Today's Dispatches From The Republican War On Latinos

Pursuing their campaign to "Make America Great White Again," the regime of white nationalist Donald "Rump" Trump together with his sycophantic toadies throughout the Republican Party are adopting policies of malignant neglect (Puerto Rico) and malignant hostility (brutal ICE tactics) that would never be visited upon non- Latino populations. You don't need to be an acute observer to notice what's gone on since January 20.

Puerto Rico

As we noted last Monday, the human suffering following Hurricane Maria 90 days ago continues to afflict our American brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico. Dana Milbank summarizes the current state of the island:

... Some 1,065 more Puerto Ricans died in September and October of this year than in previous years, almost certainly storm-related deaths, according to the Center for Investigative Journalism. When all is tallied, the destruction in Puerto Rico will be very much on par with what Trump considers “a real catastrophe like Katrina,” which killed about 1,800. 

Incredibly, a large portion of the island remains without power — three months after the storm. It was reported this week that power may not be fully restored until May. Puerto Ricans — American citizens — are still awaiting tarps and temporary roofs to shelter them after an untold number of homes were destroyed. 

A new report from Refugees International said, “Thousands of people still lack sustainable access to potable water and electricity and dry, safe places to sleep.” The group faulted the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s “bureaucratic and opaque assistance process” for leaving survivors with “enormous challenges.” [snip] 

In October, when Trump was tossing “beautiful, soft” rolls of paper towels at Puerto Ricans, he offered lavish promises of aid and said Wall Street lenders were “going to say goodbye” to Puerto Rico’s $72 billion debt. But the debt was not written off, and disaster-relief aid has been inadequate and piecemeal. Now, Trump and congressional Republicans are hitting Puerto Rico with an additional, man-made catastrophe. 

The GOP tax bill, which Trump celebrated this week, treats Puerto Rico as a foreign country, imposing a 12.5 percent tax on the income companies there receive from intellectual property — a big hit to its crucial pharmaceutical and medical-device sector. Rather than give Puerto Rico special tax treatment, which it urgently needs, Trump and his congressional allies gave employers a powerful reason to move jobs off the island. (our emphasis)

Dreamers

The future of the Obama- era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Dreamers) program is in limbo following failure by timid, spineless Democrats to use their leverage to include a fix in the recent continuing resolution. (If Democrats can find a way to de- energize-- if not screw-- their base, they'll sure try.) They can try again when the current continuing resolution expires, or they can finally push to get action on the DREAM Act to create long- term stability for 700,000 Dreamers. (If Democrats don't step up to the plate, they'll rightly be seen as occupying the same moral swamp on this issue as Republicans.)

Nevertheless, Republicans created this mess when Rump had Confederate States Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III cancel the Dreamers program in September.  Now Republicans are caught between their anti- immigrant, frothing base and their desire to save the necks of members running in swing districts. As Jonathan Blitzer reports:

... To minimize the political fallout from the cancellation, Trump called on lawmakers to pass legislation to restore the protections he had just ended. He set a deadline of March 5th for Congress to act. “Trump created this crisis, set a date to push recipients off of a cliff, and then left it to Congress to prevent it,” Cecilia Muñoz, a former Obama official who helped develop the DACA policy, told me. [snip]

Trump’s DACA deadline coincides with congressional primary season. Many incumbent Republicans will need to shore up their bases of support on the right, and others will be facing Steve Bannon-inspired conservative challengers; they won’t want to appear too conciliatory on a contentious issue like immigration. 

ICE 

Living up to their acronym under the racist Rump regime, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under Homeland Security is considering pursuing a heartless strategy to discourage families with children from seeking refuge in the United States:

FAMILIES AND unaccompanied children detained at the Mexican border are often fleeing horrific conditions in Central American countries, especially El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where violent gangs, drug trafficking and rampant criminality contribute to some of the world’s highest murder rates. Now the Trump administration, alarmed at the recent surge in border crossers, is considering a new strategy to deter them. The message: “You think your native country is cruel? America is even crueller.” [snip] 

That’s the logic behind a proposal under consideration by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that would try to discourage migrant families from crossing the border by threatening to separate parents from their children when they are taken into custody in the United States. 

If Ms. Nielsen gives the green light to break up migrant families, many of whom have plausible asylum claims, she would be responsible for a policy whose heartlessness would rival that of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forcible internment of some 110,000 U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Four decades after that act of mass inhumanity, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation formally apologizing for it.

That's, of course, when ICE agents aren't

... stalking a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy’s ambulance and staking out her hospital room, classifying any person caught in an ICE raid as a “criminal” and [...] attempting to deport a journalist back to a country where he faced death at the hands of the drug cartels he’d exposed.

If you feel like you're living in a different country than you were 12 months ago, you're not alone.

Today's Reading - Who's Been Dividing America?

We've seen the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's Party spend the last 40 years or more finding ways to cobble together an electoral majority by playing divisive racial, social, religious, economic, nativist and "patriotism" cards.  In a remarkable display of projection, that same group of cynical nihilists is now claiming Democrats -- and specifically the President -- is doing what has been their life's work:  "dividing America."

