Trump's Big CON: Don't Blame Immigrants, Thank Them

Despite what The Donald would have you think, immigrants built this country.

The United States in the 19th century "was diverse, fed off immigration, was constantly changing, and was not really walled off from the world. Any suggestion otherwise is factually wrong."

Read NPR, FACT CHECK: Were The 1800s Steve Bannon's Kind Of America?

Trump's Big CON: Flip-Flopping Is Part of the Strategy (AKA It's All About the Show, Explained, CONt. Part 5)

"Before we begin, a brief current events quiz: What is President Trump’s position on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to live and work here under certain conditions?

A. He wants to end it because it leads to crime.
B. He wants to keep it because he loves the participants.
C. He wants Congress to decide what to do with it.
D. He will decide what to do with it in six months.

The correct answer, of course, is E, all of the above.

On Tuesday, the Trump White House, in one form or another, embraced each of those options. . .

We’ve seen this dance before. On the campaign trail, Trump pledged sweeping, inexpensive health-care coverage for everybody. When Republican leaders in Congress started to put together a plan to overhaul Obamacare, that’s not what it looked like, but Trump went along with it anyway. As debate over a replacement unfolded, Trump vacillated on what he claimed to want, celebrating a House-passed bill and then deriding it as 'mean' and, in a matter of hours, flipping back and forth on whether he wanted to simply repeal the bill or to repeal and replace it or both.

Part of the problem is that Trump’s grasp of the nuance of these policies appears to be limited. . .

More broadly, though, this is very much in keeping with what we have come to expect from Trump. There are certain core principles to which he adheres, like that taxes are too high or that there should be a wall. Then there are things that he recognized as winners on the stump and which morphed into informal policy positions: replace Obamacare, no more amnesty for immigrants here illegally, drain the swamp. Those were things that got crazy amounts of applause at rallies, so he kept saying them.

In the White House, though, not everything that got applause on the trail earns that same reaction. Since Trump is highly motivated by the response he gets, he would rather have his positions exist in a state of uncertainty than finalize a plan and be criticized for it. . .

There are some contexts in which Trump has explicitly praised this strategy as deliberate. In foreign policy, for example, Trump has embraced the idea that he’ll never tip his hand as being smart and strategic in keeping our enemies off-balance. It was also an effective argument during the 2016 election when he could wave away questions about his strategy for dealing with the Islamic State by saying he didn’t want to give them a heads up (as though interviewers were requesting dates and times of particular operations). This strategy itself derives from one of the tenets he espoused in his dealmaking books: Maximize the options, and it’s easier to come out a winner.

While he’s not explicitly citing that strategy in the case of DACA, it seems pretty clear that he’s doing the same thing. If you can’t say for certain what Trump’s plan is, then you can’t get mad at him, right? . .

In recent years, politicians whose records are blank slates have seen a lot of success because it allows people to project onto them whatever they want to see. . .

Above all else, it seems, Trump wants to be liked. He wants his base to like him, so he axes DACA; he wants everyone else to like him so he pretends he didn’t. He’s happy as Schrodinger’s cat in that box (maybe), existing at one time in all possible states of public opinion — as long as one of them is approval."

Trump's Big CON: 'I'll End DACA, Kick Out Undocumented Immigrants, and Build a Wall (And Make Mexico Pay For It)'

UPDATE III:  The cavalier way that The Donald has handled the issue of immigration reform shows what an evil person he is.

Read the Washington Post, Seven ways of looking at Trump’s DACA decision, which notes that:

It is beyond cruel that the government made a promise to 'dreamers,' who had to provide information in order to qualify, and now DHS will be able to use that information against them,

Ending DACA is deeply unpopular with the American people,

The business community was pretty firmly opposed to the announcement, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanding a solution and tech companies threatening legal action,

Before the announcement Trump himself was not exactly sure what he is doing, and "realized that he had gotten himself into a politically untenable position",

Even some immigrant hardliners seem to be uncomfortable with this change in policy.

Then he flip-flopped, tweeting "Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!",

The "DACA repeal echoed Trump’s health-care fail".

"DACA, like Obamacare, has some issues. Trump’s attempted 'fix' of these problems, however, is catastrophic. Politically, Trump has managed to alienate the business community and the American people.

