Wednesday, April 22, 2020

CRONY CAPITALISM AGAIN - TRUMP EXEMPTS FORTUNE 500's VISA WORKERS FROM IMMIGRATION CURB - AFTER HE EXEMPTED CHEAP LABOR FOR BIG AG - So, who does it apply to???

Bailout of US corporations expands while workers see little relief

Two weeks after the passage of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus pandemic corporate bailout bill, grotesquely misnamed the CARES Act, it is clear that it was only the initial shot in the funneling of countless trillions of dollars to the corporate-financial aristocracy that rules America.
While billions have already flowed to the corporations and banks, the limited provisions of the act that were touted by both parties as a boon to working people hit by the shutdown of much of the economy have yet to kick in, and for millions they likely never will.
The act includes $454 billion as a Treasury 
backstop to enable the Federal Reserve to 
provide some $4 trillion in cheap loans to 
major corporations and banks, meaning the 
real scale of the bailout—thus far—is more 
than $6 trillion.
The vast bulk of the money allocated goes to covering any losses suffered by major corporations and fueling a new surge in the stock market. That it has succeeded, at least for the present, in lifting the markets is seen in more than 10 percent surge in the Dow over the past several trading days. This has occurred in the midst of an ever-rising toll of death and suffering from the pandemic and grim projections by bankers and economists of a depression-level contraction in the economy and a catastrophic growth of unemployment.
The expanding scale of the bailout and euphoria on the financial markets, alongside the economic and social catastrophe facing the broad mass of the population, demonstrates that the interests of the ruling class and those of the working class are diametrically opposed. The response of the ruling elite and its two political parties to the crisis has from the onset been single-mindedly focused on defending the economic interests of corporate-financial oligarchy, no matter the cost in human life.
In just the last several weeks, the Federal Reserve Board has announced at least 12 major measures to rescue the financial markets and backstop big business. These include:
·         Two emergency interest rate cuts, bringing the benchmark lending rate back down to near-zero
·         A pledge to purchase at least $500 billion in Treasury securities and $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities and to continue the program for “as long as needed”
·         Nearly unlimited sums in short-term loans to 25 large financial institutions that control the market for repurchase agreements, or repos, including $1.5 trillion in the days following the announcement
·         Foreign exchange swap lines, the purchase of short-term loans to US corporations in the commercial paper market, short-term loans to 24 large financial institutions, and, for the first time ever, direct purchases of corporate bonds and direct loans to corporations.
The Wall Street Journal quoted Jean Boivin, head of BlackRock Investment Institute, as saying, “The amount of measures taken in a short amount of time is surreal and unprecedented.”
“It’s kind of crazy how they’ve almost done as much in this week as they did in several months in 2008,” JPMorgan’s chief US economist Michael Feroli said last month. “Now they do have the advantage of just being able to dust off [former Fed Chairman] Bernanke’s playbook.”
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gave a blanket 
guarantee of unlimited funds to corporate 
America, telling the “Today” show this week, 
“Where credit is not flowing, we have the 
ability in this unique circumstance to step in 
and provide those loans.”
Now both the Trump administration and the Democrats have committed to provide an additional $250 billion to the so-called “Paycheck Protection Program.” That is the Orwellian name given by the two parties to the $350 billion program ostensibly established to provide government-backed loans to small businesses, many of which face bankruptcy as a result of the shutdown of much of the economy, and save the jobs of their workers over the next eight weeks. (That this is farcically inadequate, even if implemented in full, in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, is self-evident).
The program is designed to provide a windfall for the big banks, which actually extend and administer the loans that are backed by the Small Business Administration (SBA). This ensures that Wall Street receives billions of dollars in fees and other charges.
On the eve of the official launching of the program last Friday, the law was amended, under pressure from the banks, to double the interest rate from 0.5 percent to 1.0 percent. Now the banks are demanding that the Fed buy any loans they extend to small businesses so as to remove them from their balance sheets. This will allow them to more freely engage in financial speculation and parasitic activities such as stock buybacks.
Moreover, the great bulk of the money will go not to mom-and-pop groceries, gas stations or eateries, but rather to large corporations that are included in the program. Thus, for example, the program was amended to include billion-dollar restaurant and hotel chains.
Small businesses desperate for cash are finding it difficult if not impossible to actually find lenders who will provide the loans, even if their applications are approved by the SBA. Banks, intent on maximizing profits, are turning down applications right and left.

