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“Border Crisis” My Eye
Remember George Stephanopoulos asking that seemingly out-of-the-blue question about birth control at the Republican debate in January 2012?
I think about it all the time, because it helps me remember that the Obama Administration sees no distinction between politics and policy and—crucially—is not above manufacturing a crisis in order to take credit for solving it.
I ain’t that smart, but I know that tens of thousands of unaccompanied children don’t just show up somewhere by coincidence.
The New York Times wants you to think all these kids decided to make a spontaneous mass migration to El Norte in order to get away from the murderous gang problem in Honduras and El Salvador. NBC has a similar take.
Some say that rumors have been spreading throughout Central America that a change in our immigration laws is imminent and anyone who can get to the U.S. now will be able to stay.
Am I the only one that thinks this explanation stinks? If it were true, why would they just send their kids? Why wouldn’t whole families make the trip?
Can you imagine putting your kids on a bus or in the back of a truck and sending them to a foreign country—on their own—based on a rumor? I can’t.
Everybody knows that kids get abused, trafficked, killed, beat up, robbed, etc. when they make these journeys. This is not something that is only known to NGO types with degrees from Yale and Brown. Central American parents are, I’m sure, aware of the dangers.
So why would thousands upon thousands of these families voluntarily expose their beloved children to the possibility of such mistreatment? Because life in Honduras suddenly became so very unbearable? Because Latin America just recently developed a gang problem?
I don’t buy it. I don’t buy any of it.
These Obama administration bums are up to their old tricks, manufacturing a “crisis” on the border in order to make Republicans look mean and bash through an amnesty that they expect will give them a permanent Democratic electoral majority.
But they are playing with lives here. Children’s lives. And that’s lower than I thought even they would go.
Published in General
Wow, and yes. I can only imagine Valerie in the corner somewhere cackling “this is going so much better than we could have imagined…”
Suppose it became well known that Ireland wasn’t going to enforce its immigration and tax laws, and thousands of Irish-Americans returned to the old sod … but on landing there, we discovered it was all a sham. Suppose we discovered that it was just a prank that a few Irish politicians played for the sake of a short term gain in their polls, and we were all just pawns in their game.
Before I went back to America, I’d kick the crap out of any Irishman I could get my hands on. It would fill me with resentment, and I’d never forgive the idiots who manipulated my life and my family’s life into hell, just for a couple votes.
This Administration is playing a very short-sighted, dangerous game, risking the lives of these desperate people to score negligible public relations points. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Hispanic community came to bitterly resent the way they’ve been manipulated.
That request from ICE asking vendors to help with an expected flood of unaccompanied immigrant children is the smoking gun. Why isn’t this getting more attention from the media? Oh, yeah, I forgot.
Right, they don’t do anything that isn’t political and with a view to demonizing Republicans. It is also a low risk strategy for them due to their previous success at demonizing. There is a huge percentage of the population for whom voting Republican is simply unthinkable. They have never heard a Republican get righteously angry at being constantly called racist. The Bush/Rove 8 year fetal crouch strategy has done incalculable damage.
How can you fake a crisis when you have watchdogs like CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, NY Times, and the Washington Post keeping tabs on you? Oh yeah. Never mind.
But if this is manufactured, who are these kids and where do they come from? I would not be surprised at any level this administration will sink to, but it does look like a real crisis.
“Gambling at Rick’s?” Of course the “D”s are playing politics; of course they see policy and politics as two sides of a double-headed coin they flip and call “heads”. And the “R”s?; they suck their thumbs and whine about suing Obama. And send out fund-raising letters stating just how awful is the “other side.” Puhleeze…… The public may catch on–but if they do it will be in spite of everything said and done by Republicans.
I’m not suggesting that they’re not real kids or, even, that it’s not a real crisis. But these things don’t just happen — just like the so-called “War on Women” thing didn’t just happen andd Occupy Wall Street didn’t just happen (it was the brainchild of a bunch of internationalists with backgrounds in advertising). I’m suggesting that somebody started this thing on purpose. Howellis knows what I’m talking about.
Further evidence that this is no spontaneous crisis but orchestrated multi-national policy:
1) Last week, the Mexican and Guatemalan presidents agreed to special 72-hour visas for those crossing into Mexico from the south. Plenty of time to transit Mexico and make it to the Promised Land.
