The Trouble with Charlie Kirk
Ready8:35
Few faces have become so identifiable with support for President Trump as Charlie Kirk's. Frequently found grinning like a Cheshire cat beneath the gilded wing of this or that member of the Trump family, Kirk brags in his new book that he was "MAGA before it was cool." Trump has even given Kirk’s book the presidential seal of approval on Twitter. There is, however, a small problem with Kirk’s latest claim to fame: it's a lie.
In an interview with Newsweek last April, Kirk asserted that "he's been a supporter of Trump's presidential ambitions since at least 2011." A few months later, he contradicted himself in an op-ed: "Yes, it's true, a year before the 2016 election," he wrote last November, "I was still skeptical that a billionaire from New York City with no real political record was going to be as conservative as some of the other candidates." The diehard pro-Trump Kirk of 2011 would like a word with the snarky anti-Trump Kirk of 2016.
His go-to response, when called on his contradictions, is some variation of complaining he has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, or “falsely accused.” But can he blame his critics? Even as he beats his chest in the president’s name now, it seems like only yesterday that Kirk was on Fox News, calling Trump "laughable," mocking him for standing his ground on pro-life issues when pressed during a town hall meeting. Kirk scoffed at a representative of Student's for Trump who defended Trump on that and other points.
Most importantly, however, is that Kirk's dishonesty goes beyond fabricating a "MAGA before it was cool" origin story. He is the political used car salesmen of the hour, selling a broken-down neoconservative ride with a new paint job as America First nationalism. Consider what he wants to sell as "traditional American values."
During a speaking event on his "Culture War" tour, Kirk was asked, "how long do we have to wait until child drag shows are pushed as American traditional conservatism?" Indeed, amid the proliferation of LGBTQ ideology, Kirk doesn't seem to have a problem with warming up to Lady Maga, "America's conservative drag superstar." He deferred on that note to his cohost, Rob Smith, a gay man who recently came out as conservative.
Before prefacing that “what he’s saying is crap,” Smith belittled the questioner, calling him a “troll” and insisting conservatives “need” people like Smith. Later, Smith accused another man of being closeted for asking how the promotion of heteronormative sexuality helps win the culture war. “You seem to be really interested in gay sex,” said Smith, “I’m pretty sure if you’re into that you can go find somebody to do it with.” Smith reminded America First nationalists that their values -- which some might even call traditional America values -- are "behind the times" and, as such, "doesn't really have any place in the conservative movement." Kirk sat smiling beside Smith in apparent agreement.
It is on immigration, however, that the paint on Kirk's heap wears thinnest.
On another tour stop, Kirk smugly condemned a bronze-skinned, black-haired, brown-eyed student wearing an America First hat of harboring a “racist idea” for asking how we can maintain our conservative ideals when immigrants, and the attendant demographic changes, overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party. It is a hallmark of the Left, which Kirk is ostensibly at “war” with, to accuse people of racism for asking tough questions.
Elsewhere, Kirk speculated that there are anywhere between 30 and 40 million people worldwide who "should be given a chance to come to America." The idea of importing enough people to populate a second California doesn’t faze Kirk. "Fly from Chicago to Reno and tell me that we're full," he said, chastising those of us reluctant to surrender our spacious skies and amber waves of grain for smog and urban sprawl. But just in case he didn’t sound inclusive enough, Kirk also declared his support for "unlimited merit visas."
America, he insisted, ought to hand out an "unlimited amount of 'genius' visas," and there "should be no limitations on EB-5 visas."
The EB-5 Investor Program is a legalized bribe-for-green-card scam that is rife with fraud, with the added negative of importing a wealthy Chinese elite to America -- people who Kirk called “adversarial” at a recent Florida State University talk. From 2012-2018, around 80 percent of these visas went to people from China, according to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). "America can benefit from genuine 'Einstein immigration,'" writes Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of CIS, "the arrival of world-class talents who are at the top of their fields. But there's not that many people like that, and we currently pretend that many ordinary workers are best-and-brightest immigrants." An analysis of data from the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies by CIS found that “immigrants with foreign degrees perform substantially worse than U.S. degree holders on tests of literacy, numeracy, and computer operations.”
