Should Young Illegals Be Punished For Their Parents’ Unlawful Entry Into The U.S.?

Here’s an interesting take Alberto M. Carvalho at the Miami Herald

Don’t punish young immigrants for their parents’ choices

Americans remain divided about immigration, yet one belief continues to hold significant bipartisan support: Children should not be pawns in our larger political battles.

On this matter of fairness, Congress should pay attention to Florida. As politically divided as any state, Florida lawmakers found common ground to offer equal opportunities to the children of undocumented immigrants who find themselves in this country through no fault of their own.

A child who attends our high schools for at least three years and graduates here is allowed to pursue higher education at in-state tuition rates.

Why should we penalize students who succeed in our schools, follow our rules, and exemplify American values?

Well, for one, they are unlawfully present in the United States. For another, they are using the resources that should be going to American citizens. And, another, because they are Demanding!!!!! that we give them education, money, clothes, healthcare, and citizenship, while many are insulting American citizens, our nation, our flag, and some even demand the return of the American southwest to Mexico.

Regardless of political party, and regardless of how we resolve issues related to undocumented adults, we should value the achievements of youth who attain a U.S. high school education, show strong moral character, and go on to college or serve in the military.

Now, perhaps we can have a debate over allowing the children of illegals, who were brought by their parents, to have some sort of legal status, up to citizenship. They would have to pay fines, and the same fees that those who do it the lawful way pay. That would seem fair, would it not?

The problem here is exactly what is glossed over: what to do with the parents? The illegal aliens supporters admit that the parents have done wrong, that they’re at fault. In essence, criminals. And this is where the debate breaks down, because those of us who are against illegal immigration know that the minute we say “OK, let’s do something for the kids”, we’ll then have the goalposts moved to “well, if we’re going to let the kids have legal status, then the parents need to get it, too” by the pro-illegal forces. And then they’ll want the relatives to be able to come. And then to legalize all the others, because, hey, it’s not fair that the kids of illegals were given legal status, all the others who came without their kids should get amnesty, too. We know how this will work.

It would also invite more to come across the border illegally, thinking that if they bring their kids, they will all get amnesty, because no one will do anything to slam the door shut post-amnesty. We already saw this occur when illegals were given amnesty under Reagan. He though this would be a one time thing. Obviously, the problem became worse.

I actually know some who were given amnesty under Reagan, and have met others. This isn’t personal, though, it is about rule of law. Would the pro-illegal forces agree to allowing the Dreamers legal resident status, with the chance to earn citizenship, while not giving their parents legal status, along with implementing tough measures to shut down unlawful immigration? If not, there’s no purpose in even debating it.

Read: Should Young Illegals Be Punished For Their Parents’ Unlawful Entry Into The U.S.? »

LA Times: These Antifa Folks Are Thugs, Not Activists

The editorial board of the LA Times has apparently had enough, particularly because so many journalists and news photographers have been assaulted. And, though they do not mention that all these Antifa, Black Bloc, etc folks are Democratic Party voters, they seem a bit concerned that they will make the Democratic Party look bad, eventually

Editorial: Violent demonstrators in Berkeley are thugs, not activists

There can be no justification for the violence perpetrated on Sunday by a group of leftist protesters who attacked supporters of President Trump and others Sunday during an otherwise peaceful “rally against hate” in Berkeley.

Whether they are described as “black bloc” or anarchists — the nomenclature isn’t important — the masked, black-clad protesters are criminals, not the vanguard of a righteous resistance to fascism. They also are traitors to the thousands of peaceful demonstrators who gathered in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Park to counter a “No to Marxism in America” rally — a non-event that drew a relatively small contingent of right-wingers after its organizer, fearing violence, had urged supporters to stay home. (snip)

This is thuggery, not activism. And it has become too familiar a phenomenon in Berkeley, belying its reputation as a citadel of free speech. In February, for example, 150 black-clad agitators caused $100,000 worth of damage when they smashed through the city protesting a planned UC Berkeley speech by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. The speech was canceled.