All in all, just another day in the beclowning of the executive branch of the federal government."

By now it should be clear, The Donald is just incapable of being a real leader.

UPDATE II:  I agree it's Congresses responsibility, which they abdicated to avoid blame.

But a real leader would have made the announcement and explained what s/he would do.

Not The Donald.

Read the Washington Post:

And Trump didn’t have the nerve to make the announcement himself, and

Trump just handed the fate of ‘dreamers’ over to an extraordinarily dysfunctional Congress.

UPDATE:  Read the Washington Post:

President Trump said he’d ‘deal with DACA with heart.’ It was a lie., and 

Don’t be fooled by the scam that Trump will pull today on DACA , which noted that "Trump tweeted this today . . .'Congress, get ready to do your job - DACA!'"

He might have a good idea.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Read the Washington Post:

Paul Ryan, other GOP congressional leaders urge Trump not to terminate DACA, and

Trump pulls back threat to shut down government over border wall — for now.

Trump's Big CON: The Donald Admits that the Wall is 'Boob Bait for Bubbas'

UPDATE:  The border wall "was always a scam; perhaps more interesting is that Trump would admit it so openly to a foreign leader — and that he himself is in no way deluded about it.

Trump plainly knew that he’d never get Mexico to pay for a wall (if it ever gets built), even as he was telling crowds that they would. And he cared deeply about it, because he understood just how powerful a symbol it had become for his followers. Which meant that he wanted to keep the illusion alive for as long as possible . . .

I’m not saying that Trump doesn’t actually want to cut down on undocumented immigration. He certainly does. But why was it so important that Mexico pay for the wall? Why did Trump do that call-and-response with his rabid crowds about it? “And who’s going to pay for it?” he’d ask. “Mexico!” they’d shout. The reason is that making Mexico pay for the wall would be an act of domination, humiliating them so we could show that we were in control.

This idea lay at the very heart of Trump’s appeal to white working-class voters, particularly men. He understood that those people no longer felt in control — their economic opportunities had dwindled, their communities had declined, they felt deeply uncomfortable in a country growing more diverse all the time and a bunch of liberals are telling them to check their privilege. Trump promised them not just that he would turn back the clock and Make America Great Again, but also that he would empower them to strike back at those who had made them feel small.

Keep in mind that Trump’s entire worldview is shaped by the idea of domination and submission. Every interaction — between people or countries — is a zero-sum contest in which there’s a winner and a loser. If you aren’t the winner then you’re the loser, the chump, the one everyone’s laughing at. It’s why whenever he talks about trade he seems obsessed with the idea of other countries 'laughing at us,' as though China filling up our dollar stores with trinkets causes us endless public humiliation. The idea of Mexico being forced against its will to pay for our wall was a potent symbol of America standing tall again, as Trump knew it would be for many people who felt they were no longer standing tall in their own lives. . .

So here’s the truth: There’s never going to be a wall.

Oh, there will be some additional border fencing in some areas. Some of it may even be wall-esque (the Department of Homeland Security just issued environmental waivers to build a 15-mile stretch of wall near San Diego). But it’s not going to stretch for 2,000 miles, and it won’t be the gold-plated monument to Trumpian excess that the president promised. Republicans, especially those who come from areas far from the border, will continue to tell voters they want a wall. Here’s a little music video that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) put out of him at the border, acting super tough with the Border Patrol — he even got to sit on a real-live horse! But it’s not going to happen.

And Mexico is never going to pay for it. But Trump knows he can’t tell his supporters that, because as he told president Peña Nieto, 'psychologically, it means something.'"

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s border wall? It was in their hearts all along.

On Jan. 27, a week after The Donalds's inauguration, he called Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

In the call The Donald "acknowledges that the wall is 'the least important thing we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important.'"

You hear that, Trump supporters? That applause line that Trump used with such gusto for basically his entire campaign — 'Build that wall,' and 'Who's going to pay for it? (Crowd response: MEXICO!)'? It was all vote-bait, red meat for voters who didn't know that it was completely impractical and would never happen. And within his first days in office — this call took place on Jan. 27, a week after Trump's inauguration — Trump was already throwing in the towel on it on a call with the Mexican president.