Citigroup is refusing to participate. Bank of America is not accepting applications from companies that have borrowed from other banks. Wells Fargo says it has already reached “capacity.”
Hundreds of thousands of businesses have applied under the program, but to date only a handful have received any money.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats are pressing the Trump administration to expand the $50 billion bailout of the airlines included in the CARES Act. This is, supposedly, another “jobs-saving” effort. Delta, for its part, has already laid off thousands of its employees.
There are no real restrictions in the law on how the corporations use the money they are given by the government. No one should doubt that the airline carriers, which spent some $16 billion over the past three years to purchase their own stock—in order to further enrich their top executives and major investors by driving up the stock price—will use their bailout money to do more of the same.
The Trump administration, for its part, is reportedly considering such additional “stimulus” measures as a payroll tax cut—which would starve Social Security of funding—a capital gains tax cut, 50-year Treasury bonds and a waiver that would relieve businesses of liability for employees who contract the coronavirus on the job.
Trump has moved to negate even the token congressional oversight of the bailout program mandated in the law. On Monday, he named a White House lawyer and Trump loyalist, Brian Miller, as inspector general of the Treasury Department’s $350 billion small business (“Payroll Protection Program”), and on Tuesday he removed Glenn Fine as head of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, tasked with monitoring the entire $2.2 trillion program. Trump replaced him with a “senior policy adviser” at US Customs and Border Protection, Jason Abend.
Workers are finding that the promised relief from the bailout law—which accounts for only a small fraction of the total cost of the measure—is uncertain if not entirely illusory.
The New York Times reported Monday that many Americans will not receive the promised relief check of $1,200, plus $500 for each child, until August or September. As many as 10 million low-income, childless adults who are eligible for the stimulus payment program may receive nothing because they have not filed tax returns. Millions more, including undocumented workers, prisoners, students and adult dependents are excluded.
As for the $250 billion expanded jobless benefit part of the law, which is supposed to extend state benefits for 13 weeks and add $600 a week in federal funds for up to four months, workers are finding it all but impossible to apply. Multiple state unemployment websites have crashed under the crush of millions of applicants, and scenes of hundreds of workers lining up, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, to apply in person are proliferating around the country.

