Modeling Christian compassion on Easter, Trump tells 800,000 young American immigrants that he will not seek a solution to protect them from deportment

Trump came of age in an America where 80% of the population were white Christians, fewer than 5% were born abroad, and our economy dominated the world. facts on the ground changed, but his impulses have not

By complaining about Trump and DACA, you have unwittingly brought the end to DACA, similar to how complaining about nuclear proliferation will bring about a nuclear holocaust.

You should buy a cheap revolver immediately, for you and all of your family members, following the wonderful advice from the readership of this site.

DACA has ended because Democrats would not agree to pass a rational law that would have granted the DACA kids, and more, a path to citizenship in exchange for stopping future illegal immigration. And what sealed the deal is that some Democratic run states are issuing voter registration cards to known non-citizens. And many Democratic run cities are refusing to comply with Federal laws concerning non-citizens. The vast majority of taxpayers and the few remaining middle class families support Trump doing this.

“Democratic run states are issuing voter registration cards to known non-citizens.”

Please elaborate, EOS.

M,
11 states issue drivers licenses to known non-citizens. The only other thing necessary for a voter registration card is a valid address. Many sanctuary cities prohibit the local clerk’s office from even asking about immigrant status. Yes, its still against the law to apply for a voter registration card if you are not a citizen, but many locations fail to even ask to verify the status.

http://www.theamericanresistance.com/issues/drivers_licenses.html

It’s not true, EOS. Here is background from Politifact:

In April 2018, a new law will allow Californians to automatically register to vote when they renew their driver’s license.

It’s intended to bolster registration in a state where voter turnout has lagged.

A slew of conservative websites, however, have seized on the law, dubbed the California New Motor Voter Program, to make the claim this week that it will register undocumented immigrants to vote.

They cite a separate law, AB 60, that allows undocumented Californians to apply for and obtain a state driver’s license, as alleged proof.

This World Net Daily headline on Jan. 21, 2018 sparked the recent claims: “California To Register Illegal Aliens To Vote – Automatically.”

Shortly after it was published, similar allegations were made by The New American, FoxNews.com and conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

This isn’t the first wave of commentary on the topic. Similar statements were made when California passed the Motor Voter program in 2015.

But because the claims popped up again this week, it’s time to take another look at the California laws in question and the safeguards state officials say are in place.

We’ll also place a rating on the claim by World Net Daily.

Background on the laws

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 60 in 2013, making California the 10th state to allow driver licenses for people in the country illegally. The goal was to increase public safety and reduce penalties for undocumented immigrants who drive. As of June 2017, the state Department of Motor Vehicles had issued more than 900,000 of the licenses.

In 2015, Brown signed the New Motor Voter law. By April, it will automatically register DMV customers to vote when they renew or obtain a driver’s license or fill out change of address forms, unless the customer opts-out.

Under the law, the DMV would electronically send information for those eligible to register to vote — which does not include undocumented residents — to the California Secretary of State’s Office. That office would, in turn, verify name and citizenship information. A spokesman for that office did not respond to requests for comment this week.

In the past, however, Secretary of State Alex Padilla has pledged the new system will be an improvement over the existing one.

“Automated voter registration is actually a more secure way of doing things,” Padilla told the Huffington Post in 2015. Potential voters “have to demonstrate proof of age, the vast majority of time people are showing a birth certificate or a passport, which also reflects citizenship. That’s arguably more secure than someone checking a box under penalty of perjury.”

“Completely inaccurate” claims

Jessica Gonzalez, spokeswoman with the California DMV, said she’s contacted several of the websites making what she called “completely inaccurate” claims and asked for corrections. One, the Daily Mail, had pulled down its story, another updated its article, while she said Fox News did not immediately correct its article.

“Undocumented Californians are not eligible to register to vote at the DMV,” Gonzalez told PolitiFact California. “And we have programming measures in place to prevent that from occurring.”

At DMV field offices, Gonzalez said, technicians will not be able to key in any voting information for undocumented customers seeking AB 60 license renewals.

As soon as a technician types in AB 60, the voter information section automatically gets “greyed out” and can’t be typed into and can’t be bypassed, the spokeswoman said. She added that the same safeguards are in place for online and mail renewals.

“The (mail) form won’t even have the voter information questions on it, so they won’t be able to register to vote,” Gonzalez said.

“It’s really interesting how quickly false information spreads,” she continued, “and how difficult it is to get the correct information out there to Californians that really need to know this information.”