Trump was instead hoping people could be made to forget this “least important” issue and wouldn't punish him politically for it.

Trump spent much of his call with Pena Nieto just trying to convince him to stop talking about how Mexico would not pay for the wall. Trump even suggested he would fudge it in the end so that both sides could claim they didn't give in.

'We should both say, ‘We will work it out.’ It will work out in the formula somehow,' Trump said. 'As opposed to you saying, ‘We will not pay,’ and me saying, ‘We will not pay.’ '

Pena Nieto said Trump's promise had put a 'very big mark on our back' and 'is an issue related to the dignity of Mexico and goes to the national pride of my country.” Trump's response to all of that was basically: Okay, well let's just stop talking about it publicly.

[In a tweet about an article reporting the call,] Jonathan Martin
@jmartNYT

Trump all but invokes Moynihan in convo w Mex president: the Wall is boob bait for bubbas https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/you-cannot-say-that-to-the-press-trump-urged-mexican-president-to-end-his-public-defiance-on-border-wall-transcript-reveals/2017/08/03/0c2c0a4e-7610-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.74e7d0dfbf00 …
8:13 AM - Aug 3, 2017

'But you cannot say that to the press,' Trump said. 'The press is going to go with that, and I cannot live with that.' . .

Hearing Trump basically acknowledge that fact and concede he pulled the wool over his supporters' eyes, just seven days into his presidency, is pretty remarkable."

Read the Washington Post, Trump admits he punked his supporters on Mexico paying for the wall.

Read also Trump's Big CON: Mexico Will Pay For His Wall.

Trump's Big CON: Many Trump Products Are NOT Made in America (And He Doesn't 'Hire American' Either)

UPDATE IV:  "President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club needs to hire 35 waiters for this winter’s social season in Palm Beach, Fla.

Late last month, the club placed an ad on page C8 of the Palm Beach Post, crammed full of tiny print laying out the job experience requirements in classified ad shorthand. “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club,” the ad said. “No tips.”

The ad gave no email address or phone number. “Apply by fax,” it said. The ad also provided a mailing address. It ran twice, then never again.

This was an underwhelming way to attract local job-seekers. But that wasn’t the point. The ads were actually part of Mar-a-Lago’s efforts to hire foreign workers for those 35 jobs.

About a week before the ads ran, the president’s club asked the Labor Department for permission to hire 70 temporary workers from overseas, government records show. Beside the 35 waiters, it asked for 20 cooks and 15 housekeepers, slightly more than it hired last year.

To get visas for those workers, Mar-a-Lago, like other businesses that rely on temporary employees each year, must first take legally mandated steps to look for U.S. workers. That includes placing two ads in a newspaper.

Typically, this attempt to recruit U.S. workers is a ritualized failure. Its outcome is usually a conclusion that there are no qualified Americans to hire, justifying the need for the government to issue the visas. . .

Mar-a-Lago has relied on foreign workers since at least 2008, according to government documents. To recruit them, it relies on Petrina Group International, a firm with offices in Ithaca, N.Y., and Romania. News reports have said that Mar-a-Lago’s workers have largely been from Romania and Haiti. Representatives for Petrina did not respond to requests for comment.

In the past, Trump’s club has followed the same pattern of searching for — and not hiring — American workers. Two years ago, for instance, Jeannie Coleman, who lives in nearby West Palm Beach, applied for a job as a housekeeper.

Mar-a-Lago called back. She had an interview. Then: nothing."

Read the Washington Post, ‘Apply by fax’: Before it can hire foreign workers, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club advertises at home — briefly.

Of course, the process is a sham, what else would you expect.

UPDATE III: "Many have pointed out that Trump's words don't match his actions. He promotes American-made at the same time that he and his daughter Ivanka Trump manufacture their own products overseas, in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China (as a Washington Post investigation detailed). This very week, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club applied to hire 70 foreign workers.

The problem is a lot of Americans do what the Trumps do: They say they want to buy stuff made in the U.S.A., but when asked if they would be willing to pay more for it, they reconsider. . .

While small domestic manufacturers . . . want tariffs to help their businesses, economists say costs would go up for many products, a risky proposition when customers care more about price than country of origin."

