Immigration Reform Requires Caution

The Foundation

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules." --Thomas Jefferson

Editorial Exegesis

"President Obama has never been known for getting his hands dirty with legislative details, and he certainly didn't with his remarks on Tuesday about immigration. ... One problem is the lack of any mention of a guest-worker program for new migrants, especially low-skilled workers of the kind who arrive in greater numbers when economic times are good. Mr. Obama sounded good when he talked about providing more visas for high-skilled workers, and we support his call to 'staple a green card' to the diplomas of foreign graduates with technical degrees from U.S. universities in engineering, mathematics and the sciences. But the U.S. also needs more legal ways for low-skilled immigrants to enter the country -- not merely to fill labor needs in the likes of agriculture and construction but also to reduce illegal immigration in the future. ... Another red flag is Mr. Obama's apparent refusal to accept enforcement triggers before illegal migrants currently in the country can apply for a green card. We don't think more border enforcement is the main reason illegal immigration is down. Mr. Obama bragged in his speech that 'illegal crossings are down nearly 80% from their peak in 2000.' But that has much less to do with enforcement than with the lousy U.S. economy, especially since 2008. The biggest barrier to more illegal immigration has been Obamanomics. However, the lack of an enforcement trigger is important politically because Republican reformers will need it to convince their conservative rank and file that the U.S. won't be back at the same old stand five years after reform passes. If Mr. Obama wants reform to fail so he can blame Republicans, the fastest way to do it is by pressing for easy green cards for current illegals with too few strings attached. ... [I]t wouldn't hurt if, for once in his Presidency, he tried to understand what can pass with a bipartisan coalition instead of with liberals only." --The Wall Street Journal

Upright

"Obama has yet to present a major policy proposal geared toward solving specific problems. But he has won elections. And he has done so by implying ... that his opponents are morally deficient. It is truly astonishing just how thin President Barack Obama's playbook is. ... It usually involves children. It always involves moral indignation. It invariably involves urgent calls for action. Action now. Action yesterday. Action overdue. ... In pushing his illegal immigration agenda ... Obama flew out to the failing Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nev., to use the school's majority Hispanic population as a backdrop. He didn't care enough about the kids to offer them better educational opportunities. But he then proceeded to explain that those who oppose his agenda are actually closet racists: 'I promise you this: The closer we get, the more emotional this debate is going to become. ... When we talk about (the issue) in the abstract, it's easy sometimes for the discussion to take on a feeling of "us" versus "them."' In other words, oppose Obama, you hate brown people." --columnist Ben Shapiro

"Democrats often seek to inflame our emotions to impede an honest, good-faith discussion on the merits of various issues. Obama demonstrated this in his news conference when he trotted out his 23 executive orders designed to address mass shootings. By using the parents of shooting victims and children as props he intended to imply that unless you support his measures, you oppose protecting children. He did more than imply that in his remarks when he expressed incredulity that anyone who cares about these shootings could possibly oppose his policies." --columnist David Limbaugh

"It's a good thing our federal government is going on a strict spending diet to curb its out-of-control borrowing. Otherwise, the latest piece of spending legislation passed Monday worth more than $50 billion might have been substantial. ... For weeks Obama traveled the country telling anyone who would listen and some who'd rather not that he's so absolutely positively determined to cut America's $16.4 trillion national debt that he did so much to grow. And he was insistent on milking money from the rich to do just that. Well, guess what? That $50.4 billion spending bill for, among other things Hurricane Sandy aid, just ate up every single penny of that tax hike for this year, plus another $10 billion." --Investor's Business Daily

"What's perhaps more stunning [about the fourth quarter GDP drop] is the idea that the so-called recovery in its fourth year still cannot stand on its own legs without massive government stimulus. After all, federal spending has remained at the $3.8 trillion level for four years, with its percentage of GDP around 25%, far above the 20% post-1960s norm. Perhaps that's part of the reason that the economy is still stagnating, rather than a reason to expect recovery." --blogger Ed Morrissey

"[W]e spend so much time on these individual issues like guns and health care, but what we need to take on as a country is the topic of freedom overall. What are rights? What is the purpose of the government? All our arguments are because we disagree on those questions, but that's not usually where the discussion is. If we want to change things, we need people thinking on these fundamental questions." --columnist Frank J. Fleming

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Insight

"A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie." --Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)

"'Trust but verify,' Reagan discovered, applied not only to the Soviets but also to the Democrats in Congress." --political consultant and author Lyn Nofziger (1924-2006)

Demo-gogues

It ain't about hunting: "The only way that we're going to be able to do everything that needs to be done is with cooperation of Congress. That means passing serious laws that restrict the access and availability of assault weapons and magazine clips [sic] that aren't necessary for hunters and sportsmen, those responsible gun owners who are out there." --Barack Obama

"[U]p at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time. Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake. ... [A]dvocates of gun control have to do a little more listening than they do sometimes." --BO

Non Compos Mentis: "[I]t is true that the vast majority of gun deaths in America are not the consequence of the use of an 'assault weapon.' But that begs the question of whether assault weapons have any real utility either in terms of any sporting or self protection needs." --Joe Biden (Because they are NOT generally used in crime, we should ban them. Got it.)

