A lot of stuff piled up this month and especially yesterday, and I better get it discussed before it all gets lost in October…
1. Regarding that “debate”...I, and many others, owe Donald Trump an apology. He was both wise and right to pass up the Republican debates if they are going to be like the debacle yesterday. No debate with more that three participants is going to be a fair measure of anything but quips and soundbites, but this was especially bad, doing a disservice to the party, the candidates, and the public. Prime among the culprits was Fox News, whose moderators were incompetent and unfair. They couldn’t enforce the supposed rules—candidates who were attacked directly were not, as assured, give time to respond in many cases. Including a Univision open-borders advocate among the three—three moderators is two too many anyway—was despicable: moderators should not have an agenda and she obviously did. She also, in trying to impugn Ron DeSantis, repeated the media and Democratic Party lie that Florida’s guidelines for teaching about slavery suggest that slavery was beneficial to blacks.
Dana Perino, usually one of Fox News’ least annoying hosts, asked one of the most unprofessional questions of any debate moderator in memory, the moronic reality-show inspired, “Who would you vote off the GOP island?”query. Good for Gov. DeSantis, who did a Newt Gingrich impression and scolded her. DeSantis managed to come off better than the rest this time, but it is probably too late; again, the thing was too much of a wreck to really help any of the candidates.
Not that any of them helped themselves much either. Nikky Haley canceled out whatever progress she had made in the first debate this time by shrilly arguing with Vivek Ramaswamy, who is irrelevant to the proceedings except as a distraction (most Americans neither know nor care what TikTok is) and Tim Scott, another irrelevancy, (over a South Carolina gas tax?). Mike Pence continues to be an embarrassment—why does he think he has any chance at all?—and gave the most oogy statement of the night with his boast, “My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I got to admit, I have been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years — full disclosure.” Then Pence blamed DeSantis for the Parkland school shooter getting a life sentence instead of the death penalty, when the killer was charged and sentences before DeSantis was elected Governor of Florida, and would have had no input into the sentencing anyway. The moderators seemed determined to ignore poor Doug Burgum—another example of the uselessness of the multiple debaters format, and Chris Christie, an established ethics villain, had already alienated pro-Trump and anti-Trump conservatives before he insulted everyone with his canned “Donald Duck” line (See, Trump has “ducked” the debates, see. Get it?)
2. Speaking of open borders, CNN’s Jake Tapper had one of his periodic moments of non-partisan integrity when Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley mouthed the ongoing Biden Administration lie that “No doubt about it, our border is secure.”
Tapper was aghast, as well he should have been “You think it is secure? You think the border is secure? Or it’s not secure?” Tapper asked. “The border is secure,” The shameless “Squad” member declared a second time. “But if you have millions of undocumented migrants coming into the country, how is the border secure?” he asked. “If you have people crossing border, it’s by definition not secure,” Tapper said. “Because it is not secure, [illegal immigrants] go on this journey, and one of the arguments that is made — and maybe you disagree with it — is that the border should be secure so as to discourage people from making this journey,” he continued. “But it just seems like just such a refusal to acknowledge reality to say that the border is secure when we all know millions of people are crossing the border illegally every year.” (Ya think?) Pressley’s only response to his question was that the issue “is a conversation for another day,” Tapper ended the interview.
How can so many citizens tolerate such repeated and obvious dishonesty?
3. And speaking of “the Squad,” Elon Musk wins the Joseph Welch Award for finally saying outright what has been obvious about Rep. Ocasio-Cortez all along. After she made an idiotic comparison between the illegal immigrants clogging New York City’s social services (not that NYC, a “sanctuary city,” doesn’t deserve the chaos) and the legal immigrants who came to the U.S. through Ellis Island, Musk tweeted that AOC is “just not that smart.” We can only hope that, like Welch pointing out during the televised Army hearings that Sen. Joseph McCarthy had “no decency,”Americans are slapping their foreheads in a sudden epiphany and saying, “He’s right! She’s an idiot! Why didn’t we see it before?”
4. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D, of course) took to Twitter/”X” for an ad hominem attack on U.S. Judge Roger T. Benitez as “an extremist, right-wing zealot with no regard to human life” because he declared the state’s limit on gun magazine capacity unconstitutional. “Our gun safety laws will continue to be thrown out by NRA-owned federal judges until we pass a Constitutional Amendment to protect our kids and end the gun violence epidemic in America,” Newsom continued. What screaming demagoguery! There is zero chance of there ever being an amendment gutting gun rights, and Newsome, being an ethics villain but no fool, knows it. Prof Turley, whom one senses does not agree with Benitez’s decision, nonetheless writes, correctly, “Many of us criticized Trump for his attacks on judges…Trump would often savage judges for being Democrats or liberals when there were good-faith legal disagreements over his policies….Newsom seems increasingly to be morphing into the man that he once denounced for such “toxic” rhetoric. …The attacks on judges by our political leaders are particularly chilling. I denounced it in Trump and it is no less “toxic” by Newsom. Yet, while the media universally condemned Trump in these attacks, reporters have been largely quiet or neutral in reporting the attacks by Newsom.”
5. Meanwhile, Turley was the victim of not one but two dishonest and unethical incidents related to his testimony before the House Oversight Committee on the impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. The Democratic media falsely reported that Turley had “thrown cold water” on the hearings because he said that there was not sufficient evidence to impeach Biden…yet. But Turley was called as an expert witness to explain that there were valid justifications for the inquiry. The misinterpretation being repeated by such sources as The Daily Beast and the New Republic is indefensible: it is exactly like arguing that because an expert says an investigation hasn’t uncovered evidence to convict a suspect before the investigation has even begun, an investigation isn’t justified. During Turley’s testimony, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) sought to impeach the professor’s credibility based his past writings on polygamy. (Yes, Democrats are that desperate and unscrupulous.) Krishnamoorthi grilled Turley about a 2006 op-ed in the Guardian in which he wrote that polygamy should not be prosecuted. Without allowing Turley to respond, Krishnamoorthi said, “We are counting down the hours until a government shutdown and here we have a hearing where we have one witness who defended a polygamist who is convicted of pedophilia and rape, and we have another witness with LinkedIn accounts with extreme views posted. I think that unfortunately, this speaks to the credibility of the witnesses and the credibility of this impeachment inquiry.”
Nearly an hour later, Turley was finally allowed to respond to this smear, during a Republican committee member’s questioning:
“I have spent my life challenging what is called morals legislation. What the Democratic member attacked me for are laws that dictate to others how they should live their lives. Some of those laws have been used against gay and lesbian couples. They’ve used against minorities. The individual that the member described [ Tom Green, a polygamist who was convicted of child rape] I condemn. I represented the sister wives in a case challenging that law on the basis of individual rights. The trial court ruled in our favor and struck down that law — the first time that type of law had ever been struck down. The 10th Circuit later dismissed on technical grounds. But I just want to end with one other thing and that is, [these kinds of attacks are] not going to make a difference. This has become a pattern, of witnesses and whistleblowers and FBI agents [and] journalists being attacked in Congress, and it won’t make any difference, it won’t change the constitutional standard, it won’t negate any evidence that you have. But at some point, you have to say, “Enough!”
6. Finally (for Part I), this amusing note: Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker, actually told Jen Psaki, the Biden paid liar now hosting her own propaganda show on MSNBC, “If you have a difference of opinion, you just can’t be impeaching … This is a fake distraction.” She said this despite leading two fake impeachments after members of her party, like Rep. Maxine Waters, pushed to impeach Donald Trump because Democrats had the majority in the House. For the second impeachment, Pelosi skipped the part where there is a formal inquiry and the presentation of evidence.
Psaki, of course, being now employed as a full-time partisan hack posing as a journalist, never pressed Pelosi on her hilarious hypocrisy.
[Part 2 is here...]
Ethics Alarms 
These debates are worthless amounting to nothing more than attacks on each other. Issues and proposed solutions are absent. So why watch and inflate the ratings of a news organization that is in a schizophrenic battle with its owners and hosts over editorial control.
I worked in higher education, and I am sick to death of politicians claiming how much they support education and educators. I for one would like to see them start demanding that educators do their damn job and prepare kids to be able to read, write, perform advanced math and have a legitimate working knowledge of our history and government. We should stop putting teachers on a pedestal and start evaluating their efficacy. Sleeping with a teacher does not make her a better teacher or Pence presidential material. The best way to support education is to support firing the bad ones and those pushing an unapproved curriculum.
1. I would love to see substantial debates between candidates, and this early on, it would help clear a great portion of the field if we did something of a round-robin Lincoln-Douglas debate between candidates. But I might be in my own delusional world, because I like lengthy debates where people are given a chance to state their position, respond to opposition, and cross-examine. I suppose the public at large likes sound-bites and Jerry Springer attitudes because they are more entertaining, and that’s why the news networks cater in that direction.