Trump pardons ruling class criminals

President Donald Trump issued 11 pardons or commutations of sentence on Tuesday, choosing to expunge the lawbreaking records of billionaire financier Michael Milken, the one-time “junk bond king,” and billionaire real estate magnate Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., former owner of the San Francisco 49ers professional football team.
He also pardoned former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, convicted of tax fraud and perjury, and commuted the 14-year jail term of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, impeached and then convicted on multiple corruption counts, including attempting to sell the Senate seat of Barack Obama after Obama’s election to the presidency in 2008. Blagojevich, a Democratic congressman before his election as governor, was released from prison immediately on Trump’s orders, and declared himself a “Trumpocrat” in the 2020 election.
Former Illinois Governer Rod Blagojevich arrives home in Chicago on February 19, 2020, after his release from prison [Credit: AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast]
Trump’s actions in relation to Milken and De Bartolo are a clear demonstration of class justice, in which billionaires are effectively above the law. As one news report noted, there are only 600 billionaires in the United States, very few of them face trial and conviction, let alone jail time, and Trump has now pardoned three of them, including last year’s clemency for media mogul Conrad Black—author of a fawning pro-Trump volume—who served nearly two years in prison for fraud and embezzlement.
Milken was one of the most important actors in the financialization of the US economy, devising “junk bonds”—high-risk, high-return corporate securities that became a spearhead in the employer offensive against the working class throughout the 1980s and beyond. Hedge funds and private equity firms used junk bonds to finance leveraged buyouts of companies and proceed to loot pension funds, slash wages and benefits, and squeeze every penny of profit out of what frequently became empty shells.
In the process, Milken himself amassed a huge fortune, including a then unprecedented income of $550 million in 1987, while running a unit of Drexel Burnham Lambert, a second-tier Wall Street firm that rocketed to prominence in that decade. These operations were portrayed in such books as Den of Thieves and films like Wall Street, whose lead character, Gordon Gekko, was modeled after Milken’s partner-in-crime Ivan Boesky.
After pleading guilty to 10 counts of financial fraud in 1990, Milken served less than two years at a “Club Fed” luxury prison for the rich. He paid fines and restitution of $600 million, which barely made a dent in his multi-billion-dollar fortune. Trump’s pardon message paid tribute to Milken’s endowment of various medical charities and cancer research and hailed him as “one of America’s greatest financiers.”
De Bartolo was charged with paying a $400,000 bribe in $100 bills to Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, a Democrat, in return for state government approval of a riverboat gambling project in which he had invested. Edwards went to prison, while De Bartolo served no time but had to transfer ownership of the 49ers to his sister. His nephew now runs the franchise. The National Football League inducted De Bartolo into its Hall of Fame despite the criminal conviction.
Blagojevich and Kerik are lesser figures in terms of wealth, but gained national prominence in capitalist politics. Blagojevich was recorded in a wiretap soliciting bribes and campaign contributions from the Service Employees union and various wealthy individuals interested in his selection of a successor to Obama in the US Senate.
Kerik is a longtime crony of Rudy Giuliani, now Trump’s personal lawyer and political fixer. He was the driver and bodyguard for Giuliani during his campaign for mayor of New York City, and Giuliani eventually elevated him to police commissioner, where he was widely rumored to be receiving bribes from organized crime families.
Despite this atrocious reputation, Kerik was actually chosen by President George W. Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security, but had to withdraw after corruption allegations surfaced. In 2009 he pled guilty to charges of tax fraud and lying to investigators and spent three-and-a-half years in federal prison.
All four men had high-level sponsors lobbying Trump personally for clemency, including billionaires Sheldon Adelson, Tom Barrack, Ron Burkle, Nelson Peltz, Richard LeFrak and Rupert Murdoch for Milken, Giuliani and convicted war criminal Eddie Gallagher for Kerik, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner for Blagojevich. The De Bartolo empire is based in northeast Ohio, giving Trump an electoral incentive for that pardon.
The remaining seven pardons and commutations include a Republican political operative, David Safavian, convicted in the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, a Cuban-American businesswoman from south Florida convicted in a massive Medicare fraud scheme, and two other corporate executives convicted on fraud and tax charges (one a significant Trump campaign donor).
Trump also pardoned three minority women convicted of nonviolent or white collar crimes, to serve as window dressing, but no minority men. As one account of the pardons and commutations noted, Trump has pardoned only one African American man in more than three years in office, and the beneficiary of that pardon had been dead for 72 years when it was issued: the late boxer Jack Johnson, whose conviction by an all-white jury took place more than a century ago.
The timing of the pardon and commutation decisions was significant from a number of standpoints. They had clearly been delayed until after Trump himself was acquitted in the Senate trial on impeachment charges brought by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, in order to avoid giving his political enemies additional ammunition.
And they come as part of a broader political offensive launched by Trump in the wake of impeachment, including firing or removing officials who testified in the impeachment inquiry or opposed his actions in delaying US military aid to Ukraine, the action that sparked his impeachment, and demanding that charges be quashed against his own associates arising from the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The pardons were issued only two days before Judge Amy Berman Jackson is to impose a sentence on Roger Stone, a longtime Trump crony, for lying to Congress and the FBI and witness intimidation in a case that stems from the investigation by Mueller into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
After federal prosecutors last week recommended a jail sentence of seven to nine years for Stone, Attorney General William Barr intervened and overturned the recommendation, proposing instead that the judge take a far more lenient approach.
All four prosecutors resigned from the case in protest of Barr’s action, and a petition calling for Barr’s resignation and opposing White House interference in the handling of federal criminal cases has been signed by more than 2,500 former federal prosecutors and other former officials of the Department of Justice.
Trump has attacked Judge Jackson on twitter several times in the past two weeks, leading the chief judge of the District of Columbia District Court, Beryl Howell, to issue a statement declaring that “Public criticism or pressure is not a factor” in judges’ rulings or sentencing decisions. The Federal Judges Association, an informal lobby of more than 1,000 jurists, scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday, although the meeting was called off at the last minute without explanation.
Judge Jackson is to sentence Stone today, but she seemed to bow to White House pressure by declaring in advance that she would not give effect to any sentence until the motion by Stone’s attorneys for a new trial had been adjudicated. In other words, Stone will not go to prison soon, if at all.
In the meantime, Trump’s pardons have sent a clear message that he is prepared to dole out similar treatment to Stone, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, and other Trump allies who have pled guilty to crimes like fraud and perjury.
In response to media attacks and even a mild critical remark from Attorney General Barr, who said Trump’s tweets were making his job more difficult, Trump has renewed his declarations that he is “the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” with unlimited power to intervene in the criminal justice system as he pleases.

