrants across the country to sanctuary cities at taxpayers’ expense. As you may know from the letter Governor Maura Healey (D-MA) sent Secretary Mayorkas, the demand for housing for illegal immigrants in Massachusetts has quadrupled from 25 families per day in March 2022 to over 100 families per day by July of this year. According to reports, the State of Massachusetts “spends about $45 million a month to house both homeless residents and migrants … in existing shelters, as well as various hotels and motels across the state.” [Emphasis added]
We are seeing your severe mismanagement take a tangible toll, not only for the local economies of all 50 states your administration has turned into border states, but also for those seeking to travel to these areas – like many Army and Navy veterans this weekend. [Emphasis added]
…
Now, due to your untenable border crisis which has allowed nearly eight million illegal immigrants entry into the country, veterans and future servicemembers and their families will be unable to attend this year. [Emphasis added]
Since Biden took office, his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released an estimated 2.5 million border crossers and illegal aliens into American communities — roughly 60,000 released every month into the U.S. interior.
n August, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) declared a state of emergency over the state’s inability to keep up with housing demand for newly arrived border crossers and illegal aliens. The issue has exacerbated the state’s housing crisis where thousands of Americans remain homeless and competing for shelter space and social services with foreign nationals.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Democrats Use Ukraine War to Push Joe Biden’s Mass Migration Policy
Democrats are using Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for their domestic political goals, said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“They’re dragging him into a domestic political debate” over immigration, Graham told NBC News on Monday. “If they had asked me, I would have said you shouldn’t do this,” he added.
Democrats are pushing hard to pass a $14 billion package of additional funding to hide their vast inflow of migrants during the 2024 election year. They added their $14 billion migration package to a bill providing $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine, forcing the GOP to choose between security for Ukraine or Americans. The Democrats’ plan did not work, and on Wednesday, all 49 GOP senators voted against the Democrats’ Ukraine and migration spending bill.
GOP representatives and senators say Biden’s $14 billion plan is just a “magnet” for more illegal migration. “I will not go back to South Carolina and try to explain why I helped Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel and did nothing to secure our own border,” Graham said on Thursday. “I will help all of our allies, but we’ve got to help ourselves first,” he added.
Graham’s stance is important because he is one of the GOP’s strongest advocates for more migration and for the U.S. proxy war with Russia.
But Democrats are using Zelensky to pressure the GOP to negotiate and draft a bill that includes funding for Ukraine and more migration.
“We need Congress to act by the end of December to prevent any interruption to funding from Ukraine,” an administration official told Politico Playbook.
On Tuesday, Zelensky is slated to meet with President Joe Biden and members of Congress, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has the political power to ensure a narrow passage of the Democrats’ combined migration and aid bill. “The Ukrainian president will make a direct plea for more aid to Republicans in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., the biggest obstacle to Biden’s aid request,” NBC reported.
Zelensky has repeatedly suggested that the GOP’s opposition to illegal migration means support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Politico’s Playbook interviewed a person in Zelensky’s office:
“He has, over the last two years, gotten quite a good sense of American politics,” a person familiar with the president’s thinking, said late last night, speaking anonymously in order to preview the visiting president’s thinking.
Zelenskyy knows enough, the person added, not to take any particular position on U.S. border policy. What he can do is remind lawmakers that Ukraine is possibly the last thing standing between a direct clash between NATO and Russia — a message he previewed yesterday at the National Defense University.…
The adviser added: “He does have empathy towards Republicans because he understands that many Republicans who support Ukraine aid are in a difficult position politically due to populist sentiments in their home districts. But he firmly believes that by helping Ukraine fight back against Russian aggression, the U.S. is saving lots of American lives and treasure in the long run.”
On Monday, Zelensky gave a speech in Washington, DC. “If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it is Putin and his sick clique,” he said, Breitbart News reported.
Biden’s Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin, also pushed the policy at the Zelensky event. “If we do not stand up to the Kremlin’s aggression today … we will only invite more aggression, more bloodshed and more chaos,” he said, according to Politico.