A representative for World Net Daily could not be reached for comment.

Several fact-checking websites, from Snopes.com to The Weekly Standard, a conservative publication, examined the topic this week.

The Weekly Standard concluded “there is zero evidence to support that ludicrous claim.”

Our ruling

Conservative news websites and commentators claimed California plans to register undocumented immigrants to vote.

This isn’t the first time such unsubstantiated claims have been made. But the recent spat was sparked by the World Net Daily headline: “California To Register Illegal Aliens To Vote – Automatically.”

In reality, the California law that goes into effect in April 2018 will automatically register only those eligible to vote when they renew or obtain a driver’s license. Undocumented immigrants are excluded. The law does nothing to change the federal requirement that one must be a U.S. citizen to register to vote.

State officials said safeguards are already in place to prevent state DMV workers from typing in any voter information for AB 60 license holders. The state allows unauthorized immigrants to obtain a driver’s license, but explicitly excludes that group from the automatic voter registration.

The allegations on this topic are recycled. And they’re still blatantly untrue.

We rate World Net Daily’s claim Pants On Fire.

Trumps Easter tweets were racist and anti-Christian, yes, but also nonsensical and meaningless policy wise. They were a response to a questionable fox news report that morning about an uptick in illegal immigration and drug trade. 1) No one is immigrating here because of DACA. The program is not open to new undocumented immigrants. 2) The COURT’s have suspended his order halting DACA while it’s under review 3) the issue of funding DACA is now with Congress. Trump has little influence. He’s going to try to sell harsh immigration restrictions, but Congress is unlikely to buy it. They are only concerned with cutting social benefits costs right now. Which is what we should be paying attention to.

As to EOS claim that DACA might have been preserved had we secured the border, the wall would never have secured the border. And the border states don’t support the wall. They support better technology solutions. Trump does in fact operate with the mentality of another era. It’s a frightening regression. But he’s a distraction from the work of Congress right now. That’s where our energy should go. He’s useful politically as an antagonist, but in terms of policy, Congress is what matters right now. What they do before November, and potentially as lame ducks with nothing to lose post November to January, will be hard to undo.

China is targeting Trump voting sectors and states in its trade war response. Brilliant strategy and handy. I have Trump voting relatives in California with fruit and nut growing ranches. They would be completely screwed by fruit tariffs. Good. They are wealthy and can afford it. For years I’ve been listening to their trickle down beliefs and their anti-immigrant/anti-China bullshit. Now they will finally feel the pinch of their own idiocy, instead of just poor people as usual.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facing-u-s-tariffs-china-plans-countermeasures-1521632332

On the other hand, if anyone has any good information on the technology transfer issues/’theft’ between China and the US and how best to address it, I would like to know more.

PS I hated the 80’s so much. I still have Reagan nightmares, and we are still living with the damage he caused. I can’t wait until these old dinosaur ideas disappear. The revisionism around Reagan’s legacy concerns me a great deal. His populist appeals to racism and white nationalism obviously still play with a big chunk of the population. The consequences of his policy fails most heavily impacted the poor and had a very delayed impact on the rest of us. This allowed their impact to be blamed on Bill Clinton and so transferred to HRC during the election. It’s Reagan’s legacy people were protesting, not Bill C’s. From the way Sanders supporters talked, you’d think Bill C invented welfare reform and mass incarceration and that he was the anti-LGBTQ president. There was zero political context to their assessment of Clinton’s presidency, much of which I objected to at the time… I never thought I’d be defending that guy, but he was a gem compared to Reagan and Bush Sr.
It’s heartbreaking to see history repeat itself over and over, but perilous not to take the lessons. I really am hanging a lot of hope on 2018. I need a break from this relentless downhill slide away from where we need to be. Here’s to the pendulum swing. (fingers crossed)

The Reagan era was miserable.

The 80s were a terrible, terrible time. Clearly, though, some people wax nostalgic for it.

People born in and after the 80’s wax nostalgic for it and old rich white people do too. That’s about it. But it’s enough to create a risk of repetition. It was a terrible time, true enough.

Another bit of nostalgia I notice among leftists, mostly young but some old too, is a fantasy about a unified, progressive and non-racist labor movement and dem party pre-Reagan. That never existed. The loss of the Kennedy’s, Malcolm X and MLK, plus Vietnam and Watergate, etc left a giant gaping hole in the US progressive movement, but their idea of that time is as though the potential was realized. It never was. Maybe it will be someday.