It’s not uncommon for immigrants with foreign college degrees to have skills that are in reality on par with those of Americans holding a high-school diploma. Nevertheless, this is Kirk's idea of "merit-based" immigration. To limit or eliminate fundamentally flawed programs like the EB-5 visa, said Kirk, is “one of the most backwards, stupid things we could possibly do.” The Chinese couldn’t agree more.
The pushback against unlimited visas for the “best and brightest,” and millions of more immigrants in general, has since come like a mighty river -- from Kirk himself. "I believe in less legal and illegal immigration," he told Ben Shapiro in an interview recently. But how to square that with his other recent declaration: “I don’t believe that the conservative movement, and some people believe this,” he said, “should become an anti-legal immigration posture.” Evidently, “some people” includes the most recent, anti-legal immigration iteration of Charlie Kirk, for however long that lasts. My guess is not very long.
In his new book, reviewed in Spectator USA, Kirk yearns for the "day when the entire apparatus of the modern welfare state has been turned into private and voluntary services, the United States can afford to let in everyone -- everyone who abides by the rules of the marketplace and pays their own way." Kirk does not envision a real place that is home to a real people with real culture, but an open-air multicultural bazaar in a territory formerly known as the United States of America.
The idea that America is or ought to be "an economy with a country, not a country with an economy,” is a Cato Institute talking point that would put a smile on the face of the Koch organization, which pays to keep their lights on. Unfortunately for Kirk, America is, as Teddy Roosevelt said, "a nation -- not a polyglot boarding house" or a mere marketplace.
Dishonesty and inconsistency wouldn't be a problem for anyone but Kirk, were it not for the fact that he is a self-declared fixture of the "intellectual foundation" of the America First movement. The real trouble, then, is that Kirk and his associates effectively function as gatekeepers. They have co-opted a movement they, in fact, had no part building.
Now they’re restraining the America First anti-establishment direction by accommodating what is essentially the status quo on important issues such as immigration, while denouncing dissidents as racists and bigots -- the same slurs hurled by the Left. The policies favored by Kirk are fundamentally flawed, hurt American workers most of all, and fuel support for candidates like Bernie Sanders. It was, after all, the disaffected Middle American, working-class demographic feeling left behind by big business GOP policies that carried Trump to the White House. What Kirk is offering is the same bad deal against which they revolted in 2016.
If America First nationalists intend to put some real miles on this movement, it ought to send the junker Charlie Kirk is trying to sell them back to the scrapyard where it belongs.
WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO HANG JUDGES WHO SABOTAGE HOMELAND SECURITY!
That’s it. No other description matches what Congress enacted, yet the media persists that with that bullshit notion that it is designed to provide higher-skilled workers. This notion is a typical lobbyist tactic — they take a turd and call it a rose, and most of the American media will call it a rose if the politicians — especially Democrats – say it is a rose.
The resident population of roughly one million Indian
graduates has created a U.S.-India Outsourcing Economy
throughout the U.S economy, which pushes many American
graduates out of good jobs. The outsourcing economy has
imposed Indian-style workplace rules on Americans’
professional workplaces, despite U.S. laws against
discrimination, favoritism, and kickbacks.
graduates has created a U.S.-India Outsourcing Economy
throughout the U.S economy, which pushes many American
graduates out of good jobs. The outsourcing economy has
imposed Indian-style workplace rules on Americans’
professional workplaces, despite U.S. laws against
discrimination, favoritism, and kickbacks.
Klobuchar’s support for middle class outsourcing is a
fundamental economic threat to her own voting base of
white-collar college graduates.
fundamental economic threat to her own voting base of
white-collar college graduates.
Judge Nukes Trump’s Promise to Protect American Graduates from H-1B Outsourcing
6:41
A judge has gutted the Trump administration’s minimal curbs on the many Indian-run companies that import Indian college graduates to take the jobs needed by young U.S. graduates.
“A recent federal policy for employers that place H-1B skilled guestworkers at third-party worksites can’t be enforced,” according to a March 11 report in Bloomberg Law.
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that a February policy memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services didn’t go through proper rulemaking procedure, and that the agency’s interpretation of the “employer-employee relationship” requirement is inconsistent with its regulation.
The lawsuit was brought by the ITServe Alliance, a Texas-based industry group. The group’s mostly Indian-born members import Indian visa workers who are rented out to ‘third party’ established U.S. firms, often in cooperation with bigger Indian companies, such as Infosys or Tata.