Some GOP legislators are urging Zelensky to better understand Americans’ defense needs.
But Democrats really need the immigration funding to help avoid an election disaster in November 2024.
Many Democrat politicians are already complaining as Biden’s migrants flood into shelters, hotels, neighborhoods, and soup kitchens.
The flood is already driving down poll numbers for Democrat mayors in New York City, Boston, and Chicago and for Democrat governors in New Mexico, Illinois, and New York. A recent poll shows a majority of the Jewish community in New York said migration is more of a burden than a benefit.
More Democrats are ringing the alarm bells as Biden’s deputies usher millions of illegal migrants into Americans’ workplaces, schools, and communities. Veteran Democrat consultant Doug Sosnik recently wrote:
Immigration: Democrats underestimate the potency of the immigration issue. And this is no longer a problem that is confined to red states and Republican voters. It has now spilled out to Democratic states across the country. In the November NBC poll, immigration and border security ranked as the third most important issue (14%) for single-issue voters. In the same poll 74% supported more funding for border security (including 58% of Democrats) compared to only 22% who opposed more funding.
The Democrat Party has not “demonstrated that it recognizes the political risks, much less come up with a viable plan to mitigate its vulnerabilities,” he said.
“The [migration] debate has already shifted substantially in [the GOP’s] direction,” admitted Aaron Blake, a pro-migration reporter at the Washington Post. He added:
Polls show that the Democratic base, too, is increasingly concerned about the border and asking for more to secure it. In a recent poll, three-quarters of Democrats described the situation at the border as either an “emergency” or a “major problem.” That’s double the number in 2019. Recent polls show that Democrats want more border funding by nearly 2 to 1. (Overall support is north of 70 percent.)
So far, few Democrat politicians have asked Biden to reduce illegal migration even as they demand other American taxpayers bail out their cities and states.
Biden’s economic policy of extraction migration has pulled at least four million extra foreign workers, renters, and consumers into the nation’s communities, alongside the massive legal inflow of immigrants and visa workers.
That illegal flood is urged and welcomed by business groups because it cuts Americans’ blue-collar wages and white-collar salaries. It also boosts profits by reducing marketplace pressure to invest in productivity-boosting technology, heartland states, and overseas markets.
The inflow also reduces economic pressure on the federal government to deal with Americans’ problems — homelessness, low wages, a shrinking middle class, slowing innovation, declining blue-collar life expectancy, spreading poverty, the rising death toll from drugs, and the spreading alienation among young people.
From sanctuary city -- to 'stay in Texas'
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has quietly begun filing lawsuits over what it has described as “rogue buses” transporting migrants, an escalation the mayor has coupled with an attempt to further crack down on the transportation companies.The stepped-up enforcement is the Johnson administration’s latest effort to address the influx of new arrivals, which has become one of the mayor’s most vexing challenges. The care of more than 24,400 migrants who have arrived in Chicago since August 2022 has taken on heightened urgency as winter sets in, and tested the limits of how welcoming the city can be.
Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs Begs Biden for Bailout: Americans Should Subsidize Illegal Immigration in Arizona
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) is asking President Joe Biden to reimburse her state to the tune of more than $500 million for costs associated with illegal immigration. Hobbs is only the latest Democrat governor to ask for such a bailout.
In a letter to Biden late last week, Hobbs asked the White House to reimburse the state of Arizona for more than $512 million in costs related to illegal immigrants pouring across the United States–Mexico border at unprecedented levels since January 2021.
“Additionally, the Governor billed the federal government for $512,529,333 in reimbursements for ongoing border operations resulting from the federal government’s failure to secure the Arizona border,” a press release from Hobbs’s office reads. “Moving forward, the state will regularly seek reimbursement from the federal government.”
Despite calling out the White House for waves of illegal immigration at the border, Hobbs stopped short of urging Biden to stop the inflow — like other Democrat governors who have complained about the strain illegal aliens cause but have not demanded a halt to their arrival.
