Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
We're officially on Insta! Did I throw on a blazer at 5 am for all you lovely people? You bet I did!
“The Trump administration on Saturday said it would propose making it harder for foreigners to come to the United States or remain there if they have received or are likely to receive public benefits such as food aid, public housing or Medicaid.” Reuters
The Immigration and Nationality Act specifies that individuals likely to become a “public charge” are inadmissible for entry or permanent resident status. Currently, the only benefits considered are those that provide direct cash benefits. The proposed rule would include many other non-cash benefits in the determination. DHS
The left argues that the sentiment behind these restrictions is contrary to American ideals, and will be harmful in the long run.
“So much for welcoming the tired, poor and huddled masses... The proposed rule is punitive, mean-spirited and self-defeating. This nation has been built with huge contributions from immigrants who arrived with nothing, needed a hand for a while and eventually prospered."
Washington Post
“On its surface, the new proposal looks like an effort to shift U.S. immigration toward high-skilled workers... [but] many smart, talented people come to work in the U.S. without many financial resources. Instead of dollars in the bank, their true asset is their human capital...
Immigrant entrepreneurs could no longer use food stamps as they struggle in shabby garages to create the company that becomes the next Google or the next Intel. Since immigrants tend to be much more entrepreneurial than the native-born, the new rule could deal a heavy blow to American economic dynamism.”
Bloomberg
Furthermore, “scaring vulnerable populations off public assistance is likely to cost much more in the long run, in part because neglecting preventive health care and basic medical problems makes patients only more expensive to treat down the road."
New York Times
Regarding the deployment of an aircraft carrier and bombers, many note that the US “has a long history of provoking, instigating, or launching wars based on dubious, flimsy, or manufactured threats… The most egregious case was the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in 2003, which was based on bad intelligence that Baghdad had active weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. The repercussions are still playing out sixteen years (and more than four thousand American deaths) later… The sense of foreboding is tangible.”
Robin Wright, The New Yorker
Trump's “goal, it seems, is to put so much pressure on Tehran that it has no choice but to completely change its behavior — but he could end up leading the countries to the brink of war in the process… Now is typically the time when cooler heads prevail, but it’s unclear if there are cooler heads around… It’s hard to overstate how avoidable this situation was.”
Alex Ward, Vox
“In theory, there’s no reason why a bad businessman can’t go on to become a good president. But a commander-in-chief whose signature legislative achievement expanded tax loopholes that he himself describes as grossly unfair is pretty much a bad president, by definition.”
Eric Levitz, New York Magazine
The right supports restricting benefits for immigrants, but some question whether this rule is the best way to accomplish that.
The right supports restricting benefits for immigrants, but some question whether this rule is the best way to accomplish that.
“The centuries-old public-charge principle is not a moral critique. A foreigner with a sixth-grade education and a family of five may be a wonderful human being, a loving husband and father, a hard worker, and a fervent Christian — but... he is unlikely to be able to feed his children without help from the government. For our fellow citizens, such assistance is justified... But what justification can there be for admitting people from abroad who can’t pay their own way?...
“There are hundreds of millions of people abroad who want to move here, and however many of them we decide to accept, we should at least make sure they can pay their own bills... The level of immigration certainly won’t decrease [as a result of this rule], because the waiting lists are so long that anyone barred from immigrating would simply be replaced by the next person in line.”
National Review
Some argue that “this rule will harm taxpayers by denying visas to immigrants who even the government predicts will be largely self-sufficient in the United States... [the rule] ignores the degree to which immigrants support themselves. It adopts a flat rate standard: If the government predicts that they will use $2.50 per person per day for a family of four in benefits, it will ban them from the country."
Washington Examiner
“We've got to suck it up. Indeed, we must be bold here. Chinese President Xi Jinping's tariffs escalation reflects his bet that he can spike U.S. domestic fears over the economy, and a corresponding popular pressure on Trump to back down… if we stand firm, Xi will have to back down because China's economy is already weakened by foreign investor doubts, caught between rural poverty and urban wealth, and vulnerable to low-cost labor competition from the region.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
“The broader context here is North Korea's crop crisis. If Kim hasn't got sanctions relief by August's end, a painful winter is coming… Absent Kim's commitment to suspend all ballistic missile tests, the U.S. should not support the provision of food supplies to the North Korean people. A North Korean long-range nuclear strike capability poses an existential threat to American society… Trump must not allow North Korea's coming suffering to dictate his decisions. Supporting North Korea with food will both prolong North Koreans' suffering under Kim and directly undercut U.S. interests.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
Some argue, “It stands to reason that if Kim is willing to starve his own people, deprive his economy of any growth, and pour billions of dollars into missile tech, he will, at some point, develop weapons America and its allies mastered decades ago. And short of an invasion or a diplomatic agreement, under the present circumstances, there is very little we can do to stop him… Taking a hardline approach—what many call the ‘big deal’—or only granting sanctions relief after full denuclearization and the end of Kim’s missile programs is completely impractical and something North Korea would never agree to… only a step-by-step process of disarming Pyongyang, where each side gets a benefit for making a concession, will work.”
Harry J. Kazianis, The American Conservative
Others posit that “the reason Kim is developing missiles that can strike Seattle or LA is that 28,000 U.S. troops are in South Korea… If we cannot persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons in return for a lifting of sanctions, perhaps we should pull U.S. forces off the peninsula and let China deal with the possible acquisition of their own nuclear weapons by Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan…
“After an exhausting two weeks [between North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and others], one is tempted to ask: How many quarrels, clashes and conflicts can even a superpower manage at one time? And is it not the time for the United States, preoccupied with so many crises, to begin asking, ‘Why is this our problem?’”
Pat Buchanan, Townhall
“The Democrats want to talk to Don McGahn, and maybe they will ultimately prevail in court to get his testimony, but what’s the point? McGahn talked extensively to Mueller, and surely everything remotely damaging is already in the report…
“Congress has the report, and now it is up to it to decide. But it doesn’t want to. It’s too painful to admit that the Mueller report was a bust on Russia and that the obstruction material, while damaging to Trump, is hardly a slam dunk; that the public doesn’t support impeachment; that if the House goes through with it anyway, it will end with a whimper in the Senate; and that it’s better for Democrats to focus on beating Trump in 2020 than a forlorn impeachment.”
Rich Lowry, National Review
“The scoop reflects poorly on Trump, who willfully misled the public for a decade in hopes of fraudulently representing himself as a man with a Midas touch. But he could not have succeeded without the assistance of many Americans, some mercenary, others over-credulous, who helped to spread the deceit and deception, generating countless newspaper articles, magazine stories, and TV segments that misinformed the public about the publicity hound’s record in business. New evidence of his staggering losses in that decade therefore provides an apt occasion to reflect on the media’s complicity in Trump’s brazen deceit and deception… Let [this] be a lesson for today’s tabloids, gossip columnists, over-credulous or mercenary journalists, and reality-television producers.”
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
'Mate, what just happened?' Seal slaps kayaker in face with octopus.
The Guardian