Most recently, easily- frazzled empty suit Sen. Marco "Glug Glug" Rubio (R-Mattel)  has been leveling that charge (“[He] is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world.”).  In today's read (please go to the link for the entire article), Fareed Zakaria explores that Republican dog whistle and suggests who really is guilty of that charge:

What, then, made America truly exceptional, from the start? It was a country founded not on race, ethnicity or religion but on ideas. And, crucially, those ideas were open to all. This openness to people, ideas, cultures and religions resulted in the creation of a new person — the American. The great historian Gordon Wood explains his view of American exceptionalism: “In an important sense, we have never been a nation in any traditional meaning of the term. . . . We Americans do not have a nationality the way other peoples do . . . which of course is why we can absorb immigrants more easily than they can.”

Other countries have small states and low taxes, and there are many liberal democracies, even republics. But no other country from the outset believed in the idea of openness and the mixture of people. The United States is a nation founded on diversity — of race, religion, national origin.

There are efforts to change America. There are plans to introduce religious and ethnic tests to bar immigrants and even visitors, or to track immigrants and visitors once they arrive. There have been calls to deport people, even American citizens. There are proposals to monitor houses of worship.

These ideas would fundamentally change America, tearing at its founding DNA. It would make it much more like the rest of the world, becoming one more nation in which certain ethnic groups and religions were privileged and others were outsiders, a country in which diversity was a threat to national character and unity rather than a strength.

And who is it proposing these changes? The last time I checked, it was not Barack Obama.

One of the most important issues to be fought out in this election is whose vision of America do we want to prevail:  the ugly, reactionary nativism of the Republicans or the inclusive, tolerant vision of the Democrats.  As Zakaria rightly points out, if the former were to prevail, it would change the "exceptionalism" of America, but in a very dark way that would betray the genius that is the very essence of this country.

George Will Aghast Trump Isn't More Subtle About His Deportation Policy

(click on image to enlarge)

(Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Republican establishment hack George F. "Effing" Will is in Official Panic Mode:

It has come to this: The GOP, formerly the party of Lincoln and ostensibly the party of liberty and limited government, is being defined by clamors for a mass roundup and deportation of millions of human beings. To will an end is to will the means for the end, so the Republican clamors are also for the requisite expansion of government’s size and coercive powers.

Most of Donald Trump’s normally loquacious rivals are swaggeringly eager to confront Vladimir Putin but are too invertebrate — Lindsey Graham is an honorable exception — to voice robust disgust with Trump and the spirit of, the police measures necessary for and the cruelties that would accompany his policy. The policy is: “They’ve got to go.”  [snip]

About 900,000 of America’s Hispanic citizens reach voting age each year. In 2012, less than half of eligible Hispanics voted, but Republicans have figured out how to increase Hispanic turnout.  (our emphasis)

Will rightly makes note of the "invertebrate" Republicans running against Trump, but apparently has sensibilities too delicate to note the other "invertebrates" who have led the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party to this pass.  One such "invertebrate" would be George "Effing" Will who, along with the vast majority of right-wing media, has fed hateful nonsense to the yahoos for decades.  Nonsense about immigration.  Nonsense about climate change.  Nonsense about Obamacare.  Nonsense about "voter fraud."  Nonsense about the Iran nuclear deal.  And on and on. For that, George "Effing" Will and his fellow fantasy bullshit artists deserve a great deal of credit.  (As Matt Taibbi notes below, "America has been trending stupid for a long time. Now the stupid wants out of its cage, and Trump is urging it on.")

It's important to note that Will makes his argument against Trump's deportation policy in terms of "expansion of government's size and coercive power" and the electoral effect of firing up Hispanic Americans against Republicans.  Passing attention is paid to the "cruelties."  Also, if you go to the link and read his full op/ ed, he's perfectly happy to talk about "anchor babies" "birthright citizenship" once the clamor (and election?) has passed by.  Punctilious asshole. 

Trump and his far- right- wing nativist/ know-nothing/ fear- engorged claque has found a Petri dish in that part of the American political spectrum in which it has thrived and will continue to thrive.  The biggest problem for Will and his fellow establishment Republicans is that Trump is a blaring horn, whereas they would prefer a dog whistle. 

Trumpnado And The Remoras

Republican front-runner Donald "Rump" Trump's demagogic and racist assault on immigrant families has, as the New York Times notes, given the "talented," "well-qualified," and "strong" field of Republicans running for President an opportunity:

You could say the front-running Mr. Trump has put his opponents in a bind. Or you could say he has given them a gift: the opportunity to be specific in return about what they would do to fix the immigration mess. And to be forthright in rejecting his despicable proposals. Because his plan is so naked — in its scapegoating of immigrants, its barely subtextual racism, its immense cruelty in seeking to reduce millions of people to poverty and hopelessness — it gives his opponents the chance for a very clear moral decision. They can stand up for better values, and against the collective punishment of millions of innocent Americans-in-waiting.