In August, for example, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) asked Biden to have American taxpayers provide illegal aliens in her state with healthcare services, housing vouchers, free public transportation, and additional English as a second language (ESL) services in the state’s public schools.
“It is the federal government’s direct responsibility to manage and control of [sic] the nation’s borders,” Hochul wrote to Biden at the time without requesting his administration stop illegal immigration in its tracks.
Likewise, Democrat sanctuary city mayors from New York City’s Eric Adams to Chicago’s Brandon Johnson have asked for billions in bailouts from Biden regarding illegal immigration, but have yet to ask the White House to stop the inflow.
In October, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) admitted that illegal immigration is an “enormous strain” on the state’s taxpayers but did not ask Biden to stop sending new arrivals to his state. Instead, Pritzker asked Biden to funnel more foreign workers into jobs.
RELATED — WATCH: “Gyms Are for Children!” NY Parents Protest Plans to Use Public Schools for Migrant Shelters
Christopher Leon Johnson via StoryfulJohn Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
SINCE JOE BECAME PRESIDENT, THE NUMBER OF HOMELESS LEGALS HAVE DOUBLED AND MORE.
Nolte: Average Monthly Mortgage Payment Explodes to $3,322 In Biden’s America
BUT THAT'S JOE'S WHOLE POINT!!!
NY Times: ‘Stable Jobs with Decent Pay’ Harder to Find Due to Mass Immigration
Mass immigration makes finding “stable jobs with decent pay” harder for Americans, especially those in the working class, the New York Times admits.
In an analysis of the Labor Department’s latest jobs report, which showed that about 199,000 jobs were created in November, the New York Times suggested President Joe Biden’s policy to import as many foreign workers as the business lobby requests hurts Americans looking for high-paying jobs with good benefits.
“That influx of workers, which includes a recovery in immigration flows, has also taken the air out of wage increases and made it more difficult for people on the margins of the labor market to find stable jobs with decent pay,” the Times reports:
Joshua Robinson, 33, went to trade school for massage therapy and lives in Erie, Pa. But after a couple of occupational injuries, including a herniated disc in his lower back from working at a trampoline park, he is unable to do anything very physical. So he looked for work from July to October, applying for some 200 jobs before he landed a position as a technician at a compounding pharmacy that now pays $16 an hour. [Emphasis added]
“People are paying, like, a little better when it comes to wages, but it’s still not reaching a livable wage, or what I would call thrivable; it’s more like a subsistence level,” said Mr. Rosenthal, who lives with his mother to save money. “I know they say people are hiring, but I don’t really believe it.” [Emphasis added]
The admission was noted by Oren Cass, the nationalist-populist who heads American Compass. Days before the analysis, Cass had been interviewed by the Times.
In the interview, Cass mentioned that Republicans ought to embrace pro-labor policies such as cutting overall legal immigration levels, fierce enforcement of federal immigration law, and eliminating visa programs that import low-wage foreign workers to compete against Americans:
When we talk about a conservative embrace of labor, what we mean is an embrace of workers’ interests and an emphasis on enhancing worker power. The “labor” piece that conservatives don’t like is, generally speaking, the dysfunctional labor unions that characterize the American system of organized labor today and have become appendages of the Democratic Party rather than genuine representatives of workers’ economic interests. An obvious and concrete example of the distinction here is on the question of immigration policy. Strong immigration enforcement, reduction of immigration into low-wage segments of the labor market and the elimination of guest worker programs are “pro-labor” policies by any useful definition of the term, and ones that conservatives should endorse and increasingly are endorsing. They are also policies that “labor” as defined by progressive labor unions tend to oppose. [Emphasis added]
Beneath the remarks, the Times inserted “commentary” that suggested immigration has little-to-no impact on wages and the nation’s labor market, Cass wrote on Twitter. Days later, the Times published the analysis, which admits immigration is connected to wages and jobs.
