IMMIGRATION

Professor Sabrin, Ph.D response

Regarding ”President’s immigration bill unveiled” (Page 1A, Feb. 19). 

I arrived in America with my older brother and parents, the only members of their respective families who survived the Holocaust, from war torn Germany in 1949, three years after they left their native Poland.  

As I recall my father told me he wrote his great aunt in New York City who responded quickly with the appropriate instructions to obtain sponsorship so we could immigrate to America.  My father was thoroughly vetted in West Germany inasmuch as he served as a partisan commander in his struggle against the Nazis.  We sailed for America in early August 1949 and settled in the lower East Side of Manhattan.

In America we did not receive any public assistance but the support of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a nonprofit organization founded in 1881 to assist Jewish refugees, and is now known only as HIAS as its mission is to help as many refugees as possible.  

The solution to our intractable immigration problem is quite simple: anyone who wants to come to America needs to obtain sponsors who would be responsible for their well being until they become financially independent.

As far as the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in America are concerned, they should become permanent residents with no path to citizenship since they did not follow the rules as tens of millions of immigrants did before them. After all we are a nation of laws, or are we? The so-called dreamers could have a path to citizenship, which should be open to negotiations

For more readings on restoring civil liberties, go to murraysabrin.com

Associated Press Poll: 65% of Republicans say immigration is the top issue.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted shortly before the shutdown began finds that both Republicans and Democrats are far more likely to include immigration in their list of top issues facing the country this year compared with a year ago.

Overall, 49 percent mentioned immigration in an open-ended question as one of the top five problems they hoped the government addresses in 2019. By contrast, 27 percent mentioned immigration in December 2017.

Partisan divides on the best solutions remain deep. Republicans continue to be more likely to cite immigration as a top issue than Democrats, an indication of the GOP’s greater intensity on the issue. But it’s an increasingly important issue to members of both parties.

The poll found that 65 percent of Republicans say immigration is one of the top five problems facing the country, up from 42 percent in 2017. Among Democrats, 37 percent cite immigration as a top issue, compared with just 2 in 10 a year ago.

Roughly two-thirds of those who named immigration as a top priority express little confidence in the government to make progress this year, including a third who say they are “not at all” confident. About a third say they are at least moderately confident in the government to make progress on immigration. This follows a year of intermittent deadlocked negotiations and standoffs between Trump and Democrats in Congress.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE:  https://www.apnews.com/afe8b152156f4b9786832bdf957dbfa8

Suburban Democrats ran and won on property taxes.

Has Fred Snowflake ever run a political campaign in his life?  We suspect not.

If he had, he’d spend less time in the shithouse dreaming and more time paying attention to how campaigns are run and what’s said.  But Snowflake – who writes for a website owned by a slimebag vendor who sells shit to governments that spend taxpayers’ money – does most of his work behind the latrine door these days.  His latest spin is that taxes don’t matter… especially property taxes.

Did Snowflake deliberately forget about the Trump tax cut and SALT?  Was it not discussed enough for him?  Did property taxes not emerge as a central issue in the congressional campaigns in New Jersey? 

As “proof” for his silly argument he offers us the Democrats elected to Congress from Northwest New Jersey – Josh Gottheimer and Mikie Sherrill.  According to Snowflake…

“taxes are high in New Jersey. But taxes are not the only issue.  More and more it seems that suburbanites are voting in favor of issues unrelated to taxes. They are voting in favor of abortion rights for women, a more welcoming policy toward immigrants, stronger gun control laws and an environmental policy based on science. That seemed to drive this year’s election in New Jersey…”

Seemed?  Only if you were in the shithouse. 

We looked… but cannot find a Democrat cable or broadcast advertisement that unpacks that particular issues grid.  Apparently, it wasn’t in their armory. 

What we actually got was this:  Democrats cleverly portraying themselves as Republicans on all the most important issues.  Hey, check it out for yourselves.  Go to Josh Gottheimer or Mikie Sherrill’s YouTube pages and watch the ads.

Immigration?  Are you kidding?  What you will find it this…

“Lower Taxes. Jersey Values.”

“Cut Property Taxes”

“Think your property taxes are too high?”

“Navy Pilot – Prosecutor – Mom”

“I’ll fight to restore your property tax deduction.”

Josh Gottheimer’s campaign doesn’t post any ads that could reasonably be called liberal.  Mikie Sherrill’s posts two conservative ads for every liberal ad.  And nobody says shit about immigration.

See what Snowflake is doing here?   

Snowflake’s vendor owner – a Hillary Clinton insider – is trying to convince New Jersey Republicans to screw themselves again, even as they pull that old Bill Clinton maneuver of co-opting and running on Republicans issues.  Anyone remember welfare-reform?  Or how about “the era of big government is over”? 