Haha no:

But as Mr. Trump swells in the polls, his diminished opponents are following in his wake, like remoras on a shark. Several have shuffled onto the anti-birthright-citizenship bus, including Rick Santorum, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ben Carson and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who once fought for smart bipartisan immigration reform, wants to repeal birthright citizenship. As does Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a birthright citizen himself. As for Mr. Trump’s other restrictionist proposals, several are firmly lodged again in the playbook of a Republican Party that briefly tried to reform itself after the Mitt Romney debacle. Some candidates are even willing to try to trump Mr. Trump in xenophobia: Mr. Carson is talking about using armed military drones at the border. That’s right — bombing Arizona.

But here's the real underlying problem for the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party:

But they're only responding to their electorate. Look, for instance, at this 2011 Pew Research Center poll, which made clear in its question that ending birthright citizenship would entail amending the Constitution. Thirty-nine percent of Americans overall said that's what we should do to make sure the children of unauthorized immigrants couldn't become citizens. Forty-seven percent of Republicans, and 57 percent of Tea Partiers, agreed.

So it may not be a clear majority of Republican voters, but it's plenty of them, and probably a majority of those committed enough to vote in the primaries. If the candidates are looking at the reception Donald Trump is getting for his anti-immigrant rhetoric and thinking they ought to get some of that action for themselves, that wouldn't be surprising. Within the next few days, polls testing this question will start being released, and I'd be shocked if at least some of them don't show a majority of Republicans supporting an end to birthright citizenship.  (our emphasis)

That's right!  You're dealing with nearly a majority of Republicans who reject birthright citizenship (see:  14th Amendment).  The same self- satisfied, rage- stoked "constitutional conservatives" who believe in the sanctity of the Constitution but don't have a clue what it says (and when they find out, they're agin' it!).  You have a significant portion of the population (see above) that, as Charles Pierce would say, plays with their toes.  At the same time, you have people who have been deemed by the corporate media to be "serious" contenders for the Presidency who are so clearly lacking in character, spine and -- what's that Ron Fournier- admired quality again?  Leadership! -- that they not only refuse to take on Rump, but are actually parroting his position.  Some Commanders- in- Chief there!

Meanwhile, Democrats have your video cameras rolling to capture all of the nativist, racist pandering for those short attention span voters!

Walker's Backflip On Immigration

Wisconsin's dimbulb Governor and Koch Industries' employee of the year Scott "Kochhead"Walker continues to show that, although the wingnuts at CPAC love his schtick, he's not ready for prime time.  Yesterday, on GOP-TV the Fux Network, he was confronted with his statement made just two years ago that there should be a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.  It seems that the Governor has seen the far-right light, and now says that his "view has changed."  Now, the slippery Governor wants to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants an "immigration system that works," despite the fact that Congressional Rethugs have blocked every attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform -- border security, bringing immigrants out of the economic shadows and giving them an opportunity to become citizens.

This certainly won't be Kochhead's last flip-flop while the nativist Rethuglican base sizes up the candidates for 2016, but it's certainly one of the most egregious.

(photo:  "You like that answer better?")

Surprise! Republicans' First Order Of Business: Go Far Right

E.J. Dionne, Jr., has several examples of why the Republican Congress, while talking "bipartisanship" and "governing" is the same old same old (and, once again, thank you to all the Democrats who couldn't be bothered to get off their asses last November):

One example: The new rules would provide for “dynamic scoring” of tax cuts, which sounds very cool and forward-looking but for the fact that they aim to assert tax cuts won’t cost what they’ll actually cost. This, in turn, will make it easier for the Republicans to shower money on their favored constituencies while pretending to be fiscally responsible. [snip] 

[T]he House leadership included another rule flatly designed to force cuts to Social Security’s disability program. If Republicans want to debate such cuts, fine, but don’t sneak them in through the fine print.  

Then there is the move by both House and Senate Republicans to change the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Currently, employers with 50 or more full-time workers have to provide health insurance to employees who work 30 hours or more, or pay a fine. Republicans want to limit the mandate to Americans who work 40 hours or more. In USA Today this week, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) wrote that the purpose of the change is “so more people can work full time.” 

But the change would have exactly the opposite effect.

Dionne doesn't even mention this culture war stinker:

On Tuesday, the very first day of the 114th Congress, two lawmakers introduced a measure to ban abortions after 20 weeks, in direct violation of the protections afforded under Roe v. Wade. Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reintroduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the same legislation that successfully passed the House last year. 

Or this one:

Speaker John Boehner and the House Republicans are planning to try to choke off President Barack Obama’s immigration executive action next week, according to multiple GOP leadership aides involved in the talks.

You may have noticed this emerging Republican-wired media narrative (or some variation):  the establishment Republicans are in charge now and are ready to govern, if only Obama will compromise!  To which we say, with exhibits A through E above as evidence, please extract your heads from your asses and report things as they are, not as you wish them to be.

Sunday Funnies, Immigration Edition

(click to enlarge)

The corporate tail that wags the Rethuglican dog (e.g., the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc.) wants some reform, albeit in order to keep cheap labor available.  The Rethuglican id, however, fears immigrants and the inevitable demographic consequences to their social order (see posting below).  Above all, they are, again, on the wrong side of history.

(cartoon: Signe Wilkinson, via Gocomics.com)