Obama Mocks Border Enforcement: "They'll Need A Moat With Alligators"

[Soul Crusher]

Alligators, Moats and Other Such Nonsense
www.Townhall.com ^ | May 19, 2011 | Victor Davis Hanson


________________________ ________________________ __________________-



President Obama gave what was billed as an important speech on immigration last week near the border in El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately, it was one of the most demagogic moments in recent presidential history. Nearly everything Obama said was either factually incorrect or deliberately misleading.

Why, 28 months into the Obama presidency, is there now a sudden push to pass "comprehensive" immigration reform? After all, from 2009 to early 2011, Obama had large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. Why hasn't Obama already rammed through his own immigration bill, as he did with health care?

The answer, of course, is that about 70 percent of the American people consistently poll against the president's initiatives on illegal immigration. Obama simply did not want to sign an easily passable bill that would earn him further unpopularity.

But now he has lost the House. A close re-election bid looms. The president is enjoying a sudden bounce in popularity after the capture of Osama bin Laden. He needs to firm up his base of Latino supporters. Presto: time to blame Republicans for his own past unwillingness to get a bill through his Democratic Congress.

Obama's demagoguery seemed to work on the crowd in El Paso. It interrupted the president's speech to answer, "Tear it down," when he mentioned the border fence. The audience booed, and jeered on cue, "They're racist," when he went after Republicans. And it joined Obama, the sudden cheerleader in chief, in chanting, "Yes, we can."

In blaming Republicans, Obama charged that their fears about open borders were groundless since, "The fence is now basically complete." And to emphasize that claim, he mocked his opponents by saying, "Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll need alligators in the moat."

That sounds cute. But it is again quite untrue. The fence is most assuredly not "basically" complete. Currently, fewer than 700 miles of the more than 1,900-mile border have any sort of barrier. And less than 5 percent of the border has a secure double-fenced impediment. Even with increased patrols, a recent Government Accountability Office study found that 40 percent of the border is essentially open and unguarded. There are still well over a half-million illegal border crossings per year.

In a fit of projection, the president also accused his opponents of politicking the issue for partisan advantage: "We've seen a lot of blame and a lot of politics and a lot of ugly rhetoric around immigration."

That too was a distortion for at least two reasons. One, during the 2010 midterm election, the president himself urged Latinos to "punish" their political "enemies." That advice sure seemed like "ugly rhetoric."

And in the El Paso speech, the president rallied his listeners to go lobby for his proposals: "So I'm asking you to add your voices to this debate. You can sign up to help at whitehouse.gov." Whipping up crowds to log onto his website seems just like "the usual Washington games" that Obama deplored in the speech.

The president also deliberately confused legal and illegal immigration in lamenting the inability of highly skilled immigrants to obtain work visas and citizenship opportunities. But polls show wide support for legal immigration based on skill sets, not just on proximity to the border or family ties.

What the president did not dare reveal was that to let in professionals and business people from around the world, based on their skills and earning potential, might also mean to curtail those without education and capital -- in other words, to discourage the millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico who don't speak English or have high school educations, and who often have little means of support but apparent political clout.

Even when the president offered some sensible proposals about illegal aliens paying fines, applying formally for citizenship and learning English, he was still disingenuous. Obama deliberately floated these proposals to his partisan audience without any details of enforcement, since to do so would likely turn off the cheering crowd.

So how exactly would Obama coerce some 11 million illegal aliens into paying a fine, returning to the immigration line to apply legally, or learning English? By threat of deportation or incarceration?

The vast majority of the American public is not racist or "playing politics" in worrying about out-of-control illegal immigration. The enforcement of existing federal immigration law has become a joke. Drug violence in Mexico is destabilizing an entire country and spilling over the border. Jobs are scarce, with unemployment here still at 9 percent. Many billions of dollars in remittances to Mexico leave the American Southwest, often from illegal aliens who rely on American social services to make up the difference.
These are serious issues that deserve more from a president than re-election pandering at the border and bad jokes about alligators and moats.