It’s an old trick.  And a good one.  Almost as good as the one Mikie Sherrill pulled on the constituents she’s about to represent.  Who is she?  Really?

In common with most of Democrat moes who ran this year, they all started out dancing in the street with pussy hats on, attending protests, and pretending they were back in the 1960’s (which none of them were in the first place).  The heady days of the Women’s March was that kind of Disneyland.  Then, after winning their primaries, they all suddenly became centrists and “bi-partisan”.  Not a mention of transgender anything.  Republican Bob Hugin spent more promoting abortion and gay marriage than all the Democrats put together.  Mikie Sherrill became “Navy Pilot – Prosecutor – Mom” in other words “War – Cops – and Motherhood”.  That ain’t a liberal message.

In the aftermath of Sherrill’s victory last week, most commentators missed the real reason why she won:  She got to pick her opponent for the General Election (and it was anyone other than the incumbent, Rodney Frelinghuysen).  Yep, her pussy hatted minions pushed the incumbent Republican out of the race (a fact Jay Webber should have played on).  You know, that well-respected, well-heeled, bi-partisan Vietnam War vet… yeah, him.

For that, she needed her grassroots.  All those crazies who pissed and moaned and carried on, and who, like a switch, suddenly dropped out of sight to return as blandly suburban or mildly eccentric door-to-door volunteers spitting out the party line.  Admirable discipline. 

We can only speculate as to what would have happened had the Navy pilot come up against someone who had actually tasted war.  Someone with a real record of bi-partisan accomplishment.  Who had attended to constituent service.  Or, if the incumbent had departed in a more timely fashion, a new candidate – without the encumbrance of a messy primary – who would have had the time and resources to use all those individual crazies as the means to define just who Mikie Sherrill really is.  We can only speculate.

Still, the road is long.  The opportunity will present itself again.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  - Winston Churchill

Dem Vice Chair Delgado-Polanco is a poor excuse for a labor leader

You have to wonder how some people become labor union leaders.  Most still work their way up through the ranks.  They serve as apprentices, learn their trade, spend years in the trenches, before their fellow brothers and sisters elevate them into leadership. 

But then there's this political appointee fast track.  The military has something like it too.  If you have a qualification they need, you spend two weeks learning how to salute, and then get a bar pinned on you.  No trenches required.  Labor unions have this too.  Just ask Troy Singleton.  He went from Joe Robert's bagman to a union rep in one easy fix... but can he swing a hammer?

We don't know how Democrat Vice Chair Lizette Delgado-Polanco achieved her position in the hollowed Carpenters & Joiners Union.  We note that she was promoted up through the political side, where it is more important to recite the tired old lines of identity politics, than it is knowing a screw from a nail. 

Delgado-Polanco worked for Charles Kushner (Jared's dad, Ivanka's father-in-law) on Jim McGreevey's 2001 gubernatorial campaign.  She was rewarded for her efforts and given a job in management -- on the wrong side of the negotiating table -- in 2002. 

So how working class is she... really?

What people like Delgado-Polanco forget is that identity politics is bullshit and what really determines your place in the world is economic class.  Rich one-percenters -- whether they be black, white, or galvanized -- they will have their asses fanned in all the world's garden spots.  And management -- no matter its color or gender or identity -- will always serve the corporation to squeeze the most out of its workers for the least.  Solidarity based on identity is a farce. 

On Tuesday, Delgado-Polanco put out a statement on behalf of the Democrat Party that is plainly out of step with the interests of the blue-collar workers who make up her union.  She put the crony capitalist policies of the Democrat Party of Governor Goldman-Sachs II ahead of the interests of her union brothers and sisters.

The Sanctuary movement doesn't help anybody except the crony capitalist establishment who want a steady stream of unorganized labor at near-slave wages.  It consigns those good people who come here to near-slave status and entraps them in whatever conditions the crony capitalist chooses to keep them in.

The creation of a permanent gray economy undermines any advances made by increasing the minimum wage or mandating benefits, because there will always be the lucrative alternative of going gray.  And the more this "gray" work force is supported by government programs -- the more jobs it will be able to perform at less cost to the crony capitalists who write these "sanctuary" laws (or pay lobbyists to do so).

How does creating a government-supported workforce to drive down wages and drive up competition for jobs benefit the brothers and sisters who make up trade unions like the Carpenters & Joiners Union?

America's immigration laws are a mess for a reason.  They are purposefully designed to make it very difficult to get into the country and stay legally and very easy to stay illegally.  The system is purposefully designed to create a large pool of near-slave labor.

