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Much is being made of President Joe Biden’s (D) refusal to address the situation at our Mexico border, with its burgeoning illegal alien flow into our nation, as a crisis. Much is being made of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ parallel overt rejection of the term “crisis” as a reference to that situation.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has said that the administration isn’t in the business of “labeling” and that the Biden administration doesn’t take immigration advice from the Trump administration. That last is just a bit of empty-headed snark that Biden spouted as he speaks with Psaki’s mouth, for all that it provides a window into the nature of Biden’s inability to deal with what he has wrought at our border over the months since his election, as Mexico’s drug cartels and coyotes and folks from around the world act on his campaign promises of open borders once he’s in office.

On the larger matter, though, Biden—through Psaki—is right, to a point. Labels by themselves can be pretty meaningless, and they can be misleading.

However, properly done, they can be useful shorthand for referring to complex matters that are being handled or that need to be handled. Properly done, labels can serve to briefly identify the nature of the complex matter and thereby guide development of concrete, actionable solutions.

On the other hand, a problem cannot be attacked and resolved if it cannot be identified and understood.

A situation that is “No Big Deal” wants an entirely different response from a situation that is a crisis.

An influx of illegal aliens that is merely a “challenge” needs only local law enforcement involvement, with maybe a touch of Federal assistance, and some humane detention until the illegal aliens can be properly deported.

An influx of illegal aliens, though (and that influx is just the illegal aliens who actually are caught), that overwhelms not only local law enforcement but Federal agencies responsible for enforcing our borders—all of them—and enforcing our immigration laws; an influx that overwhelms our detention facilities, to the point that children become “housed” in the cages Biden inherited from ex-President Barack Obama (D) and currently is using; an influx that overwhelms our border facilities to the point that Wuhan Virus testing facilities are overwhelmed so that most of the illegal aliens who are actually caught and detained go untested and unquarantined—that influx is a crisis.

That’s the failing—a critical failing—of the Biden administration. It cannot label the situation as the crisis that it is.

And so it cannot understand the problem at our southern border.

Or it refuses to try to understand, which would be worse.

An Early Model

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The Georgia Senate has passed, and sent to the Georgia House, election reform legislation that could be a model for other States to follow—while, say I, encouraging—requiring, really—the Federal government to butt out.

Some highlights:

  • eliminate no-excuse absentee voting and
  • limit mail-in ballots to individuals who qualify based on specific criteria
    • people who are physically disabled
    • are over 65 years old
    • are eligible as a military or overseas voter
    • have a religious holiday around election day
    • work in elections
    • somehow need to be outside their voting precinct during the early voting period and election day
  • eliminate no-excuse absentee voting
  • require voter identification to request an absentee ballot
  • require Georgia to participate in a nongovernmental multi-state voter registration system to cross-check the eligibility of voters
  • allow mobile voting units to be used only to replace current brick-and-mortar voting facilities, not supplement them
  • set up a telephone hotline to receive complaints and reports regarding voter intimidation and election fraud, and require the State’s Attorney General to review them within three days

Couple Problems

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…with the New Jersey Middlesex Borough schools assistant superintendent response to a parent’s objections to the district’s refusal to reopen its schools for in-person, and socializing, teaching and learning.

Following repeated virtual learning complaints from a New Jersey parent, a school official fired back with an email shaming that mom.
“We know that parents and students are not following the same CDC guidelines that you continue to share with us that detail the importance of social distancing and mask wearing,” assistant superintendent of Middlesex Borough schools Paul Rafalowski wrote, according to a Feb 11 email obtained by NJ Advance Media. “Case in point, we were provided a number of photos that illustrate the precise reason our school community remains in Phase 1 (virtual).”

A fair enough beef, were the response accurate.

However.

The first problem is that school district’s management is not acting in accordance with the science. That science strongly indicates that it’s safe for the kids to be in school—safer, in fact, than keeping them home and asocial—and safe for the teachers and school staff, who are not at risk of the kids spreading the Wuhan Virus to teachers and staff (not to each other).

The second problem was pointed out by one of the parents responding to the assistant superintendent’s shameful response. Middlesex Borough parent Roger Sanchez regarding the photos that Rafalowski published along with his email:

The point is a government body should never be allowed to document the lives of private citizens and their children.

Too Far

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Senator Marco Rubio (R, FL) has reintroduced his Terror Intelligence Improvement Act, his bill to allow Government to block suspected terrorists from obtaining firearms. This bill, far from improving anything, is a long step back from our rights under our Constitution. As Dana Loesch summarized it in her newsletter (behind a paywall after this month; subscribe now for a discount on her subscription price),

The bill would also provide more authority for law enforcement agencies to go after suspected terrorists, while safeguarding law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment and due process rights.

But, as Loesch goes on to point out, that’s internally contradictory. It’s simply not possible to restrict American citizens’ rights while protecting those same American citizens’ rights. A suspect is just that—a suspect, and so still innocent, regardless of suspicion.

Then, however, Loesch makes her own mistake.

If lawmakers want to stop suspected terrorists placed on a watch list from buying firearms they need to indict them.
I have no problem with this.

I do have a problem with that. All a prosecutor has done with an indictment is convince a secret group of men and women that he has probable enough cause to hale the indictee—possibly an infamous ham sandwich—into criminal court for trial.

The indictee still is innocent; he hasn’t been proven otherwise in that criminal court.

It’s true enough that we do restrict innocent men—we lock them up; we make them wear ankle bracelets; we make them pay a significant something of value to be released, under restrictive conditions, from jail pending trial; and so on.

But those restrictions are done in open court where the prosecutor must convince the judge that his proposed restrictions are warranted, and he must do so in the face of the defendant’s right to answer the proposed restrictions.

Simple indictment isn’t enough. If the suspected terrorist must be denied his 2nd Amendment rights (in the present context), let the prosecutor show in open court that his suspicion is well enough founded that his suspect should be locked up.

As a practical matter, too, that’s the only way to deny such a suspect firearms—outside of jail, there simply are too many means of access to firearms, legal or not.

Beyond that, there’s another, better, way to protect us from terrorists, whether those persons are armed or not. That is for Government to get out of the way of the first responders to any situation—us citizens who happen to be already on scene when the action goes down—carrying our own firearms.

A High School Debate

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The impeachment charge against former President Donald Trump that is before the Senate is one of incitement and causing the riotous invasion of the Capital Building.

The argument led by main House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D, MD) is centered on Trump’s claims of election fraud. This has nothing to do with the actual charge, and the change of subject is something that any high school debater would recognize and not be suckered by.

Alan Dershowitz, who is no high school debater, but who is a tremendously successful—because he’s tremendously effective—lawyer, also recognized Raskin’s and his colleagues’ trick, and he has warned Trump’s Senate impeachment trial lawyers—who aren’t as good as a high school debater if their Tuesday afternoon performance is any indication—not to fall for that weak trick.

There are two reasons for Raskin’s move. One is that he and his fellow Progressive-Democrats think that we ordinary Americans—their real audience—are slack-jawed, drooling idiots and will fall for this shenanigan. He also thinks Trump’s lawyers are just as stupid and incompetent.

The other reason is that Raskin and his fellows know they have no case; there was nothing in Trump’s rhetoric that would have caused anyone to riot. (Raskin, et al., also are insulting the intelligence and initiative of the rioters, but that’s for another time.) Lacking a case, they’re bent on raising a smokescreen with misdirection and obfuscation.

Trump’s lawyers need to stick to the subject at hand—the actual charge in the article of impeachment—and show the foolishness of the Progressive-Democrats’ case. They must raise themselves above the cheap tricks of teenage argument.