Thread: Sen. Jeff Sessions: Pro-Amnesty Elites Treat People as 'Commodities'

by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) 22 Jun 2014, 4:00 PM PDT
breitbart



Perhaps no issue better illustrates the current divide between everyday citizens and our political and business elites than the issue of immigration. The latter group draws the financial gains from a generous labor supply without considering the perspective of those on the other side of the ledger: the working people who have to worry about being laid off and replaced with lower-wage workers, about the strain placed on their local hospitals and neighborhood resources, or about cartel violence spilling across the border into their own communities.

For instance, Sheldon Adelson recently wrote that: “The immigrants here illegally need jobs, want to work and are willing to take on jobs that are not appealing to many Americans.” What about Americans who need jobs? Human beings are not commodities. We need to get our own workers off of unemployment and into good-paying jobs that can support their families. That means if a job is hard or strenuous, employers should raise wages and improve working conditions – why shouldn’t Americans who do tough work get paid more for their efforts?

Rupert Murdoch also recently argued for a dramatic expansion of the controversial H1B guest worker program. Murdoch writes that “there is a shortage of qualified American candidates,” to fill jobs in STEM fields like computer services and engineering. But the evidence shows the opposite: the US graduates approximately twice as many STEM-trained students each year as there are STEM jobs to fill. There is a large surplus of unemployed Americans with STEM degrees and yet, per the Economic Policy Institute, “the annual inflow of guestworkers amount to one-third to one-half of all new IT jobs holders.” As Rutgers Professor Hal Salzman poignantly asked, “Average wages in IT today are the same as they were when Bill Clinton was president well over a decade ago…if there is in fact a shortage, why doesn't that reflect in the market? Why don't wages go up?"

The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world. Each year, the US grants permanent legal admission to an additional 1 million immigrants who will be able to apply for citizenship, along with roughly 700,000 guest workers, 200,000 relatives of guest workers, and 500,000 students. These are overwhelmingly not farm workers as activists falsely suggest, but are instead workers brought in to fill jobs in every sector, occupation and industry throughout the US economy.

Overall, the number of people living in the US who were born in another country has quadrupled since 1970. And yet the Senate immigration bill doubles the rate of future immigration and guest worker admissions.

For too long, the immigration debate has been driven by the needs of politicians, business interests, and immigration activists who fail to appreciate that a nation owes certain obligations to its own citizens.

Consider immigration policy from the viewpoint of a middle-aged unemployed American who has to borrow gas money to drive to a job interview 100 miles away. Imagine how his or her life is affected when the company gives that open job to a temporary guest worker hired from 10,000 miles away. Imagine what any of the 58 million working-age Americans who don’t have jobs might have to say to the lawmakers and activists who claim there is a “labor shortage”.

The phrase “immigration reform” has been thoughtlessly applied to any legislation that combines amnesty with dramatic future increases to our record supply of labor. This is the singular vision championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. It therefore falls on the shoulders of Republicans to stand alone as the one party representing the interests of everyday working Americans.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...as-Commodities

The UN refers to citizens as "stock".

The far left and some in the business world are working to take America into third world status, cheap labor for those in business for others it's all political, permanent welfare class and Democrat voters, to do all this they must eliminate the middle class. Those at the top see no down side to this change they believe themselves immune because of status and wealth. I think most Americans cannot believe anyone would do this, however greed and the great loss of morals, values in our culture past 40 years has contributed to our present problems.

by Virgil 25 Jun 2014, 9:32 AM PDT
breitbart



Are you a commodity, or an American? An economic unit, or a human being, a child of God, even?

It’s good that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is asking these questions, because the elites in both parties already have their answers: They do, indeed, see the American people as mere “commodities,” implying that Americans have no particular special value.

Moreover, they further think that if we are just fungible commodities, there’s no reason we can’t be manipulated for their political and economic purposes.

The flashpoint issue, of course, is the border, and whether or not it should be adequately guarded against the slow-motion onslaught from the rest of the world. As Sessions put it in an exclusive June 22 op-ed for Breitbart News, “No issue better illustrates the current divide between everyday citizens and our political and business elites than the issue of immigration.”

Indeed, this wide divide holds true for the elites of both parties.

