Pelosi’s spokeswoman Ashley Etienne issued a standard statement: “The extent of this administration’s cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated. Using human beings—including little children—as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable.” Like the media, Pelosi, whose district covers the sanctuary city of San Francisco, didn’t directly challenge the unspoken but clear premise that something terrible would happen to these cities if immigrants came to them.That's how the piece ends, and I found it a little hard to understand, but I think Gessen is seeing that the responses to Trump are reinforcing what he's saying, that it's bad to have a sudden big influx of economically needy immigrants. Trump wins if he gets the sanctuary city proponents to show that they were just posing as immigrant friendly. He called their bluff. Why did they fold so quickly? They should have kept bluffing: Bring them here! They are welcome!
Such is the framing of the issue by the White House, and the framing of the story by the media, that no one had the one right response to this idea: “But this is the very point of a sanctuary city! Immigrants, regardless of status, are safe in them. Bring them here! They are welcome.”
I think that's what Gessen is really saying, but she's kind of hiding it, because she's part of the bluff. She thinks Trump is bluffing too. If Trump won't really dump the immigrants in San Francisco and those other virtue-signaling places, then they can continue to virtue-signal, and they should, so he doesn't win.
It's also possible that Gessen really believes that San Francisco should follow through on this conception of virtue and welcome a sudden big influx of economically needy immigrants. In that view, Bring them here! They are welcome! is not a bluff, but an authentic heartfelt wish for the future of the genuinely good places that have declared themselves a sanctuary.
Maybe my reading skills are off and I'm missing something. Help me out. I know I'm reading The New Yorker, so I'm not even considering the possibility that Gessen might mean that Trump has cleverly boxed in his antagonists.
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164 comments:
You should have quoted the part where she wrote "jam your fingers deep into your ears and yell, at the top of your lungs, "I can't hear you. Neener, neener."
so I'm not even considering the possibility that Gessen might mean that Trump has cleverly boxed in his antagonists.
She isn't, but he has.
No sane citizen wants hordes of unskilled illegal immigrants to enter your country. The Democrat Party, though, loves the chaos, disruption, cheap labor, and future Dem votes.
"Using human beings—including little children—as pawns"
Really. I mean, the Democrats would never do that.
He will be able to present it as the humane alternative. San Francisco, city of sophisticated compassion and hypertrophic tax revenues, can actually care for these people in a way that Tent Flap, Kansas, never could. It's ... for the children.
More crooked boilerplate ploy of using children as shields for the left's disastrous open border POLICY.
The left are not serious about stemming illegal entrants. So Trump is calling their bluff.
He called their bluff. Why did they fold so quickly? They should have kept bluffing: Bring them here! They are welcome!
My thoughts exactly. Instead of the same tired phony emotional blackmail lecture - why not say "Sure! Send them to us!"
I kept hearing the conclusion by the MSM that Trump’s idea was illegal. But I never saw any citation to the law until I read a story in USA Today. It cited the Hatch Act. It claimed it was Trump using the government to punish his political enemies and promote his campaign. That’s the best the Fake News could come up with!
One only needs to slightly look beneath the surface to see what frauds and shills these people are.
Sanctuary cities are illegal.
LOL - Hack(D) press skips right on by that one.
The MSM is beyond a joke. 100% state-run Pravda.
Putin must be proud.
It's not so much about validating Trump's view of sanctuary cities that's the problem.
It's validating his view of the hypocritical elites that govern those cities. They might lose their phoney baloney jobs if the truth gets out.
First we should notice the lie. This isn’t about immigrants,it’s only about illegal immigrants.
But I concur with your cynical reading. She doesn’t want to concede the rhetorical point. This is just orange man bad, there is no more to it than that.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle are already overrun with homeless people living in tents and defecating in the streets. Majority black cities don't want large influxes of Hispanics. They saw what happened in LA. Trump continues to make inroads into the Black and legal Hispanic vote. I'm beginning to think the GOPe didn't want to beat the Democrats.
It cited the Hatch Act. It claimed it was Trump using the government to punish his political enemies and promote his campaign
Hmmm, this Hatch Act thing could come in handy...
It defeats the purpose if the illegals go to states that are already blue.
Both the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit have declared themselves sanctuary cities. What's more, Detroit has tens of thousands of abandoned houses.
So the solution is simple. Ship the illegal migrants to Detroit. And, since police protection in the Motor City is inadequate even for the people who live there now, give each of these plucky immigrants an AR-15 and 500 rounds of ammunition.
Pelosi and the MSM exchange "Illegal immigrants" for "Immigrants" because that is how they see Illegal entrants.
They see voters and they want more. It's all for power.
Ken B said...First we should notice the lie. This isn’t about immigrants,it’s only about illegal immigrants.
--
Lefty language manipulation continues..including "Sanctuary City".
Trump has checkmated the hypocritical elites. NIMBY.
Masha Gessen was able to immigrate to the USA in 1981 because she was a Soviet Jew. She was one of about 300,000 Soviet Jews who immigrated to the USA after 1980.
That group was remarkably intelligent and well-educated. A major reason for their decision to emigrate from the Soviet Union was that Soviet universities discriminated against Jews who wanted to enroll as students or who wanted to work as professors.
Gessen's family emigrated when she was about 14 years old. I am sure that her parents foresaw that she probably would not be allowed to enroll in a university in accordance with her intellectual abilities. Her parents decided to immigrate into the USA because they foresaw that young Masha would have more educational and professional opportunities in the USA, because she would not have to overcome the anti-Jewish discrimination that she would have to overcome in the USA.
Masha Gessen apparently perceives that her own massive, legal, Jewish immigration in the 1980s into the USA is similar to the massive, illegal Central-American immigration into the USA now.
The most revealing sentence of the piece.
Whatever Trump thinks he wants, the problem for journalists is in finding a way to talk about it that doesn’t validate the President’s assumptions.
Tucker Carlson has a nice piece dissecting the issue.