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s ‘Made in America’ campaign has a big problem.

UPDATE II:  Read the Washington Post, During ‘Made in America Week,’ President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club applies to hire 70 foreign workers, which noted:

"Trump built his campaign last year in part on an appeal to American workers angry that their jobs had been taken by immigrants or laborers overseas. In his inaugural address, Trump said that under his leadership the country would 'follow two simple rules: buy American, and hire American.'

And this week, Trump has celebrated American companies and American labor, including an event at the White House where the president climbed into the cab of an American-made firetruck. In a proclamation Monday, Trump said he called 'upon Americans to pay special tribute to the builders, to the ranchers, to the crafters, and to all those who work every day to make America great.'

Earlier this year, the Trump Winery near Charlottesville, Va., applied for visas to hire 23 foreign workers under a different visa program meant for farm workers."

UPDATE: This week is "'Made in America' week, a new Washington ritual during which a president who routinely boasts of being the best at everything admits that he is not the best after all. Because if American-made products are the best, then products made abroad, such as many of Trump’s own branded products, are by definition not the best. . .

But because the Trump Organization and related companies haven’t seen fit to produce their own goods in the United States, that means either their products aren’t the best or Trump is engaged in a craven manipulation of his fans. Or both.

If America produces the best craftsmanship, why, then, does Ivanka Trump’s company manufacture no items in the United States? As The Post reported just last week, her company relies 'exclusively on foreign factories,' including in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and China, to manufacture the shoes, handbags, blouses, dresses, jeans and shirts for the first daughter’s line of clothing.

Similarly, many items in Trump’s own clothing and home accessories are produced overseas in countries including China, Bangladesh and Mexico. When he excoriates American companies for moving manufacturing jobs overseas, then, he is including himself in his own criticism — but of course would never admit that. Instead, when questioned about why he manufactures items overseas, his answer was, essentially, everyone else does it. . .

Trump doesn’t even bother to pay more for American-made goods for those in his customer base who could pay more for items: guests at his luxury hotels. While staying in an $850-per-night room at Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel last year, The Post’s Dana Milbank revealed that the posh 'Trump Hotels' bathrobe and slippers were made in China, and the guest rooms are replete with foreign-made goods. Among the items made overseas, Milbank found towels made in India, china made in Japan, Malaysian-made telephones, and a coffee machine and several lamps, among other things, all made in China.

While Trump has promised steel workers in Rust Belt states that he will restore lost jobs to their economically battered communities, he has built at least two hotels with steel and aluminum from China — the persistent bogeyman of Trump’s campaign speeches in which he decried the decline of American manufacturing. When faced with the evidence of his Chinese steel purchases, though, Trump just plowed ahead, continuing the charade that he is an unemployed steelworker’s best friend. . .

In office, though, Trump has just continued engaging in more gestures, which would be most charitably portrayed as substance-free photo ops but are actually more venal than that. For example, he promoted his April 18 executive order, 'Buy American — Hire American,' at Kenosha, Wis.-based Snap-On Tools, which has numerous manufacturing sites and distribution centers overseas, with more in the works. Trump’s base, though, does not seem to care about his blatant hypocrisies; the stagecraft on its face is sufficient for his voters to believe he is indeed making America great. . .

Trump’s hypocrisy on 'made in the USA' has been on display for months, so it seems doubtful that this week’s farce will make a difference one way or another.

Read the Washington Post, Trump’s ‘Made in America’ week is a hypocritical joke.

UPDATE:  "The Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced a one-time increase of 15,000 additional visas for low-wage, seasonal workers for the remainder of this fiscal year, a seeming about-face from President Trump's "Hire American" rhetoric, following heavy lobbying from the fisheries, hospitality and other industries that rely on temporary foreign workers.

The increase represents a 45 percent bump from the number of H-2B visas normally issued for the second half of the fiscal year, said senior Homeland Security officials in a call with reporters Monday. . .

Trump himself has used H-2B visas to hire temporary workers at his golf resorts in Palm Beach, Fla., and Jupiter, Fla."

Read the Washington Post, Trump officials open border to 15,000 more foreign workers.

Read also the Washington Post, Despite Trump’s ‘Hire American’ pledge, budget bill would dramatically expand the number of foreign workers, which nmted:

"So much for President Trump’s 'Hire American' promise.