It has become all too familiar across the country. But, good job for the LATEB to stand up against it. They probably understand, also, that LA is a prime place for more nuts to show up and cause problems.

An entirely different issue is whether it is ever acceptable to commit violence against someone who is peacefully expressing a point of view, however repugnant. The answer to that question is no. There is no “hate speech” exception to the 1st Amendment, and no “anti-fascist” dispensation from laws against assault and battery. (Notably, it’s not clear whether those who were set upon Sunday were attacked for their views or for simply showing up.)

Ooooooh, Leftists are going to be upset that the LATEB just blew away the “hate speech is not constitutionally protected” meme.

Yet some would rationalize or explain away violence of the kind engaged in by the masked protesters in Berkeley. According to this view — summed up in the glib slogan “Punch a Nazi!” — right-wing extremism is such a threat to the body politic that preemptive violence isn’t just permissible but necessary. That’s a seductive but sinister notion that, if acted on, empowers the very groups the protesters oppose. The punches they’re throwing are injuring their own side.

Unfortunately, they didn’t go far enough, in that these violent lefties and their supporters/protectors have labeled anyone not on their side as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Klan members. Also, fascists, which is interesting in that the “anti-fascists” are the ones trying to shut down Free Speech and create massive, giant, domineering government.

Read: LA Times: These Antifa Folks Are Thugs, Not Activists »

Washington Post Attempts To Blame Trump For Harvey, Hits Obama Instead

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post has finally joined in on the “ZOMG, Harvey was made worse by Hotcoldwetdry!” bandwagon. They try and punch Trump and his administration in the face, but, who was president the past eight years?

Houston is paying the price for public officials’ ignorance

PRESIDENT TRUMP assured the nation over the weekend that he is “closely monitoring” the disaster in Texas. “We have an all out effort going, and going well!” he tweeted.

No, the president and his administration do not. Since they entered office, they have tried to enhance the risk of the sort of devastation on display in Texas. Anyone watching Houston who fails to worry about how humans are intensifying natural risks, including storm surges, deluges and flooding, is ignoring the warning signs right in front of them.

We should very much worry about news outlets which use vast amounts of fossil fuels, trees, and energy. Regardless, no matter what Trump has or has not done, he’s only been in officer since the end of January. Obama was there for eight years. Plus time as a Senator. How is this Trump’s fault in any manner? Oh, right, #Resist and #TrumpDerangementSyndrome.

Scientists are habitually cautious about attributing a single weather event to the long-term increase in global temperature that human beings have begun, and they cannot say with reasonable certainty that climate change caused Hurricane Harvey. In fact, they are still sorting out exactly how global warming affects hurricane formation. It seems likely that an increase in North Atlantic hurricanes is linked to climate change, but scientists cannot confidently rule out some other factor.

So, scientists don’t know? They do not want to provide links when they do not have “reasonable certainty”? No worries!

What they can say — and have, emphatically, since this hurricane slammed into Houston — is that “Harvey was almost certainly more intense than it would have been in the absence of human-caused warming,” as climate scientist Michael E. Mann wrote in the Guardian. The surge of water this storm churned up out of the Gulf of Mexico was half a foot higher than it would have been without the rising sea level, he reckoned. This storm surge not only endangered coastal-zone communities such as Galveston, but local experts report it also blocked water drainage from inland areas that heavy rains have inundated.

In fact, the storm surge was lower than expected for this storm. Thankfully. Sea sea rise has little to do with storm surge, especially since there has been less than a foot over the past 100 years, which is less than normal for a Holocene warm period. We then get more of the typical whines about the Gulf being warmer than normal, more water vapor, but, they forgot to offer scientific proof of anthropogenic causation.

Houston is an example of what happens when public officials ignore experts and refuse to take natural risks seriously. As the country’s fourth-largest city expanded, replacing prairie with impermeable surfaces such as pavement and concrete, the land was rendered less and less capable of absorbing floodwater. Without proper adaptive measures, this made an already flood-prone place more vulnerable. A ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation found last year that those who have overseen Houston’s flooding issues discounted scientists’ warnings as “anti-development.” In the coming months and years, the city may pay a high price for such shortsightedness.