Trump calls Democrats' bluff on illegal immigrants
And just as a matter of objective policy: illegal immigrants must be released after 20 days, so should they be released in a place that is welcoming to illegal immigrants, or in a place that is hostile to illegal immigrants? Wouldn't it be better for the released to be released in sanctuary cities/states?
So Dallas, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore and all you others virtue signalling as Sanctuary Cities? Now you don't want hordes of unskilled, un-vaccinated, illegal aliens? They who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Embrace the suck.
Publicly welcome the "immigrants," but fight the plan tooth and nail in the courts.
It is indeed confusing. Either Gessen is missing the point or I'm missing hers.
Of course this proposal has the chief value of getting a lot of massively hypocritical NIMBYs to scream, "Trump is trying to punish his enemies!" If they actually believed what they say about illegals, it isn't punishment of anyone to send them there, it's win-win, right?
Won't sanctuary cities be the best places for them, those blessed islands in the sea of bigotry that is the red-county election map? And aren't those asylum-seekers just seeking a better life, while committing crime at lower rates than those already in those cities?
"They should have kept bluffing: Bring them here! They are welcome!" No. If they were sincere, they shouldn't be bluffing when they say that. But most of them aren't sincere.
Pelosi is worried that she’ll lose a primary to an AOC type candidate if SF is overrun with illegals.
AOC beat a long term White Incumbent.
Let's ask the first openly gay mayor of sanctuary city Madison, WI if she will take some.
the right response ... is not what Nancy Pelosi said
Isn't that, like, a Law of Nature or whatever?
Bring them here! They are welcome!
That's the point. They're not. And they're even less welcome in unlimited number, coming forever, as the Dems pretend to want.
So what's Trump's bluff? That he doesn't *really* want to drop them off in front of Pelosi's house?
If they're welcome Trump brings them there and drops them off.
There is no bluff to call.
Scott Adams covers the moves and upcoming moves in today's periscope. The kill shot is how many will you take. Any limit at all destroys the more-is-better pose.
San Francisco? The city that loves the poor so much, they rigged the housing market to keep them from living next door?
And why do liberals always project so poorly:
"Using human beings—including little children—as pawns in their warped game"
The Left wants to import poor people they can enslave through welfare dependency, just like they did to the African-American community.
If illegal immigrants overwhelmingly voted for conservatives, the writer would be in El Paso offering her aborted fetus as mortar to build the wall.
Did she have anything to say when it was revealed these children were being kidnapped and drug across the border as human shields? I'll bet she didn't say a damn thing about that.
The left has withdrawn the "dumping" idea. It says immigrants are garbage. Scott Adams
"He called their bluff. Why did they fold so quickly? They should have kept bluffing: Bring them here! They are welcome!"
The Left are playing a game they are not skilled at and do not understand. Trump has very quickly and easily exposed those sanctuary city supporting folks as frauds - they are oh so happy to help.
it's funny how Pelosi immediately responds to everything Trump says as "deplorable".
She does it even when he's agreeing or paraphrasing her.
Like many on today's left, there is no thinking. There are just words spewing forth as if they need not even be said.
The Democrat media complex walked right into this. This has exposed sanctuary states and cities for what they are: phony virtue signalling. Trump called their bluff (yet again). Because it was all a bluff, they can only scream hysterically.
Troll level: Grandmaster
By the way, how fast we forget: Obama was fond of relocating illegal immigrants to red and purple states. 26 states successfully sued the federal government in 2015 to end the practice. Funny, the Democrat media complex thought the strategy of relocating illegal aliens to red states was awesome, not cynical.
Pelosi falls back to Dem SOP, declare Trump appalling, call him racist.
Not only should say sanctuary cities welcome asylum-seekers, they should go to the southern border and get them. If the federal government tries to transport these immigrants, there will be lawsuits and deep state resistance and delay. But nothing prevents a city from sending buses and representatives to the processing center and allowing asylum-seekers to board voluntarily.
They won’t do it, of course. Even if they say they welcome immigrants, as Gessen would have them do, they’ll let others do their dirty work and fight any federal transportation of asylum-seekers in the courts. All she really wants is more virtue signaling.
"The left has withdrawn the "dumping" idea. It says immigrants are garbage. Scott Adams"
That's so last night. Fox News beat Scott Adams.
In the making of obvious comments.
If Trump could stop Census from counting illegals in the states, then all these virtue signalling sanctuary states and cities would disappear. Democrats would triple Trump's funding request to build the wall.
All these welcoming illegals and sanctuary cities are cynical. CA and high taxes blue states are losing citizens, the head counts that they need to preserve or increase their number of representatives in Congress and the number of electors in the Electoral College. Meaning fewer people, less power.
From 1979 to 1988, I worked as a US Air Force Intelligence officer in the US Intelligence Community's program to interview Soviet immigrants. I myself interviewed many Soviet immigrants, and eventually I managed other linguists who interviewed immigrants. I represented the USAF in inter-agency meetings of this program.
The international pressure on the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate essentially began in 1970, when a group of 16 Jews attempted to hijack an airplane out of Russia. They wanted to emigrate to Israel, because they objected to the Soviet Union's anti-Israeli propaganda and policies. They were not allowed to emigrate, however, because the Soviet Union said they could not leave until they paid for all the education they had received for free in the Soviet Union. Because most of them had higher educations, they could not afford to pay the cost to leave.
So, the fact that Soviet Jews were remarkably intelligent and well-educated was the major reason why they could not emigrate.
Because of that situation, the US Government passed The Jackson-Vanik Amendment in 1974, which imposed economic sanctions on the USSR until it allowed freer emigration. At the end of the 1970s, the Soviet Union relented and stopped requiring Jews to pay for their education in order to emigrate.
Supposedly, all the emigrating Jews wanted to go to Israel. Because there were no airplane flights from the USSR to Israel, the emigrating Jews traveled by train to Vienna, from where they flew to Israel.
However, when they arrived in Vienna, about half of them declared that they really wanted to go to the USA. Those Jews then traveled to Rome, where they went to the US Embassy and applied to immigrate to the USA. (I myself interviewed many such Soviet Jews in that US Embassy.)
