Wow! Kayleigh McEnany Unloads on Open-Borders Democrats in Wake of Mollie Tibbetts' Murder by Illegal Alien (VIDEO)

Man, she's good!

At Fox News:

Increase in Border Attacks, Smuggling, and Deaths at Texas’ Big Bend Region

Build the freakin' wall already, sheesh.

 At LAT, "Could the Big Bend in Texas be the border's weakest link? Smuggling of drugs and migrants is on the rise":

Two Border Patrol agents bent to study the sandy dirt like animal trackers — what they call "cutting for sign."

They didn't have to look far.

Just yards from the Rio Grande, Agent Lee Smith pointed to footprints and scraps of carpet. Smugglers tie carpet to their shoes in hopes of covering their tracks, he said. Smith followed the rough trail through thick brush, his fellow agent close behind, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a long gun.

They saw no one. But the agents sensed smugglers watching, waiting.

"They come right across. What's here to stop them?" Smith said.

Sometimes smuggler scouts cross on horseback: The muddy banks are pocked with human and horse tracks. The river here, about 60 miles east of El Paso, is just a few yards wide, one of the reasons Border Patrol agents in Texas' Big Bend region have seen troubling increases in smuggling, attacks on agents and migrant deaths in recent years.

"There's hundreds of these crossings just in our area of operation," Smith said. "The drug cartels, they own this part of the land. We have conceded large swaths of the border. There are areas where there are not agents for days."

He called the vast Big Bend "the absolute weakest link on the southern border."

The natural barriers beyond the river that made the landscape a stunning backdrop for "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood" and "Giant" were also supposed to protect it. Or at least that was long the assumption of U.S.officials. There's the river. There are mountains — the snow-covered Chinati, Chisos and Davis ranges.

There's the Chihuahuan high desert, the land full of prickly cat claw and temperatures that soar above 100 degrees on summer days and dip to below freezing on winter nights. And for many years, smugglers avoided Big Bend, that part of Texas where the border makes a gentle swoop south before swinging back north.

But smuggling routes shift according to the dictates of criminal organizations, often in response to border enforcement. In the late 1990s, border traffic moved from Southern California to remote desert stretches of Arizona; by 2013, it moved east again to Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the epicenter of migration and enforcement ever since.

But now new routes are opening up to the west, in Big Bend.

"As things in the Rio Grande Valley get tougher to cross, they're looking for other places, and this is a spot that over the past few years has become established for smuggling," said Border Patrol Agent Rush Carter, a spokesman for the agency in Big Bend.

Just as migrants once tried to cross the Arizona desert unprepared, Central Americans are arriving in Big Bend without cold weather gear, abandoned to the elements by smugglers. Migrants tell agents that smugglers advertise the area as an easy crossing, the least patrolled stretch of border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection divides the southern border into nine sectors. Big Bend is the largest: 135,000 square miles, 510 miles of river, a quarter of the entire southern border.

The sector stretches north to include 118 counties in Texas and all of Oklahoma. Yet it has the smallest staff of any southern border sector, about 500 agents assigned to a dozen stations and several highway checkpoints including one in Sierra Blanca, notorious for large drug busts. That's fewer agents than have been assigned to a single station in the Tucson sector, Smith said.

President Trump has promised to add 5,000 Border Patrol agents, potentially doubling Big Bend staffing, but with high turnover, agents said that they would still be spread thin.

With such a small staff, agents usually patrol alone, with hand-me-down technology from other areas, including radios so spotty agents have erected makeshift cell towers in the brush to boost reception. Sometimes they just yell.

They don't have observation towers along the border as in the Rio Grande Valley, and their single aerostat blimp hovering overhead, unlike those used in the Valley, is not equipped with infrared technology, Smith said...

More.

Los Angeles City and County Governments Pledge $5 Million to Illegal Alien Defense Fund

This isn't right.

I'm not against a legal defense fund. I just don't think local government should be paying for it.