On the left, Democratic elites see the American people as a commodity to be subsumed, politically, as part of an ambitious multicultural, post-nationalist experiment. In fact, since the Reagan years, the left has not been particularly happy with the American people—too many Republican victories.

And so the left then set about fixing its electoral problem, through a simple expedient: opening the floodgates. And the Democrats have had considerable success with their demographic-change strategy: California, for example, has gone from being a mostly Republican state—the GOP carried it in nine of ten presidential elections from 1952 to 1988—to being a solidly Democratic state; the GOP has lost it, badly, in the last six presidential elections.

Meanwhile, on the right, Republican elites see the American people as a commodity to be superseded, economically, as part of a relentless wage-cutting effort. And that’s worked, too; imported labor has driven down wage costs. In strict terms of economic efficiency, the market has cleared—although, of course, much of the middle class has now been demoted down to working class. In other words, a Reverse American Dream.

One might think that in partisan terms, the interests of Democrats and Republicans would counter-balance each other out. That is, D’s would worry about the well-being of “the people” and thus block excessive immigration, while R’s would worry about the well-being of their party and thus block a flood of new Democratic voters.

Yet in fact, the two parties’ elites have reached a sort of cynical entente: “blue” politicos get the votes, and “red” business bosses get the lower wages. In other words, for different reasons, the top interests in both parties are happily in on the deal.

But as Sessions points out, there’s a bigger interest that neither party’s elites seem worried about: the people of the United States. As he asks,

"What about Americans who need jobs? Human beings are not commodities. We need to get our own workers off of unemployment and into good-paying jobs that can support their families. That means if a job is hard or strenuous, employers should raise wages and improve working conditions–why shouldn’t Americans who do tough work get paid more for their efforts?"

It’s not often these days that a Republican talks like that—about the importance of tightening labor markets and thus boosting wages. Sure, Republicans want to cut everyone’s taxes, but the reality for millions of hard-pressed Americans is that they need a good job even more than they need a small tax cut.

Yet thanks to the efforts of Sessions, and a few pundits and radio-talk show hosts such as Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, the Republican Party, at least, is starting to rise up—not only against GOP incumbents, but also against the reigning Big Business culture.

Earlier this month, a populist ballot-box revolution pushed David Brat, a border-closer, to victory over the pro-amnesty Rep. Eric Cantor in a Virginia GOP primary. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi pushed back a strong Tea Party challenger, St. Sen. Chris McDaniel, in a primary runoff that reeked of elite out-of-state money, muscle—and Democratic votes. That is, the national elites set out to buy an election on behalf of their man Cochran—and that’s what they did. Cochran got his win, but in so winning, vindicated every insurgent argument about the true nature of the Cochran Class, and all its cynical ruthlessness.

In those two contests, Virginia and Mississippi, the Tea Party won one, and the Establishment won one—although again, by most accounts, the Establishment won mean, if not dirty.

So now, a third high-profile intra-party challenge. Searching to make it two out of three, Tea Party insurgency is turning its eyes to the Tennessee primary in August, in which State Rep. Joe Carr is strongly challenging Sen. Lamar Alexander for his incumbent seat.

Indeed, Carr, a border-closer, is sounding a lot like Brat—and Sessions. As Carr told Breitbart News’ Stephen K. Bannon on Sirius/XM recently, the elites are still, even now, pushing “comprehensive immigration reform”:

"There’s this arrogance about these people who stay in Washington. The arrogance that they say—you know what, it doesn’t matter that they are flooding our labor markets with unskilled labor and driving down American wages, it doesn’t matter as long as we cater to the United States Chamber of Commerce."

A Republican attacking business? Targeting the mighty Chamber? In fact, it’s hard to imagine a Republican Party that isn’t staunchly pro-free enterprise and pro-business, but at the same time, the realization has crept in that the GOP needs a more proper balance between the interests of big business, small business—and workers. For an ambitious politician, campaign cash is nice, but actually winning elections is nicer. And for an American patriot, protecting the wellbeing of the nation is the nicest of all.

After all, true conservatism is about more than commodities. The free market is great for efficiently allocating “factors of production,” but people can’t be treated only as production-units without, as a result, destructive social consequences. That is, any viable economic system must be solidly rooted in the solid of the society itself.