2. So, I think about the Roman Empire a lot, and even more so now that I’ve listened through Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast. From that I learned that when the Goths migrated into the Roman Empire en mass, and they were not dispersed through the empire and properly Romanized, they proved to be a big canker and a political wild card that played a large part in destabilizing the West. In the realm of history repeating itself, how can we not believe that bringing in millions of undocumented people won’t similarly destabilize our country? If anyone has an alternate explanation for why Democrats want these illegals in the country other than for swelling Democratic ranks, I’m all ears. I’m really skeptical they actually have any humanitarian concerns, given the horrible conditions illegals put themselves through to make it to the United States, only to become invisible entities exploited by businesses and trafficking.
3. She isn’t that smart, and she has proved it time and again, publicly. And yet so many on the Left think she is brilliant. It is disturbing.
That said, I would like to see much more done to transform these illegals into legitimate US citizens. I know most of them are not necessarily interested in becoming citizens, but would rather work a few years, amass what amounts to a fortune in the old country, and then return and retire in luxury. But I want them out of the shadows, working honest jobs, and integrating with their communities, you know, the way those migrants landing on Ellis Island did.
4. I’m hearing a lot of speculation that Newsome is gearing up to enter the presidential ring. He seems to be doing a number of things intended to make him look more presidential. And maybe that will realize if the impeachment hearings really do uncover such incontrovertible dirt on Biden that Biden could not possible run again. (He will not be convicted by the Senate, even if the House does issue letters of impeachment.)
5. and 6. How do we deal with such shameless people? I sincerely doubt they are delusional enough to believe they aren’t acting shamelessly and hypocritically. I think they believe they can use whatever tool is at hand and will be given a pass because Team Democrat would never reprimand their own, and Team Republicans are too polite (weenies) to call attention to it. So Turley is right. More people need to stand up and say, “Enough!” and call all the bullshit for what it really is.
“ If anyone has an alternate explanation for why Democrats want these illegals in the country other than for swelling Democratic ranks, I’m all ears.”
One possible alternative explanation is manipulation of the supply side of the job market. Baby Boomers are starting to age out of the workforce en masse, which shrinks the pool of job candidates, pressures companies to compete for employees and puts upward pressure on wages. Companies don’t want to compete for employees. They want high unemployment so they can abuse and bully workers into accepting low wages, crap hours, no promotions, no vacation pay, etc. if employees have leverage to negotiate better working conditions for themselves, the government cannot step in and play benevolent dictator with impunity. Solution: Import millions of unskilled migrants to drive down job competition. Donors are happy. Government is happy. The only people who aren’t happy are the voters, and unhappy voters makes politicians happy.
Null Pointer,
I’m pondering this explanation, and I have two questions. The first involves talent. Yes, bringing in hordes of illegals will solve competing for employees at the unskilled end, but that doesn’t really fix competing with employees in skilled positions. In your explanation, is talent overlooked, or is the idea that filling up the bottom tiers will push people into the upper tiers? Or are they really thinking everyone can quickly learn to code or master a craft?
The second almost seems an incoherence. Companies might want high unemployment so that they can keep wages and benefits low, since employees are the ones competing for jobs, but if this gives the government the opportunity to sweep in and insist that companies offer certain levels of wages and benefits, doesn’t that make the companies unhappy, as well? I suppose we could argue that maybe there is some calibration in there, where certain rates of unemployment would suppress wages but not trigger government intervention, but then the government is not happy. And I guess this would make Doocey’s question of how much illegal immigration is enough for the administration very valid.
The US has shifted to having mostly unskilled service jobs, which is what illegal immigrants can do.
Skilled positions are addressed with legal immigration and offshoring. Voters mostly don’t complain about skilled immigrants because they don’t leech off of welfare. The only people who complain about skilled immigration are the people losing their jobs to immigrants who work as indentured servants for green cards at low wages. That is a separate issue from illegal immigration. As a programmer, I can tell you that learning to code is a waste of time. Nearly 100% of entry level positions are filled by foreigners. Citizens cannot get jobs coding unless they already have experience, can rely on nepotism to land their first job, or are willing to spend years searching for an entry level position with one of the handful of companies who don’t use the big contracting firms (Infosys, TaTa, Accenture, Wipro, etc). But I digress.
As to the second half, it is partly about calibration but mostly about control. The US has been swallowing the demographic elephant of the baby boomers for many decades. There are 3 generations of employees who have never had any leverage in the job market whatsoever. Gen X, Millenials and GenZ. Companies obviously like having all the leverage.