Expect a backlash, that's for sure.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Responding to Trump, L.A. proposes $10-million legal defense fund for immigrants facing deportation":

Los Angeles city and county leaders on Monday unveiled a $10-million fund to provide legal assistance for residents facing deportation, the region’s boldest move yet as it prepares for an expected crackdown on illegal immigration by Donald Trump.

If approved by lawmakers, Los Angeles’ two top government agencies could find themselves in the position of using public funds to challenge policies sought by the White House and Republican Congress.

The fund represents another provocative pushback against the Trump agenda in heavily Democratic California, but outside legal experts said the local government agencies are likely within their right to use the money for these purposes.

Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer said the fund will ensure that there is “more fairness and more effectiveness in the immigration system.” He cited statistics showing that immigrants who have representation have a better chance at succeeding in court.

Still, some anti-illegal immigration activists criticized the move, saying it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars and interferes with the federal government’s immigration policies.

L.A. officials “should be focused on assisting the citizens, [not] taking tax dollars to pay for services to assist illegal residents countywide,” said Robin Hvidston, executive director of We the People Rising, a Claremont-based organization against illegal immigration. The money, she added, would be better spent on unemployed citizens, veterans, disabled and the elderly.

L.A. Justice Fund would receive at least $5 million total from city and county government. Philanthropic groups would donate the rest of the money. The California Endowment, the state’s largest private healthcare foundation, plans to give the fund $2 million, according to a foundation spokeswoman.

The legal fund, aimed at helping immigrants who can’t afford attorneys, follows similar efforts at the state and national level to provide protections for migrants...

Supreme Court Blocks Obama's DAPA Illegal Alien Amnesty Program

This is major.

At WaPo, "Supreme Court won’t revive Obama plan to shield illegal immigrants from deportation":

The Supreme Court handed President Obama a significant legal defeat on Thursday, refusing to revive his stalled plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them the right to work legally in this country.

The court’s liberals and conservatives deadlocked, which leaves in place a lower court’s decision that the president exceeded his powers in issuing the directive.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

And at LAT, "Supreme Court deadlock deals defeat to Obama immigration plan":

The Supreme Court deadlocked Thursday over the legality of President Obama’s sweeping immigration plan, dealing a defeat to the White House.

The tie vote leaves in place lower court orders from Texas that have blocked Obama’s plan to suspend deportation and offer work permits to about 4 million parents who have been living illegally in the U.S.

It's a tie. Sends it back to the lower court and let's that decision stand.

Great news, heh.

Conservative Anger Grows Over Marco Rubio and Illegal Alien Amnesty (VIDEO)

It's definitely an Achilles Heel of his campaign.

Here's yesterday's entry, "Open-Borders Money Backs Marco Rubio."

And at the New York Times, "Conservative Ire Grows Over Marco Rubio's Past on Immigration":

WASHINGTON — Senator Marco Rubio made a big bet on an immigration overhaul that failed – and he has been running away from it since. Now his past is catching up with him, stoking old grievances from conservative rivals who are reopening one of the most vulnerable episodes in his past.

The anger toward Mr. Rubio on the right has only grown in recent days as he has taken to aggressively questioning Senator Ted Cruz’s toughness on illegal immigration, a line of attack that some Republicans say they find disingenuous.

On talk radio, on the campaign trail and on televisions in states like Iowa, Mr. Rubio is suddenly facing a torrent of criticism from within his own party unlike anything he has faced so far in the presidential race.

Mr. Cruz’s campaign, which was initially rattled by the criticism, is retaliating with a new ad that makes the case that the 2013 immigration bill Mr. Rubio helped write would have left the country exposed to attacks from Islamic State infiltrators. It shows Mr. Rubio standing with a group of conservative adversaries like Senator John McCain as Mr. Cruz says: “Their misguided plan would have given Obama the authority to admit Syrian refugees, including ISIS terrorists. That’s just wrong.”

People who saw Mr. Rubio speak near Des Moines the other day found their windshields plastered with black-and-white fliers that mocked him as “Chuck Schumer’s amnesty pitchman.” If Mr. Rubio is elected president, warned the fliers, which were noticed by a freelance journalist, he would support liberal immigration policies and “impose them by force on Americans.”