This outsourcing business has prospered despite great evidence that some Indian companies violate laws designed to protect Americans from discrimination.
Administration officials adopted the H-1B protection rules in a simple “policy memo,” but refused to convert them into formal regulations. The officials work in President Donald Trump’s administration at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency.
“USCIS is currently reviewing the court’s decision, and we have no additional comment to provide at this time,” an official told Breitbart News.
“It is heartbreaking to know the impact to American workers, and President and his adminis[tration] aren’t even trying,” said a graduate in the tech sector. “It’s a big joke and has been all along. They have done NOTHING to stop any of this stuff, not even the low hanging fruit.”
The decision is a threat to Trump because it torpedoes his 2016 election promise to millions of Americans college graduates that would end the use of H-1B as a cheap labor program. “I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first,” he said in March 2016.
“They may appeal –otherwise, nothing is going to happen,” said John Miano, at the Immigration Reform law Insitute. He continued:
I don’t think they will go to the effort of writing [formal] regulations. If they had wanted to, they would have done it already.You have to get guys a the top to push down — and the people who got Trump elected, don’t have access to Trump anymore. He’s getting input from the people who were fighting to defeat him. We can’t expect President Trump to know this stuff.
The judge’s decision allows the “human resources” and purchasing departments at many U.S. companies, banks, and insurance firms to freely delegate hiring decisions to an array of Indian-run companies, despite the extensive evidence of Indian discrimination against Americans graduates.
The Indian-run companies are hired by the American companies to import foreign contract-workers via the H-1B, H4EAD, Curricular Practical Training (CPT), and Optional Practical Training (OPT) programs. The imported workers are willing to accept low wages, poor treatment by managers, and even the need to pay kickbacks to their managers, American and Indian graduates tell Breitbart News.
Many Indian graduates accept the Indian-style workplace rules because the Indian managers dangle the prize of hugely valuable green cards for the Indian employees, their spouses and children, and for their elderly parents.
Nationwide, roughly one million imported Indian graduates hold the jobs — full-time or contract jobs — needed by U.S. graduates who are trying to raise their wages, buy homes, and grow families.
There are no caps on the number of foreign graduates allowed to take jobs in the United States, mostly because there are no caps on the award of work permits via the CPT and OPT program. In 2018, for example, roughly 350,000 foreigners got work permits via the OPT program.
House Democrats and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) are pushing a law — S.386 — that would offer citizenship to many more Indians if they take jobs from U.S. graduates.
The judge cited Congress’s language when she struck down the token USCIS protections set for American graduates, said Miano.
The protections curbed the widespread business of importing H-1Bs and renting them out for any jobs which appeared in the computer-related business. This means that Indian-run staffing companies can recruit cheap workers in India, and then rent them to established companies at cheap rates, he said. This outsourcing means that U.S companies have sharply reduced their direct hires of American graduates, largely cutting them out of the labor market.
The protections denied H-1B workers to outsourcing companies unless those companies showed the H-1Bs needed for specific full-time, described jobs — not for renting the into the overall labor market whenever a job comes open, said Miano. That protection was a problem for the outsourcing companies because many of their H-1Bs sit “on the bench,” as they unproductively wait between contract jobs, he said.
But the judge is “basically saying [USCIS] can’t count ‘unproductive time’ as being unemployed,” said Miano. “She’s saying that Congress required people to pay [H-1B wages] when they are unproductive and that mans Congres is recognizing that H-1Bs can be unproductive, so USCIS has to allow that” business model of renting H-1Bs to other companies.
“The impact is huge in the computer and engineering fields … in some years, we’re importing more H-1B workers for engineering than we’re creating engineering jobs,” he said.
“The purpose of the H-1B program is to replace Americans with cheaper foreign workers,” said Miano, adding:
That’s it. No other description matches what Congress enacted, yet the media persists that with that bullshit notion that it is designed to provide higher-skilled workers. This notion is a typical lobbyist tactic — they take a turd and call it a rose, and most of the American media will call it a rose if the politicians — especially Democrats – say it is a rose.
DoJ/EEOC do nothing as US & Indian execs trade US jobs to Indian #H1B workers, cutting Americans out of careers, homes & families.
This trade choked innovation in Silicon-V, slammed insurance & banking. #SenMikeLee & #S386 will expand it to healthcare bit.ly/2vIHAOp
Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC, or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart.com
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