border security

Opening Up the Immigration Debate

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Trump laid out a plan for immigration, and did the GOP a huge favor. From what I gather, Trump’s is for deportation of all illegals and building a secure border. This is far more vigorous than any GOPer has proposed and, indeed, it is probably a plan which would never get majority support. It is also makes things a bit more difficult for the GOP – but at the same time it opens up a gigantic opportunity.

First off, the Democrats love it – not the plan, but that Trump said it as a Republican. They desperately need a divisive, racial issue which can be used to juice up the base for Hillary in 2016. Regardless of what happens to Trump, Democrats will paint the Trump position as the GOP position – and as the Democrats will put it, the GOP plan is cruel deportation. No amount of mealy-mouthed GOP claims to the contrary will matter because, quite simply, the MSM won’t sufficiently report them…but you can bet that they’ll drive this into the ground…it’ll be endless “REPUBLICAN Donald Trump wants to DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS” on replay for days as the MSM drives the Narrative into the public mind. The bottom line is that the Democrats and their MSM lapdogs will try to convince LIVs that the GOP hates Latinos.

Will it work? Of course it will. All it took was one badly answered question and the GOP was hammered successfully with “war on women” twaddle for two election cycles. LIV are LIV for a reason – they don’t know anything other than what the MSM tells them. And the MSM will tell them about Trump and the mean, horrid, racist, cruel Republicans.

Secondly, though, it does open up the field of debate – any GOPer can now be a relative moderate on immigration but still be tough on illegal immigration: he or she just needs to step an inch to the left of Trump. We can condemn both extremes of immigration – mass deportation and open borders, while at the same time calling for real immigration reform which will actually give the United States an immigration policy based upon rational ideas. LIV who have been told that the GOP is a horrid, racist bunch of anti-Latino bigots will eventually get to hear the actual GOP nominee speak about it…and when he or she lays out a rational plan for immigration reform, and then challenges Hillary on the Democrats’ open border nonsense, LIV will have their eyes opened (well, we hope – as long as there isn’t some Kardashian news on the debate nights).

My ideas on immigration start with strict border security – both as a matter of national defense and as an act of mercy towards the illegals: our Progressives will downright refuse to see it, but open borders in the United States merely means that criminal gangs control entry into our nation, and they treat the illegals extremely badly. I’d like to see a modification of birthright citizenship, but I believe any change here would require a Constitutional amendment (I would amend it to say, “any person born to at least one U.S. citizen is a natural born citizen of the United States”, in order to finally clear up forever the entire issue). I’d like to have some sort of guest-worker program. I’d slap a 90% tax on remittances from people in the United States to people in foreign countries (I believe this would, of itself, cause several million illegals to just go back home – they are only here to send money back home and once we stop that, there’s no reason for them to be here), though I’d offer no tax penalty to a guest-worker who takes his savings with him when he leaves (in other words, while he’s working legally as a guest-worker let’s say he saves $10,000.00…if he tries to wire that home, we take $9,000.00…but if he goes home with it, no penalty; massive incentive to leave when your legal time is up). I would explicitly have a program for eventual citizenship for those illegals here for, say, 5 years or longer, who have committed no crimes while inside the United States, who have had children while living in the United States, and who have not sent more than 10% of their gross income back home since arriving in the United States (in other words, I’m getting a path to citizenship for those illegals who’s actions indicate a desire to settle permanently in the United States and become Americans). I believe that any GOPer can take all or part of these ideas and craft an immigration plan which would command majority support.

One thing for certain, Trump has torn the lid off our politically correct political process. Whether this will harm or help the conservative cause long-term remains to be seen. But now that Trump has lanced the boil, it is time for any GOPer who really wants to be President to step up, steal Trump’s thunder and come up with plans which walk the actual middle line between the extremes. We’ll see if anyone does it.

Fast and Furious Body Count: 200

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From Townhall:

In a conference call this morning with Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, reporters were told the Attorney General in Mexico has confirmed at least 200 murders south of the border happened as a result of Operation Fast and Furious.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention, as the Attorney General in Mexico is so concerned, she’s made the point that at least 200 Mexicans have been killed with these weapons and probably countless more,” Issa said.

Eleven crimes in the United States have been linked to Operation Fast and Furious up to this point. Issa said he expects as the investigation in the operation continues, more crimes connected to Fast and Furious will come to light and be exposed. This is not surprising, considering out of 2500 weapons the Obama Justice Department allowed to “walk,” and that only 600 have been recovered…

This, my fellow Americans, is a stain upon our national honor – it was we, through our government, which allowed these weapons to flow to Mexico.  We did it deliberately – and, why?  My view, as I’ve said before, is that it was a sick attempt to reinvigorate the gun control forces in this nation.  Not being able to get any traction as all the gun control ideology has proven false, someone cooked up a plan to arm Mexican criminals and then blame honest, innocent American gun dealers for the weapons…we were never supposed to find out that the weapons were purchased by the US government and illegally transferred to the drug gangs.

In order to restore our national honor in this matter we simply must get to the bottom of it – we must find out exactly who ordered this program to go forward and, in the best case scenario, ensure they see the inside of a jail cell.  People are dead because someone in DC made an egregiously stupid decision…we owe it to the dead to punish the guilty and ensure it never happens again.

The Ultimate Motive of “Gunwalker”?