Mr. Rubio’s struggle to mollify Republicans who believe he betrayed conservative principles for political convenience – two years of outreach, apology and labored professions of a lesson learned – has never had higher stakes. Right now he is trying to break out beyond the third- or fourth-place spot he holds in many polls by peeling away support from conservative favorites like Mr. Cruz and Ben Carson.

His recent attacks on Mr. Cruz are backfiring as some influential conservatives are now rallying to Mr. Cruz’s side and denouncing Mr. Rubio.

Senator Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who is a hero of the anti-immigration reform movement on the right, went on a conservative radio program Thursday to defend Mr. Cruz and say that Mr. Rubio would be held accountable by conservative voters who rallied around killing the 2013 legislation.

“I think Senator Rubio has to answer for things that were in that bill,” Mr. Sessions said on the “Howie Carr Show.”

He continued, “This presidential election is going to decide who runs the White House: the crowd that pushed this legislation or the crowd that opposed it.”

Mark Levin, who has one of the largest followings on conservative radio, has been leading much of the effort lately on the air and online to criticize Mr. Rubio. He has accused the senator of “utter incoherence” in trying to tear down Mr. Cruz and paper over his own involvement in the immigration overhaul. “Such unprincipled ambition has not and will not go unnoticed by conservatives,” he cautioned.

Rush Limbaugh told his listeners: “Marco Rubio was part of the Gang of Eight trying to secure amnesty and wishes he wasn’t. Ted Cruz never was.”

The Rubio campaign’s effort to sully Mr. Cruz’s record on immigration is something even the Texas senator’s most ardent critics say distracts from the reality of the situation...

More.

Senator Jeff Sessions: Omnibus a 'Betrayal', Increases Foreign Workers, Fully Funds Obama Immigration Agenda (VIDEO)

At Big Government.

Open Borders vs. Social Justice?

From Stephen Macedo, in Carol M. Swain, ed., Debating Immigration, "The Moral Dilemma of U.S. Immigration Policy: Open Borders Versus Social Justice?"



And from Ann Coulter, Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole.

Jeff Sessions and Dave Brat: Memo to the GOP

At Roll Call, "Memo to GOP: Curb Immigration or Quit":

America is about to break every known immigration record. And yet you are unlikely to hear a word about it.

The Census Bureau projects that the foreign-born share of the U.S. population will soon eclipse the highest levels ever documented, and will continue surging to new record highs each year to come.

Yet activists and politicians who support unprecedented levels of immigration are never asked to explain how they believe such a policy will affect social stability, community cohesion or political assimilation.

They can simply cry out, “We must pass immigration reform!” without ever explaining what they believe “immigration reform” means.

Immigration reform should mean improvements to immigration policy to benefit Americans. But in Washington, immigration reform has devolved into a euphemism for legislation that opens America’s borders, floods her labor markets and gives corporations the legal right to import new foreign workers to replace their existing employees at lower pay.

Consider the giant special interests clamoring for the passage of the Senate’s 2013 “gang of eight” immigration bill: tech oligarchs represented by Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, open borders groups such as La Raza and the globalist class embodied by the billionaire-run Partnership for a New American Economy.

For these and countless other interest groups who helped write the bill, it delivered spectacularly: the tech giants would receive double the number of low-wage H-1B workers to substitute for Americans. La Raza would receive the further opening of America’s borders (while Democratic politicians gain more political power). And the billionaire lobby would receive the largest supply of visas for new low-skilled immigrants in our history, transferring wealth and bargaining power from workers to their employers.

What would be the effect on schools? On hospitals? On police departments? On labor conditions? On poverty? What would the effect be on millions of past immigrants forced to compete for scarce jobs and meager wages against these new arrivals?
Few seemed to ask, or care.

This is not immigration reform. This is the dissolution of the nation state, of the principle that a government exists to serve its own people...

Keep reading (via Lonely Conservative).

Open-Border Scumbags Call Out CNN, Demand Republicans 'Tone Down Rhetoric' on Illegal Immigration

Fortunately, I expect CNN's jonesing for some huge ratings, and will likely go all Lou Dobbs on these despicable "migrant advocates," a.k.a. far-left reconquista open-border thugs.

