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Here we are speaking with Sanity Media about bursting media bubbles. Have a listen + please follow this awesome new podcast on Facebook and Twitter!
“The United States said on Monday it will send over 5,200 troops to help secure the border with Mexico... U.S. officials have stressed that the troops would not police the border and instead carry out support roles like building tents and barricades, and flying U.S. customs personnel to locations along the border.”
Reuters
Regarding the size of the caravan, while estimates vary, “most estimates put that number around about 5,000 to 7,000.”
Politifact
The left dismisses fears about the caravan as scaremongering, and argues that the US has a moral duty to consider the migrants’ asylum claims.
“Reports that President Donald Trump wants to send 5,000 more troops to the Southern border, at first, come as a shock. It’s a startlingly high number. To put it in perspective, NATO recently deployed 4,500 troops in the Baltic nations to deter and repel a Russian tank assault. How many troops could possibly be needed to stave off an unarmed caravan of refugees walking up through Mexico?"
Slate
According to former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, this is "a misuse of active duty military... To say this isn't a political stunt is misleading the public."
“The Trump administration has produced no evidence to support the president’s repeated claims that criminals are in the caravan... [Moreover] Trump’s claim that ‘you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process’ does not make sense. Many of the caravan members plan to request asylum, which requires that a person already be in the United States."
Mother Jones
“No doubt some of the caravan members will weigh the odds and decide they have a better chance of sneaking over illegally. But if even a few thousand were to try it, they would pose no unusual challenge to the Border Patrol — which apprehended nearly 6,000 people every week last year crossing from Mexico...
“[It’s worth noting that while] data specifically on refugees and those granted asylum are hard to come by... the New American Economy Research Fund looked at the 10 cities with the highest rates of refugee arrivals and found that ‘nine out of 10 of the communities actually became considerably more safe, both in terms of their levels of violent and property crime’.”
Chicago Tribune
Some posit that “the United States has sabotaged itself. The migration crisis stems not from foreign nations duping the United States but rather from American economic development policies... that have exacerbated the poverty, despair and violence such policies were supposed to alleviate."
Washington Post
Others ask, “What do we do when the caravan gets here? And more saliently: What do we do if many more caravans show up behind it?... This is not a passing crisis. It is the new normal, and its optics do nothing but intensify the cultural panic that is turning much of the West to authoritarianism as a response... Democrats can’t keep dodging immigration as a real issue."
New York Magazine
“The two issues with which he is most often associated, support for a balanced budget and opposition to free trade, put him at odds with both of our major political parties. An old-fashioned, soft-spoken Southerner, he nevertheless held views on so-called ‘social issues’ that would be to the left of the mainstream of the Republican Party, both then and now. He was a fervent supporter of the Vietnam POW/MIA movement in the late '80s and early '90s, but he was not in any sense a hawk. Never mind 2003. Perot opposed the first war in Iraq in 1990… Perot's death should be mourned by all Americans who regret the fact that it is no longer possible to make reasoned, non-ideological arguments about questions of public import, and by the devolution of our political life into mindless partisan squabbling.”
Matthew Walther, The Week
The right argues that the caravan must be stopped; they do not believe economic migrants should be permitted entry, and see no reason why those fearing persecution cannot seek asylum in Mexico.
The right argues that the caravan must be stopped; they do not believe economic migrants should be permitted entry, and see no reason why those fearing persecution cannot seek asylum in Mexico.
“The caravan represents a rebuke to any American claim that its borders are inviolable... liberals like to point out that we’ve seen a nearly 75 percent decline in arrests of illegals at the border since 2000, when some 1.6 million were detained. True. But that still represents nearly 420,000 a year...
“Most of the coverage from the elite media [reflects] the reality that many elites simply don’t see a problem here. And anybody who does is violating the norms of political discourse, as established and enforced by the elites.”
The American Conservative
“We do not have the capacity to provide safe haven to every poor person in the world, but we can (for now at least) protect our own citizens... quoting the preamble, the Constitution was established to ‘secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,’ not for the entire world.”
RealClearPolitics
“This week the Mexican government offered the travelers refuge, supplies and the opportunity for permanent residency in two southern states if they applied for asylum. While hundreds of the Hondurans took them up on the offer, thousands more took a vote and decided once again to reject the plan... there’s no reason the vast majority of them couldn’t remain in [Mexico]."
Hot Air
A “reasonable inference is that the migrants are motivated not by a desire to escape persecution and violence, but by a desire to participate in the American economy... from the U.S. perspective, the desire of migrants to improve their economic status provides no legal or moral imperative for permitting entry."
Power Line Blog
Some ask, “How about a legal framework that considers border invasion the serious crime it should be? If the migrant caravan members not only understand they aren’t welcome, but that they will actually be prosecuted under a statute that, if convicted, requires a penalty far more serious than a slap on the wrist, perhaps that Mexican asylum offer wouldn’t seem so unreasonable by comparison."
Townhall
“Will [trying to stop the caravan] work? Maybe, maybe not, but the point is to show an executive acting like an executive in defending the country’s borders. Contrast this to the lack of effective action that took place during the ‘children’s caravans’ a few years back in the Obama administration. The conventional wisdom was that it was impossible to secure the border against unwanted intrusions... [but] voters wondered why no one was even bothering to try to secure the border."
Hot Air
“NBC and MSNBC embraced Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in the first debate of Democratic presidential candidates Wednesday night, treating her like the star of the show. The debate led off with Warren, who had a huge popularity advantage from the start… NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie started it off sounding more like Warren’s press secretary. ‘You have many plans – free college, free child care, government health care, cancelation of student debt, new taxes, new regulations, the breakup of major corporations,’ Guthrie said, before teeing up an economy question. Guthrie even used Warren’s plan to break up tech companies as the foundation for a question for Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey… the round-robin final comments also ended with Warren, as Maddow asked her for the ‘final, final statement.’ That let NBC bookend the entire debate with Warren and Warren.”
Dan Gainor, Fox News
“President Trump should be happy. As much as Warren is articulate, obviously intelligent, and energetically supported by Democrats, she would also be far easier to defeat than Joe Biden… Considering Trump's economy, the president is well placed to defeat Warren.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
A libertarian's take
“The fans who avidly followed the men’s tournament certainly weren’t doing anything wrong. And it’s hard to argue that each of them had a moral obligation to be exactly as interested in women’s soccer. Even if we could stop them from watching the men more than the women, should we?…
“It’s tempting to answer that the fan choices aren’t innocent, they’re sexist. But since we can’t peek into their hearts, to say that definitively, we’d have to assume that men’s greater speed, strength and endurance definitely make nodifference to the sport’s quality. Fair enough, but then why do fans prefer to watch Megan Rapinoe play instead of the sedentary elderly who could presumably use some exercise? Alternatively, maybe pay should be equalized precisely because biology is unfair. But that seems to be an argument for curbing the pay of all top-level athletes, who have to hit the genetic lottery just to get on the field. It might be easier to focus on the distributions across society at large, rather than every individual industry, especially when fundamental biology is in play.”
Megan McArdle, Washington Post
Bunch of 50 men in banana costumes (and one monkey) turn heads in East Fremantle.
thewest.com.au