While waiting for their immigration visas, the Jews stayed in Italy for many months. They were not allowed to work legally. They were given money to rent apartments and to buy food, etc. We are talking about 300,000 people. That's a lot of money.
This money was provided ostensibly by Jewish charitable organizations, but much (probably most) of the money came secretly from the CIA.
Among all those Soviet Jews were very many who had been employed in work that involved secret information. For example, they had done scientific research, engineering design, construction, manufacturing, military service -- all kinds of jobs where they had learned information that the Soviet Union classified as secret.
The Soviet Union tried to prevent Jews who knew secrets from emigrating, but because practically everything the Soviet Union was secret, it was too hard to determine who really knew the real secrets.
The CIA figured that paying for 300,000 immigration applicants to live in Italy for many months was worth the secret information that it obtained by interviewing some of them.
-----
Compared to that situation, the current massive, illegal immigration of Central American peasants into the USA is essentially all cost and no significant benefit for the USA.
The Central American families swarming across our southern border are low-class, low-education, high-crime trouble-makers.
The USA spent much of the 20th Century suppressing the Mafia. Now we are importing a new Mafia.
We are aggravating a situation where our upper class is practically all White and where our lower class is largely Colored.
Fen's law applies:
"The Left doesn’t really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about."
The rhetoric of this issue is fascinating. I live in the Bay Area and watched the local news broadcast the soundbites of the local mayors. It was all "throat clearing" and tut-tuting and very difficult to paraphrase because it was nonsense. The point seemed to be they were morally superior to Trump. Also covered by the local news in the same broadcasts: the usual issue of a multiply deported immigrant back in San Jose where this time he broke into a woman's home and murdered her and the local weasel politicians trying to explain how this has nothing to do with San Jose's sanctuary policy.
Fox News
Is that the yard-fox's name?
Trump is merely following Alinksy's fourth rule: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."
Rob said...
But nothing prevents a city from sending buses and representatives to the processing center and allowing asylum-seekers to board voluntarily.
Nothing stops private citizens from organizing and offering the same. I'd expect that shortly on GoFundMe.
And probably more efficacious than the Build the Wall on GoFundMe.
We are aggravating a situation where our upper class is practically all White and where our lower class is largely Colored.
Suppose that the USA were importing colored people who all are extremely intelligent and well-educated.
Over a long time, our society's upper class would become more and more colored.
It would become less and less true that ....
* Upper Class = White
* Lower Class = Colored
Instead of doing that, however, the USA is importing millions of people who are unintelligent and poorly educated -- and also disproportionately criminal.
As a result of this stupid policy, it will become more and more true that ....
* Upper Class = White
* Lower Class = Colored
and also that ....
* Criminals = Colored
========
Let the sanctuary cities and the sanctuary states deal with those social problems now and in the future.
They are not invaders if you open the door
Trump should pull the busses up to Pelosi’s house and her winery. Pinpoint accuracy. Schumer’s house, too.
Mike Sylwester's comments at 11:25 are enlightening.
Mike Sylwester said..they could not leave until they paid for all the education they had received for free
--
So..not free. Shocker.
Gotta love sanctimonious sanctuary city folk invoking "the children" to the abuse of "the children" for politics.
San Francisco: All the better to poop on.
And crime rate.
If you grabbed some kids and snuck across the border
Then lived underground on fake papers
Are you more or less likely commit other crimes?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/us/politics/trump-illegal-immigration-statistics.html
Your reading skills are excellent, Ms. Althouse. I do believe Gessen is bluffing because she does think Trump is bluffing. Gessen is correct, though- the response to the floated plan pretty much has proven that the sanctuary politicians are virtue signalling only, and if Trump did actually start busing them to San Francisco, California would sue to stop it.
Here is how the plan would be instituted, though- those who have been forced by court order to be released would be given options that include sanctuary cities, and they would take those.
As I wrote yesterday, I think it almost certain that the vast majority of the illegals end up in California anyway, or the large Democratic run cities in the north, like Chicago and New York. I imagine few of the central America ones stay in the border states not called California. You can do a search to determine where the largest Honduran and Guatemalan communities are, and that will be where those illegal immigrants go on release.
Why is the New Yorker volunteering San Francisco instead of New York? Shouldn't the New Yorker be suggesting that New York Mayor di Blassio and New York congresswoman AOC offer to donate the land that won't be Amazon's new headquarters?
Corrections to my comments at 11:25 and 11:35 AM
I inadvertently wrote the expression colored people.
I meant to write People of Color.
Please make the mental correction.
Troll level: Grandmaster
Some people are fond of saying that President Trump plays 3-D chess while the Dems are reduced to playing musical chairs, 18 frazzled midgets (or is it 20? or 21?) spastically dancing around one rickety stool. If it's hyperdimensional chess, Trump has about ten passed pawns right now:
♙ Socialism
♙ Late-Term Abortions aka Infanticide
♙ Green New Deal
♙ Electoral College Abolition
♙ Supreme Court Expansion
♙ Private Health Insurance Abolition
♙ Open Borders, ICE Abolition
♙ Medicare for All
♙ Guaranteed Minimum Income
♙ Reparations
Maybe in about a year, Trump will get another that will materialize on the 7th rank
♙ Russian Collusion Hoax Indictments
Trumps needs to promote only two or three of them to totally blitz the board in 2020.
PS I gave DJT the white pieces because he's got the initiative, not because of anything to do with race. OK? 👌🏻 (ducks)
The valid legal issue, as I understand it, is the transportation matter. I am old enough to remember when undesirables were given a bus ticket.
What if the administration gave the illegals a bus ticket to CA, especially Oakland although I would suggest staying out of downtown Oakland, which is pretty violent. Greyhound might be interested enough to add more buses.
It would be cheaper than bringing in all those mobile homes that FEMA owns for hurricane victims.
Once more the showman Trump outwits the stupid.
100,000 a month. There are plenty of sanctuary cities to go around.
April is San Francisco. May is Seattle. New York is June.
There is a Trump Tower in Chicago so they might get spared.