Just two weeks after Trump signed an executive order vowing to crack down on a program designed to import high-skilled foreign labor, a provision slipped into the budget compromise with Democrats this week could double the number of visas for low-wage, seasonal workers such as those in the landscaping, forestry and hospitality industries.

The guest worker visa, known as the H-2B, is the exact kind that helps Trump staff his Mar-a-Lago golf resort."

President Trump, whose company outsources the manufacturing of many of its products to overseas factories, is unveiling 'Made in America' week at the White House to promote products made in the United States. . .

For Trump, highlighting U.S.-made products is inconsistent with his practices as a businessman. For years, the Trump Organization has outsourced much of its product manufacturing, relying on a global network of factories in a dozen countries — including Bangladesh, China and Mexico — to make its clothing, home decor pieces and other items.

Similarly, the clothing line of Ivanka Trump, the president’s older daughter and a senior White House adviser, relies exclusively on foreign factories employing low-wage workers in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China, according to a recent Washington Post investigation."

Read the Washington Post, White House unveils ‘Made in America’ week, though many Trump products are made overseas.

Read also Trump's Big CON: Like Father, Like Daughter, which included another Washington Post article, Ivanka Inc., that noted that "while Ivanka Trump published a book this spring declaring that improving the lives of working women is 'my life’s mission,' The Post found that her company lags behind many in the apparel industry when it comes to monitoring the treatment of the largely female workforce employed in factories around the world."

Trump's Big CON: “Hire American” Pledge

"So much for President Trump’s 'Hire American' promise.

Just two weeks after Trump signed an executive order vowing to crack down on a program designed to import high-skilled foreign labor, a provision slipped into the budget compromise with Democrats this week could double the number of visas for low-wage, seasonal workers such as those in the landscaping, forestry and hospitality industries.

The guest worker visa, known as the H-2B, is the exact kind that helps Trump staff his Mar-a-Lago golf resort."

Read the Washington Post, Despite Trump’s “Hire American” pledge, budget bill would dramatically expand the number of foreign workers.

Trump's Big CON: Mexico Won't Pay For His 'Great Wall'

UPDATE II: First 'they'll pay', now 'we'll be paid back'.

Read USA Today, Trump says U.S. will be 'paid back' for Mexico wall.

Trump is ever the bamboozling CON man.

UPDATE:  Read also the Washington Post, Trump just said his ‘Great Mexican Wall’ is happening. He’s playing you again.

"President-elect Donald Trump may ask Congress for American tax dollars to pay for a border wall with Mexico, breaking a major campaign promise, according to multiple reports late Thursday".

Read Market Watch, U.S. taxpayers may end up paying for Trump’s border wall with Mexico.

Read also Vanity Fair, Trump Admits Taxpayers Will Pay for His “Great Wall” After All.

Trump's Big CON: He Will Continue Obama's Immigration Plan

Trump plans regarding undocumented immigrants is not all that different from Obama's.

Read the Washington Post, This is pretty awkward for people who criticize Donald Trump’s immigration plans. 

Jesus Was a Refugee, Today's Republi-CONs Would Deport Him

UPDATE II:  "JESUS OF Nazareth was born a displaced person. As the writer Garry Wills relates it: “He comes from a despised city and region. Yet he cannot be allowed a peaceful birth in that backwater. His parents are displaced by decree of an occupying power that rules his people. For the imperial census to be taken, Joseph his father must return to his place of birth. . . . Joseph does not even have relatives left in his native town, people with whom he can stay. He seeks shelter in an inn, already crowded with people taken away from their own homes and lives. Because of this influx of strangers, he is turned away. There is no bed left, even for a woman far advanced in pregnancy. She must deliver her child in a barn, where the child is laid in a hay trough.” Soon afterward, the infant and his family become fugitives from King Herod as he seeks out the child he fears will one day replace him on the throne. And so it went. . .

[T]he word 'Christian' is often misused in our times, in a way that implies some allegiance to a particular political party, economic doctrine or set of moral strictures that are not representative of large numbers of true Christians. . . There is a broader concept of the term, one that is succinct, relevant and all but imperative in this season when we face a humanitarian crisis that tests our character and our compassion. It comes from the Gospel of Matthew and is stated as an ideal voiced by Jesus:

'I was hungry and you gave me food.