Why grow that pool?  Why add to the gray economy of people being used to drive down labor costs?  It is unfair to the immigrant here illegally and most unfair to the skilled worker who must compete with low wage-earners or go without.  It is unfair to the consumers and taxpayers who are paying a high price for the product of unskilled workers.  It only benefits the crony capitalist in bed with the politician.  One gets more money, the other more votes (and some dough for the campaign, no doubt).

The way forward is to create a legal immigration process that takes into account the existing labor pool to protect their jobs and wages.  The great labor union movement once served to raise the working class up from poverty.  Don't allow a few misguided "leaders" to conspire with the political class and their crony capitalist paymasters to drive down wages and destroy the hopes and dreams of working people.

Lizette Delgado-Polanco... meditate on this...

Do NJ Senate Dems think America is worse than Iran?

Yesterday, Senate Democrats in New Jersey voted to "strongly condemn" President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration.  Democrats made up every one of the 22 votes (they needed 21) to pass SCR-143 and Republican Jennifer Beck (who EVERY Tea Partier was calling a "conservative" last year) joined them in voting for SCR-134.  Taken together, the Senate resolutions served as "symbolic acts of resistance" to President Trump's efforts to secure the borders of the United States from terrorism. 

Some would call it a "fashion statement" or an act of "virtue signaling."  Wikipedia defines virtue signaling as "the conspicuous expression of moral values by an individual done primarily to enhance their standing within a social group.”  The term was first used in signaling theory "to describe any behavior that could be used to signal virtue – especially piety among the religious faithful" and has become more commonly used "as a pejorative characterization by commentators to criticize what they regard as the platitudinous, empty, or superficial support of socially progressive views on social media."

SCR-143 specifically condemns the federal government's efforts to secure America's porous southern border against terrorism, human trafficking, and heroin.  The Senators who voted for this must be keeping their fingers crossed that no act of terrorism gets through that border between now and November.

Yes, we understand that many liberals don't like the "feel" of a border wall and look on it as an "extreme" measure.  But in the fight against the modern misery of slavery -- which is what "human trafficking" is a polite phrase for --is it any less "extreme" than the Royal Navy's measure of blasting slave ships out of the water?  If history has taught us anything, it has taught us that for the abolition of slavery (which continues to elude us 152 years after the end of the civil war we fought to abolish it) in all its forms to be won, it will be done so piece by piece, and only through the application of "extreme" measures.

SCR-134 directs taxpayer-funded units of government (specifically school districts, along with colleges and universities) to violate federal law and refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement authorities -- as if no terrorism suspect has ever held a student visa.  Actually, when you think about this little piece of anarchy it is kind of interesting -- especially for the precedent it sets for disobeying federal authority and federal law enforcement.  Perhaps years hence, when some latter day George Corley Wallace references it and a hundred other similar precedents for defying the federal government, we will know the harvest of what we are today sowing. 

These Democrats are trapped in the bubble of their own perspective.  A frequent situation these days that affects not just Democrats. 

A Rasmussen poll released today shows us that the more Democrat, liberal, and rich you are, the more likely you are to believe that America treats its Muslims worse than Christians living in Muslim nations are treated.  Yep, no kidding.

Everybody but the New Jersey Senate Democrats and their like understand that practicing a Christian faith in a Muslim dominated nation is an often daunting and frequently dangerous, even fatal vocation.  Many of these countries are theocratic states, which places various forms of Christian expression (not to mention Jewish) in direct conflict with the law.  And by "everybody" we are of course referring to the written work of such "far-right" sources as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Guardian newspaper.

As Rasmussen reports:  "Most voters agree that Christians living in Muslim-majority countries are mistreated for their religion.  But Democrats are more likely to think Muslims are mistreated in America than to think Christians are persecuted in the Islamic world."

Rasmussen finds that 62% of Likely U.S. Voters believe most Christians living in the Islamic world are treated unfairly because of their religion.   Just 17% disagree, while 21% more are undecided. The poll was conducted February 2-5, 2017.

And while 47% of Democrats think most Christians are mistreated in the Islamic world, 56% of Democrats believe most Muslims in America are mistreated.  For those who identify themselves as "liberal" those numbers are 45% and 60%, respectively.

And the richer you are, the more you believe this crap.  Only 12% of those earning between $30,000 and $50,000 say that Christians are not mistreated in the Islamic world, which rises with each income group, until we reach 23% among those earning more than $200,000.  As for Muslims being mistreated in America it rises from 39% to 49%, respectively.

The New Jersey Senate Democrats are very much captives of the perspective of their donor class.  Not their voters, their donors.

Oroho calls on Republican legislators to defend Trump

Breaking news from Senator Steve Oroho and Assemblyman Parker Space...