So, the problem is actually poor planning when it comes to things like roads in what is already a flood plain, in an area that is historically hurricane active? Well, what was Obama doing the past 8 years?

Those officials had the fate of only one city in their hands. Mr. Trump has the fate of the whole world.

The fate! #TrumpDerangementSyndrome. Do you know what would be fun? If Trump slapped a fee on the production of newspapers from trees.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Washington Post Attempts To Blame Trump For Harvey, Hits Obama Instead »

CNN: It’s Too Soon For Trump To Go To Texas

Former Obama flack Jen Psaki jumps into the “Trump’s damned if he does damned if he doesn’t debate” as she questions the timing

It’s too soon for Trump to go to Texas

Every helicopter supporting a Trump visit to Texas in response to Hurricane Harvey is a helicopter not picking survivors off rooftops.

As President Donald Trump faces the first crisis of his presidency (one that is not self-inflicted) he fortunately has a chief of staff, John Kelly, who knows how to deal with emergency response, and a well-respected FEMA director in Brock Long leading an agency that has rebuilt itself since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

There will be many decisions ahead about resources and funding at the federal level that will have an actual impact on the recovery of Houston and the other affected communities. These will be far more important than the movements of Air Force One, but the President’s decision to travel to Texas just days after the first wave of the storm hit is, at best, surprising.

Quite frankly, there is so much stupid with this, I could spend the next hour fisking it. Just not worth the time. Suffice to say, had Trump waited till the search and rescue phase was over, as she claims was the Obama doctrine (yeah, could spend lots of time on that one), Trump would be blamed for waiting too long.

Read: CNN: It’s Too Soon For Trump To Go To Texas »

If All You See…

…is a fish made smaller because Someone Else used a hair dryer, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Pacific Pundit, with a post on what Antifa has planned for November 4th

Read: If All You See… »

Captain Cook Statue Vandalized In Australia

Don’t think hardcore Progressives are just coming after Confederate statues (and Christopher Columbus, Joan of Arc, Revolutionary War heroes, Washington, Jefferson, even FDR….but not KKK member Robert Byrd stuff). They seem interested in other things around the world

(Daily Mail)  A statue of Captain Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park has been fenced off after it was the target of a vandal who scrawled ‘change the date’ and ‘no pride in genocide’ across the monument.

Cones and tape now surround the monument of Captain Cook, which boasts an inscription saying the British explorer ‘discovered this territory, 1770’.

The fencing off of the statue on Tuesday comes after it was vandalised on Saturday morning.

The messages have been washed off the statue, but cones and tape separate it from the public.

Labour leader Bill Shorten has called for Hyde Park’s Captain Cook statue to be reformed.

Speaking at Hyde Park in Sydney’s centre on Monday, Mr Shorten joined a growing number of activists campaigning for the statue to acknowledge and pay respect to Aboriginal people – the country’s first Australians.

The words ‘change the date’ and ‘no pride in genocide’ were scrawled across the monument in spray paint – political slogans used by people who want the date of Australia Day changed.

Statues of Lachlan Macquarie and Queen Victoria were also defaced with spray paint.

Let’s face it, nothing will make these people happy. Unless it’s a statue to those nice people like Stalin, Mao, and Che.

Meanwhile, in Durham, NC, a Major in the Durham County Sheriff’s office is not a happy camper

A major in the Durham County Sheriff’s Office says county commissioners are setting a dangerous precedent by questioning the felony charges in the toppling of a Confederate statue.

“Should law enforcement determine the severity of charges for persons who destroy or deface monuments based upon the political leanings of county commissioners?” Maj. Paul Martin said in a statement.

“Is it alright (sic) for the left to destroy or deface a monument but not the right?” he continued. “Are statements concerning the severity of criminal charges by county commissioners an effort to obstruct justice since they control the budget for the sheriff as well as raises for the sheriff and all his personnel?”