I was thirsty and you game me drink.

I was a stranger and you welcomed me.'

Read the Washington Post, Reminders of the first Christmas in today’s migrant crisis. 

UPDATE:  Watch also Salon, Stephen Colbert just nailed the GOP’s Christian hypocrisy on Syrian refugees with one Bible verse. :



Colbert noted that "'there are a few candidates (Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush) who think that allowing Christian refugees into the country is fine. Cruz went on to say “there is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror.”

'I’m sure these guys right here are just campers roasting marshmallows,' Colbert said with a photo of the KKK with flaming crosses. 'You can tell because they’re each wearing one-man tents.'

After all, like the plaque on the Statue of Liberty says: 'Give us your tired, your poor, mostly Christians, and maybe one more two Indian guys with engineering degrees.'

'If you want to know if somebody’s a Christian just ask them to complete this sentence,' Colbert said pulling out his Catechism card. ''Jesus said I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you….' And if they don’t say ‘welcomed me in’ then they are either a terrorist or they’re running for president.'"

"Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed over the weekend that highlighted the irony of recent Republican response to the Syrian refugee crisis. The New York Times columnist made the not-so-subtle observation that Republicans would likely have denied asylum to one of history’s more significant immigrant families: 'a carpenter named Joseph, his wife, Mary, and their baby son, Jesus,' who, according to Matthew’s Gospel, were forced to seek refuge in Egypt to escape King Herod’s infanticide.

It’s a fair point, but there’s no reason to limit it to the story of Jesus. The truth is the Bible’s authors have an awful lot to say about immigration, forced or otherwise, and their perspective flies directly in the face of the Republican Party’s jingoistic zeal for border-strengthening and turning our backs on refugees. Given the GOP’s enthusiasm for biblically based governance, Republican leaders might want to consider the chasm separating their current immigration policies and the source document upon which they claim to base some of their politics."

Read Slate, Because the Bible Tells Us So. 

The Republi-CON 'Obama's to Blame For the Child Immigrant Problem' Myth

UPDATE II:  "It was a good idea back in 2008, in the final days of the Bush administration.

With almost no opposition, Congress passed a new law to protect immigrant children from sex traffickers trying to bring them to the United States. It required judges to hold hearings for youngsters from countries other than neighboring Mexico and Canada, preventing them from possibly getting turned away at the border. . .

Why does it take so long for a hearing?

One reason is that Congress has failed to provide enough money for timely hearings".

Read CNN, Unintended consequences: 2008 anti-trafficking law contributes to border crisis.

UPDATE:  More Republi-con hypocrisy:

"In the two weeks since President Obama announced that, in the absence of congressional action on immigration reform, he was planning to go it alone on addressing the problem, many conservatives have accused the White House of overstepping its executive authority.

Now some Republicans are making the opposite claim: that the president isn’t doing enough to take advantage of his ability to do something about the flood of children detained at the border from Central American nations without waiting for the law to change. During an appearance on Meet the Press, Michigan Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who chairs the House intelligence committee, said , “The president has tools in his toolbox that he can do immediately to stop this.”

Specifically, Rogers suggested that Obama—who has asked Congress for $3.7 billion to deal with the issue—can simply begin returning the children home, despite a 2008 antitrafficking law that gives children entering the U.S. from countries other than Canada or Mexico legal protections that prohibit speedy deportation."

Read Businessweek, On Immigration, Republicans Say Obama Is Exercising Too Much Authority, and Not Enough.

Actually, the problem began with a law passed in 2008 by the "unanimous consent in the House of Representatives" and Senate. 

Read National Journal, Why We Don't Immediately Send the Border Kids Back. 

So many of the very same Republi-cons who are complaining now voted for the law in 2008.

Why Are Republi-CONs Opposed to Immigration? In Order To Protect the 'White Native Population'

The Heritage Foundation is a CONservative think tank. 

It "made something of a splash with its study suggesting that immigration reform will cost the public trillions. Past work by one of its co-authors helps put that piece in context.