Capitalists should understand that you need a fully functioning civil society, as well as an economy. That’s why we need a wise political system, to help create an ever more perfect union. And blessedly, thanks to the Founders, we have had such a system—even if it is today under siege.

The Preamble to the Constitution lays it all out. It enshrines “liberty,” but it also, in the same 52 words, emphasizes other goals, too, including “justice,” “domestic tranquility,” “the common defense,” and the “general welfare.” These are obviously non-economic values, bespeaking the Founders’ desire to build an enduring political system—a novo ordus seclorum, a new order for the ages.

And yet American history shows that if these values prevail, the economy, too, flourishes. A secure and free country, populated by hard-working and smart people, naturally becomes rich. It’s axiomatic: You can’t have prosperity if your country suffers from banditry.

So we can see the need for a balanced system, in which the rights of the individual are matched with the imperative of basic security and national survival. Achieving all that was a stern challenge in 1787, when Ben Franklin proclaimed that yes, the new Constitution had created a new republic—but only if we Americans could keep it.

The keeping of that republic over the last three centuries has been the great work of great leaders—none of whom saw the American people as merely an economic commodity. The fighting heroes of Bunker Hill and Bastogne, of Khe Sanh and Kandahar, did not see themselves as economistic factors of production; they saw themselves as citizen-soldiers, defending a way of life that was about more than money.

Instead, they were risking, and even sacrificing, their lives for something more. As Abraham Lincoln put it, they were giving their all for the American nation, for “mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave.”

By contrast, purist Libertarianism is an abstract vision that transcends peoples and borders. That’s a nice utopian theory—of the world made into one by free trade and open borders—but it’s not a plan for actually running a nation. A nation needs patriotism aimed at protecting a people and their culture. Liberty means nothing without security and sovereignty.

If we, as Americans, can’t manage to privilege ourselves over other peoples of all the other countries of the world, then we won’t be a country for very long. Indeed, America will not only cease to exist as a united country, but she will be overcome by countries.

The post-communist Russians and the Chinese, for example, don’t think they exist to advance any particular ideology; they exist to advance the national interests of Russia and China. In a confrontation with either country—or with Iran, ISIS, or any other threatening power—the physical sanctity of America will not be based on theories and abstractions. We need sturdy weapons and soldiers, made in the USA.

Indeed if we can’t defend ourselves, then someday, all the sacred monuments in America will be just historical footnotes; that is, quaint little items on a future tourist map written in a foreign tongue.

Back in 2007, Mike Huckabee spoke of “vertical politics,” by which he meant that the real split is often top vs. bottom, not left vs. right. As Huckabee put it, “Ultimately, people don't care about whether an issue comes from the left or the right, what they want to hear about is an idea that lifts America up and makes us better.” In a way, Huckabee was anticipating Sessions’ argument: The elites and the masses are not always, to put it mildly, on the same side.

Huckabee, who strongly opposed “comprehensive immigration reform,” ultimately fell short in the 2008 presidential campaign, in part because the Republican elites were enraptured with the open-borders-policies of the Bush 43 administration. Back then, the GOP was happy to be persuaded that securing Mesopotamia was far more important than securing Arizona. (And Sen. John McCain, of course, still feels that way.)

Indeed, it’s possible that even now the GOP elite is still planning an “Amnesty Surprise,” although, fortunately, each insurgent primary victory makes that prospect less likely.

Yet in the meantime, Democratic strategists still dream of their “coalition of the ascendant,” by which they mean, again, a newly enlarged and “improved” American electorate. And quietly, plenty of top Republicans, and their business allies, still stand ready to help them.

Indeed, just on Tuesday, as Breitbart News reported, Mark Zuckerberg’s bipartisan amnesty front group, Fwd.us, announced yet another push for their open-borders goal. Indeed, the group’s president, Joe Green, volunteered that the new #2 and #3 GOP leaders in the House, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, “have indicated their support for fixing our fundamentally broken system multiple times.” Green might as well have said, “I have McCarthy and Scalise in my back pocket.” Green might be spinning, of course, but his words are a reminder to the grassroots—vigilance is always needed.