In the wake of the impeachment debacle for the Democrats, Trump is asserting quasi-dictatorial powers, defying any effort to set limits on the power of the executive branch.


Trump Exempts Fortune 500’s Visa Workers from Immigration Curb

LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images
LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images
6:34
President Donald Trump has exempted the Fortune 500’s international labor supply from his order for a temporary immigration shutdown.
“This order will only apply to individuals seeking a permanent residency,” Trump said in an April 21 press conference at the White House. He said:
It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new immigrant labor flown in from abroad. We must first take care of the American worker — take care of the American worker. This pause will be in effect for 60 days, after which the need for any extension or modification will be evaluated by myself and a group of people, based on economic conditions at the time.
[It] will not apply to those entering on a temporary basis. As we move forward, we’ll examine what additional immigration-related measures should be put in place to protect U.S. workers. We want to protect our U.S. workers and I think as we move forward, we will become more and more protective of them … The last thing we want to do is take American workers’ jobs.
Thee white-collar reporters did not ask Trump why he exempted the corporate visa workers from taking jobs away from other white-collar Americans. One reporter, however, asked him if he is using the coronavirus epidemic to fulfill a campaign promise to reduce legal immigration.
“I want our citizens to get jobs — I don’t want them to have competition,” Trump responded, adding that the policy document is being drafted for signature, likely on Wednesday.
“The decision not to block guest worker programs — for now — is a concession to the backlash from business groups who assailed the White House on Tuesday,” reported a New York Times article.
“President Donald Trump’s new executive order banning immigration to the United States will apply narrowly to those seeking permanent immigration status, a senior administration official said on Tuesday,” said a Reuters report. The report added, “Other workers such as those on so-called H1-B visas would be covered in a separate action, the official said.”
The rollback of the expected curbs on visa programs will be a huge disappointment to the many American graduates who say they have been pushed out of Fortune 500 jobs and careers by the alliance of U.S. investors, managers, and foreign visa workers.


So Trump will come under increasing pressure during the 2020 campaign to fulfill his 2016 promise to curb the H-1B visa. That pressure will come from millions of swing-voting graduates who see good jobs disappearing all around them — and see the major companies employing roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers.
In fact, his promise of the 60-day review is his invite to millions of swing-voting American graduates to rally against the visa worker programs during the 2020 presidential election.
The college graduate protest will be spiked by the continued economic turmoil and the routine inflow of foreign visa workers. For example, Trump’s federal government is on track to allow U.S. companies to import 85,000 new H-1B workers during the next several weeks.
Fortune 550 companies, smaller companies, and universities keep a population of roughly 1.5 million visa workers in U.S. jobs, and they also use those workers to transfer many additional jobs to corporate allies in India and other countries.
The NYT article did not include any detail about the draft directive, which may split the difference between business demands and the public’s support for a shutdown of immigration and of many visa worker programs.
But the article included comments from advocates for the nation’s powerful and wealthy technology companies.
Business groups had exploded in anger on Tuesday at the threat of losing their access to foreign labor .
“This is both a political act to demagogue and distract from his awful handling of the Covid-19 crisis and lack of testing,” said Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, a technology group that advocates for immigration, “and it is also a policy effort by hardliners to use this crisis to enact their awful, decades-old wish list to radically slash immigration.”
Jason Oxman, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech industry trade group, said in a statement earlier on Tuesday that “the United States will not benefit from shutting down legal immigration.”
The members of Oxman’s group include Accenture, Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, MicrosoftIBM, and PWC.  Many of these Fortune 500 companies sideline American graduates to hire foreign visa workers via programs such as the H-1B and Occupational Practical Training program.
The ITI group also includes some of the Indian-run outsourcing companies that import many visa workers from India. The Indian-run companies include Cognizant and Tata Consultancy Services.  Indian-run companies supply visa workers to many banks, insurance companies, utilities, auto manufacturers, and many other companies.
Oxman’s April 21 statement said:
Some of the most recognizable and dynamic American technology companies were started by immigrants, and today’s immigrants to the U.S. are valuable members of the U.S. technology industry workforce … the United States will not benefit from shutting down legal immigration. Tech workers – whether from the United States or another country – are playing an essential role in America’s response to COVID-19. They will be vital to the U.S. economic recovery and must remain part of the workforce. We urge President Trump not to endanger the country’s economic recovery by closing its economy to the rest of the world.