________________________ ________________________ ____________________-



Dead on as usual. 


Fuck obama and those who support him.   

[dario73]

Alligators, Moats and Other Such Nonsense
www.Townhall.com ^ | May 19, 2011 | Victor Davis Hanson


________________________ ________________________ __________________-



President Obama gave what was billed as an important speech on immigration last week near the border in El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately, it was one of the most demagogic moments in recent presidential history. Nearly everything Obama said was either factually incorrect or deliberately misleading.

Why, 28 months into the Obama presidency, is there now a sudden push to pass "comprehensive" immigration reform? After all, from 2009 to early 2011, Obama had large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. Why hasn't Obama already rammed through his own immigration bill, as he did with health care?

The answer, of course, is that about 70 percent of the American people consistently poll against the president's initiatives on illegal immigration. Obama simply did not want to sign an easily passable bill that would earn him further unpopularity.

But now he has lost the House. A close re-election bid looms. The president is enjoying a sudden bounce in popularity after the capture of Osama bin Laden. He needs to firm up his base of Latino supporters. Presto: time to blame Republicans for his own past unwillingness to get a bill through his Democratic Congress.

Obama's demagoguery seemed to work on the crowd in El Paso. It interrupted the president's speech to answer, "Tear it down," when he mentioned the border fence. The audience booed, and jeered on cue, "They're racist," when he went after Republicans. And it joined Obama, the sudden cheerleader in chief, in chanting, "Yes, we can."

In blaming Republicans, Obama charged that their fears about open borders were groundless since, "The fence is now basically complete." And to emphasize that claim, he mocked his opponents by saying, "Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll need alligators in the moat."

That sounds cute. But it is again quite untrue. The fence is most assuredly not "basically" complete. Currently, fewer than 700 miles of the more than 1,900-mile border have any sort of barrier. And less than 5 percent of the border has a secure double-fenced impediment. Even with increased patrols, a recent Government Accountability Office study found that 40 percent of the border is essentially open and unguarded. There are still well over a half-million illegal border crossings per year.

In a fit of projection, the president also accused his opponents of politicking the issue for partisan advantage: "We've seen a lot of blame and a lot of politics and a lot of ugly rhetoric around immigration."

That too was a distortion for at least two reasons. One, during the 2010 midterm election, the president himself urged Latinos to "punish" their political "enemies." That advice sure seemed like "ugly rhetoric."

And in the El Paso speech, the president rallied his listeners to go lobby for his proposals: "So I'm asking you to add your voices to this debate. You can sign up to help at whitehouse.gov." Whipping up crowds to log onto his website seems just like "the usual Washington games" that Obama deplored in the speech.

The president also deliberately confused legal and illegal immigration in lamenting the inability of highly skilled immigrants to obtain work visas and citizenship opportunities. But polls show wide support for legal immigration based on skill sets, not just on proximity to the border or family ties.

What the president did not dare reveal was that to let in professionals and business people from around the world, based on their skills and earning potential, might also mean to curtail those without education and capital -- in other words, to discourage the millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico who don't speak English or have high school educations, and who often have little means of support but apparent political clout.

Even when the president offered some sensible proposals about illegal aliens paying fines, applying formally for citizenship and learning English, he was still disingenuous. Obama deliberately floated these proposals to his partisan audience without any details of enforcement, since to do so would likely turn off the cheering crowd.

So how exactly would Obama coerce some 11 million illegal aliens into paying a fine, returning to the immigration line to apply legally, or learning English? By threat of deportation or incarceration?

The vast majority of the American public is not racist or "playing politics" in worrying about out-of-control illegal immigration. The enforcement of existing federal immigration law has become a joke. Drug violence in Mexico is destabilizing an entire country and spilling over the border. Jobs are scarce, with unemployment here still at 9 percent. Many billions of dollars in remittances to Mexico leave the American Southwest, often from illegal aliens who rely on American social services to make up the difference.
These are serious issues that deserve more from a president than re-election pandering at the border and bad jokes about alligators and moats.