Calling it "a moment of truth" for our party and its leadership, Senator Steve Oroho (R-Sussex, Warren, Morris) called on every Republican legislator to unite in opposition to a Democrat move to "condemn" President Trump's efforts to create greater scrutiny of those entering the United States from countries in which Islamic terrorists are harbored and sustained.

"There are those who have called this a 'Muslim ban' but that is more a term of propaganda than of fact," said Oroho.  "The seven countries targeted by President Donald Trump in his executive order on immigration were initially identified as 'countries of concern' under the Obama administration."

Trump’s order bars citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the U.S. for the next 90 days.  In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed into law a measure placing limited restrictions on certain travelers who had visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011.

Two months later, the Obama administration added Libya, Somalia, and Yemen to the list, in an effort, the administration said, to address “the growing threat from foreign terrorist fighters.”

"President Trump is simply acting on what earlier administrations have identified as threats to the security of our nation and lives of our people," Oroho explained.

8 USC §1182 (or section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act) is the legal foundation for President Trump's executive order:

“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

The Congressional Research Service provides this explanation of the law: https://strongvisa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CRS-Pres-Auth-to-Exclude-Aliens.pdf

President Trump's executive orders also address so-called "sanctuary cities" that harbor undocumented persons who are illegally in the United States.  Senator Oroho is the sponsor of Senate Bill S2945, which prohibits a municipality from passing an ordinance to create a sanctuary city and makes it an ethics violation for state or local employees to refuse to comply with a federal immigration enforcement request.  Assemblyman Parker Space is the sponsor of the Assembly version, A1707.

Should NJGOP be "outsiders" in 2017?

The disastrous 2015 legislative elections are behind us.  Now the NJGOP, and especially those Republican members of the Legislature who expect to be candidates in 2017, are in the process of positioning themselves for the elections two years from now -- when both chambers will be up, as well as the Governor.

The first question to consider is whether or not to run as members of the party of government or to run against the Trenton establishment.  Republican legislators do have an option, for while a Republican Governor has held power for the last six years, the Democrats have controlled the Legislature for more than twice as long.  Since 2002, and under four Governors, the Democrats have run the legislative process in Trenton.

If polls are anything to go by, it might serve the GOP well if its legislators were to put away their "party of Governor Chris Christie" slogans and replace them with an up-to-date "outsider" populist perspective. 

Take these numbers for example:  In 1958, 77 percent of the American public "trusted government always or most of the time."  The Pew Center tests that question regularly, and when tested this year, that 77 percent had declined to 19 percent.  As late as the first term of President George W. Bush, that number had stood at 60 percent. So the decline has been as sharp as it's been rapid.  That decline just happens to mirror the period during which the Democrats have run the Legislature in Trenton.

Trust in government is greater among Democrats, but at 26 percent, still nothing to brag about.  For those with no party affiliation/independents it is 16 percent and for Republicans it is 11 percent.

In a study titled, Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government, released by the Pew Research Center for U.S. Politics & Policy on November 23, 2015, only 20 percent of the American public believes that government programs are well run.  74 percent believe that "most elected officials put their own interests before those of the country."  And 55 percent believe that "ordinary Americans would do a better job of solving national problems."

Only 25 percent of the American public views the federal government positively, with 33 percent viewing large corporations positively.  Just 25 percent view the news media favorably, and for the entertainment industry, that rises to 32 percent.

Labor unions are viewed positively by 45 percent, churches & religious institutions by 61 percent, and small businesses by 82 percent.

Back when Bill Clinton was President, Americans were evenly split on whether or not there was a great difference between the two major political parties.  Today, 45 percent believe there is a "great deal" of difference between the two parties, with 32 percent saying there is a 'fair amount" of difference, and 19 percent saying "hardly any" difference.

Only 18 percent of Americans report they are "basically content" with their government.  57 percent report they are "frustrated", with another 22 percent describing themselves as "angry".

On government competence to deliver, only 2 percent report that government programs are being run in an "excellent" fashion vs. 33 percent who say they are being run in a "poor" way. 18 percent report "good" vs. 44 percent who report "only fair". 

More Americans now describe their government as an "enemy" -- 9 percent -- than as a "friend" -- 8 percent.  On the government's management of key issues, it appears to let down both Republicans and Democrats, with just 28 percent saying that it manages the immigration system well, 36 percent saying that it helps people get out of poverty, and 48 percent saying that it ensures a basic income for seniors.

The choice for 2017 is being discussed now.  Will the NJGOP and its legislative candidates -- incumbents as well as prospects -- choose to position themselves as anti-establishment outsiders or the party of government?