Daily Archives: 3 August 2017

What’s in a Name?

Posted on by
Reply

Quite a lot, actually, and the Left has this right—even if they’re on the wrong side of the naming question.  DoJ has begun referring to those who’ve entered the US illegally as “illegal aliens,” and the Left has gotten its collective panties in a twist over it.

Here’s Chicago Tribune journalist Todd Slowik:

The phrase “illegal alien” plays into assumptions that immigrants living in this country without proper documentation are criminals[.]

Without proper documentation: in other words, in the US illegally.  Which is a crime, which makes these folks criminals.  Now, I’m one of those squishes who thinks illegal aliens whose only crime is entering illegally, and who since have been solid, contributing members of their community, should be offered a path to make good on their (really quite minor—on the order of a traffic violation) crime and then a path to legal permanent residency and eventual citizenship.  Illegal aliens who aren’t contributing members or who commit additional crimes ought to be tried for those additional crimes, and for the illegal entry now that that has become a problem; if convicted, jailed; and at the end of their sentence, deported with no option for reentry.

Hiding behind euphemisms—undocumented, unauthorized, migrants—just hides the damage illegal aliens who commit additional crimes do.  Just ask the two women who were raped in Portland, OR, because the city’s councilmen considered the PC rights of a multiply-deported illegal alien were more important than the right to security of those two women.  Just ask Kate Steinle.  Oh, wait.   Just ask the victims of MS-13 barbarians.  Oh.  Keep waiting.

As a side note, Fox News insider has it wrong, too, as they demonstrate in the opening sentence of their piece:

The Justice Department began calling illegal immigrants “illegal aliens….”

Illegal aliens aren’t immigrants, either.  Immigrants are in our nation legally.

Senate Workings

Posted on by
2

Senator Jim Lankford (R, OK) had some thoughts on this in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.  In the main, he was pushing back against the desire of some to get rid of the filibuster, and he offered instead some other corrective actions that are worth considering.  In the main, I agree with him on the filibuster; although I believe that the Progressive-Democrats, when (not if) they next become the majority party in the Senate, will get rid of the filibuster altogether, and for the same reason they got rid of the filibuster on judge nominations other than for the Supreme Court: to stop those uppity Republicans from getting in the way.

In the main, I agree with his rules change suggestions, too, but I don’t think they go far enough.  As you readers might guess, I have a couple of ideas of my own.

  1. Get rid of the rule that limits hearings to two hours on days when the Senate has other business to conduct, also. Surely members of the greatest deliberative body can do more than one thing simultaneously.
  2. Get rid of the filibuster on matters relating to spending and taxing.

That last isn’t to keep the obstructionist Progressive-Democratic Party from getting in the way, even though the present incumbents of that Party have plainly said they won’t work with Republicans on budgeting, debt, funds allocations and spending, or on taxing unless the Republicans agree to do things the Progressive-Democrat way.  No, it’s to allow actual budgets and tax programs to be enacted and the debt actually addressed.

There’s a reason American voters chose the majority party to have that majority, and the most important task Congress has is the purse strings of the Federal government.  Everything else—everything—flows from that imperative, and if that one isn’t satisfied, nothing else that Congress does that’s more serious than naming a building after someone will matter.