At LAT, "Advocates ask CNN to help tone down Republicans' rhetoric on immigration":

A large coalition of immigrant rights groups is calling on the moderators of this week's Republican presidential debate to help tone down the heated rhetoric on illegal immigration that has dominated the GOP primary race.

In an open letter to CNN, which is hosting the debate, 62 pro-immigrant organizations from around the country voice concern about "the increasing hatred and vitriol being directed towards both people of color and the immigrant community by certain presidential candidates."

"The upcoming presidential debate will be a test as to how much leeway can be given to the language of hate," the letter says, while calling on moderators "to help bring back a civil debate."

Republican front-runner Donald Trump soared in the polls this summer after making immigration a focus of his campaign. Trump has drawn attention to several immigrants in the country illegally accused of committing crimes and has vowed to build a border wall and end automatic citizenship for children born to immigrants without legal status. He has called Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists.

The letter cites a recent attack on a Latino man in Boston in which the suspect may have cited Trump as an inspiration. That and other recent episodes are evidence that "these harmful words will turn into violence against our communities," the letter says.

Signed by groups including the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the National Immigration Law Center and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, the letter also suggests a hashtag for those who will be tweeting the debate: #NoHateDebate.

When the crowded field of GOP candidates descends on Simi Valley for the debate Wednesday, they will be met with protesters from both sides of the immigration issue.

About four dozen organizations that support immigrants plan to rally outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where the debate is being held, according to Jorge-Mario Cabrera of CHIRLA.

They will be competing with protesters who have likely been happy with the tone of this summer's debate.

The second rally, organized by tea party and anti-immigration groups, will be centered on the need to revoke birthright citizenship, according to organizer Ted Hilton. He said he and others had been working for years to end the practice, which most believe is a right protected by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, with little results...

La Raza scumbag communists. Fuck 'em.

Still more.

California Citizenship

As the national political system responds to the GOP presidential race and controversies over birthright citizenship, Democrats in California continue to push the envelope on the Mexifornication of the state.

And this is why a lot of folks are bailing out. I connected with a woman from the 2010 tea parties on Facebook, and she moved to Utah. There's a classic old political book called "Exit, Voice, or Loyalty," and exit seems to be the increasingly popular option for those looking to preserve their liberties and maintain their moral selves. California's gone to the dogs.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California gives immigrants here illegally unprecedented rights, benefits, protections":

It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver's licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday, in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word "alien" from California's labor code.

Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the country illegally. The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of California citizenship.

The changes have occurred with relatively little political rancor, which is all the more remarkable given the heated national debate about illegal immigration that has been inflamed by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

"We've passed the Rubicon here," said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist. "This is not an academic debate on the U.S. Senate floor about legal and illegal and how high you want to build the wall.... [The state] doesn't have the luxury of being ideological.... The undocumented are not going anywhere."

Democratic lawmakers and immigration activists, with diminishing opposition from the GOP, continue to seek new laws and protections. These measures include cracking down on employers withholding pay from low-wage workers and expanding state-subsidized healthcare to adult immigrants without papers.

These new initiatives face obstacles, but backers say such hurdles center on the hefty price tags of the programs, not political fallout from the immigration debate.

California officials have been spurred into action in part by the lack of action in Washington to overhaul the nation's immigration system. The stall in Congress has motivated advocates to push for changes in state laws. But they acknowledge that their victories are limited without national reform.

"The reality is, despite the bills that we've done, there are up to 3 million undocumented immigrants that still live in the shadows," said Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville), chairman of the Latino Legislative Caucus. "Their legal status as immigrants does not change — only Congress can do that."

Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at UC Riverside, calls what's emerging "the California package": an array of policies that touch on nearly every aspect of immigrant life, from healthcare to higher education to protection from federal immigration enforcement.

Other states have adopted components of the package; Connecticut, for example, offers in-state tuition and driver's licenses, and passed legislation known as the Trust Act to help limit deportations before California did.