Several county commissioners are looking for leniency and even having the felony charges dropped against the criminals who tore down a statue in Durham. They control the purse strings for the Sheriff’s office. And the major is entirely correct: is there one standard of Justice for some and not for others? If some white supremacists took down a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr., would the same people call for full prosecution? Of course they would. Regardless of the motivations, vandalism is vandalism, as in incitement to riot. We are either a Nation of Law or a Nation of Men.

Read: Captain Cook Statue Vandalized In Australia »

Berkeley Mayor Is So Into Free Speech That He Asks College To Cancel Free Speech Week

The heckler’s veto in action

(San Francisco Chronicle) In the aftermath of a right-wing rally Sunday that ended with anarchists chasing attendees from a downtown park, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin urged UC Berkeley on Monday to cancel conservatives’ plans for a Free Speech Week next month to avoid making the city the center of more violent unrest.

“I don’t want Berkeley being used as a punching bag,” said Arreguin, whose city has been the site of several showdowns this year between, on the one hand, the left and its fringe anarchist wing, and on the other, supporters of President Trump who at times have included white nationalists.

“I am concerned about these groups using large protests to create mayhem,” Arreguin said. “It’s something we have seen in Oakland and in Berkeley.”

For the most part, the only people present on Sunday were…..Democratic Party voters. There were very few “right wing” protesters, and, really, should they have to worry about major violence and assault from people wearing masks while the police stand idly by and watch crimes occur? Furthermore, if the mayor is so worried about violence, perhaps he should work to protect those engaged in something that is guaranteed by both the federal and California Constitutions.

The mayor wants UC Berkeley to halt plans by a conservative campus group, the Berkeley Patriot, to host right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos during its scheduled Free Speech Week from Sept. 24-27. Berkeley’s right-vs.-left cage matches began with an appearance that Yiannopoulos was to have made in February at a campus hall, an event that was aborted when black-clad anarchists like those who broke up Sunday’s downtown rally stormed into Sproul Plaza, smashed windows and set bonfires.

Have you ever noticed that when a left wing speaker shows up on campus, there are no riots by large groups of right wingers wearing masks, carrying baseball bats, making threats, and so forth? It’s only when someone on the right shows up, because it’s the mayor’s voters who are violent. And he lets his police officers stand down. Every officer should be ashamed.

“I’m very concerned about Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter and some of these other right-wing speakers coming to the Berkeley campus, because it’s just a target for black bloc to come out and commit mayhem on the Berkeley campus and have that potentially spill out on the street,” Arreguin said, referring to militants who have also been called anti-fascists or antifa.

You have a police force, sir. Why not use them to protect people engaged in their Constitutionally protected Right to Free Speech? Instead of giving in to the violence from the Left that you just admitted to?

“I obviously believe in freedom of speech, but there is a line between freedom of speech and then posing a risk to public safety,” the mayor said. “That is where we have to really be very careful — that while protecting people’s free-speech rights, we are not putting our citizens in a potentially dangerous situation and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing the windows of businesses.”

Heckler’s Veto. Due to Democratic Party voter violence and threats.

Perhaps we should rename this the Democrat’s Veto.

Read: Berkeley Mayor Is So Into Free Speech That He Asks College To Cancel Free Speech Week »

Hurricane Harvey Previews Our Stormy Future Or Something

Warmists have been waiting almost twelve years to write their full insane cult talking points regarding major hurricanes. They gave it a shot when Superstorm Sandy came on-shore, they gave it a shot during Hurricane Matthew last year, but, otherwise, there’s been a dearth of landfalling tropical storm systems since 2008, and no major hurricanes since October, 2005. They’re all screaming like a pig in slop. Here’s the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, who fails to mention the vast amounts of fossil fuels and trees used to produce and distribute the WP

Hurricane Harvey previews our stormy future

Pay attention to what happened to Houston. It is rare to be given such a vivid look at our collective future.