________________________ ________________________ ____________________-



Dead on as usual. 


Fuck obama and those who support him.   

Cricketts.  Deafening silence from the left.

[Soul Crusher]

         
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May 22, 2011
How Latinos Got Stung
By Ruben Navarrette
SAN DIEGO -- In "The Sting," a classic 1973 film about a pair of con men, each chapter is introduced with an old-fashioned title card such as "The Set-Up" or "The Hook."

To really understand the elaborate con job that President Obama is pulling on Latino voters over the immigration issue, here are some title cards you might find useful:


THE PROMISE -- Obama goes before several Latino groups during the 2008 campaign and makes what everyone thought at the moment was a sincere pledge to treat reforming the immigration system as a top priority.

THE COMPARISON -- Painting himself as a kinder and gentler alternative to George W. Bush, Obama -- in remarks that will later haunt him -- bemoans when "communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing."

THE RESCUE -- After Arizona adopts a tough immigration law, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid threatens to respond by restarting the debate over immigration reform, Obama puts the kibosh on Reid's plans by announcing to reporters that there is no appetite in Congress to take on the issue. In doing so, he throws a life preserver to conservative Democrats in the Senate who would have been reluctant to vote for reform.

THE DECEPTION -- Five of those conservative Democrats -- Mark Pryor, Max Baucus, Kay Hagan, Jon Tester and Ben Nelson -- then later kill the Dream Act by voting against cloture. But Reid and the White House, with an assist from the media, successfully frame Republicans as the culprit.

THE WAITING -- Realizing he can't even start the debate over immigration reform without driving a wedge between two loyal Democratic constituencies -- organized labor and Latinos -- Obama needs a foil. But he won't get one until John Boehner and Republicans take control of the House in January 2011.

THE TRAP -- Shortly after declaring his intention to run for re-election, Obama sets a trap for Republicans in 2012 by pulling the immigration issue off the back burner on the assumption that the GOP will continue its tradition of dealing with the issue in a cruel and clumsy way. The Republicans perform as expected.

THE BOAST -- Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano brags that the border is more secure than ever and that the administration has deported about 400,000 illegal immigrant per year since taking office. By removing 1,000 illegal immigrants per day, it should reach the 1-million mark by Labor Day.

THE DISSIDENT -- Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., perhaps the most outspoken champion of immigrants' rights in Congress, launches a 20-city tour called "The Campaign for American Children and Families" to draw attention to the deportations and pressure Obama to freeze them with regard to two groups: undocumented parents with U.S.-born children, and so-called Dream Act students who might have qualified for the program, which swaps college attendance or military service for legal residency, if only Congress had passed the bill.

THE STALL -- Obama agrees to meet with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to hear their concerns over the high number of deportations. But first, in a farcical attempt to find another group of Hispanics that could act as a counterweight to the caucus, Obama invites a contingent of Hispanic celebrities to the White House to discuss immigration. Move over, Beer Summit. Welcome to the Margarita Mixer.

THE SMOKE SCREEN -- Obama's message to the celebrities and to a group of "stakeholders" who attended an earlier immigration meeting is that he supports comprehensive immigration reform but can't pass it without help from Republicans. He urges them to pressure the GOP to get behind reform. The problem is that the most urgent immigration-related issue in the country at the moment isn't the reform agenda but the spike in deportations. And the reason Obama won't talk about this is because it's a matter for the executive branch, which he controls, and so he can't very well blame Republicans for standing in the way of some desired policy goal.

THE SHOW -- Obama goes to El Paso to pose in front of the border wall and, in his own "Mission Accomplished" moment, declares the border more secure than ever. He also tries to put Republicans on the defensive by calling for immigration reform -- the very thing that he has spent the first 28 months of his presidency trying to avoid.

Don't look now, Latinos. But you've been stung.

ruben@rubennavarrette.com

Copyright 2011, Washington Post Writers Group









Bingo.