But Ramakrishnan said California is unique in how comprehensive its offerings are...

How unique ... and how morally bankrupt.

Still more.

Donald Trump Rallies 30,000 in Alabama (VIDEO)

The Donald gets 30,000 out to a rally, but the New York Times story highlights how he "failed" to fill a stadium. No bias there, nope.

See, "Donald Trump Fails to Fill Alabama Stadium, but Fans’ Zeal Is Undiminished."

And CBS News downgrades the crowd size to 20,000. Watch: "Donald Trump holds strategic rally in Alabama."

Hey, Bernie Sanders rallied 28,000 in Los Angeles, so it's a political war over crowd size, heh.

BONUS: Don't miss Elizabeth Price Foley, at Instapundit, "A TALE OF TWO MEDIA SOURCES: Donald Trump’s last minute decision to change the venue of a political rally in Mobile, Alabama has caused some outlets in the mainstream media to fully reveal their inability to report simple facts without mind-numbing spin."

Illegal Immigration: More Identity Theft, More Murder, More Rape, and More Drug Dealing

All brought to you by the Obama-Dems.

At End of the American Dream:

Do we want to encourage drug dealers, violent gang members and serial rapists to come into this country? If not, why is that exactly what the Obama administration is doing? Thanks to very foolish U.S. government policies, it is incredibly difficult to immigrate to this country legally, but it is incredibly easy to immigrate to this country illegally. So we are keeping out large numbers of good, honest, hard working people at the same time that we have given a giant green light to criminals and lawbreakers. Does that make any sense at all?  We need an immigration system that forces everyone to come in through the front door.

Instead, we have made the process of getting in through the front door a complete and total nightmare and yet we have left the back door totally wide open.  And if the millions upon millions of lawbreakers that are coming in to this country illegally just took our jobs and drained our welfare system, perhaps it wouldn’t be that bad.  Unfortunately, that is not the case. In fact, illegal immigration has greatly contributed to rising violent crime rates all over the nation. Gang membership is exploding, Mexican drug cartels are operating in more of our communities than ever before, and identity theft by illegal immigrants is at epidemic levels. Something desperately needs to be done.

But instead, the Obama administration is trying to ram amnesty for illegal immigrants through Congress as quickly as possible. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill will cause unemployment to go up and wages to go down for many years. And by rewarding illegal immigration, the federal government will just encourage much more of it. But our politicians don’t really seem concerned with the consequences. In fact, the Senate is going to vote on the immigration bill without even reading it.

Instead of focusing on what we “owe” to those that have broken our laws by entering this country illegally, perhaps we should be talking about some of the horrible crimes that they have been committing while they have been living here...

Keep reading.

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo: Donald Trump Appeals to Americans Fed Up with Broken and Dishonest Political System (VIDEO)

An excellent segment from Monday night.

O'Reilly cuts through the baloney to nail down exactly what's bugging folks out there, and why Trump's still ahead in the polls.

Donald Trump, Birthright Citizenship, and the 14th Amendment

I thought about this yesterday. Seems to me as long as "born or naturalized in the United States" is in the 14th Amendment, then it's going to take an extremely strained reading of it to deny that children of illegal immigrants are citizens of the U.S. at birth.

I'll have to refresh my constitutional law case knowledge a bit, but this piece from Ken Klukowski, at Big Government, is pretty compelling, and could convince me that Donald Trump's on solid ground. See, "CONSTITUTION DOESN’T MANDATE BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP":

Parts of Donald Trump’s immigration plan may raise serious constitutional questions, but the part that launched a media firestorm—ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens—does not.

The Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment does not confer citizenship on the children of foreigners, whether legal or illegal.

Media commentators have gotten this issue dead wrong. Fox News’s Judge Andrew Napolitano says the Fourteenth Amendment is “very clear” that its Citizenship Clause commands that any child born in America is automatically an American citizen.

That’s not the law. It has never been the law.

Under current immigration law—found at 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a)—a baby born on American soil to a (1) foreign ambassador, (2) head of state, or (3) foreign military prisoner is not an American citizen.