Jason Richwine is relatively new to the think tank world. He received his PhD in public policy from Harvard in 2009, and joined Heritage after a brief stay at the American Enterprise Institute. Richwine’s doctoral dissertation is titled 'IQ and Immigration Policy'; the contents are well summarized in the dissertation abstract:

The statistical construct known as IQ can reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence. The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market. Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries.

Richwine’s dissertation asserts that there are deep-set differentials in intelligence between races. While it’s clear he thinks it is partly due to genetics — 'the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ' — he argues the most important thing is that the differences in group IQs are persistent, for whatever reason. He writes, 'No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.'"

Read the Washington Post, Heritage study co-author opposed letting in immigrants with low IQs.

Will It Be a Neo-Republi-CON Party-Line Vote?

UPDATE XI:  After the case that "could never be cited as precedent," did Chief Justice Roberts decide for the sake of the Court's public legitimacy and historic legacy, not to play politics with the decision?  Read the Washington Post, John Roberts, umpire and The New York Times, John Roberts’s Political Decision. 

UPDATE X:  Did the Supreme Court split the difference, by rejecting the Commerce Clause reasoning, but find the mandate is a tax?  This possibility was suggested before the ruling was announced.  Read the Washington Post, Four ways the Supreme Court could split the difference on health care.

UPDATE IX:  If the Supreme Court does overturn the health care law in the face of decades of precedent,would it be yet another case showing the "today's Supreme Court is moving toward the confederationist framework of protecting corporate interests. From its decision authorizing corporations to spend unlimited political money in the Citizens United case to its assaults on equal pay for women and job security for older workers, the Court's five conservatives have left no doubt about their willingness to obviate the commerce and general-welfare clauses of the Constitution to protect powerful corporate interests"  Read The Atlantic, The Real Affordable Care Act Battle: Constitutionalists vs. Confederates, which notes:

"[T]hat, throughout the last century, when the corporatist strand has conflicted with the state's-rights position -- from Lochner (in which the Court infamously overturned New York's public health regulations in 1905) to the current Court's reversal just this week of Montana's anti-corruption campaign-finance law -- the corporatist side has won.

Respected conservative constitutionalists have all but begged the Supreme Court to stay loyal to the document. Judge Laurence Silberman, a Reagan appointee who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, warned that the case against the Affordable Care Act has no basis "in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent." Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a runner-up for the Supreme Court nomination that eventually went to Chief Justice John Roberts, warned that striking down health reform "is a prescription for economic chaos that the framers, in a simpler time, had the good sense to head off."

During his confirmation hearing, Chief Justice Roberts claimed the mantle of these conservative constitutionalists, as an umpire calling balls and strikes. But if he and the other four conservative justices overturn the Affordable Care Act, they will effectively be taking the umpire off the field. In historical context, this amounts not to a reinterpretation of the Constitution but rather its rejection. If the law is upheld, the real victory is not for President Obama but for that most durable of governing documents, the U.S. Constitution."

UPDATE VIII: If the Supreme Court does overturn the health care law in the face of decades of precedent, will it be because:

"The post-New Deal consensus about the scope of federal power has broken down amid national, and global, concern over the welfare state’s cost and intrusiveness — a sea change of which the tea party is but one manifestation" or 

The 2000 presidential election was 'decided by five people, who don’t even try to explain their choice in normal legal terms. Then the beneficiary of that decision appoint[ed] the next two members of the court, who present[ed] themselves for consideration as restrained, humble figures who care only about law rather than ideology. Once on the bench, for life, those two actively second-guess[ed] and re-d[id] existing law, to advance the interests of the party that appointed them. Meanwhile their party’s representatives in the Senate abuse[d] procedural rules to an extent never previously seen to block legislation — and appointments, especially to the courts. And, when a major piece of legislation g[ot] through, the party’s majority on the Supreme Court prepare[d] to negate it — even though the details of the plan were originally Republican proposals and even though the party’s presidential nominee endorsed these concepts only a few years ago.' 

Read the Washington Post, Redefining American government through Obamacare and The Atlantic, SCOTUS Update: La Loi, C'est Moi.

UPDATE VII:  Republi-con only hate Obamacare because he passed it.  Read the Washington Post, Poll: Republicans hate ‘Obamacare,’ but like most of what it does.