AA said: "...Trump has cleverly boxed in his antagonists."
Yes, exactly. They wanted to dump them in the flyover states (like yours, Professor) but instead they're going to get a dose of their own medicine. Predictably, they react like preschoolers: "That's not fair!"
The howls of pain and outrage are so delicious that it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
This is reminiscent of the recent change to the Federal Income Tax code that limited state tax deductions at $10K-- blue states hardest hit.
VDH noted this week that latter had, at a stroke, doubled the tax bite for some Californians.
Trump's next book should be "The Art of the Payback".
Correction to my own comment at 10:49 AM
young Masha would have more educational and professional opportunities in the USA, because she would not have to overcome the anti-Jewish discrimination that she would have to overcome in the USA.
... have to overcome in the Soviet Union.
The Dems should relax. Most of these asylum seekers will have their applications rejected, a good percentage of them for not even showing up to their immigration hearing.
They will eventually be ordered deported. So its just temporary.
Nothing to worry about
"Does our city look illegal?"
Send the first 100,000 to SF. Even the homeless will flee within a week.
The Wall will be built by the Fourth of July.
So if all the illegal immigrants were placed in sanctuary cities, who would be the first mayor to call it a "crisis"?
If the leftists force us to release them in the US they should be released where they are wanted.
There are some federal judges and wealthy democrats with walls around their houses.
They will be safe behind those walls.
And putting aside the merits of Trump's relocation idea, let's think about the politics of this. It appears that illegal immigration and bogus asylum seekers are a good issue for Republicans to run on in 2020. Democratic politicians would prefer to turn the conversation to health care. The more stories there are about Trump's idea, the more debate, the better it is for him. He's not much of a thinker, but his political instincts are impressive.
Ron Winkleheimer said...Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle are already overrun with homeless people living in tents and defecating in the streets. Majority black cities don't want large influxes of Hispanics. They saw what happened in LA. Trump continues to make inroads into the Black and legal Hispanic vote. I'm beginning to think the GOPe didn't want to beat the Democrats.
The GOPe is going to end up looking like the only party that wanted the illegals. They wanted them because the the Chamber of Commerce types desperately wanted the cheap labor. And the plan along was to allow the illegals to people flyover country to assist in agriculture and ag-related manufacturing.
He's not much of a thinker,
Why did you have to say this? Didn't want to sleep on the couch tonight?
but his political instincts are impressive.
Like those of all non-thinkers.
Define thinking, or being a thinker. Define it in a way that PDJT doesn't do it, but that you do, or that people you prefer do.
I don’t know about Ms. Gessen personally, but there are lots of proponents of sanctuary cities who, because of either sincerely held religious beliefs or genuine commitment to political ideology, are not in on the hypocrisy of their political leaders. Those people are the most effective proponents of the sanctuary movement precisely because they truly believe in it, and they will react to Trump’s initiative just as Gessen suggests. The disillusionment of that class of true believers when the hypocrisy of their leadership is exposed is undoubtedly among Trump’s objectives.
Liberals love the idea of immigration as long as it doesn't really touch their privileged self-righteous lives. The difference between virtue and virtue signaling.
Immigration reform should not exceed the rate of assimilation and integration before planned parenthood. Immigration reform should not serve as a cover-up for victims of social justice adventures (e.g. abortion fields, conflicts without borders, democratic gerrymandering, diversity). Emigration reform to mitigate the progress of collateral damage at both ends of the bridge and throughout.
Nichevo, "he's not much of a thinker" was my attempt to be kind. What I meant was, he's not very bright. He's kind of a dope. And those are also attempts to be kind. Because the truth is, he's not bright at all, he's dumb. He's a dope. And though I voted for him in 2016 and plan to vote for him again in 2020, he's the worst kind of dope, because he thinks he's smart and therefore doesn't seek the advice of people smarter than him, which in Trump's case is almost everybody.
Blogger Scott said...
Both the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit have declared themselves sanctuary cities. What's more, Detroit has tens of thousands of abandoned houses.
So the solution is simple. Ship the illegal migrants to Detroit. And, since police protection in the Motor City is inadequate even for the people who live there now, give each of these plucky immigrants an AR-15 and 500 rounds of ammunition.
Scott I don’t know where you got the idea that Michigan was a “sanctuary state,” but it just isn’t.
In fact, there is pending legislation now in the Republican-majority state legislature (both house and senate) to bar Michigan local governments from effectively acting as “sanctuaries” under state law.
I don’t know about Ms. Gessen personally, but there are lots of proponents of sanctuary cities who, because of either sincerely held religious beliefs or genuine commitment to political ideology, are not in on the hypocrisy of their political leaders
How many of them have illegal immigrants sleeping on a sofa in their living room?
Implement the Kurtz solution.
Terms like 'checkmate' and 'sow the wind...' are spot on. Great comments. It's such a pleasure to read this blog.
How dare the Left treat living human beings like a plague.
He's not much of a thinker...
Yeah, like impulsively building golf clubs and hotels is the path to fortune.
Lookit up ...
Passage In Atlas Shrugged ....
Dagny asks labor union official to put it in writing ... His members will not work on John Galt line!!
Plenty of room in SF Bay Area.
"Authorities at San Francisco International Airport are struggling to deal with rising numbers of homeless people arriving at the International Terminal, many of them seeking shelter in the middle of the night after riding BART trains south from the city.
It’s the latest expression of the region’s increasingly visible homelessness crisis and represents another challenge for BART, which is dealing with the pending retirement of its general manager and police chief, the complex rollout of a new fleet of trains, and this week declared a state of emergency over surging crime, rampant fare evasion and “quality of life” issues.
In the past two years, airport duty managers and San Francisco police officers who patrol SFO have seen official contacts with homeless people triple, according to airport figures obtained through a public records request. There were 1,139 such calls in February, or roughly 40 a day, compared to about a dozen contacts a day in March 2017.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Homeless-surge-at-SF-airport-Police-contacts-13764148.php
Scott I don’t know where you got the idea that Michigan was a “sanctuary state,” but it just isn’t.