"[T]he NRA is venal. They come after you, they put together large amounts of money to defeat you. They did this in '93 and they intend to continue it." --Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Fear of responsible training: "The NRA has become an institution of gun manufacturers. This morning, on the front page of The New York Times, I was reading about their program now to provide weapons and training for youngsters, from 8-years-old to 15-years-old. And this is supported by the gun manufacturers. In other words, here is a whole new group of people that we can get these weapons to, they just don't happen to be adults, they're children." --Dianne Feinstein

False distinctions and information: "I will tell you, if you talk to professionals, hunters and certainly sportsmen, they'll tell you [the AR15 is] not the gun to use. A rifle is more accurate. It's certainly easier for a woman to be able to do that." --Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) on why women supposedly don't need AR-15s

Speak for yourself: "Unless you were one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else, somebody brought you." --Barack Obama

Power play: "[W]hat I do see is that there are certain issues where a judicious use of executive power can move the argument forward or solve problems that are of immediate-enough import that we can't afford not to do it." --BO

Dezinformatsia

That's racist! "As in '05 and '06, the death knell for Republicans is the tone of this conversation [on immigration]. ... And the other thing these guys know is, those crazy crackers on the right, if they start with their very hateful language, that it's going to kill them in the same way that they learned at their little retreat that let's not talk about rape." --MSNBC political analyst Karen Finney

Utilitarian sickness: "The 'life' conversation is often too thorny to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that's what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn't make me one iota less solidly pro-choice." --Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams in her article, "So what if abortion ends life?"

"[Last] week brought us the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and made me reflect on a moment from 15 years when I was in a committed relationship with a woman who I knew was just not the one. She also knew it probably wasn't going to work out and then she got pregnant, and I was terrified. ... I knew that pregnant woman and I were not going to be able to form a lasting family. She decided it was best to have an abortion and days later she did, we did, and in some ways that choice saved my life." --MSNBC's Touré

Hot air: "I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this cold weather is far worse than the Holocaust." --Gawker senior writer Travis Okulski

Newspulper Headlines:

Longest Books Ever Written: "The Budget Numbers That People on the Left Don't Seem to Understand" --Ricochet.com

We Blame George W. Bush: "Ryan Blames Republican Election Loss on Poor Communication, Turnout" --Reuters

What Difference Does It Make?: "Three European Countries Warn of 'Imminent' Threat in Benghazi" --New York Times website

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: "Kerry: I Will Implement 'President Obama's Vision for the World'" --Breitbart.com

Out on a Limb: "NRA Says Obama Doesn't Understand Gun Owners" --USA Today

Bottom Story of the Day: "Nearly 1,000 March in D.C. for Gun Control" --The Washington Post

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Revealing honesty: "I've got a simple idea: Let's give up on the Constitution. I know, it sounds radical, but it's really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie. ... To be clear, I don't think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago." --Georgetown University law professor Louis Michael Seidman

"The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not absolute. ... [W]e absolutely think that the idea of banning a military style assault weapon, a weapon that I am confident that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison never laid their eyes on, is not inconsistent with the rights of those who self-protect, those who shoot, who want to participate in sporting and hunting. ... I'm waiting for someone to suggest that the 2nd Amendment gives them the right to own a tank and to park it in their driveway. Let's be real: This is about the children." --National Urban League president Marc Morial

"I mean if you look at the Second Amendment it was that you would have militia to protect yourself in case the government came and attacked citizens. First of all, if the government were to come to disarm you, you would not be able to use an automatic weapon to defend yourself. Let's be serious. We're in a world of drones now so the Second Amendment would not help you in that area. It is absurd to try to cite that. We're talking about people do not have the right to unregulated rights in this country." --Al Sharpton

Content warning: "One only wishes Wayne LaPierre and his NRA board of directors could be drafted to some of these [violent] scenes, where they would be required to put on booties and rubber gloves and help clean up the blood, the brains, and the chunks of intestine still containing the poor wads of half-digested food that were some innocent bystander's last meal." --horror writer Stephen King

Short Cuts

"In the run-up to the Fiscal Cliff vote, Harry Reid accused John Boehner of running the House like a dictator. ... Imagine, the man who has spent four years refusing to allow his 99 colleagues to vote on a federal budget has the unmitigated gall to accuse the Speaker of the House of being high-handed. When it comes to pots calling kettles names, we haven't seen anything like it since Hitler told Mussolini to lighten up." --columnist Burt Prelutsky

"Golfer Phil Mickelson said it was a 'big mistake' to publicly announce he was considering moving out of California for tax reasons. Although a bigger mistake would be staying and letting California bleed him dry." --Fred Thompson

"According to a new report, it now costs $351,000 to raise a child for 18 years. And you can double that again waiting the next 18 years for that lazy kid to move out of the basement." --comedian Jay Leno

"USA Today chided President Obama Tuesday for appointing white males to fill all his new cabinet post openings. The newspaper really took him to task. The president wrote a letter to the editor explaining that rich white men are in danger of extinction and if he doesn't create a protected habitat for them, there will be no one to pay for the government." --comedian Argus Hamilton

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team