WARS: Britt lodged some strenuous accusations!

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2024

As always, blue leaders ignored them: It's as we noted yesterday. Midway through his State of the Union address, President Biden described his stance regarding the southern border.

He went all the way back to Day One. This is what he said:

PRESIDENT BIDEN (3/7/24): Unlike my predecessor, on my first day in office I introduced a comprehensive plan to fix our immigration system, secure the border, and provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and so much more. 

Because unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans...

Actually, that was pretty much all the president said about his initial policies and proposals concerning the southern border. He went on to call for the passage of this year's proposed border bill.

Roughly an hour later, the president was met with some strenuous pushback from Senator Katie Britt. Citing his first hundred days in office, she offered this assessment:

BRITT (3/7/24): President Biden inherited the most secure border of all time. But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations, halted construction of the border wall, and announced a plan to give amnesty to millions.

We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days.

[...]

From fentanyl poisonings to horrific murders, there are empty chairs tonight at kitchen tables just like this one because of President Biden’s senseless border policies.  

Just think about Laken Riley...She was brutally murdered by one of the millions of illegal border crossers President Biden chose to release into our homeland.

Britt was giving the official Republican response to the president's address. In her account, President Biden had issued 94 executive actions with respect to the border in his first hundred days. 

She said he created the "border crisis" through the "senseless policies" embedded in those executive actions. She said that people had lost their lives. 

Rightly or wrongly, she even named Laken Riley.

Stating the obvious, Senator Britt was lodging a deeply severe set of accusations. Along the way, she also recounted an anecdote about sexual trafficking with respect to the border—an anecdote which turned out to be grossly misleading with respect to the most basic facts.

Something else happened that night during the president's speech. As is becoming a bit of a norm, President Biden was interrupted—was heckled—midway through his address.

The interruption came from the usual suspect. According to the AP's transcript of the evening's live remarks, these are the words which were spoken:

PRESIDENT BIDEN: I’m told my predecessor called members of Congress in the Senate to demand they block the [proposed border] bill. He feels political win—he viewed it as a—it would be a political win for me and a political loser for him. 

It’s not about him. It’s not about me. I’d be a winner—not really. I—

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: What about Laken Riley?

(Crosstalk.)

AUDIENCE: Booo—

REP. GREENE: Say her name!

PRESIDENT BIDEN: (The President holds up a pin reading “Say Her Name, Laken Riley.”) Lanken—Lanken (Laken) Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.

REP. GREENE: By an illegal!

THE PRESIDENT: By an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?

(Crosstalk.)

To her parents, I say: My heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand.

At that point, Biden went on to describe some of the contents of the proposed border bill, moving beyond the contents of his prepared text. 

But there you see the interruption—the heckling directed at Biden. Like Senator Britt's grossly misleading anecdote, the interruption—the heckling by Greene—launched a thousand ships.

As we've noted, Senator Britt doubled down on her misleading anecdote on Fox News Sunday last weekend. Offered a chance to disown the gross misdirection she had authored, the young solon refused to relent.

According to the Washington Post, Britt's office took the same approach just last night in response to further questions. This is the way the game now tends to be played within our deeply destructive Red Nation / Blue Nation divide.

Senator Britt has now tripled down on her grossly misleading anecdote! This is the way the game is played as a political war continues to grow.

That said, there was another predictable reaction to Senator Britt's accusations concerning Biden's border policies:

Blue tribe pundits completely ignored the senator's claims concerning those border policies. Blue tribe pundits walked away from the merits, or the lack of same, inhabiting Britt's critique.

Instead, blue tribe pundits lambasted Britt for her misleading anecdote. Also, they scolded President Biden for his impromptu use of an inappropriate word.

At this point, we'll repeat what we said at the start of the week. For ourselves, we wouldn't use "illegal" as a noun, the way the president did.

We wouldn't refer to someone as "an illegal," as is the norm on Fox. We also aren't inclined to regard that point of language as more important than the actual facts concerning Britt's accusations—accusations which are made on a daily basis on Fox.

We aren't inclined to regard that point of language as more important than the actual life-and-death facts concerning the southern border. Inevitably, that is what our blue tribe punditry instantly did.

Progressive thought leaders pummeled Biden for having used that word. Did anyone address the claim that Biden's first three years of border policy had led to fentanyl poisonings and horrific murders?

Essentially, no one did. Here's what happened instead:

In the wake of his address, the president appeared on Jonathan Capehart's little-watched weekend program on MSNBC. 

During Capehart's interview, the president was instantly asked about his use of that word. The president said he should have said "undocumented" instead.

The president said he regretted using that word. Inevitably, that's where any discussion of the border ended.

A few days later, Paul Krugman's column emerged. The column appeared in Tuesday's print editions under this headline:

Sex Trafficking, De Facto Lies and Immigration

In his column, Krugman focused on Senator Brit's grossly misleading anecdote. We don't disagree with what he said about that.

With perfect justice, he pummeled Britt for her misleading anecdote. At the same time, he paid exactly zero attention to the claims Britt had made about the effects of Biden's border policies over the past three years.

Along the way, he offered an extremely weak refutation of a claim we've seen no one make. But so it has gone, within our pair of warring nations, within (let's say) the past year. 

Red tribe observers constantly talk about the crisis at the border—a crisis they say the president's policies caused.

They talk about fentanyl deaths. They talk about the dangers of letting unvetted people into the country en masse, as has become the norm. 

They talk about human sex trafficking, including the trafficking of children. They talk about the number of apprehensions which have involved people on terrorist watch lists—and they wonder how many such "got-aways" may have occurred under current arrangement.

They relate the murder of Laken Riley—and other similar violent crimes—to the alleged chaos at the border under the president's policies. Our blue tribe pundit corps has responded in the following way:

On the whole, they've responded by pretending that the border doesn't exist. So it has gone as our two nations agree to a journalistic arrangement built upon "segregation by viewpoint:"

On Fox, the border is discussed around the clock. The events of January 6 are almost completely disappeared. 

On MSNBC, the southern border barely exists. Instead, we're fed constant legal minutia, with dreams of criminal convictions dancing in our heads.

Two groups of pundits behave in such ways, and never the twain shall meet. On each channel, no one is asked to consider the possibility that the other group might actually be right about something, if only in some tiny way.

Blue tribe viewers see police being beaten on January 6. Red tribe viewers never see any such tape. Instead, they see tape of people streaming across the border. Blue viewers are shielded from that.

Eventually, northern Democratic pols began to say that the immigration situation had become unsustainable. Only then did blue pundits and pols move to address a situation which may cost us the White House this year.

We don't mean to single Krugman out. His column reflects the general way the blue world reacted to last Thursday night's events.

Blue pundits hammered Senator Britt for her act of misdirection. Progressives also challenged Biden for his use of that word.

Speaking with the reliable Capehart, he said he regretted the use of that word. Our tribe then returned to its usual fare.

Endless clowning continues on Fox from people like Gutfeld and Watters. But when they focus on the border, can anyone swear that they're wrong?

There's a great deal more which ought to be said about these red and blue tribal reactions. Most simply put, artificial segregation by viewpoint is a good way to gear up for a dangerous war.

There's a great deal more which ought to be said. We can promise you this:

If you stopped a thousand liberals on the street, no more than three could tell you what President Biden's original policies were. Only a handful could tell you what's been proposed in that new border bill. 

We certainly couldn't do those things! Instead, our blue tribe lives in splendid isolation—and they're living the same way over on Fox. This is good for ratings, profits and salaries—at their channel but also at ours. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. President Biden may win re-election this year—or then again, he may not!