Sunday School 6/24/18

In the interest of my own sanity and yours, I only visited one classroom today - Face the Nation  on CBS.  How did I choose that one?

A complicated, random process that starts with "who hasn't really bothered me lately?" which leaves Chuck Todd out of the mix automatically. I then checked ABC to see if George Stephanopoulos was actually hosting his own show, and he was - but Senator Jeff Flake (Lame Duck -AZ) was on, and he's on Sunday more than your average televangelist, so that dropped George from the running.

Of the remaining shows, I used good old alphabetical order, which led me to Margaret Brennan and Bob Corker (R-TN), he of the 'cultish' comment about his fellow Republicans leading off the immigration discussion. First off, Brennan asked him if what was going on at the border amounted to human rights violations.

Well, Margaret, it obviously is not something that is realistic. It's not something that appreciates these young children, and certainly was done in a 'ready, fire, aim' way, obviously.  There was no preparation for it. I can't imagine any American's heart not going out to these families, knowing these children are being separated. And then where were they going? 

After appreciating the Trump administration for the executive order changing things, Corker noted

That's led to another crisis, if you will, because of the 20-day rule that exists. And so, you know, the administration obviously made a large mistake. I know that some in the White House want to use the immigration issue as a -- as a force to activate the base for elections, but obviously the president realized that was a mistake. And now it's up to us in Congress to work with the to come up with a longer-term solution.

Brennan asked him about legislation he supports, which she equated to indefinite detention at taxpayer expense. He noted that he wished the Senate could have passed comprehensive immigration reform in 2013, but

We keep trying to deal with these micro-issues, all of which are important, whether it's DACA or this issue. I realize that, before the election, that's very unlikely to occur, but we need to deal with the whole of the issue...we need to look at the whole thing. In the interim, between now and November, it's likely we will only deal with some of the micro-issues, and the issue just raised is a problem. So, we have go to deal with them. 

They talked about a poll showing that 73% of Rs think anyone crossing the border illegally should be dealt with harshly, and only 23% thinking they should be treated well; Corker thinks that's backwards.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) would most certainly be on 'treat them harshly' side of the equation, as evidenced by this one statement on the whole separation of families thing and House Republican efforts to fix things.

But mostly, what we want to do, Margaret, is the mandate from the 2016 election was real clear. The American people made Donald Trump president, made Republicans the majority in the House and the Senate to build the border security wall, stop chain migration, end the sanctuary city policy, reform our asylum laws, get rid of the visa lottery, and then also deal with the DACA population. 

If that wasn't clear, there was also this statement:

Senator Cruz has a bill. But Chuck Schumer says no, no, no, we're not going to bring is up, because the Democrats, really deep down, what they care about is catch and release. What they want is open borders and what they want is the political issue. They don't want to solve the problems. They don't want to keep families together and adjudicate this and have it go through the hearing process and do it in a way that's consistent with the rule of law. They don't want to do that. 

Womp, womp, as they say.

Finally, Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was next up. Brennan asked Cummings what the Dems stand for on immigration, given that Trump considers them purely resistant, obstructionist, being pro-criminal and pro-open-borders.

That we want to be humane. We want to make sure that these families are reunited after the president created this false crisis. And we want to get these families back together again. We want to get rid of this zero tolerance policy that has been announced by the president. And we want to make sure, as Sen. Corker says, that people are given an opportunity to pursue - and legally pursue an opportunity to be part of the United States of America. 

They talked about changes made by AG Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to remove gang and domestic violence as valid reasons for asylum, and about the old way of doing things, the 'catch and release' process. Cummings noted that a huge percentage of the folks released with an ankle bracelet did return for their hearing, and that process is more humane than what's been going on. And that it was cheaper, certainly - and that "we have no clue" what the current processes are costing.

Brennan then asked about civility, or the lack thereof, referencing the Sarah Sanders incident.

Over the weekend, Sarah Sanders... was refused service at a restaurant in Virginia because of who she works for. Her father, the former governor of Arkansas, also tweeted out a photo showing MS-13 gang members, or claiming that's who these men were, and called them Democrat Nancy Pelosi's campaign committee. Some heard that as racist. What do you make of this kind of discourse right now?

Cummings felt that Sanders should have been served,

But this tone is horrible. But again, I think president Trump has created this. Since he's become president, and even before, he's basically given people license to state things that are ugly, and those things then turn into actions, as we can see now. 

But we have got to get away from this, and we have got to concentrate on what is important at this moment. And we have got to get a -- he's got to be more competent. 

Even the policies that he likes, he has not been very good at executing. And so we have got to find a way to address that. 

That's a good place to leave things, don't you think?

See you around campus.