Climate change cannot be definitively blamed for Hurricane Harvey, but it likely did make the storm more powerful. Global warming did not conjure the rains that flooded the nation’s fourth-largest city, but it likely did make them more torrential. The spectacle of rescue boats plying the streets of a major metropolis is something we surely will see again. The question is how often.

And this is how they’re doing it now. They’ve used the time between major hurricanes, the longest dry spell on record for the United States, to craft cult-points about “making it worse”. But, did a changing climate make Harvey worse? Worse than what? There were several big, strong hurricanes during periods of cooling, such as Camille in 1969. How about the biggest, the Labor Day 1935 hurricane? Did fossil fuels cause it?

The relationship between climate and weather is undeniable but never specific.

Actually, it is. Climate is simply the long term average of weather. Thanks for playing, Eugene.

Tropical cyclones do not batter Siberia’s arctic coast and heavy snowfalls do not blanket the beaches of Barbados because the climates are different. But no one blizzard or hurricane can be attributed to climate change beyond the shadow of a doubt — which opens anyone who raises the subject at a time like this to the accusation of “politicizing” a disaster.

You’re politicizing a disaster, Eugene, as your own writing in the 3rd paragraph obliterates everything else. But, as you’d expect, Eugene doesn’t give up. Let’s move on from Excitable Eugene, over to the NY Times, where we get articles comparing and contrasting Harvey to Katrina (someone had to go down that rabbit hole), yammering about a 500 year flood, then Excitable David Leonhardt, with

Harvey, The Storm That Humans Helped Cause

(lots of yammering, with a failure to actually offer scientific evidence that Mankind is mostly/solely responsible for ‘climate change)

Add up the evidence, and it overwhelmingly suggests that human activity has helped create the ferocity of Harvey. That message may be hard to hear — harder to hear, certainly, than stories of human kindness that is now mitigating the storm’s toll. But it’s the truth.

Beyond Harvey, the potential damage from climate change is terrifying. Disease, famine and flooding of biblical proportions are within the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, stories of potential misery have not been enough to stir this country to action. They haven’t led to a Manhattan Project for alternative energy or a national effort to reduce carbon emissions.

He offered no evidence. Just because the climate has changed, just like it has always done, and, more immediately, has done many, many times during the Holocene, doesn’t mean Mankind is to blame. These people are as bad as witches blaming the gods for bad weather.

And there are so many more, such as Eric Holthaus in Politico, yammering about Harvey Is What Climate Change Looks Like. When we had an almost 12 year dearth of major hurricanes not making landfall on the U.S., and almost no hurricanes since 2008, why is that not “what climate change looks like”?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Hurricane Harvey Previews Our Stormy Future Or Something »

Hey, Let’s Build Statues To Climate Change Heroes Or Something

This one comes to us from north of the border, as Gerry Labelle, 2011 Progressive Conservative candidate for Sudbury writes in

Sudbury letter: Build statues for climate change heroes

While the Ontario Teachers Federation passed a motion to remove the name of Canada’s first prime minister from all public elementary schools in the province, a larger crisis looms that could easily make history either irrelevant or extinct.

OK, so that’s obviously a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it does fit to serve the reason for this article.

There is a looming crisis; it’s called climate change. It is the common enemy that should be uniting us.

Any politician who wants his or her name on a building or statue or any public institution needs to act now. Failing to take positive action would be the greatest failing of any leader. (snip to the end)

To our Canadian leaders, thank you, but you have to do more. If you single-handedly solve the climate change crisis, I will work to get the whole damn planet named after you.

How soon till the Warmists start wanting to replace the statues of all involved with Wrongthink, which now seems to include not just those linked to the Confederacy, but Washington, Jefferson, Joan Of Arc, a Revolutionary War Colonel, and so on, with “climate heroes?”

Read: Hey, Let’s Build Statues To Climate Change Heroes Or Something »

If All You See…

…is a horrible fossil fueled boat that will be needed when the world is flooded from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Right Scoop, with a post on some incredible photos from Harvey.

Read: If All You See… »

Pirate's Cove