Trump's migration suspension will protect wages, esp. for blacks & Latinos, says WH press secretary.
That might mean easy action against the abuse of B-1 visitor-not-worker visas.
But there's far, far more corp.-$$$$ in the college-grad H-1B visas.https://bit.ly/2yvytkX 




Todd Schulte’s FWD.us group was created by West Coast investors, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, to help pass the 2013 “Gang of Eight” wage-cutting amnesty bill.
Many polls show that American voters like — and want to like — immigrants. But the polls also show that the public strongly objects to companies hiring foreign workers before American employees. For example, an August 2017 poll reported that 68 percent of Americans oppose companies’ use of H-1Bs to outsource U.S.-based jobs that could be held by Americans.
Administration officials are touting the draft policy as a boost to blue-collar wage earners but apparently not to white-collar graduates:


FLASHBACK: Then-Senator Barack Obama in 2006: “huge influx” of immigrants “threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net.” https://books.google.com/books?id=k85pcYttpW0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=audacity+of+hope&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA0ZyBoI_ZAhUjwFkKHYmCC0UQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22the%20number%20of%20immigrants%22&f=false 
FLASHBACK: Senator Bernie Sanders in 2015: “You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low-wage workers, or do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those [American] kids?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0 


'Our middle class is dying': Tucker Carlson blames 'advisers' in Trump orbit for 'tidal wave' of immigration






Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped some within President Trump's "orbit" for attempting to place corporate interests ahead of American workers' welfare during the coronavirus pandemic.
On his Tuesday night show, Carlson critiqued Trump advisers, who he alleges crafted a temporary suspension of immigration without addressing key concerns of the working class.
"The president is worried about preserving American jobs," Carlson said. "Unfortunately, and this seems to be the key, some in his orbit are not as concerned. Their main worry is making donors happy. And if there's one thing that donors love always, it's cheap employees. Yes, our middle class is dying at a faster clip than ever before."
Carlson said the suspension doesn't address the hundreds of thousands of temporary and guest workers who vie with Americans for industrial and agricultural jobs.
The Fox News host claimed the suspension was written by out-of-touch staff members who are "more worried about what their friends think" of the immigration measures instead of protecting the jobs of citizens.
Carlson noted the suspension does not apply to a massive section of immigrants who fight with Americans for working-class jobs.
"The new moratorium on immigration will last for 60 days," Carlson said. "The ban will apply only to individuals seeking permanent residency into this country."
Carlson said Trump's ban, which could be extended after the two-month period ends, does not apply to hundreds of thousands of temporary and guest workers who vie with Americans for industrial and agricultural jobs.
"The purpose of this tidal wave of immigration has nothing to do with what advocates of immigration claim immigration is for," added Carlson. "These visas do not improve American society in any way. We have no moral obligation to give them. There is no mention of guest workers on the Statue of Liberty."








“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.”                                                                                     Karen McQuillan 


TRUMP’S CRAP ON BORDERS AND HIS PRETEND WALL IS ONLY ONE MORE TRUMP HOAX!
Only a complete fool would believe that Trump is any more for American Legal workers than the Democrat Party for Billionaires and Banksters!
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“Trump Administration Betrays Low-Skilled American Workers.”
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The latest ad from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) asks Trump to reject the mass illegal and legal immigration policies supported by Wall Street, corporate executives, and most specifically, the GOP mega-donor Koch brothers.
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Efforts by the big business lobby, Chamber of Commerce, Koch brothers, and George W. Bush Center include increasing employment-based legal immigration that would likely crush the historic wage gains that Trump has delivered for America’s blue collar and working class citizens.

