Trumpian Toddlers Get What They Want, Throw It Away for Big Daddy Putin
The latest series of inactions on Capitol Hill are effectively putting Donald Trump in charge of the country nine months before the election. A private citizen is fostering a misinformation campaign to lead legislators to actions endangering our nation’s national security.
What’s worse is that this moment in time is being overlooked in our nation’s press. It’s like a weatherman saying “chance of showers” while cars are floating down the interstate. The New York Times story picked up by the Union-Tribune doesn’t even use the word “Trump”, the moniker of the man whose influence killed the legislation.
There have been two major opportunities for border and immigration reform since 2000. Both had bipartisan support and Republicans as lead authors. One was proposed in 2005 under a GOP President; the other is the proposal currently on the table. Barring some unforeseen event, it looks like both will have been killed by Republicans.
In November, Republicans threw down the gauntlet, saying aid to Ukraine would be denied unless their demands on the border were part of the package. The right wing in Congress got much of what it asked for on immigration.
Hell, the Border Patrol even came out in support of the legislation’s language.
Via NBC News:
The National Border Patrol Council — which represents more than 18,000 agents — said the bill would “drop illegal border crossings nationwide and will allow our agents to get back to detecting and apprehending those who want to cross our border illegally and evade apprehension.”
It's a significant statement of support from a group that endorsed former President Donald Trump in 2020 and has repeatedly railed against President Joe Biden’s handling of the border.
“While not perfect, the Border Act of 2024 is a step in the right direction and is far better than the current status quo,” Brandon Judd, president of the council, said in the statement. “This is why the National Border Patrol Council endorses this bill and hopes for its quick passage.”
Many left-leaning legislators gagged at what was being called a compromise. Immigrant and refugee rights groups, including Amnesty International USA, blasted the legislation as containing “the most extreme anti-immigrant proposals this country has seen in 100 years.”.
Also: Left out of the bill were the nation’s 544,690 Dreamers receiving temporary protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Left out were Afghan translators seeking permission to exist in the country that used them. Left out was $1.3 billion for FEMA.
Under this law, the President could effectively shut down the border if certain criteria were met. Standards for asylum seekers were toughened, and a fast track to deportation was created.
Once candidate Donald Trump came out against this bill, the predicted 70 supportive Senate votes disappeared. He demanded that border legislation be passed separately from any foreign aid appropriation. And the misinformation about the compromise began to flow.
Senator Josh Hawley claimed migrants would be provided with lawyers under the legislation. In fact, separated children under 13 would get legal help. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise brayed about “5,000 illegal immigrants a day” entering the US, when that number as mentioned in the bill was a triggering point for tougher enforcement.
Ultra-conservative Senator James Lankford, who led negotiations on the package, became the target of Trump’s ire, compounded with the lie holding that the former president hadn’t endorsed the Senator’s reelection campaign four years ago.
The Oklahoma Republican described his frustrations in a CNN interview:
“I’m frustrated when people put out intentionally false information. I expect more. There are policy disagreements on that, I get that. If people think that politics are wrong, and now we’re in a presidential year, so let’s not help Biden in the process, we’re just going to disagree on that. I get frustrated when people put out things that are intentionally false, that they know are false, because I expect more of Americans.”
(Geez, Langford is just noting this tactic? It’s on page one of the MAGA playbook.)
The legislation in question is all-too-often being written about as if it were just about migrants crossing the border from Mexico. In fact, the $118.3 billion bipartisan compromise bill in the Senate offered immigration reform AND vital aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel.
Helpful Hint: The great fentanyl flood isn’t mostly coming over the border. It’s coming via container cargos in US ports. Customs and Border Protection currently scans 3.7% of the roughly 11 million containers coming into the US annually. Why would a drug lord NOT take the easiest path? (Congress refuses to fund more container enforcement)
The $60 billion for Ukraine would make up the largest portion of the proposed appropriation, and that’s the real sticking point for the MAGA/GOP. It took a lot of trying to figure out a way to block support for what most Americans consider freedom fighters, but that goal is on the horizon. Now that Saint Tucker Carlson is in Moscow “rooting for Russia,” it seems as though another step has been taken toward openly acknowledging their allegiance to Vladimir Putin.