In fact, there is pending legislation now in the Republican-majority state legislature (both house and senate) to bar Michigan local governments from effectively acting as “sanctuaries” under state law.
So Says Chuck the lawyer who demands plain speaking from Trump.
Which law governs?
What is on the books or pending legislation.
Rob said...
Nichevo, "he's not much of a thinker" was my attempt to be kind. What I meant was, he's not very bright. He's kind of a dope. And those are also attempts to be kind. Because the truth is, he's not bright at all, he's dumb. He's a dope. And though I voted for him in 2016 and plan to vote for him again in 2020, he's the worst kind of dope, because he thinks he's smart and therefore doesn't seek the advice of people smarter than him, which in Trump's case is almost everybody.
4/13/19, 12:27 PM
You didn't answer my question, of course, but I won't press you. Instead, in the words of Obi-wan Kenobi,
Who is the greater fool, the fool, or the fool who follows him?
Like Seattle, San Francisco is toast. Chicago is toast, too.
For those who believe San Francisco and its environs are doomed, take it from someone who has lived there for nearly 35 years: The vast majority of the Bay Area is gentrifying -- that is, becoming richer and richer -- at a dizzying pace. At the same time a small portion of it is flooded with heartbreaking homelessness and other indications that economic losers are genuine victims. It's exactly the kind of creative destruction you'd expect from Wild West, Gold Rush capitalism. Of course no one on the Right or Left wants to think of it in those terms because it's such a harsh rebuke of their respective ideologies.
Earnest Prole: You could say the same about Seattle but failure of officials to enforce laws and protect property makes it a poor site for businesses, which are fleeing the city for Bellevue and other, more lawful communities.
There are neighborhoods in New York City that once housed illiterate, peasant class immigrants both legal & undocumented from various locations and cultures stretching across the world from Puerto Rico to Ireland to India to China to the Phillipines. Those neighborhoods are now mostly empty of those immigrant families and their descendants, who have assimilated and moved everywhere else in the country in only a generation or three.
Their processes of assimilation and success could be followed by any other group. Learn English, gain employment or start businesses, get some of your kids educated in a valued STEM field, let some family go into the military, the cops, local government, or law. Don't continue to follow the ideology, politics, tribalism of your homeland. Forego criticism of this country long enough to join with others of diverse ethnic, national, religious, etc., to promote mutual economic and social success.
Progressives don't want this to happen, as balkanized identity politics leads them to positions of power and opportunities to promote their failed ideology.
Narayanan;
I don’t understand your dumb, snarky comment.
Legislation that is fully enacted matters more than legislation that is merely pending. Everyone understands that.
But in Michigan there is no legislation, and no executive act that has ever made Michigan a “sanctuary state” as Scott claimed. I was right. Scott was wrong.
I added the point about pending legislation to communicate just how far away the Republican-majority legislature is from ever allowing the state to become anything like a sanctuary state. Again, I am right about that.
And while I am running circles around you on this particular topic, I should point out that the Michigan Republican legislation to bar cities from their (already legally dubious) attempts to make themselves “sanctuary” jurisdictions is unlikely to become law because the newly elected Democrat governor* won’t sign any of it.
*She whipped the Trump-supporting, Trump-endorsed Republican nominee.
You could say the same about Seattle but failure of officials to enforce laws and protect property makes it a poor site for businesses, which are fleeing the city for Bellevue and other, more lawful communities.
I understand the theory and have heard it for many years. And I'm an enthusiastic proponent of insisting that public officials make cities livable. But I can say with absolute certainty that in practice, San Francisco, Oakland, etc are far more livable today than they were thirty-five years ago -- as a glance at crime rates and real estate values, both commercial and residential, will prove. The great thing about American capitalism is that it allows people to pay more for the things they want.
Once again, the sole purpose of a sanctuary city is right there in the name. So, I don't see the problem.
Unless - maybe, just maybe - the left doesn't like being called out on their bullshit.
Tough.
Gessen seems more concerned about "Trump win[ning]" than any substantive fault with Trump's proposal. So it is with many New York journalists: keeping Trump from winning takes priority over the country's well being every time.
*She whipped the Trump-supporting, Trump-endorsed Republican nominee.
It's so nice to see Chuck, just like Bill Kristol, celebrating the election of Democrats.
Hey, does anyone miss Secretary Nielsen? Or has her departure now been forgotten in the dustbin of history? Winning on so many levels.
The vast majority of the Bay Area is gentrifying -- that is, becoming richer and richer -- at a dizzying pace.
Except for those pesky homeless camps. Feudalism is great when you are on the ruler side. Older (35 years) homeowners love it.
Until your kids try to find a house to buy or a school to send kids. The engineers who are renting closets might not agree with you.
MK: "It's so nice to see Chuck, just like Bill Kristol, celebrating the election of Democrats."
Recall that LLR Chuck officially, on this very blog, defined Republican electoral victories as "disasters".
That's usually a real "subtle" "tell" as to what political side the poster is on.
The Machiavellian response should be to not focus on 'Sanctuary' cities, but to suggest that the social services along the border are broken and that our cities have a large social support structure [like free college tuition for illegals!]
This spins the crisis to Nancy and her ilk to explain their reasoning beyond NIMBY. And of course, California is NIMBY champion of the universe.
Jim at: "Unless - maybe, just maybe - the left doesn't like being called out on their bullshit."
Unless - maybe, just maybe - the left and the LLR-left doesn't like being called out on their bullshit.
FIFY
Can't bluff it because if Trump actually did it they'd need to shop a friendly judge to shut it down.
I call it Trump's version of "Unmasking". He has this talent for making the Dems/Libs/Media drop their masks and reveal their true political selves:
-No borders
-4th trimester abortion
-High taxes/wealth confiscation
-Socialism
-Eliminate private health insurers
-Ban cars, planes, cows....
-Make conservative speech illegal
-Weaponize government agencies against political opponents
Those are all positions we KNEW they harbored. They just lied about it. And then came Trump. Time and time again, he's flushed them out in the open where everyone could see their radical leanings. It's been amazing to watch.