Watch–Trump: Immigration Pause Will Not Apply to H-2A Visa Workers

White House
Volume 90%
2:29

President Trump revealed on Tuesday that his executive order pausing most legal immigration in the midst of the Chinese coronavirus crisis will not keep farmers from fast-tracking foreign workers into the country.
During his daily press briefing, Trump said the upcoming executive order to pause immigration to the U.S. will exempt foreign workers arriving through the H-2A visa program that delivers an endless flow of cheap labor to farmers.
“The farmers will not be affected,” Trump said.
Trump said his administration is actually making the process easier for farmers to more quickly get H-2A foreign visa workers into the U.S. — referring to the State and Agriculture Departments’ orders to waive visa requirements and allow visa-holders to stay in the country for more than three years.
“No, the farmers will not be affected by this at all,” Trump said. “If anything, we’re going to make it easier, and we’re doing a process for those workers to come in to go to the farm where they’ve been for a long time.”
Trump said a pause on immigration is necessary, though, to make sure at least 22 million unemployed Americans are not forced to compete against cheaper, foreign workers for U.S. jobs.
“I want our citizens to get jobs. I don’t want them to have competition,” Trump said. “I want the American worker and our American citizens to be able to get jobs. I don’t want them to compete right now.”
The H-2A program allows American farms to import a limitless number of foreign workers and pay them below-average U.S. wages. American farms do not wholly rely on H-2A foreign visa workers to fill agricultural jobs, as the foreign workers make up only about ten percent of the total U.S. crop farm workforce. Last year, U.S. farmers hired roughly 250,000 H-2A foreign visa workers.
In 2017, H-2A foreign visa workers picking crops were paid about two percent less than their American counterparts. Likewise, foreign visa workers operating agricultural equipment were paid 23 percent less than the national average U.S. wage. The largest wage discrepancy comes with H-2A foreign visa workers who take jobs as first-line supervisors for farming and fishing. They are paid about 95 percent less than their American counterparts.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.


Charlie Kirk Says It’s Time For An Immigration Moratorium. Where Is Congressional GOP?
04/14/2020
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The Chinese Virus that has knocked 23 percent out of the stock market and boosted unemployment claims by 16 million in a month still hasn’t inspired Congress or President Trump to call for an immigration moratorium. The jobless numbers have even awakened Conservatism Inc.’s Charlie Kirk—he’s called for an end to work visas, a position many Americans share. Yet however nationalist Congressional Republicans sound in denouncing China for inflicting the deadly pathogen on the world, not one has suggested closing the borders to protect American jobs and health. It amounts to a catastrophic and ominous failure of leadership.
That failure reached its peak in the virus relief package, which blocked Pentagon money for building a border wall but provided $350 million in “refugee” aid. Only one Republican, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, objected.
How bad is the virus for the economy and the unemployed? When an immigration booster like Kirk is worried, you know it’s trouble. The Turning Point USA founder, a favorite target for nationalist mockery during the “Groyper Wars,” has suddenly offered surprisingly cogent ideas. Tops among them: an immigration moratorium:.
“We need a total moratorium on ALL visas until employment levels go back to pre-pandemic levels—put our citizens first!” he tweeted on April 3.

We need a total moratorium on ALL visas until employment levels go back to pre-pandemic levels—put our citizens first!




He repeated the message last week.
Millions of college students went into debt to get a high paying job.
This is now the toughest job market in American history.
Foreign nationals should NOT get preference until our students can get jobs.
Pause ALL visas until we’re back to full employment.
Put US citizens FIRST! [Links added]
“There’s a ruling class in this country that doesn't represent this generation and it’s indefensible,” Kirk correctly said in a video attached to that tweet.

Millions of college students went into debt to get a high paying job

This is now the toughest job market in American history

Foreign nationals should NOT get preference until our students can get jobs

Pause ALL visas until we’re back to full employment

Put US citizens FIRST!










