Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts

Friday, November 20, 2015

Tighter security checks on refugees in U.S.? At least for one night, U.S. Rep. @GerryConnolly's concise and to-the-point logic and reason (re refugees) actually triumphed on American TV last night. Sensible people across the U.S. should enjoy it while we can...; #Syria #refugees #Paris #terrorism #ISIS





PBS NewsHour
Does the U.S. need tighter security checks on refugees? 
November 19, 2015 at 7:07 PM ET

Highly recommend you watch this video from last night's PBS NewsHour, and not just because it may be the only fair-minded discussion of the  Syrian/Iraqi refugee debate I've seen on American TV this year, where someone who was arguing for both logic and accountability from the federal government wasn't sandbagged.

It features the insightful comments of Rep. Gerry Connolly, the new Democratic Congressman 
who represents Northern Virginia, and specifically, Arlington County, where I lived for 15 years, roughly about 5 miles from Georgetown.

 Rep. Connolly replaced bombastic, combative and often over-the-top longtime Rep. Jim Moran, 
Moran, not unlike Mayor Joy Cooper in beleaguered Hallandale Beach, was considered by even 
people who voted for him, to often be an insufferable egomaniac with a deep-and-abiding love for TV camera lights that challenged New York Senator Charles Schumer's widely-known love for the limelight, fancied himself a shoot-from-the-hips pol whose shortcuts with facts and logic often resulted in him shooting himself in the foot and getting into un-necessary and petty fights. 
And for good measure, just like Mayor Cooper in Hallandale Beach, Moran has a pugnacious son with a penchant for criminality and mischief but who -surprise- considers himself above the law.

Gerry Connolly was a generally respected politician who stood out among Northern Virginia's lock-step liberal mindset when I lived in Arlington, back when I was still a DLC Democrat, because he was the sort of principled Democrat whom we have far too few of these days in DC, to wit, someone who thinks that well-thought out, fair-minded results that actually solve real problems mattered more than ideology or party. (Usually.)

This is the sort of TV performance that catches people's attention outside of his immediate area, and not just because you have to know that there were NOT exactly many among the 47 Dems who, having voted against President Obama yesterday on refugee resettlement in the U.S., didn't relish the idea of going on national TV and telling everyone why he and his supporters were wrong -again.
Especially when it's so much easier to just toe-the current DNC mindset and blithely assume the federal "bureaucracy" will handle everything correctly without any genuine accountability or benchmarks from Congress.
Like that's ever happened with positive results for most Americans.

Rep. Connolly's performance is also noteworthy precisely because he didn't fall for the usual trap of allowing the news media's own narrative to dominate the discussion, nor did he allow the discussion to drift off into other areas that would allow him to be trapped into a corner and painted as a heartless pol by the other guest, Erol Kekic of Church World Service.

Something that as I have gone on at length about here before many times, seems to frequently happen to most GOP members of Congress appearing on that sort of TV show pretty much without fail.
Usually because they are dumb enough to act like they will be treated fairly instead of aggressively by both host and fellow guests. 
The recent history of the GOP, even when they are in power, is, seemingly, to never learn from history.

Rep. Connolly's concise and to-the-point logic and reason (re refugees) actually triumphed on
American TV.  For at least one night anyway...
Sensible people across the U.S., like so many of you readers of this blog, should enjoy it while we can...
You can be sure there there won't be many more such examples before the end of the year.

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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Important questions are NOT being asked in South Florida: With President Obama coming to South Florida today re his immigration/amnesty plan, when was last time you heard an honest public discussion in South Florida about African-American unemployment rates in Miami? I think Obama's amnesty plan makes that worse. Much worse!

Important questions are NOT being asked in South Florida: With President Obama coming to South Florida today re his immigration/amnesty plan, when was last time you heard an honest public discussion in South Florida about African-American unemployment rates in Miami? I think Obama's amnesty plan makes that long-term problem worse. Much worse!












The news that President Obama was coming into South Florida today got me to wondering and musing over the weekend, and not surprisngly, some of this sentiment clearly echoes things I've asked and answered in this very space many times over the past 8 years.

 Simply put, have any of you attended a public meeting anywhere in South Florida in the last two years where, either together or individually, Representatives Lois Frankel, Debbie Wasserman 
Schultz or Frederica Wilson have spoken about immigration issues and attempted to make the case that President Obama's immigration plan for amnesty for up to 5 Million people would NOT 
negatively hurt long-term unemployed workers in South Florida, esp. African-Americans?
Or seen a similar public discussion in your area? 
Why do you suppose that is?
And why fdo you suppose that the local news media ignores that obvious question, just as supposed South Florida-based public policy groups do as well?

When I was a kid growing-up as a news and politics junkie in 1970's South Florida, on the day that unemployment rates came out of the Dept. of Labor Statistics in Washington -i.e. the BLS- I seem to recall that it was usually the case that then-WTVJ anchor Ralph Renick -when he was the dominant media voice in all of South Florida- would make a point of mentioning not only the national and state numbers, but the ones for Dade and Broward, too, along with the local unemployment rate for Blacks.
And those numbers would usually appear on screen, along with a very simple graph that would be embarrassing to put up these days.