All democrats have done is to cynically exploit illegal immigration for political gain, as they exploit everything for power and graft. The Obama administration bused illegal immigrants into republican areas all of the time, all to burden them with the social welfare costs and to dilute the voter rolls. Democrats are both hypocrites and mad for power.
Jeannebee observes: I call it Trump's version of "Unmasking". He has this talent for making the Dems/Libs/Media drop their masks and reveal their true political selves:
Just as Candace Owens' testimony revealed much more about members of Congress than
it did about herself. And it was all negative by practically anyone's standards. God bless her! How she kept her cool, I don't know.
You can get a fairly nice East Bay apartment for $2000/month or so.
A reasonable estimate for software engineers take-home runs from 5K to 10K.
That is, besides all the rent sharing going on. And there is BART to take you into San Francisco, if that’s where the gig is.
It is sardine-packed at rush hour.
Actual technical personnel aren’t doing too badly, they can even accumulate savings pretty quick.
Owning a home, however, is a problem of a different order.
And then there are the non-tech workers. They are way behind the 8-ball, unless it’s a double-income situation.
Mayor Elect Lightfoot in Chicago appears to be the politically smartest Democrat in America.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/chicago-mayor-elect-lightfoot-says-shed-welcome-immigrants-if-trump-sends-them.amp
I particularly liked the comment about not needing to respond to Trump. I don't agree with her about what policies should be but it's nice to see someone competently defend their position.
.
To a degree SF is better off than it was 35 years ago.
The poor residents have, a lot of them, moved out.
There are more homeless, and these are more unsightly, but actual crime is down.
Formerly sketchy neighborhoods are not, or much less so.
But also gone or going are families. These aren’t places to settle, but to leave.
For a great many they are demographic traps, where many who have been lured in never manage to successfully mate or reproduce.
Speaking of GoFundMe, it occurs to me that the money devoted to BuildTheWall won't build much wall, but it would pay for a lot of bus tickets to San Francisco.
Except for those pesky homeless camps.
Yes, I believe I mentioned that in the sentence that followed.
Dynamic, Wild West, Gold Rush capitalism favors the strong over the weak. If you have a problem with that, feel free suggest an alternative economic system.
Buwaya contends: but actual crime is down.
Sure, because crapping in the street isn't a crime. Neither is sleeping in the doorways of businesses.
Sure, because crapping in the street isn't a crime. Neither is sleeping in the doorways of businesses.
Exactly. To give you an idea of the dramatic differences between rich and poor San Francisco, I live in a neighborhood so safe I haven't bothered to lock my doors at night for nearly twenty years.
Black City mayors aren't thrilled with welcoming Illegals. But they vote Democrat no matter what, so it doesn't matter. It seems that sticking all the illegals in the Sanctuary Cities is a win-win for everyone.
Actual technical personnel aren’t doing too badly, they can even accumulate savings pretty quick.
Owning a home, however, is a problem of a different order.
My daughter was interviewed multiple times for a design job at Apple. She would fly up and be met by a limousine,. She could not figure out where she would live and was even thinking of buying a motor home. She was not disappointed when they told her they were going to hire from inside the company for that spot.
... the unspoken but clear premise that something terrible would happen to these cities if immigrants came to them."
Is this On The Record, Mr. President? Can we quote your unspoken words?
If you have a problem with that, feel free suggest an alternative economic system.
I have no problem with capitalism, My only objection is that those big tech companies don't make anything,. It resembles the City of London, where everything is currency manipulation, That's why Tories are so opposed to BREXIT.
I just saw an article on how Dave Packard was a moderate Republican when he and Hewlett made stuff. Now all manufacturing is outsourced to slave labor,. I understand China is now too expensive a labor source and the labor is going to Vietnam, and Indonesia.
I suspect a lot of the Big Tech enthusiasm for Democrats is H1B visas. The last time I was in SF was about ten years ago and I have no desire to return.
Rob said...
Nichevo, "he's not much of a thinker" was my attempt to be kind. What I meant was, he's not very bright. He's kind of a dope. And those are also attempts to be kind. Because the truth is, he's not bright at all, he's dumb. He's a dope. And though I voted for him in 2016 and plan to vote for him again in 2020, he's the worst kind of dope, because he thinks he's smart and therefore doesn't seek the advice of people smarter than him, which in Trump's case is almost everybody.
Trump is obviously smarter than Rob...
So is pretty much everyone else at this point. You have to be pretty stupid to believe this just looking at what Trump has accomplished so far.
buwaya said...
To a degree SF is better off than it was 35 years ago.
The poor residents have, a lot of them, moved out.
There are more homeless, and these are more unsightly, but actual crime is down.
That has more to do with the definition of crime than anything else.
Drago said...
Recall that LLR Chuck officially, on this very blog, defined Republican electoral victories as "disasters".
But he totally voted for republicans and Trump.
It is just so believable.
My only objection is that those big tech companies don't make anything.
Oy.
One thing I'd like to know before Monday is: Where do they go now?
Do we just open the door and/or gate and say Shoo! Are they taken off site to be dropped off someplace? What are these places we're sending them to now?
Don't trans[port them. But give each of them a welcome to America brochure explaining which states/cities/counties are sanctuary sites. Then explain the advantages of relocating there.
Its odd that the liberals can't understand how off putting this is to folks who aren't infatuated with illegal aliens like the working poor or blue collar workers. Do they really think people in the "rust belt" want to compete with workers who have phony s.s. numbers and work for cash? How stupid do you have to be to not get this? How racist do you have to be to believe hispanic americans want to compete against this incoming tide?
Since Nasty Nancy and her crew are off for two weeks they can drive down there and bring them home for Easter! I read a bunch of them just busted through the Mexican border, perfect timing.
Earnest Prole:
You think it was free markets (and free people) that led to so precious little new housing built in San Francisco? You think the "Wild West" is encapsulated by self-dealing, politically connected, insider developers (like San Fran Nan's husband) who restricted supply of a basic commodity (housing) that made them lots of money?
Sorry, but you're all wet on yet another issue. You should accidentally be right any day now.