UPDATE VI:  If it does overturn the health care law in the face of decades of Supreme Court precedent, then how to explain the change.  By creating a 'permission structure.'   Read the Washington Post, How Republicans made it possible for the Supreme Court to rule against the mandate.

 

UPDATE V:  "Bloomberg surveyed 21 top constitutional scholars and found that, while 19 think the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act ought to be upheld on the basis of legal precedent, just eight think the Supreme Court will actually do so ."  Read the Washington Post, Poll: Legal scholars think the mandate is valid, will fall anyway.

UPDATE IV:  Citing The New Yorker article below, a writer asks what is going on in Washington.  He concludes, " — based both on [his] experience as a reporter in Washington and on an increasingly voluminous psychological literature about how partisans form opinions — is that human beings are very good at convincing themselves of whatever their self-interest would have them believe, and that Washington has become an increasingly sophisticated machine for encouraging and accelerating this sort of 'motivated reasoning.' That is to say, strategic incentives do drive shifts in opinion, but the new opinions are sincerely held.

This distinction is, I think, crucial to make, because there’s a real difference between bargaining with a political party that has fixed policies it would like to achieve but shifting strategic incentives and a party that has shifting policy and strategic incentives. In the former case, the fixed policy preferences give you something to hold onto, something you can use to fight against the shifting strategic incentives. In the latter case, there’s nothing to hold onto, and in a political system where elections are zero-sum and so compromise is rarely in the minority party’s strategic interest, it’s very difficult to see how many major compromises can be reached. This model, I think, does a much better job explaining the previous few years."

Read the Washington Post, The individual mandate: What happened?

And what is the Republi-con's interest, as noted in February 2009, Republi-cons hope Obama will fail.

UPDATE III:  Another Republi-con flip-flop, "the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act -- better known as the DREAM Act ."  Read the Washington Post, DREAMing of bipartisanship. 

UPDATE II:  Of course, the flip-flop is a tried-and-true Republi-con tactic,  Read the Washington Post,  A GOP bait-and-switch on disclosure. 

UPDATE:  So why did the Republi-cons propose a mandate?  Because "[i]t became pretty clear that, if you want a market to work, you need a mandate."  Read the Washington Post, Health reform without a mandate: Lessons from Washington state.

I say neo, the ancient Greek prefix meaning new or young, because Republi-cons were for the individual mandate for two decades, before they were against it.  To understand why they changed their minds, read The New Yorker, Unpopular Mandate.

Republi-CON Immigration Hypocrisy

You've heard the claim that Americans won't do the jobs that corporations are force to hire immigrants to do.

But did you know that "a Tea Party favorite and president of the House Republicans’ freshman class . . . showed his true allegence to his corporate overlords by defending] a company in his district that discriminates against U.S. citizens in favor of Mexican migrant workers. Scott introduced the bill abolishing Legal Services exactly three days after it became public that Legal Services had won a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determination that Georgia’s Hamilton Growers 'engages in a pattern or practice of regularly denying work hours and assigning less favorable assignments to U.S. workers, in favor of H2-A guestworkers.' Hamilton also 'engages in a pattern or practice of discharging U.S. workers and replacing them with H-2A guestworkers,' the EEOC determined." Read the Washington Post, How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots, which noted:

"As one of the American plaintiffs put it: 'We worked hard at our jobs and really wanted the work, but Hamilton didn’t want Americans to work in their fields.' Americans, after all, would be more likely to know the laws and to complain if they’re being exploited.

Instead, Scott chose to side with a large employer of foreign migrants in his district — against his out-of-work constituents."

Too Many Old People?

UPDATE: To control health care costs, should we limit health care for those over 80? Read the Washington Post, A new approach to dying.

Are there too many old people? For the Soylent Green solution, read ThinkProgress.org, How To Run America Like a Business: Get Rid Of All The Old People.

But consider "a less-modest proposal. The opposite of 'fewer old people' is 'more young people.' There's a straightforward way to make more young people, of course, but it's best that the federal government doesn't involve itself in it. Slightly less straightforward, but more proper for policymakers to consider, is allowing more young immigrants to come to America." Read The Washington Post, How to run America like a business.