How is that possible? This is from the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 (INA), as it has been amended over the years. Is this federal law unconstitutional?

No. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Today’s debate turns on the six words, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

As captured in the movie Lincoln, the Thirteenth Amendment—which ended slavery—barely passed Congress because many Democrats supported slavery, and it was only through the political genius and resolve of Republican President Abraham Lincoln that the proposed amendment passed Congress in 1865, sending it to the states for ratification.

In 1866, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act to guarantee black Americans their constitutional rights as citizens, claiming that the Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment gave Congress the power to pass such laws. But many voted against the Civil Rights Act because they thought it exceeded Congress’s powers, and even many of its supporters doubted its legality.

The Civil Rights Act included a definition for national citizenship, to guarantee that former slaves would forever be free of the infamous Dred Scott decision which declared black people were not American citizens. That provision read, “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”

That was the original meaning of the jurisdiction language in the Fourteenth Amendment. A person who is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States is a person who is “not subject to any foreign power”—that is, a person who was entirely native to the United States, not the citizen or subject of any foreign government. The same members of Congress who voted for the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 then voted to define citizenship for freed slaves in a federal law in 1866, then voted again months later in 1866—using only slightly different language—to put that definition of citizenship in the Constitution, language that was ultimately ratified by the states in 1868 as the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 1884, the Supreme Court in Elk v. Wilkins noted that the language of the Civil Rights Act was condensed and rephrased in the Fourteenth Amendment and that courts can therefore look to the Civil Rights Act to understand better the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court reasoned that if a person is a foreign citizen, then their children are likewise not constitutionally under the jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore not entitled to citizenship. In fact, the Court specifically then added that this rule is why the children of foreign ambassadors are not American citizens.

That is why Congress can specify that the children of foreign diplomats and foreign soldiers are not Americans by birth. They’re not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Congress’s INA does not grant them citizenship; federal law never has.

So why is a child born on American soil to foreign parents an American citizen by birth? Because the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause is a floor, not a ceiling. Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution, Congress has absolute power to make laws for immigration and for granting citizenship to foreigners. Congress’s current INA is far more generous than the Constitution requires. Congress could expand it to grant citizenship to every human being on earth, or narrow it to its constitutional minimum.

Media confusion on this issue is puzzling, because the greatest legal minds in this country have discussed the issue. (Just none of them were put on camera to explain it.) Scholars including Dr. John Eastman of Chapman University, and even Attorney General Edwin Meese—the godfather of constitutional conservatism in the law—reject the myth of birthright citizenship...

Still more.

Sarah Palin on Greta Van Susteren's 'On the Record' (VIDEO)

I mentioned Ms. Palin's appearance at my previous entry, "Sarah Palin Heading to One America News Network."

And here's the video from yesterday's segment of "On the Record": "Gov. Sarah Palin: On Immigration, It's Tough to 'Trump' Trump - Greta - 8/18/15."

Donald Trump Boosts Lead in New CNN Poll, Gains Favorability With Voters (VIDEO)

Very interesting findings.

Trump almost doubles the support that Jeb Bush gets (24 to 13 percent respectively), and perhaps more troubling for movement conservatives, Scott Walker's down to 8 percent at the poll.

See, "Post-debate, Trump pulls clear of competition" (at Memeorandum).

Go right to the survey internals here. Trump's doubled his support from June, and he beats all the other candidates on favorability. And he's destroying the competition on immigration and the economy, the hottest of hot-button issues this year.

Also at Hot Air, "Brutal: Jeb Bush sinks to 35/57 favorable rating among registered voters in new CNN poll."



That Echelon Insights poll from a week ago isn't looking like so much an outlier at all.

FLASHBACK: "Wham!! New Echelon Insights Poll Has Donald Trump at 29 Percent, Soaring Over GOP Field!"

Donald Trump Shows Up for Jury Duty

He got no special treatment, although he was called to a jury after all.

At Politico, "Donald Trump shows up for jury duty, and causes a scene."

And at CBS News 2 New York, "Trump Reports for Jury Duty."

