Ingraham: How to heal a lame duck
Is the media emotionally manipulative in their coverage of the border crisis?
If you have caught any news about the border crisis in the last 24 hours, you have been subjected to a disgusting and blatant attempt at emotional manipulation.
Now, at a time when we actually need something called real reporting, instead, we get comments like this from MSNBC host Nicole Wallace,
“Look at the photo. See for yourself. That group includes men, women, and several children, some of them trying to cross after being denied access to the port of entry where they could legally claim asylum.”
That's it, it's the one photo.
On Sunday, in a brazen act of lawlessness, scores of migrants attempted to rush the border, and they placed our agents, our sovereignty, in peril. Border patrol had two choices. Let them over on the U.S. border like what they did to Mexico or Guatemala or use non-lethal tear gas to repel the crowd.
Now, these are the only images the media are circulating -- women and children who appear to be running for their lives.
The meter on the hyperbole was in full tilt mode. Here’s one soundbite from the commentary on cable news:
“This is a shameful American moment. It's a shameful American moment. Those children, those pictures are the pictures we saw at the end of the Vietnam War.”
Now, no one wants to see children in distress. But that comment was an embarrassment. And remember, Donald Trump didn't create this crisis.
His foremost responsibility as president is safeguarding the nation, which is what he's doing.
Reporters who are either lazy or agenda-driven are using their own toxic agents to blur the eyes of the public on this critical issue.
Now, this is what really happened on Sunday. Here’s Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council:
“The way these people rushed the border was absolutely monstrous. They pushed women and children up front and then behind those women and children, they started throwing rocks, cement bricks. They started throwing bottles at our Border Patrol agents.”
Just a bunch of modern-day patriots. And as for the mothers and children, well, do they make up the bulk of those arrested? No. Here is what San Diego border Chief Rodney Scott said:
“We are making about 42 arrests, only eight of those were females and there were only a few children involved. The vast majority, the people we are dealing with are adult males similar to what we saw of the first wave of the caravan that came up about a week or so ago.”
In total now, about 69 arrests have been made and the crisis continues to escalate, which “ The Angle” repeatedly warned you would happen.
Well, of course, the atom-splitters over at the other cable news networks claimed it was no big deal.
Here’s a sampling of the soundbites:
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no invasion. There is no emergency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are panicked about this fake invasion.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC, "MORNING JOE" CO-HOST: For everybody out there that was telling me, no, it's a real story. We are worried about the caravan to come in and Trump strong enough to -- I go back to what I said about Martians coming to my backyard. They are not coming and the caravan is not coming. The leprosy is not coming.
A thought... It's not comin'!
Well, it's not just the media know-nothings though who need to be exposed here. We are making a list and we are checking it twice. And others have been very naughty as well on this issue.
One of the prime drivers of these never-ending caravans are groups such as Pueblo sin Fronteras and a Chicago-based Sentro Sin Fronteras.
They have been organizing this caravan and other caravans for months, in fact, years. And Pueblo Sin Fronteras even put out a press release, this was last March. It reads like some type of primer for a borderless world.
This is my favorite line in the press release, "We demand of Mexico and the United States that they open the borders to the U.S. because we are as much citizens as the people of the countries where we are and/or travel."
What? OK, they are not American citizens, but this is a classic “citizens of the world” claptrap that's been funded by billionaires who want transmigration to be universal right.
Now, number two on our naughty list, activist judges. Acting like a super-legislature, district court judges continue to frustrate the president's every initiative when it comes to immigration enforcement.
Just last week, the president was hit with two devastating rulings. In the first case, Judge Jon S. Tigar, an Obama appointee from the Ninth Circuit attempted to bar the president from limiting asylum claims to those who enter the country legally.
Then in Michigan, Judge Marc Goldsmith ordered the release of nearly 100 Iraqis who were incarcerated under the Trump travel ban. Now, all of this explains why the president is running very short on patience. Here’s what he had to say:
“It's a shame. It's a shame. It's a disgrace frankly. Some judge sitting at some location very far away is telling our incredible military and law enforcement what to do, and it's not right and that's been going on like that for a long time. These nationwide injunctions have got to be stopped.”
Now, he's absolutely right. Certain judges have completely abandoned their article III limits and are totally out of control. But Congress, perhaps more than all of the other culprits on this naughty list, deserves the most of the blame here.
Now, both parties could have solved this nightmare had they acted to shore up the asylum loopholes while Obama was still president. Democrats should have struck a deal also with Trump while the iron was hot last January. Republicans were willing to grant a pathway to citizenship for nearly 2 million illegals, fixing the DACA problem. They wanted to do this for a limit on chain migration and visa lottery and of course the funding for his border wall. Now Trump was actually excited about the prospect of this deal. Remember when he said this:
“I will consider that a great achievement to solve the DACA problem. It's been out there a long time. These are good people. These are people that should be able to stay in this country.”
Now, it didn't matter. Sen. Chuck Schumer rejected this out of hand. It was more important in the end for the Democrats to deny Trump a win on immigration than it was for the Democrats to agree to protect our country. -- And even to avoid the type of crisis we see on the border now.
Now, at the same time, many weak-kneed Republicans, many of whom are captive to agribusiness or the hospitality or construction industries, were unwilling to go to the mat for the Trump agenda. So nothing ended up getting done.
With 12 legislative days left until they lose power in the House, Republicans must unite and make passing Trump's immigration enforcement agenda a priority. Working through Christmas and shutting down the government, yes, if that's necessary.
This is a crisis that must be addressed immediately. And we know that once Nancy has the gavel back, the Democrats answer to things like this. It will be to just simply allow the situation to worsen, encouraging thousands more to storm our borders and put women and children at risk.
The Republicans meanwhile have a chance to make this short session of Congress a lot less lame by addressing the most immediate problem facing our country today. But I am telling you if the Republicans duck it once again, they shouldn't expect to be back in charge anytime soon.
Adapated from Laura Ingraham’s monologue on “The Ingraham Angle” on November 26, 2018.
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