2) Also last week a freight train derailed, delaying 1,300 migrants on their trip north. This train was a FINO (freight-in-name-only): There is no way to have 1,000 + stowaways traveling each day on a freight train, even in Mexico.
Embedded links now working right now, so here you go:
http://www.examiner.com/article/mexico-made-deal-to-send-more-illegal-aliens-to-the-u-s
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/1300-migrants-avoid-harm-mexico-train-derails-24512106
It most certainly is a crisis, but do you really believe O and Co. so immeasurably daft as to not know his unilateral (and illegal) executive order granting defacto amnesty to minors would not result in a flood of new minors hoping to get in on the action or in on the next round of amnesty? They had to know. I cannot imagine an alternate reality where someone stupid enough not to know would achieve the presidency. So, granting that they knew, do you believe them Machiavellian enough to have calculated political gain from the act and its inevitable crisis? I do.
Oh–I see. Yes, they will do anything they think they can get away with. This one is kind of backfiring though.
I don’t either. But I think it is important that we refine our accusations against the Obama Administration. They bear responsibility for the current situation in many very profound ways. But Mr. Hennessey is frustratingly unclear about what his charge against the administration is. Shouting “manufacturing a crisis on the border!” only makes us susceptible to counter-charges of wing-nuttery.
Is it too early for clarity? This is a treasonous arranged invasion using unarmed child soldiers recruited with all of this Democrat “Dreamer” talk and Republican “Amnesty” counter-proposals.
Some in DC now are calling this what it is, and most conservatives can’t bear to listen because to admit the truth means to accept a responsibility to do something about it.
Why do I use the soldier imagery on these defenseless children? Because we will soon have no option but to accept the fact that they are here, they are housed on our own military bases, and the government will protect them from us. Well we have children, too, and rights and a Constitution. When none of this matters, and nothing can generate any traction against a runaway government hell-bent on replacing us before we can replace it — what do you think will happen?
The current administration is executing a long-standing plan long on goals and methods, but flexible in terms of specifics. They aren’t surprised. They don’t intend to “solve” this. They generate conditions ripe with opportunities, then exploit every opportunity. This is not backfiring on them — they invite the collapse and the war.
Rico, the point is I don’t know what’s going on. Except that large numbers of unaccompanied children don’t manage to cross several international borders and arrive in El Paso without somebody giving them a hand. That’ s just one plus one makes two. Am I not allowed to declare that I smell a rat without a dossier of evidence to present? I think I am.
Whether word spread through concerted effort or organically, it seems clear that the Administration did nothing the past couple of months so this would fester into crisis. I continue to be reminded of what Steven Hayward mused recently:
What if Obama did this before the election?
If all you know is that these kids managed to get here, then why jump to conclusions? Available evidence suggests that a number of forces (some of them falling under the purview of the Obama administration) led to this result. The OP makes it sound as if the Obama administration orchestrated it.
Well, yes, of course. If the administration really cared for these desperate children — if it really wanted Latinos to be free to follow their American Dream — why wouldn’t it just send transport planes to Central American countries to pick them up — for “humanitarian” reasons, naturally? We send aircraft carriers to other “humanitarian” efforts. Why make them risk their lives and well-being on a coyote-led exploitative journey through Mexico?
It’s just like Obamacare. It would have been a lot less disruptive and cheaper for the American taxpayer to just outright buy platinum insurance plans for the “uninsured” than diddle with the entire medical system.
This administration has leftist aspirations for “fundamentally transforming” what used to be a strong, good and decent nation. They’re well on their way to success.
It’s obvious. They knew it was coming. They did nothing to stop it. Somebody is facilitating the cross-Mexico transport of these minors and others. The trip from Guatemala was until recently fraught with innumerable dangers, as portrayed in the excellent film, “El Norte.” Once difficult to get into Mexico, now it is easy. There were brigands, federales, and cartel thugs along the way, arresting, deporting, and/or killing and raping the immigrants. The coyotes were untrustworthy and left many of them to die in the desert. Many of the rest were arrested at the border and turned back.
Today, under Obama, it appears that every one of the tens of thousands who start out makes it to the US in good shape, hardly the worse for wear. Someone is paying for it. Someone is facilitating it. Whose purpose does it serve? Why won’t the administration do anything to stop it?