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Interesting take over at Pajamas Media:

…Gunwalker purposefully increases social unrest (increased gun violence/destabilizing Mexico), with the possible result of overloading the U.S. public welfare system (more illegal aliens fleeing the violence in Mexico and Central America). Gunwalker’s perpetrators could then use that influx to create an insurmountable constituency of poor seeking handouts from the Democratic Party. The hope of the strategy is to force a system-wide collapse of the current system, and then to rebuild the government in a variant of the strongest socialist model they think the public will accept.

It sounds too devious. It appears to fit.

Take Operation Fast and Furious in Arizona, the two suspected operations in Texas, Operation Castaway in Tampa, and the newer allegations of “Gangwalker” in the Midwest — they make sense only in the larger context of a Cloward-Piven framework.

These operations could not possibly succeed at interdicting straw purchasers, smugglers, and cartel bosses. No one actually involved in law enforcement could possibly believe that such idiotic operations could work. But these operations are logical when viewed through the context of their implementation as tactical applications designed to support a Cloward-Piven strategy…

Which is an interesting idea – with Democrats viewing illegal immigrants as “undocumented Democrats” the fact of lower numbers of illegals is dismaying.  No one knows for sure, of course, but it does appear that as our economy has deteriorated, millions of illegals have self-deported.  Even out here in Las Vegas, we can see it – enrollment in the public schools is down, and you don’t see nearly as many Latinos around as you used to.  How do you get them to come back if there are no jobs?  Perhaps you aggravate violence back home and scare them in to coming here?

I know, rather Machiavellian, isn’t it?  But what other explanation can you come up with?  Only others equally Machiavellian.  Unless one wishes to think that the people running the law enforcement departments are utter idiots (which is a possibility) you are forced to come up with a nefarious, secret reason for things like “Gunwalker”.

There is no logic behind it if the intent is law enforcement.  Remember what it amounted to – the United States government legally purchased firearms in the United States and then illegally transferred the weapons to criminal gangs.  My view has been it was an effort to re-start gun control:  send the guns down there, wait until hundreds of Mexicans are killed by them, then instruct the MSM to issue breathless, heart-rending reports about how American gun dealers are fueling violence south of the border (none of us were ever supposed to find out about “Gunwalker”…we only did because after a Border Patrol agent was murdered with one of the guns, some whistle blowers stepped forward).

If it isn’t rank stupidity, then it is a wicked plan to get something that should not be had – whether its gun control, more Democrat voters or an attempt to overload the welfare system in a Cloward-Piven strategy is unknown…what we need to do is unravel the scheme and see where the evidence leads.

Trying to Get “Fast and Furious” Answers

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From the Arizona Daily Star:

Sen. John McCain has requested a Congressional hearing on the much-maligned gun trafficking investigation led by the ATF.

Up until recently, two fellow Republican legislators — Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., — have led the Congressional inquiries into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ “Fast and Furious” operation…

…“The committee should hold a meeting as soon as possible to examine these new revelations and determine what additional measures are needed to help prevent this type of malfeasance from occurring again,” McCain wrote in a letter addressed to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The veteran Arizona Senator is asking for the committee to call the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder; the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; and the ATF’s acting director, B. Todd Jones; as witnesses…

In this case, Obama had better hope he loses next year – you see, the only thing holding back Watergate-style hearings on this is the fact that Democrats still control the Senate.  Given the number of vulnerable Democrats up for re-election next year and the number the GOP needs to win to gain control, it is almost a certainty that Harry Reid won’t be in charge of the Senate come January, 2013.  At that point, there is no protection for the Administration in covering up this scandal…which is, in fact, worse than Watergate with the only thing entirely unknown at this point is the President’s role.

My view is that the Administration, in an effort to gin up support for gun control, cooked up a plan to have American weapons transferred to the drug cartels, knowing they would be used in crimes which Mexico would then blame on us…a media frenzy would erupt and demands would be made for restrictions on gun ownership.  Presto, gun control is back in to the American political mix after having been dead and buried for more than a decade. The only reason it didn’t work out like that is because an American border patrol agent was murdered with the guns and a couple people involved blew the whistle.

We do need to get to the bottom of this – who ordered the program and why they did it.  Putting Holder, especially, under oath is important here.  I don’t expect him to tell the truth, but I either want prosecutable perjury against him, or the spectacle of him taking the 5th.  Such actions could break lose other people who do know the truth and then we’ll find out what happened and why.

His Majesty, Barry I, Proclaims Amnesty

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From the New York Times:

The Homeland Security Department said Thursday it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria such as attending school, having family in the military or are primarily responsible for other family members’ care.

The move, announced in letters to Congress, won immediate praise from Hispanic activists and Democrats who had chided President Obama for months for the pace of deportations and had argued he had authority to exempt broad swaths of illegal immigrants from deportation…

Much easier than mucking about with all that tedious law, Constitution and Congress stuff…can’t get amnesty legally?  Then just say it is so…presto, there it is.

It doesn’t matter if someone has a job or is going to school – if they are here illegally, then deportation is the only way to go unless there is a clearly enacted law which says otherwise.  As long-time readers know, I am in favor of comprehensive immigration reform which would include an amnesty provision…but that is not what our laws provide for right now, so the only thing our chief law enforcement officer can do is deport.

But that doesn’t lock down a certain segment of the latino population for 2012.  And what is more important – enforcing the law, or getting re-elected?  I tell you, there was no chance Obama would do otherwise…because like all liberals, he hasn’t the foggiest notion of what law is, nor what constitutes tyranny.

2012 can’t get here fast enough…