By Jack
If you are paying (taxes) to support a public facility of any kind would you mind if they took a particular political view? And would you be bothered if that political view undermined your closely held view? How about if it encouraged people break the law? Now please answer this honestly, without regard to whether this public facility falls on your side of politics or not, ok? Take a purely neutral stance for fairness.
Today I was listening to the news on NPR, national public radio. In theory they are supposed to prioritize news based on its national importance, right? Yeah, in theory this is what is supposed to happen, but they’re blatantly slipping in commentary (leftwing) into much of their programming and in their national news reporting. That’s wrong, if they are receiving tax dollars.
Take for instance they stunt they pulled today. I’m not sure of the reporter, but I think it was Lu Lu Garcia-Navarro, anyway, the female reporter was saying ICE arrests are down and reminded people (illegals and people who shelter them) that if ICE shows up on their door, they do not have to let them in without a warrant. She said if people felt intimidated by ICE agents, they should contact their local ACLU. Then the reporter made the unsupportable statement that migrants are rarely lawbreakers…hey, if they came here illegally, they broke the law, duh. She felt it was necessary to point out to illegals that many Churches serve as an overnight place (sanctuary) stay to avoid ICE deportation.
Here is your tax dollars at work on NPR giving advice thru a news story on what to do to avoid being deported and to thwart ICE. This is like aiding and abetting in a crime and it ticked me off!
Whether or not I support hiding illegals or not does not matter! What matters is this is a flagrant violation of the agreement between national public radio and the people who pay for them to operate (taxpayers).
This is not a freedom of speech issue either, this was a subversive editorial cloaked as a news story to undermine immigration law. How could this not violate the contractual agreement of non-partisanship in order to receive taxpayer funding?
The FCC should be on this big time, because this is far from the first time the liberal dominated NPR has pulled this junk. If the FCC are supposed to be our watchdogs, but they are doing a lousy job… in my opinion. What do you think?
End of Empire Antics…
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/neither-male-nor-female-why-some-nonbinary-people-are-microdosing-n1028766
Whether or not I support hiding illegals or not does not matter! What matters is this is a flagrant violation of the agreement between national public radio and the people who pay for them to operate (taxpayers).
Damn right, it doesn’t matter. You know, I don’t ever recall the people being asked if they want millions of “migrants” coming into the country. This has and will continue to be shoved down our throats. What we think makes no difference to our rulers.
And these people coming in have no job, no housing, no food, no health insurance, no transportation, no anything except the clothes they wear. So who pays to take care of these people? We the taxpayers.
Yet we have no voice in who or how many come in. We are just expected to shut up and pay the tab. And at a time when this country can’t even care for the people already here.
How much more will people take? When does the revolution begin?
Right on Joe and if we have a homeless problem now in CA, bringing in tens of thousands of poor, uneducated, illegals will not help fix it. That much is a no brainer, right? Of course, but liberals aren’t thinking this issue through to its logical conclusion. They pretty much shut down their thinking at, “But, they are poor and need…” Well, the world has a lot of poor! But, thankfully they don’t all live next door in Mexico or the invasion of illegals would overwhelm us into anarchy in a week. As it is we are facing a host of problems that is going to cost us dearly, from taxes to healthcare…we’re going to “pony up” as Libby likes to say.
The liberals are happy to “pony up” just as long as it’s OPM (other people’s money).
Are you accusing all liberals of being tax dodgers?
How many Demorats want to raise taxes on people other than themselves?
How many Demorats want to raise taxes on people other than themselves?
I don’t understand the question. What taxes are you talking about that don’t apply to Democrats? Can you give examples?
“And at a time when this country can’t even care for the people already here.”
What, exactly, do you or the Republican Party as a whole want this country to do to care for people already here?
Or are you just using this as an excuse not to help others?
And these people coming in have no job, no housing, no food, no health insurance, no transportation, no anything except the clothes they wear.
You don’t know that. There are plenty of job openings for them—many of them at Trump resorts and hotels. Most of them come here having a place to go, before ICE stops them from going where they’ve been welcomed. So much for the free market.