When the government steps in and benevolently raises wages or adds benefits, they do so universally. They don’t tell McDonalds they must raise wages but not Burger King. It does not create competition between companies to raise the minimum wage. It also doesn’t actually help employees to raise minimum wage. It only increases prices. Prices have no ceiling but they do have a floor. They rise to meet what people can afford. If everyone gets a raise, everyone can charge more. It’s fake benevolence. Actually, this government benevolence decreases competition, because it puts small businesses out of business.
Real competition puts companies in actual competition with each other. Maybe one company chooses to increase pay, while another offers sick pay, and another makes hours less chaotic. Now potential employees can pick and choose what they want. Prices cannot universally rise because not everyone simultaneously gets a raise. Businesses have to actually make strategic decisions instead of pretending to make strategic decisions.
The US has shifted to having mostly unskilled service jobs, which is what illegal immigrants can do.
I haven’t looked into the numbers on that, but you can’t really run an economy with just unskilled jobs. Especially not the kinds that robots will be doing soon. And you can’t make a living on unskilled jobs, no matter how the government inflates minimum wage. So that’s a really depressing thing to consider.
On your point 3 if we find a way to quickly transform people from illegal entrants to legal residents we will encourage more illegal entrants and that will help the cartels market their services. Reagan admitted one of his biggest mistakes was to go along with the progressive bill to grant amnesty.
We need policies that dissuade those wanting to emigrate solely for economic reasons
Chris,
I’d certainly embrace an all-encompassing effort. I want to see the border much more secure. Walls, cameras, more border patrols, etc. It is imperative that we channel everyone into the legitimate means of immigration. But I think those legitimate means need reform, as well. I’m all in favor of increasing the number of people we allow to immigrate, and in speeding up the process of getting them into the country. But yes, we want people with skills, talents, or intent to receive an education or training in a craft, and we preferentially want people who intend to stay.
But I really want to see all those illegals out of the shadows and into the light. Given the numbers, I’m not sure how that could be possible without amnesty.
Ryan, assume you grant amnesty to 30 million (estimated) illegal aliens to bring them out of the shadows, how do you assimilate that many without closing down the borders for an extended period of time? Moreover, what do you do with the millions more who illegally enter after we say no more. What happens when one group demands more immigrants or yells racism if they don’t get their way.
Currently, the US allows for more immigrants than any other nation so unless we have a supply shortage of a necessary skill why should that number be increased?
Why not enact policies that promote stability in those countries from which people are fleeing and seeking asylum here (read colonialization). A one time expense to eliminate the factors that caused them to flee is as good an answer as another amnesty. Having 30 million people and more to come here is the colonialization of the U.S.
The notion that illegal immigrants are living in the shadows is a myth they live their lives without fear because they know far too many are unwilling to be cast as a bigot against them.
I do applaud your ideas though.
Chris,
Again, a key factor is actually securing the border to stem the flood of illegal immigrants. If I were in charge, there would be no public mention of amnesty until the wall was in place and the border patrol tripled in size. Only then would we call for all those who don’t have valid documents to come forward and start the process.
I’m good bringing in that number of people for two reasons. First, we’re not doing a good job with replacement rates, and immigration does help make up for that. Second, if we import in the best and brightest of other nations, and allow quite a chunk from those nations to come, it should influence those countries to stop the talent drain. I’m not sure what we could do directly to fix the countries the illegals are coming from, but I’m sure anything effective would necessarily involve strong military effort.
I do think a great many illegals live in fear, though I have no hard data myself on that, and maybe I’ve bought into all the propaganda around them. But because they are here illegally, they are vulnerable. If the choice is between dealing with a trafficker and having their status exposed to authorities, I would imagine there is intense pressure to give to the trafficker. Maybe I’m wrong (I always reserve the right to be wrong), but the things we hear in the news about traffickers bringing people across the border leads me to believe that trafficking especially is a deep and pervasive problem.
If a genuinely secure immigration process were in place, there is no practical alternative to laying out some kind of amnesty. The US can’t round up millions of residents and deport them without looking like the Third Reich.
Neither political party wants the border secured, so that is never ever going to happen. Since it is impossible for the border to be secured, there is no point talking about amnesty.
Biden’s ICE bureaucrats did find one family they’d like to deport:
https://redstate.com/beckynoble/2023/09/26/biden-administrations-double-standard-on-full-display-as-german-homeschooling-family-faces-deportation-n2164319