>> He's not much of a thinker.
> What I meant was, he's not very bright. He's kind of a dope. And those are also attempts to be kind. Because the truth is, he's not bright at all, he's dumb. He's a dope.
> he's the worst kind of dope, because he thinks he's smart and therefore doesn't seek the advice of people smarter than him, which in Trump's case is almost everybody.
Can he read the minds of people he's never met
like you, Captain Thinkpants?
How did he win the Republican nomination over scores of experienced politicians with big donors, run against his own party establishment, beat an experienced opponent with $2 billion in backing, using a new strategy yet with zero experience - if he doesn't "seek advice" yet is "not very bright"?
Sounds like your definition of "think" is not very useful, or thoughtful.
As pointed out earlier, I was wrong. Michigan (unlike California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont) is not a sanctuary state.
Wayne County Michigan, however, is a sanctuary county. This includes all of Detroit, Highland Park, Hamtramck, and the western and Downriver suburbs.
I'm sure Dearborn and Inkster and Taylor will welcome these well-armed illegal immigrants as well.
Strangely enough, Oakland County and Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor), where all the rich and educated white people live, are not sanctuary counties.
Thank you for your diligence.
At this point in time it seems those big tech companies are Hoovers.
Perhaps after being on this planet 70+ years, The Donald is more of a Doer than a Thinker. One can overthink things.
How racist do you have to be to believe hispanic americans want to compete against this incoming tide?
JFK was technically wrong: A swiftly rising tide swamps smaller boats; it does however lift all yachts.
Earnest Prole said...
Except for those pesky homeless camps.
Yes, I believe I mentioned that in the sentence that followed.
Dynamic, Wild West, Gold Rush capitalism favors the strong over the weak. If you have a problem with that, feel free suggest an alternative economic system.
4/13/19, 3:13 PM
If you think SF promotes capitalism of any sort, you're deluded. It's all cronyism and NIMBYism.
FRISCO, put your MONEY where your MOUTH is!
, I should point out that the Michigan Republican legislation to bar cities from their (already legally dubious) attempts to make themselves “sanctuary” jurisdictions is unlikely to become law because the newly elected Democrat governor* won’t sign any of it.
So ... De Facto ... Sanctuary which I think shows more commitment, less virtue signal than De Jure ... Which is all show?
across the pound, there's a similar problem:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/13/shamima-begum-cruel-enforcer-isils-morality-police-say-syrian/
You think it was free markets (and free people) that led to so precious little new housing built in San Francisco?
Capitalism prices scarce resources efficiently. Who knew?
The courts that do the initial asylum hearing could be in San Francisco or other sanctuary cities
Scott said...
As pointed out earlier, I was wrong. Michigan (unlike California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont) is not a sanctuary state.
Wayne County Michigan, however, is a sanctuary county. This includes all of Detroit, Highland Park, Hamtramck, and the western and Downriver suburbs.
I'm sure Dearborn and Inkster and Taylor will welcome these well-armed illegal immigrants as well.
Strangely enough, Oakland County and Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor), where all the rich and educated white people live, are not sanctuary counties.
Thank you for your diligence.
Shorter version: "Yes, Chuck. You were right. I'm sorry. Thank you for the correction."
Then this:
Narayanan said...
, I should point out that the Michigan Republican legislation to bar cities from their (already legally dubious) attempts to make themselves “sanctuary” jurisdictions is unlikely to become law because the newly elected Democrat governor* won’t sign any of it.
So ... De Facto ... Sanctuary which I think shows more commitment, less virtue signal than De Jure ... Which is all show?
Not only do I not understand the point that Narayanan is trying to make; I'm not sure I can even make sense of the syntax there. Michigan is just not a sanctuary state. That was the point I was trying to make. That is the point which is now being conceded even by erstwhile critics. There are claimed sanctuary localities in Michigan. The legality/effectiveness of those claims is in doubt. But Michigan is not only not close to being a "sanctuary state"; if the Republican state legislative majorities had their way, they would bar those localities from attempting to be "sanctuaries," whatever that might mean legally. Michigan, they would like to say, is not only not a "sanctuary state," but it is a state where no city can claim to be a "sanctuary city."
My last thought is this; English is perhaps Narayanan's first language.
> the vast majority of the illegals end up in California anyway, or the large Democratic run cities in the north, like Chicago and New York.
welfare
driver's license
voting rights
free school
free health care
bank account
social security (proposed)
birthright citizenship
What's really brilliant it that, by moving the influx of immigrants from Texas and Arizona to CA or NYC, Trump will render them electorally useless when they start voting.
That was graceless.
It's a symbolic exercise, demography and indoctrination are the pincers:
If you think SF promotes capitalism of any sort, you're deluded. It's all cronyism and NIMBYism.
Artificial intelligence is in the process of producing a second (or third, depending on how you count) Industrial Revolution that will transform every aspect of modern life. That is why San Francisco has the greatest concentration of wealth in human history.
You've gone from Earnest to Thoughtless.
The shortage of housing was caused by government intervention.
That is the opposite of free markets.
Free markets would have built a lot of new housing.
Don't be a god damned idiot.
The feedback mechanism of higher prices acts to induce greater investment in the thing that is growing more expensive. The profits that would be derived from new building would attract investment. That investment has been retarded by San Fran Nan and other real estate investors capturing local government regulators.
Your economic analysis is for shit.
You really sound ignorant as ever loving fuck.
Free markets would have built a lot of new housing.
You're saying if San Francisco increased its population tenfold through high-rise development, its real estate would be as cheap as Hong Kong's? If so we're in violent agreement.
Trump has them painted into a tight corner.
If they resist taking illegal immigrants/asylum seekers in, the Progressives are exposed as merely using them as political pawns and not serious about solving the obvious border crisis.
But ... if they do take them in and manage the load, Trump could also turn around and say that providing social services at the state/local level OBVIOUSLY works better than delivering them via the Federal government ... undermining the justification for continuing the Federal welfare state, including Obamacare/Medicare-for-all.