You know, I don’t ever recall the people being asked if they want millions of “migrants” coming into the country. This has and will continue to be shoved down our throats. What we think makes no difference to our rulers…Yet we have no voice in who or how many come in. We are just expected to shut up and pay the tab.
Are you suggesting a direct democratic vote on the number of immigrants we allow in our country?
Because right now your “voice” is heard when you vote for members of Congress and, increasingly importantly as it comes to this issue, the president. Just like with most federal issues.
As it happens, more Americans voted for a pro-immigrant president than an anti-immigrant president in the last election, but our voices were not heard because we did not live in the right areas of the country for our voices to matter.
You got your anti-immigrant president. He kept his promise to be harsher on immigrants than any past president in modern history—a far cry from Reagan’s amnesty. What more do you want? Men huddle behind overcrowded fencing as the Vice President looks on with utter apathy. Raids are happening today. The president tweets that those who complain should go back to their own country, even if they were born here. You built all that. And you’re still complaining that *your* voice isn’t heard?!
Snowflake.
So the immigrants have jobs lined up with Trump, yet you hate Trump. You must be racist. 🙂
Sure, all these people are lined up with jobs, healthcare insurance, housing etc. So no need for welfare for these people, right?
Do you believe in any limits on immigration? If so, what are they? Since the vast majority of these people have no jobs, housing, healthcare, etc. who will pay and how much? And remember, currently the government is running near trillion dollar deficits with over 22 trillion in debt with well over 100 trillion in unfunded liabilities and the country already has millions of homeless.
I would say anyone who’s committed more than a misdemeanor offense should be denied. People should also be screened for serious airborne diseases. Terrorist connections would be another thing to screen for. Other than that, I believe in freedom of movement.
The fact is that we can’t stop people from coming here any more than we can stop people from owning guns, drinking booze, doing recreational drugs, or hiring prostitutes. The current attempt to stop illegal immigration is doomed to fail in the same way prohibition or strict gun control in Chicago have failed. The best we can do is find ways to live with these people. They are already our neighbors, our students, our field workers, our hotel housecleaners. We need to stop criminalizing them for chasing the American Dream and start finding real solutions. Yes, this will cost money. But ignoring the real problems and putting bandaids on them will not save us much in the long run. In fact, historically, that almost always ends up costing more.
Chris I strongly disagree that we can’t reasonably control illegal immigration, we can. We have to put our emphasis on three major areas. First, we remove the economic incentives to come here illegally. We must make it a serious offense to knowingly hire an illegal alien. But, neither side wants to do that – both are looking to exploit this underground labor force for their own purposes. Second, we make it extremely difficult to enter the United States by land or sea without first passing through a check point…we’re not there yet. Third, we abide by the UN regulation concerning asylum seekers that is now used as a loop hole for illegal entry. Those 3 things done with an honest effort will immediately resolve our national security crisis with illegal aliens.
Of course we can reasonably control illegal immigration. But not when we make so much immigration illegal. Doling out more laws and harsh punishments won’t do a thing to change the fact that it’s better here than it is in the home countries of those who want to come here. The economic incentive is jobs—absent another recession, you cannot remove the major economic incentive for coming here. These people will remain an exploitable underground labor force as long as they are considered *illegal.* So make them legal. We are never going to make it hard enough to cross…attempting to do so is costly, leads to more deaths, and is an impractical waste of time. Finally, we aren’t following UN regulations right now—we’re arresting those who claim asylum and denying many of their claims without the legal process they’re entitled to. Again, I urge you to apply the lessons of Prohibition and overly restrictive gun control to this issue.
So the immigrants have jobs lined up with Trump, yet you hate Trump. You must be racist.
This is a really bad attempt at a gotcha. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that the type of illegal immigrants Trump hires at his hotels and resorts should not be considered illegal at all. People should be be able to come to this country and work with little government interference unless they pose a serious threat. My objection is not to Trump hiring illegal immigrants, it is to his hypocrisy in doing so while demonizing illegal immigrants as murderers and rapists, separating families, and interning children at the border. This was entirely clear—how did you miss it?