The idea being that accuracy mattered, of course, but also that it's important to have useful context and nuance to draw upon before making any reasonable conclusions about what was happening with unemployment and the economy.

That seems like such a simple thing, but before I left the area last June for an extended period of time, I can't think of the last time I actually heard the long-term unemployment levels for African-Americans in Miami getting either mentioned in print or on TV or brought into the larger discussion about their relative economic standing only getting worse if that action took place.

Especially since I think it's fair to say that based on my living in South Florida again for the past 11 years, there are many less Black adults or children in South Florida who can speak even passable Spanish, compared to when I was a kid growing-up taking Spanish for 6 years and French for 4.

 Those Latin American entrepreneurs coming to Miami that seemingly everyone in South Florida's incurious media horde likes to make a fuss over in often over-the-top sycophancy, with some TV stations being especially egregious about making no pretense of being anything but Chamber of Commece cheerleaders, are NOT going to be hiring people who are NOT bilingual, except for low wage jobs.

 So what group is that going to be in Miami-Dade County?
Precisely, but instead, everyone just pretends they don't know what the logical result of this will be.
#Despair

I guess we'll all have to just wait until after the next riot and have yet more foreign and out-of-state reporters fly into the area to comment again on the self-evident short-term attention span of reporters that is actually much worse than South Florida residents as a whole.
Which is why those out-of-towners will again be speaking about South Florida reporters continuing to ignore the legitimate concerns of Black Miami, preferring to do ponintless stories about breast surgery, food fads and fashion and crime lowlights among visiting celebs and rappers on South Beach.

But then isn't that lack of energy and foresight the same reason why local news media don't exert any energy at all in pressing local South Florida Congressional representatives on policies that are harmful to such a large share of the populace?
Their own constituents!

Recently, Rasmussen Reports released a national poll on the Obama Amnesty plan.
Guess what it said

Voters Weigh Costs of Obama's Amnesty Plan
Voters still view President Obama's order exempting up to five million illegal immigrants from deportation as illegal and tend to think Congress should try to stop it. But they're evenly divided over whether a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security is the way to do it.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2015/voters_weigh_costs_of_obama_s_amnesty_plan
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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Immigration Hump Day: Wednesday morning's SkyNews Press Review and guests Rowenna Davis and Tom Newton Dunn made many of Mickey Kaus' go-to points re immigration, esp. about new immigrants lowering wages, etc. due to 2 front page immigration stories, in The Sun and The Daily Star; This common sense aspect of immigration & economic policy is one that was completely ignored by South Florida news media during #GangofEight bill this summer, esp. its negative effect on working poor Blacks in Miami


Immigration Hump Day: Wednesday morning's SkyNews Press Review and guests Rowenna Davis and Tom Newton Dunn made many of Mickey Kaus' go-to points re immigration, esp. about new immigrants lowering wages, etc. due to 2 front page immigration stories, in The Sun and The Daily Star; This common sense aspect of immigration & economic policy is one that was completely ignored by South Florida news media during #GangofEight bill this summer, esp. its negative effect on working poor Blacks in Miami

Lots of talk about Labour leader Ed Miliband and former Foreign Sec. and Home Sec.
Jack Straw
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/12/jack-straw-labour-migrants-europe-workers_n_4263548.html
going public with Labour's past mistakes in an attempt to catch up to public opinion and make laggard, hold-out Labourites realize that it's time to either get on the train or be left behind on the issue. But they say that Tony Blair says he has no regrets, and is esp. happy about the 300,000 Poles who have come to Great Britain at some point over the past few years.

The Press Review guests were Tom Newton Dunn, The Sun's Political Editor,
and Rowenna Davis, Labour Parliamentary candidate for Southampton Itchen, a chic little dynamo who can get in some real weighty zingers with a smile.
Precisely the sort of English woman I always go for!









 Mickey Kaus @kausmickey https://twitter.com/kausmickey
Kaus Files blog: http://dailycaller.com/author/mickeykaus/

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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Tweets of Note: Recent Political, Public Policy & Pop Culture tweets you may've missed -October 1 thru October 12, 2013 -From Amnesty to Angie Harmon, Jack Bauer to Jack Wilshere, Fraser Nelson to Mickey Kaus and illegal immigration

Congressman boasts immig amnesty will win because "there is no money on the other side" http://t.co/BlXaS9EyeO #wheresCommonCausewhenUneedit













































































"Jack Wilshere should stick to his guns over Englishness of Manchester United teenager Adnan Januzaj
Jack Wilshere is wrong to make U-turn over Manchester United prospect Adnan Januzaj's eligibility for England – not least because he has a point."

























































I wrote about Chaz's blog post on Monday in my blog post titled, "Chaz Stevens' latest blog post is a reality gut-check for the State of Florida re their lax enforcement of rules and laws re municipal CRAs, including where he lives in the Grand Duchy of Deerfield Beach, where bureaucratic self-enrichment is a tradition, not a rumor
"
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/chaz-stevens-latest-blog-post-is.html



















James Romenesko @romenesko: Chaz Ebert: "Dear Roger, It has been six months since you left us, but...

































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