And the Progressives will NOT stand for undermining that, for Federal intervention is their preferred vehicle for jamming their socio-economic morality down our throats as The One And Only True Way.
OTOH, if they can't manage the load, that can be evidence that Progressive policies do not work as advertised, and Progressives should not be put in power to impose them.
Three different paths, to Orange Man Good / Progressives not-so-good.
No, you ignorant shit heel. We cannot agree that government laws are free market (free people) solutions. You're just being a dumb ass after backing yourself into an untenable position.
Fixed supply (because of government rules) means any increase in demand necessarily causes much higher prices. You're cheering regulatory capture. You're cheering feudalism. And you're parading your ignorance.
"The Left are playing a game they are not skilled at and do not understand. Trump has very quickly and easily exposed those sanctuary city supporting folks as frauds - they are oh so happy to help."
It's hysterical. Until I recall all the Republicans over the last 2 decades telling me it couldnt be done.
Then I get angry.
You're cheering regulatory capture.
99.99 percent of American cities have zoning. Most shithole cities in Africa do not. You're cheering the latter -- so un-American.
I can't stop smiling. I just can't...the winning...it is too much. Now you got clowns like Earnest Prole trying to say 'no...you aren't winning'. But everyone else who is snickering at the Dems and Pelosi know what he refuses to acknowledge: He called their bluff and they are scrambling. Gessen doesn't know how to square this circle. She clearly doesn't want Illegals offending her friends, but she can't SAY that!
Smiling ear to ear all day!
President Trump has been worth his SALT!
Earnest Prole,
You are bad at argumentation.
Seriously, you are a sad case.
But at least you're consistent.
The challenge has been put down.
Either the Left is shown at the lying poltroons that they always were, or they accept large numbers of illegals into their own cities...already full to the gills with people who are already worried about QOL issues.
Legal Hispanics won't be happy.
Blacks won't be happy.
Single Cat Ladies MIGHT be happy. Like German matrons, they might finally find a Greed Card Seeker desperate enough to sample their 'charms', but really, are they enough to win a council seat, much less the presidency?
They are wedged in a trap of their own design and it is glorious. One woke commenter called the illegals a 'pestilence'. Really? Is that different than shithole?
green not greed
Now you got clowns like Earnest Prole trying to say 'no...you aren't winning'.
I know reading is hard, but my comments concern San Francisco's economy and have utterly nothing to do with Trump's sanctuary city trolling, which I find brilliant and hilarious.
Earnie, the zoning and the NIMBY is too much. Show me an example of modern first world construction that would be too intensive for New York or San Francisco. If New York City would tear up Hell's Kitchen and delete those blocks of nasty five-story tenements with 12 story complexes, everyone would be much better off.
I think it doesn't matter if some of them now call his supposed bluff. Too many of them have shown their hand. Trump has plenty of material for 2020, which was the point.
Talking about his motives opens the door for us now talking about THEIR motives.
That's gonna leave a mark. Damn, he IS a genius!
the zoning and the NIMBY is too much
Let me see if I understand you properly (and please, do tell me if I have this wrong): Manhattan and San Francisco, by far the two most densely packed major cities in America, are somehow not densely packed enough for your third-world tastes?
I don't want to go into a whole spiel about urban renewal but yes, we need more housing stock in Manhattan. It needs to be made easier, not harder, to build.
I won't speak to Frisco, not being a local, but I will speak of what I know. The housing stock in New York City very much needs to be improved, modernized, amenitized, and yes, increased.
Earnest: the MARKET determines whether NYC or San Fran is too densely packed.
The market says 'build more housing'. A LOT more.
But Rent Control Monica likes her view of the skyline. Rich Bitch Rebecca thinks she has enough neighbors and they might become 'the wrong sort'. Landlord from Hell Schumer likes to be able to charge top dollar for his shitholes without competition.
Since you seem to swing Lefty, I'll use the gender you may give a shit about: middle class earning chicks are living six to a 2 bedroom and still finding it unaffordable.
Having frequently seen NYC from the air, they have patches of high rises and mostly short squalid buildings surrounding them like a fungus. They have room for improvement and an upgrade.
Can you see how unthinking the Left is?
Earnest Prole thinks government fiat is the same as free market.
And he's less extreme than many on the Left.
Hey Earnest!
Now complain about urban sprawl.
Really drive home your point.
The housing market in SF is artificial because the city and or county control what can be built and where. Zoning isn't necessarily bad unless it undercuts the marketplace. A free market in housing would recognize that the current stuation is untenable and specultors would be encouraged to build more housing.
What is going to occur is that those underbuilt collar areas are going to encourage new building. that is if they are more politically flexible than SF.
Where ever there is a market, that market will be filled.
Earnest Prole's position is that the hyperinflation of Venezuela proves that Venezuela has a free market. That is the logical conclusion of his expressed opinion.
The only non-free market option would be a complete repeal of the LAWS of supply and demand, according to Earnest Prole.
I don't want to savage you, EP, but there's not enough housing in New York, as shown by a vacancy rate of something like 1%. The housing is too expensive. It's often not good housing, with much old stock of poor design and few amenities, mot ADA or green if you care about that. And there is not a lot of, or hardly any, empty space to build on, and being a small island, it's exceedingly difficult to acquire more land. In this case we are different from you here.
So not only do we need more housing, we need to tear down existing housing to get it. We need to build bigger on the same spaces. Fortunately there's lots of low-rise crappy old housing that really won't be missed by anybody except a couple of tour guides.
Savaging the sort of stupidity on display from Earnest Prole is the only reasonable answer.
The "safety" of San Francisco is addressed in this video about Seattle dying.
San Francisco has the highest property crime in the country. Higher even than Seattle.
Seattle was as beautiful as SF.
"The only non-free market option would be a complete repeal of the LAWS of supply and demand, according to Earnest Prole."
Which is impossible.
Trump only has his antagonists boxed in if he actually follows through on this. If this is just empty headed hot air, that will become apparent soon enough, and the virtue signalling can resume. I hope he's serious about it. I think it's an excellent policy idea.
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