Glenn Beck: Donald Trump's 'Record is Horrendous When It Comes to Conservative Principles' (VIDEO)

I wanna follow-up on this great post at Hot Air from yesterday, "Glenn Beck on Sean Hannity: We’re at an impasse because I don’t understand why conservatives trust Trump."

Take your time reading that entry, which provides an insightful take on the conservative splits over the Trump campaign.

For me, I don't pretend Trump's a conservative. I just like the way he's pushed illegal immigration to the top of the national policy agenda. I certainly don't know if I'd vote for Trump in the GOP primary. Shoot, California's primary is scheduled for June 7, 2016, which means the race could be decided by then in any case. The fact is, Trump's pulling the Republican field to the right on immigration. Voters will vote for those who they see as best representing their interests, and in this case border security and economic nationalism appear as top interests among conservatives (and a lot of independents, according to polls).

So, it turns out that Glenn Beck just can't buy Donald Trump as a genuine conservative, whereas Sean Hannity looks at Trump pragmatically, seeing him as the kinda guy who can turn the country around.

It's pretty compelling.

Watch: "Glenn Beck questions Donald Trump's popularity," and "Glenn Beck provides insight into America's struggles."

California to Provide English Language Interpreters in All Court Cases

Well, yeah.

Hardly anyone speaks English around here anymore.

Shoot, I'm surprised the Democrats in Sacramento aren't requiring mandatory Spanish and Chinese immersion courses for all English speakers. Either that, or you'll spend the rest of your days in a camp.

At the Contra Costa Times, "California moves to provide interpreters in all court cases":

SAN FRANCISCO -- Going through a divorce has been difficult for Sepideh Saeedi. Not understanding what's happening in court because she isn't proficient in English has made the process even harder.

"When you don't understand what the judge is saying, what the other side's attorney is saying, it's very stressful," Saeedi, 33, who speaks Farsi, said after a recent court hearing in Redwood City

Legal advocates say throughout the state, litigants in divorce, child custody, eviction and other civil cases who have difficulty with English are going into court without qualified interpreters. Instead, many are forced to turn to friends or family members -- or worse yet, the opposing party -- for translation.

That's because California only guarantees access to an interpreter in criminal cases, not civil cases.

But the state is looking to change that. Under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, California's Judicial Council this year approved a plan to extend free interpretation services to all cases by 2017.

"You can't have a court hearing without having your client understand it correctly," said Protima Pandey, a staff attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid.

Pandey said she always makes sure an interpreter is available for her clients, but many litigants in family court don't have attorneys to do that for them.

alifornia court officials say extending interpreter services to all cases won't be easy. California has the nation's largest court system spread out over a vast area with many rural counties. The state has about 7 million residents with limited English proficiency who speak over 200 languages.

The courts have also faced funding cuts in recent years that have seen courthouses close and staffs cut. There is no estimate yet on how much it would cost to provide interpreters in all cases, but the plan approved by the judicial council said the courts would need more than the $92 million they were spending.

"California's judiciary is committed to language access and eager to work out the best way to get that done," said state Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, who heads the group in charge of implementing the state's language-access goals.

Critics say the state has dragged its feet...

Still more.

Donald Trump's Immigration Reform Plan to Make America Great Again! (VIDEO)

Sometime back I notice Noah Rothman really going after Donald Trump on Twitter. And I like Noah. It's just, as I've said before, some journalists on the right are really invested in this campaign, to the extent that they appear like GOP operatives rather than reporters. And hey, it's not like I don't want Republicans to win. It's more like I want a conservative to win, and a lot of Republicans aren't very conservative. That's not to say that Donald Trump is, but genuinely hardcore conservatives at the grassroots are falling in love with this guy because he's the only one to give full-throated assertiveness to their positions on illegal immigration. This is the debate we've needed to have. That is, this is the debate the nation needs to be having, because we're definitely at the tipping point of preserving a lot of basic American values. And frankly, that's what's intrigued me about Donald Trump, despite the fact that he's got a long record of supporting left-wing positions. Shoot, Trump has long been boon coons with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In that sense, he's the consummate politician, jettisoning political incorrect associations when the times demand it.