New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman has coined a bumper sticker in recognition of this development:
Trump First. Putin Second. America Third.
Jay Kuo says there are three lessons to be learned from the way “the border crisis” has evolved the GOP:
The first is that you should not try to meet the GOP more than halfway in its agenda of cruelty. As Julian Castro put it, “Democrats, you’re never going to be cruel enough, ‘tough’ enough, anti-immigrant enough or able to deport your way to the negotiating table with McConnell and MAGA.”
The second is that doing anything the GOP’s way is no solution, because they aren’t interested in solutions. Their bottom line is always going to be what Trump and the most MAGA elements of their party want. And in the end, they want chaos, not governance.
The third is that, as attorney Marc Elias of Democracy Docket put it, “[T]here are no moderates in the GOP—just proud MAGA and scared MAGA. A whole bunch of Senate Republicans are in the scared MAGA camp right now.”
It’s safe to say there is a high probability the House of Representatives will do little more than name offices and hold hearings to keep the MAGA based motivated. To actually do anything that could be interpreted as helping Joe Biden is verboten, so sayeth Fearless Leader.
As bad as killing a bill they asked for are probabilities for Ukraine and Taiwan. In each instance opportunities for neighboring totalitarian states are heightened and longer range possibilities for democratic governance are threatened.
Israel’s inclusion was made to make the bill more attractive; any standalone bill would easily pass, which is what Republicans will now attempt.
Oh, and Reps. Matt Gaetz and Elise Stefanik introduced a resolution saying Trump didn’t engage in insurrection. It’s a two-fer, keeping Dear Leader happy and making a hit list to identify those who won’t bow down.
***
I’ll be back with more 2024 primary voter guides soon.
***
Tuesday Tidbits of News
***
A Good and Simple Thing: Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs defy the takes. Via Jill Filipovic
There is so often so little to feel good about. The Chapman-Combs performance was a rare moment we can just let be uncomplicated and beautiful: two artists demonstrating mutual respect, with Chapman taking the lead and Combs making clear that his version of her song was made from a place of reverence and appreciation. To be clear, this is not me saying “let’s not make everything about race.” The differing responses to Combs’s version of Fast Car versus Chapman’s were often very much about race (and, for the record, I like Chapman’s version better). But I am glad to see that, so far, the Chapman-Combs performance of this iconic song has defied the Take Economy, and that, at least in the publications I read, no one has given into the temptation to write a screed deeming a truly magnificent performance “problematic.”
We live in societies in which racial and gender categories shape everything from opportunity to perception of reality. I hope, though, that we are all working toward a world in which individuals have the freedom to create art that may reflect who they are, but isn’t constrained by it — not a “colorblind” world, but not a color-limited one, either.
The Chapman-Combs performance was a thing of rare beauty. Sometimes, a piece of art is so utterly lovely it can simply stand, uncomplicated, for all of us to admire.
***
No Place for Hate by Brad Willis at Perspectives
Awaken is not coming to Coronado to serve the community. It’s coming in hopes of imposing its agenda, which includes seeking control of school and library boards while supporting national groups that favor overthrowing democracy in favor of a rigid, authoritarian autocracy.
Threatening that you will take the crown away from the Crown City of Coronado, calling those who see through you perverted, unholy, and unclean, while claiming that God has sent you here to take over, is preposterous, self-aggrandizing, delusional, and absurd.
It’s also antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ, who urged us to love our neighbors, not condemn them, control them, or try to take their territory as yours.
***
Goofy 'God's Army' convoy on Texas border shows Trump's MAGA movement is just one long con by Rex Huppke at USA Today Opinions
MAGA is and always has been a con to line the pockets of Trump and others who saw a swath of Americans waiting to be fleeced. The fact that our border is not now lined with big, strong, gun-toting patriots willing to defend America at all costs is not surprising.
MAGA says: “WE ARE COMING BY THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS!” Then MAGA delivers a crowd that resembles a small county fair on a slow day, populated by a mix of conspiracy theorists, angry xenophobes and slightly befuddled hangers-on who didn’t get what they were promised.