A random thought: I wonder if the arrangement Obama has with Peña Nieto over the immigrant influx is the reason why Obama doesn’t have any leverage to expend on Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi?
I have said it before, I will say it again. Cloward-Piven. The strategy is to essentially overwhelm the system and cause it to crumble. Matthew, you are absolutely right!
Mr. Hennessey,
Do you have a single shred of evidence to back up these claims? If not, I refer you to item 3 in the Ricochet CoC:
I think the burden of proof is on you to explain why this particular theory is in the exceptional 1%.
I agree with you that the explanations are unsatisfactory. I also want to know what should be done and what realistically can be done about this situation?
True. In addition to that, the message sent by Obama’s executive order to legalize DREAMers likely sparked it all.
My point is that the Obama administration is culpable whether it acted as “opportunist” or “manufacturer.” I think that the “opportunist” charge is stronger because it is much easier to demonstrate. If we raise the “manufactured” banner then we are painted as conspiracy theorists (due to lack of ‘smoking gun’) and lose in the court of public opinion. We play right into our opponents’ wheelhouse and “Obama/Jarrett Enterprises” slips off the hook.
[sorry about the mixed metaphors]
Eric Hoffer spoke of this sort of thing 60 years ago when he said, the “True Believers seek to infect society with a malady and then offer themselves as the remedy.” I guess there really is nothing new under the sun. Too bad more people can’t see it for what it is.
For this all to be happening just-so with no coordination requires rather more proof than Hennessey’s observation. If you want to get into name-calling, you’re like the guy at HQ who demands confirmation before relaying warnings. Guess what — you’re not at HQ.
I would appreciate you not lumping this in with what is clearly meant by the CoC; trutherism, bilderberg stuff, and pretty much anything with Alex Jones as the primary pot-banger. If you can’t bring yourself to oppose the destruction of the country, perhaps you could at least stand aside while others save your house.
Good thing the CoC forbids conspiracy theories.
Otherwise someone might suggest that Mexican drug cartels are bringing these kids to the border at the behest of the Administration as their way of repaying Obama and Holder for all those wonderful guns they got from the Fast & Furious program.
Btw, notice how F&F has seemed to just disappear?
How about the “single shred” I link to above at comment #9. To repeat myself: The Mexican and Guatemalan presidents just announced, publicly, creation of a special 72-hour visa for illegal immigrants transiting Mexico en route to the United States. The idea is to exempt Central American illegals from enforcement of Mexico’s draconian restrictions on illegal immigration, further encouraging aliens to make the trip, provided they exit Mexico expeditiously. The Mexicans are not about to accept any economic refugees.
Now it goes without saying that the United States government could exert diplomatic pressure against this coordinated action plainly intended to facilitate the violation of US immigration laws, yet it does nothing. How would you explain such inaction?
@24,
I note you don’t have any evidence (apparently) either.
@26,
It’s not my job to validate your conspiracy theory. It would be as if I said, “JP4 can’t create a fire hot enough to melt structural beams so prove to me that the CIA didn’t plant bombs in the Twin Towers.” What you’ve done is merely note the entirely self-interested actions of two countries caught in the middle of a crisis; pass the buck to the intended recipient.
At a minimum, close the border. This can be done. With some intestinal fortitude it could even be accomplished politically. A little spine would go a long way.
There’s an argument that it’s “not realistic” to expect that, but I don’t accept the circular premise that “We won’t because we can’t, and we can’t because we won’t, therefore nothing.”
You quite obviously didn’t read the link George provided. It’s not a “theory” that the government put out a job req in January for bus line services to transport 65,000 minors. I’ve read the req and you can too. So, it seems reasonable to observe that the administration saw this coming, and rather than do something to stop it, it made a choice to provide buses with destinations inside the US.
Here’s an “unproven conspiracy theory” for you: you’re a true believer. Can’t prove it. I’m just highly suspicious given your unwillingness to admit any fault with the administration on what is, minimally, sloppy handling of a “humanitarian crisis” on our border, akin to something you see more typically in the third world.
I would like to know who is paying for these kids. I refuse to believe all of these children are getting from Central America thru Mexico all free of charge. So who is paying their way?
Of course a question like this and others might be answered if the DHS, ICE, etc weren’t censoring media and congressional visits to the camps and any effort to ask the “refugees” questions.