American Elephants

Progressives seem to have slipped their moorings once again. Donald Trump announced executive orders to fulfill his campaign promises about restricting immigration from dangerous countries until the immigrants could be effectively vetted.

In war-torn Syria, there is no effective government that can reliably say who people applying for immigration are. Reliable sources say that forged Syrian papers are widely available to anyone who has the cash. We have already lost too many of our own citizens to terrorist attack. We need to be sure that we are not admitting ISIS fighters or al Qaeda who mean to attack Americans. This is about trying to save American lives.

The ensuing uproar and protests at the airports are sponsored by George Soros who wants open borders. Other than the paid protesters, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth — “but they’re refugeeeees” — even Hillary chimed in to say  (echoing Obama) “that’s not who we are.” It is becoming really irritating to be told “who we are,” when Washington elites clearly have no idea.

The problem is precisely that we don’t know if they are refugees. The executive order also included an order to favor Christian sanctuary seekers. How dare he favor Christians over Muslims!! Religious prejudice! Constitution! Christians are far more apt to be killed by jihadists than other Muslims are, in the case if ISIS, rather spectacularly, and their wives and female children turned into sex slaves.

I ran across a quotation I saved from a piece in Forbes magazine in 2013 that seems appropriate:

None of this should surprise anyone. Contrary to what they tell you (and tell you and tell you) progressives don’t have principles. Rather they have faddish opinions that are highly unstable and often contradictory.                           Kathryn Shaidle

That makes more sense than anything else I have read lately.

The airport protesters (The Soros bunch) want open borders. In other words, we are to leave the door of our house open to anyone who might choose to wander in. We don’t have to be concerned because all people, and all refugees, are good people, just needy? Even vetted, some will slip through. Some of our terrorists were citizens, born in this country but radicalized in American Mosques or by trips abroad.

The Democrat media’s narrative is that President Trump is banning entry to possible terrorist populations Muslims because he is prejudiced against Muslims, and facts are not allowed to intrude. As Tom Lifson pointed out “Why is the United States supposed to admit Syrian refugees when oil-rich and piously Islamic Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the U.A.E. have not admitted a single Syrian? Their stated reason is the risk of terrorism.” So much for that faddish and unstable opinion.

From Sohrab Ahmari, writing from London, in the Wall Street Journal:

The irony is that freedom of movement is unraveling because liberals won central debates—about Islamism, social cohesion and nationalism. Rather than give any ground, they accused opponents of being phobic and reactionary. Now liberals are reaping the rewards of those underhanded victories.

Liberals refused to acknowledge the link between Islamist ideology and terrorism. For eight years under President Obama, the U.S. government refused even to say “Islamism,” claiming ludicrously that U.S. service members were going to war against “violent extremism.” Voters could read and hear about jihadists offering up their actions to Allah before opening automatic fire on shoppers and blasphemous cartoonists.

It’s strange to remember now how Europeans were welcoming “Migrants” from Syria with open arms, flowers, food, clothing and songs. It has been a long slow learning process and illusions of empathy and generosity have gone a glimmering. They refuse to admit what they have done, and what is happening on a daily basis, and their governments try to hush the minor things up, but they have “no-go” areas where it is unsafe for even police to intrude.

Democrats depend on people who don’t pay much attention to the news, cannot distinguish between “fake news” and real events. They come up with “talking points” to give their version of whatever it is that Republicans have done. President Trump has placed an immigration ban on immigrants from 7 nations that have been singled out as exceptional security risks in the Terrorist Prevention Act of 2015 and its 2016 extension. There is no ban on Muslims.

Do you remember the media howling when President Obama banned any processing of visas for Iraqi refugees in 2011? The 2009 discovery of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green Kentucky prompted a six month ban on immigrants from Iraq. Or when President Carter suspended any issuance of visas to Iranians in 1980.

Hollywood celebrities can always be counted on to rush to the nearest  reporter to express their deep understanding of current events. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dramatically proclaimed himself a Muslim,   then included a Jew, a Gay, Black, Christian, transgendered  or a woman to make it clear that he was really inclusive. California wants to secede. Our own Gov. Inslee is filing a lawsuit—anything to distract attention from his budget request for another $11 billion in taxes because he can find no way to cut any expenditure. The Leftist media are improperly remaining in the fake news area, calling President Trump’s executive order religious bigotry, a “Muslim Ban.”

The Wall Street Journal had bet that it would take only 30 days for former president Barack Obama to start criticizing his presidential successor. But then he has never had George W. Bush’s grace. It only took 10 days. He couldn’t even wait until he finished his post-inaugural vacation. He had a spokesman issue a statement Monday afternoon reporting that the former president “is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country” against President Trump’s refugee order.

“Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake,” added spokesman Kevin Lewis. “With regard to comparisons to President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, as we’ve heard before, the President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.”

No one doubts that, but then Syrian refugees became a global crisis in large part because Mr. Obama did almost nothing for five years as President to stop the civil war, much less help refugees. Here are the number of Syrians his Administration admitted: fiscal year 2011, 29; 2012, 31; 2013: 36; 2014, 105; 2015, 1,682. Only in 2016 did he increase the target to 13,000, though actual admissions haven’t been disclosed. Mr. Obama also barely lifted a hand to help resettle translators who worked with GIs in Iraq or Afghanistan.

This executive order is not illegal, not unconstitutional, and not unusual. They’re just still protesting losing the election, because they can’t get over it. Pathetic.