Missing from the Times analysis is the number of working-age Americans who have dropped out of the labor market altogether as Biden imports a historic number of foreign workers to fill United States jobs.
Notably, Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steven Camarota estimates that more than 44 million native-born Americans remain on the labor market sidelines — not including the millions of native-born Americans counted in monthly unemployment figures.
“If we didn’t have access to all this immigrant labor, employers and the American people … would demand that we try to reinstill the value of work,” Camarota said.
He continued, “Raising wages would be one of the most important things to make work more attractive. Immigration lets us not do any of that, including the current flow of massive illegal immigration [Emphasis added].”
In particular, Camarota told Congress in 2023 that the working class is the most impacted by mass immigration. For American men 16 to 64 years old with only a high school degree, the labor force participation rate has dropped from 88 percent in 1960 to just 67 percent in 2023.
Even among prime-age working-class American men, 25 to 54 years old, the labor force participation rate has declined from near full employment in 1960, at 96 percent, to just 82 percent in 2023.
Annually, the U.S. gives green cards to about 1.2 million legal immigrants, while another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted on visas to take American jobs.
At the same time, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are added to the labor market every year, many on work permits given to them by the federal government.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Bidenomics Study: Low Income Families Spend Half Their Salary on Housing
About two-thirds of households at the bottom 20 percent of the income bracket pay over half their income in rent and utilities, a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies recently found.
The challenge for low income families to afford basic housing costs suggests President Joe Biden’s so-called “Bidenomics” of growing the economy from the “middle out and the bottom up” is not working.
- The federal government says shelter should consume 30 percent or less of household income, per the New York Times.
- Only about half of American renter households fall within the guidelines, per the Times.
Among working-class renters, the next bracket up from the bottom income bracket, the share with severe burdens nearly tripled in two decades to 17 percent, the study found.
Both low income and working-class renters are impacted with record high share of cost burdens, according to the study.
“Housing insecurity ripples through every domain of family life,” Johns Hopkins University sociologist Stefanie DeLuca told the Times. “It’s this constant mental and emotional tax.”
Saving for a house down payment to leave the rental market is not a viable option for many Americans. The average monthly mortgage payment soared to $3,322 under Biden, up from the average monthly mortgage payment of $1,787 under former President Donald Trump, an analysis from the Wall Street Journal recently found:
“Homeownership has become a pipe dream for more Americans,” the Journal wrote, “even those who could afford to buy just a few years ago.”
“Many would-be buyers were already feeling stretched thin by home prices that shot quickly higher in the pandemic, but at least mortgage rates were low,” the report added. “Now that they are high, many people are just giving up.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on “X” @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
Jake Sherman: Dems Don’t Want Fewer People Crossing Border, They Want to Process People Quicker
On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports,” Punchbowl News co-founder and MSNBC Political Contributor Jake Sherman said that the impasse between Republicans and Democrats over immigration policy is due to the fact that “Republicans want to clamp down on the people who are crossing the border. They want fewer people to cross the border. Democrats want to process people quicker at the border and don’t necessarily want to bring those numbers down. Those are in direct conflict.”
Sherman stated, “[W]hat Republicans are asking Congress to do is to solve one of the most bedeviling issues that Congress faces perennially — or at least somewhat often, which is the status of the border and migration laws. And there’s an intractable issue here. Republicans want to clamp down on the people who are crossing the border. They want fewer people to cross the border. Democrats want to process people quicker at the border and don’t necessarily want to bring those numbers down. Those are in direct conflict. That’s number one. Number two, there’s a separate issue about why this aid package is more difficult than others, which is House Republicans and many Senate Republicans feel as if the administration has not given them justifications for the continued spending of taxpayer money in Ukraine. They feel that the administration doesn’t have a strategy, the Ukrainians don’t have a strategy, and they’ve not gotten any sufficient, in their view, answers as to how this war will proceed, progress, and wrap up at some point in the future. So, those are very difficult.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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