Border crisis is a shame

The border mess of 50,000 children and families escaping violence in Central America is a matter of shame.  Clear and simple: they should be treated as refugees as the current law requires,, whether they have been trafficked by Coyotes or motivated to flee to the US by misinformation and lack of understanding of our laws.

Shame on  GOP politicians pandering to their anti immigrant constituents to  take advantage of a crisis to bolster their core support instead of offering their own plans to solve a problem , all the while blocking  any constructive solutions.

It is shameful that young children are spit at by hate faced demonstrators waiving  American flags. That sets a terrible example to the rest of the world  of how to deal with their own ethnic and religious conflicts and  refugee crises.

75% of Colorado’s 480 thousand  registered Latinos  that voted for Pres. Obama in 2012 and, 70% nationwide, swung key states blue. (source: a Pew poll October 1 2012) They understood that the real culprit is the GOP and a Republican dominated House of Representatives which  has   refused to pass any proposed  comprehensive legislation that would have funded more border patrols and border security in return for a plan to deal with the 11 million undocumented already in our country.

 Should the President visit the border? Did he just commit a Bush Katrina error? Maybe. The GOP is making much of his non visit, but it is a diversion tactic from their own lack of action or sympathy with the plight of the child refugees. Action, though, is more important than photo ops and the GOP as usual is stonewalling action once again.

 Those  few Hispanics and Democrats  who are criticizing the President for not doing more or too much should be careful not to promote  a plague on both houses mentality resulting in many  sitting out elections.  Election of more anti immigrant GOP members to Congress  or the election of a Republican president would  just put comprehensive immigration  on ice for years or even result in more harmful measures. 

Now the GOP is concocting reasons to  oppose the President’s proposal of $3.7 billion to address the crisis by  quibbling over money, dragging their feet while decrying an immediate crisis ,  or advocating putting  refugees  on the next plane back home ,  depriving them of due process. The purpose of the President’s request:  to add more border agents to process and patrol,  to provide humanitarian detention of the influx and to launch a public campaign to educate Central American parents that their children will not qualify for citizenship and will face deportation. Dare Congress to vote no on this one;  the “party of do nothing, stonewall all with Obama’s name  attached”,   will add to increasing  evidence of the GOP’s  dereliction of duty to  govern.

The GOP stance on immigration reform is a sham, if  not a shame:” secure the borders  first and then we might  discuss some way to send immigrants back from whence   they or their parents came, just so any plan does not include a path to citizenship.”  Whatever is done to secure the borders could never be sufficient  because there is no definition  of when enough is enough. It is much like the old joke: “Mother, may I go swimming? Of course you may, my daughter, but do not go near the water.”

Data source:

http://pewsr.ch/VrJFCu  Pew Poll, October 1, 2012

§  484,000 Hispanic eligible voters in Colorado—the ninth largest Hispanic eligible voter population nationally. California ranks first with 5.9 million.

Some 14% of Colorado eligible voters are Hispanic

Considering the alternatives to feckless and toothless in foreign and domestic and Colorado senate race politics

John McCain’s bluster and attacks at President Obama for not being hawkish enough and call him “feckless”  has me yelling back at the TV when he appears…”ok; what would you have done?”   Send troops into Syria just to show we are not wimps? Bring Georgia into NATO when 20% of it is already occupied by Russian troops? Surround Russia with nuclear missiles we never intend to use?  Start a natural  gas war that would only hurt western Europe that relies on Russian oil and gas?  (It wouldn’t do much to us but raise our  fossil fuel prices through the roof since world markets determine such prices).  Threaten NATO military intervention  in the Ukraine when even he has taken that off the table?  Give me a break.

 At least McCain deserves credit for coming up with some alternatives, but the alternatives he presents are those that we have no intention of following through….they are just toothless wonders, worse than even Obama’s drawing red line in Syria which had no realistic bite to them, especially as our allies there were hijacked by Al Qaeda affiliates. McCain’s alternatives are so full of potential backlashes, to swallow them without  chewing on them  is enough to make rational people choke.

This follows the pattern of other blustering critics of the Obama administration.  Whatever he is for, they are against even though they have no alternatives.  It is nearly always “repeal” but don’t replace. When some more moderates who agree there are indeed problems that need to be addressed  do present alternatives, their proposals  are so full of measures most cannot swallow or  they believe they will not work.

At the suggestion of a leader of the Tea Party Express, a  reader of my columns, I visited the Winston Group’s site which he claimed proved some points he was making…that the Tea Party still had the oomph and public support to be a power because it was a power in 2010.  In examining the reasons the conservative Winston Group, a beltway lobbying and political consulting outfit, tried to explain away Gov. Romney’s loss to Obama in 2012, they concluded it was because the public did not buy the alternatives he put forth, even though most Americans were in tune with conservative objectives on budget, deficit, jobs and the economy. 

The GOP may again be committing the same mistake in 2014.  Sen Mark Udall in Colorado may be low enough  in the polls to appear  beatable now, or in danger of losing in the 2014 midterms, but the GOP is falling into the  2012 trap.  Voters may not be happy campers with the Democrats, but they also are rational and they do consider alternatives when they learn about them.   Nihilism is not a plan. Elections are not won on just anger.  The question voters ask is “as compared to what or whom”.

 Damning Obamacare may be the only  GOP handle that unites their party and which, therefore they are putting forth their only  strategy in the midterms, but either presenting an empty sack full of hot air or one that does not address the problems polls show voters understand  begins to appear as a cure that is worse than the disease.

The only “replace” even getting honorable mention is the one put forth by three Republican Senators, which would either cost as much as Obamacare  and tax those already insured  by their employers to pay for it. At the recent retreat of the GOP congressional caucus, they could not even agree if they should advocate a replacement, much less what a replacement would be. Therefore, in unison, they are stuck in “repeal”mode.   

It will become even more evident in the Colorado Senate race when voters outside GOP’s gerrymandered  conservative bastions of north  east Colorado and Colorado Springs look at the GOP’s candidates who are right of the right, supporting the personhood amendments (a sure fire turnoff of women voters) and still stuck calling Hispanic’s desire for eventual citizenship “amnesty”, or failing to support dream acts (another turnoff of potential Hispanic votes).  Outside the very conservative Congressional districts, Colorado is a different, more liberal, demographically different state where the decisions will be based on “as compared with whom or what”.