“a fantasy about a unified, progressive and non-racist labor movement and dem party pre-Reagan.”

Astounding, isn’t it.

Things before Reagan were far from perfect, but his election in 1980 that was like a firing pistol that began, then accelerated, the downward spiral that ultimately led us to Donald Trump.

Never mind Vietnam. Never mind the Middle East. Never mind the energy crisis. Never mind our crumbling cities. Never mind the closing factories, mines, and farms. Never mind falling wages coupled with crippling inflation …

Suddenly, it was “Morning in America™” baby! Whooo-Hooo!!

And just like that … we were in a new gilded age. Everything was suddenly “supply side economics” and record tax cuts for the wealthy, Star Wars defense spending and “Peacekeeper” Missiles, Nancy in her $50,000 designer dresses (usually bright red) smugly saying “Just Say No,” Dallas and Dynasty sparkling on TV, firing the Air Traffic Controllers (which began the beginning of the end for organized labor), “Welfare Queens,” ignoring the AIDS crisis, etc.

I know it makes me sound like an “old” to say so, but those who didn’t live through that era simply can’t imagine how awful and toxic much of it truly was.

That said, many things were still much better than they are today. For all the evil awfulness … we still had a relatively robust opposition party capable of holding the bastards accountable for their worst excesses. We still had a functioning independent press, able to act as a check-and-balance on the powerful. We still had a meaningful labor movement, capable of mobilizing millions of ordinary Americans to fight for better wages and working conditions, and helping them understand that their real allies were each other – not the obscenely wealthy plutocrats some aspired to be. Public institutions, and the public sphere as a whole, still garnered substantial respect – public teachers, public schools, university professors, and state and local employees were still somewhat generally admired – not looked upon as merely greedy “takers” sucking at the public teat.

It isn’t hard to draw a straight line from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. Two terms for Clinton, two for Obama, and a handful of Democratic congresses seem merely to have slowed, not stopped, the inexorable slide to where we are today.

Living in Trump’s America is like living in the Reagan era on steroids. Those of us who lived through it, and after which, thought surely America would eventually come to its senses have surely been made fools by what we’re experiencing today.

EOS, thanks for posting the link to the paper by Richman, Chattha, and Earnest. I learned a lot. for example, in the third paragraph,
“The United States also has a long history of noncitizen voting at the local, state and national levels. Aylsworth (1931) notes that “during the nineteenth century, the laws and
constitutions of at least twenty-two states and territories granted aliens the right to vote.”
From the founding of the Republic to the early 20th century, various territories and states
enfranchised noncitizen residents for several reasons. ”

In other words citizens not voting in our elections are as old as the Republic and not necessarily illegal at all. In fact who knows, it might have been all those German immigrants from the failed 1848 Revolutions voting for Honest Abe, that helped him get elected, and caused the freeing of the slaves.

I also learned,
“The decision to (dis)enfranchise non-citizens falls within the states’ authority to define qualifications for voting.”
and that,
“The nineteenth-century practices in various states produced a case-law legacy that most
legal scholars conclude permits states to enfranchise noncitizens if leg­islators so choose.
Similarly, on several occasions the Su­preme Court has upheld the constitutionality of noncitizen voting because states have the authority to set voter qual­ifications.
(Earnest,2008 ,25 e26). The question of noncit­izen voting is, in the end, a political
rather than a legal one.”
In other words if California wanted too, they could extend the franchise to every physical resident within the state. (I think Illinois did that in order to have sufficient folks to enter the Union as a Free state in 1818, pissed off the slave owning oligarchs who could only count their slaves as 3 5ths. of a person).
Since I read the whole article I also learned that
” our results also support the arguments made by voting and immigrant rights
organizations that the portion of non-citizen immigrants who participate in U.S. elections
is quite small.”

Thanks for the education EOS, I am going to start advocating to let all residents in the state be “enfranchised” so they can vote if they want. We would crush the Republicans once and for all, and be able to pass some “reasonable” immigration reform.

But, please note that Prop 13 was pre-Reagan and began the turn away from support of public education in favor of reduced property taxation. The consequence of which was not just the erosion and segregation of the best public school system in the country but a precipitous and mostly continuous rise in CA property values, creating further segregation and wealth inequality. That was the moment when the boomers decided they were the ‘me generation’ after all and sold progressivism up the river. The white working class would soon follow.