In any case, I've read Trump's new position paper on immigration reform, which dropped last night. Read it here, "IMMIGRATION REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN."



Rothman goes after the plan like a savage, "Trump’s War on Legal Immigration a Tipping Point for the GOP." Read the whole thing, of course, but note the ferocity:

Trump’s “plan” is an assault on not merely the illegal immigrants who have violated American laws, but those who have played by the existing rules to come to the United States. The proposal amounts to a declaration of war on America’s immigrant community, an attack on the foundational nature of America’s character as a melting pot for all the peoples of the world, and the inception of a police state that is incompatible with a free republican democracy.

Hyperbole isn't a strong enough word, but then, you have to read Trump's proposal.

Rothman, for one thing, argues that building a complete border wall all the way to Matamoros "is infeasible; the geography of the border simply does not allow for one unbroken wall." Okay, then build the wall where it is feasible and then beef up human security checkpoints where it's not. The main reason that Arizona and Texas have become the battlegrounds against illegal immigration in recent years is because California essentially militarized its border in the 1990s, and illegals simply moved to entry points further east. This has long been documented, and indeed, the Los Angeles Times has written about it frequently. Border walls work. If you build them, they don't come.

Rothman also complains about how much of Trump's plan, like "E-Verify," has been a staple of Republican reform proposals for like forever. The problem, of course, is that workplace eligibility regulations like this simply aren't enforced, even in red states like Texas. Indeed, sanctuary states like California actively prohibit enforcement of E-Verify regulations. Maybe Trump's plan can turn things around. Lord know there's room for improvement there. (And I don't buy the argument that rigorous enforcement alienates and thus hinders the cooperation of illegal immigrants. These criminals have no reason to cooperate with immigration enforcement to begin with. We need to get real about how we're going to follow through with enforcing policies already on the books. Local law enforcement has already abandoned any pretense of cooperation with federal authorities. As the Kathryn Steinle and Marilyn Pharis cases sadly prove just how true this is in California.)

I agree with Rothman about "birthright citizenship," however. Talk of reforming automatic citizenship for illegal alien children is mostly a sop to the nativist right, because frankly, birthright is strongly embedded in the Constitution and it'll take a constitutional amendment to change it, and that ain't happening. Better to keep illegals out of here in the first place.

And I can't comment knowledgeably on reform of the H1B visas program, and the related ins and outs of workplace-sponsored immigration programs (it's complicated, sheesh). I do know that they're abused to high heaven, and countries like China know are gaming the system like crazy. See Michelle Malkin on that, "The Big, Fat 'American Worker Recruitment First'- Lie of H-1B."

And Trump's plan sounds like a home run to me, in any case:

We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.

Finally, how much of Trump's plan is genuinely unworkable? Well, beyond birthright citizenship, hardly any of it at all. It's simply going to take someone's who's not afraid of the massive backlash of political correctness, and unending charges of racism. And as we've seen so far, not only is Trump unfazed by such criticism, he's also not been penalized politically for speaking out forthrightly on the crisis.

As I always say, let's see how it all shakes out. We're having another GOP debate on September 16th. Frankly, I can't wait to see how Trump does, and it should be especially interesting because Carly Fiorina's expected to be on the stage. This should be an extremely informative event, all the better because it's going to be held here in California, at the Reagan Library. CNN's putting it on too, so if Megyn Kelly's left-wing talking points weren't enough, I'm sure CNN's moderator Jake Tapper (formerly of far left-wing Salon) will pick up the pace.

In any case, there's more in the news on Trump's plan. At NBC News, "Donald Trump: Undocumented Immigrants 'Have to Go'" (via Memeorandum), and ABC News, "Donald Trump Unveils His Immigration Plan, Calls for End to Birthright Citizenship, Will Deport the Undocumented."

Also at the Chicago Tribune, "Trump: Deport children of immigrants living illegally in U.S.," and the New York Times, "Donald Trump Releases Plan to Combat Illegal Immigration."

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