Embedded video




Even more significantly, the USA Today/Ipsos survey just found 80 percent support for tough immigration measures.
About 8 in 10 support drastic steps on immigration: imposing mandatory quarantines for people who have traveled to any other country and temporarily stopping immigration from all other countries. Seven in 10 want to ground all international flights. Almost half, by 49%-34%, want to ground all domestic flights.
That’s a powerful America First message. So why hasn’t any ambitious Republican tossed the idea into the Capitol’s hopper?
The answer: Timid leaders.
Of course, the idea would go nowhere in the Democrat-controlled House, but that doesn’t mean Gaetz, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, or another ambitious immigration patriot shouldn’t propose it.
My candidate to carry the GOP’s lance and banderole is Rep. Steve King, who has been remarkably quiet since losing his committee assignments last year over a fake news smear. Although the Iowan lacks the power and political capital to advance a bill, he could at least propose it and hope a colleague tries moving it.
So why no action in the Senate?
Because the upper chamber contains not a single Jeff Sessions or Kris Kobach whose chief focus is immigration. A few senators raise the occasional battle cry against open borders, but when the fighting starts, they slip away. Even Tom CottonDavid Perdue, and Josh Hawley, three GOP reliables who reintroduced the RAISE Act that would cut legal immigration in half, don’t lead on the issue.
Granted, Hawley, Cotton, and other GOP lawmakers want to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and punish China. But that, it seems, is as far as they’re willing to go.
Widely seen as presidential timber, Hawley is eager to lead on bold legislation that attacks our dependency on China and Big Tech’s power. His plan to combat the China virus with far more government intervention in the economy and stiff penalties on China has, of course, discomfited our ruling-class elites [Josh Hawley sets up potential clash in GOP with coronavirus push, by Burgess Everett, Politico, April 6, 2020].
So why is he ignoring the virus-immigration angle?
My guess: Having mastered inviting favorable coverage in D.C.’s media fishbowl, Hawley thinks the connection will tarnish his brand. Many Main Stream Media profiles of the senator tout him as the “future of the GOP” and a challenge to the party’s free market orthodoxy [Josh Hawley’s Mission to Remake the GOP, by Emma Green, The Atlantic, November 24, 2019]. That won’t last if he links the pandemic to Open Borders in general or China in particular.
Cotton is too focused on hawkish neoconservative foreign policy to become the Senate’s premier immigration patriot. Establishmentarian Perdue is a weak sister on cheap foreign labor.
Then there’s Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who would prefer to ignore immigration altogether. He’s Business First, not America First. Taxes, the economy, and judicial appointments are his main concerns—the latter with some justification given the power of the open-borders Kritarchy that has attempted to usurp the president’s authority on immigration.
All this is why McConnell doesn’t want Kris Kobach in the Senate. He wants loyal toadies, not uncontrollable immigration patriots [GOP fears loss of Senate as Democrats handed opportunity in Kansas, by David M. Drucker, Washington Examiner, January 07, 2020].
And one more thing. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, another ruling-class elitist, is a Chinese immigrant.
But neither the Treason Lobby’s Control of the House nor GOP weakness in the Senate means immigration patriots should give up. Several years ago, my predecessor as Washington Watcher analyzed why Republicans hadn’t taken up an immigration moratorium in response to the 2008-9 Great Recession. The primary reason: The conservative grassroots didn’t demand it, so Republicans felt no pressure to adopt it. In contrast, remember what killed the Bush-McCain-Kennedy amnesty in 2007? An uprising of Middle America.
But times have changed. The hoi polloi now have an ally with a megaphone just as loud as that of the MSM-Treason Lobby combine. Fox News talker Tucker Carlson regularly blasts open borders, as does his colleague, Laura Ingraham. Even Rush Limbaugh, the longtime and most successful propagandist for Conservatism, Inc., talks about the dangers of mass immigration.
And now immigration patriots have Charlie Kirk on their side.
But aside from a moratorium, a bold GOP lawmaker—again, a Gaetz, Gosar, or King—might propose plenty of ideas:
Note that, unlike Republicans, Democrats don’t hesitate to pushing their immigration agenda at every opportunity, as the WuFlu relief bill showed. Now, they’re trying to halt deportations, release illegals from detention facilities, and even send them free money [Democrats Introduce Bill Giving Coronavirus Relief To Illegal Aliens, by Jason Hopkins, The Daily Caller, April 3, 2020].
It’s time that Republicans answer in kind. And if even Charlie Kirk gets it, maybe the Congressional GOP will too.





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