Jack, I Googled the name of the reporter you mentioned, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, and found a transcript of a segment from today on NPR. I did not find the types of statement from her that you mentioned in this blog, so maybe that was a different segment and/or a different reporter. What I found was her interview with Trump’s former ICE director. In it he defends Trump’s immigration strategy and the planned raids this weekend.
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/14/741568228/former-acting-ice-director-on-raids
I found she did not push back very hard on many of the former director’s claims in this interview. Do you think this interview is fair? Does coupling it with the other comments you heard make you think any less of NPR’s liberal bias (which I am not denying, just stating that it might not be as overpowering as you seem to think it is)? It seems to me that NPR is giving both sides of the story, at least based on today’s coverage.
the female reporter was saying ICE arrests are down and reminded people (illegals and people who shelter them) that if ICE shows up on their door, they do not have to let them in without a warrant
I would think a small government conservative would be all for this type of advice. This is about the government approaching someone’s home without a warrant and expecting to haul people away–that is the definition of big government! What happened to “Don’t tread on me?” And you can’t say that the rights described in this segment only apply to citizens, because what if the government gets it wrong? Citizens and legal non-citizens have been wrongly deported before. I guess I just don’t understand why Republicans’ infamous distrust of government seems to break down any time the government is going after people not traditionally in the Republican voting bloc, like Mexicans and Muslims. This shouldn’t be a partisan issue…it’s a freedom issue.
Chris I will see if I can find the news report. I am thinking it aired about 9 a.m., so I will check the top and bottom of the hour news for a 3 hour period. Sorry I did not have information at the moment I posted my comment.
Chris I did some checking and it appears the news story won’t be out for awhile on the internet. The most recent I could find was last week’s. I think it was part of “understand your border patrol.” But, we shall see when it comes out on podcast.
Thanks, Jack. What’s your take on the interview I linked to? Does it make yesterday’s coverage of this issue on NPR seem more fair and balanced to you?
Chris, those links are ok, but as for balance I could not say that it balances out. 10 acts of transgression verses 10 reasonable acts don’t balance out, we have to have reasonable across the board.
This shouldn’t be a partisan issue…it’s a freedom issue.
Indeed. Freedom from taxpayers being forced to pay for a flood of people crashing the border and coming into the country. You can’t have a welfare state and open borders.
I’m unaware of any recognized right to not pay taxes for things you don’t want. Taxation without representation, sure, but we have representation. The right to be free from unwarranted search and seizure, which is what the NPR host was referring to according to Jack’s summary, is right there in the fourth amendment. (And yes, courts have ruled that non-citizens are protected by that amendment and others in the Bill of Rights.)
I’m not sure what this has to do with open borders. Respecting fourth amendment rights is not open borders. The US-Mexico border is one of the most militarized borders in the OECD. We do not have open borders and no Democrat in Congress or running for president is proposing such a thing. “Open borders,” on the right, just seems to mean “borders which aren’t being enforced in the exact harsh way that I would enforce them.” And given how harsh border enforcement has gotten, that’s saying a lot.
The same people that used to accuse Obama of favoring open borders now point to him to argue that Trump’s border enforcement is nothing new and he’s just doing what Obama did. In reality there were many on the left who protested Obama’s abuses, and those people say that Trump is far harsher. Which is exactly what Trump campaigned on.
Your tax dollars go to immigrants one way or another. It costs $775 a night to hold just one child detainee. The cost of deportations, increased militarization of the border patrol and ICE, and that stupid wall have got to cost a lot more than simply letting these people live their lives. There is a growing economic consensus that immigrants are a net benefit to the economy. They stimulate demand and are job creators.
Again, I am not calling for open borders but there has to be a middle ground between that and what we are seeing now. But if you make this a dichotomous choice—if you posit that the only alternative to separating families and interning kids is “open borders”—a lot of people are going to decide that the latter is more tolerable. I know which choice I’d make.
Hey Chris, were you on Lars Larson’s radio show this afternoon? Monday.
No. I don’t know who that is.
Neither NPR nor Public Television should receive one thin dime from taxpayers. They have their OWN fundraisers and do not need to be feeding at the public trough when their slant on stories and “news” is biased.