Yes, it might be the same dolorous scenario, especially after Cochran’s victory: Democratic elites still want better voters, and for their part, Republican elites still want cheaper workers.

In a democracy, where in theory the people are sovereign, these are harsh charges to hurl against those in the commanding heights of our government, but Sessions has his proof. As the Alabaman explains,

"The phrase “immigration reform” has been thoughtlessly applied to any legislation that combines amnesty with dramatic future increases to our record supply of labor. This is the singular vision championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. It therefore falls on the shoulders of Republicans to stand alone as the one party representing the interests of everyday working Americans."

Yes, the battle for America—as a great country, as opposed to merely a commodity—is far from over.

The patriotic grassroots of today’s Republican Party do, indeed, have a rendezvous with destiny—with or without the help of their purported leaders. Indeed, that rendezvous with destiny might well recall a rolling over of many of those leaders.

Fortunately, the American people—made up of flesh and blood, hearts and souls, not commodities at all—are strong. And providentially, they have a few champions of their own.

One of the best of them is Jeff Sessions. In taking on the elites of both parties on the immigration issue, he and his allies are fighting battles, and winning victories, that are echoing across the country.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...s-With-Destiny

July 3, 2014 4:00 PM

On Immigration, It’s Time to Defend Americans

On this July Fourth, we should focus on their needs.

By Senator Jeff Sessions




(Obama: Getty Images)
Comments 438

The chaos unfolding at the border demonstrates the catastrophic, real-world consequences of the president’s lawless conduct. For the last five years, with average household incomes falling and Americans being pushed out of the workforce, the president has been engaged in a sustained campaign to strip away Americans’ immigration protections. He has accomplished his aims: Interior removals have been cut by more than 40 percent. President Obama’s own former ICE director reported to the Los Angeles Times that “if you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.”
There is no doubt that the president’s lawlessness has now produced a humanitarian crisis. But more important — and much too little discussed — is the crisis he has produced for the American citizens and communities who are left with the tab. Washington has profoundly failed in its lawful duty to the American people.

We owe our first obligation to the citizens of this country, and yet the last year has been consumed by an immigration debate centered on the needs of immigration lobbyists and politicians. The ultimate expression of this failure of priorities was the Senate’s immigration bill. During a time of low wages, high unemployment, and surging welfare rolls, the Senate bill doubled the existing and expansive rate of legal immigrant and guest-worker admissions into the U.S.The U.S. already has the world’s most generous immigration policy. The size of the country’s foreign-born population has quadrupled since 1970. Harvard professor George Borjas estimated that high immigration rates from 1980 to 2000 resulted in a 7.4 percent wage reduction for lower-skilled American workers. And from the years 2000 through 2013, according to a Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. lawfully issued another 26 million visas to foreign workers and new permanent immigrants. The Center for Immigration Studies issued a study based on Census data showing that “since 2000 all of the net gain in the number of working-age (16 to 65) people holding a job has gone to immigrants.”
Meanwhile, further demonstrating that there is a large surplus of labor, incomes and wages are down. The Wall Street Journal reports that “median household income was $50,017 in 2012, below 2007’s peak level of $55,627, after adjusting for inflation, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.” At the same time, the number of Americans between the ages of 16 and 65 who are not working has grown to 58 million. If mass immigration is so good for the economy, why then — during this long sustained period of record immigration into the U.S. — are incomes falling and a record number of Americans not working?
On this July Fourth, it is time to focus squarely on the needs of the American people who have given their blood and sweat to deliver us this magnificent Republic.
For instance:
Stop promoting amnesty. Instead, send a clear message to the world: If you attempt to come here unlawfully, you will be sent home. And send a message to our neighbors in Latin America: If you do not accept repatriation of your citizens who entered unlawfully, you will not be provided any more legal-immigrant visas.
Protect the workplace. Protect the jobs and wages of lawful residents. This can be done by expanding, as previously planned, the effective and easy-to-use workplace verification tool known as E-Verify, used to confirm a job applicant’s legal status. Senate Democrats have blocked this measure.
Remove the tax-credit magnet. According to the IRS inspector general, in 2010 the U.S. improperly paid out $4.2 billion in taxpayer money to illegal immigrants in the form of the additional child tax credits — often to support children who are not even living in the United States. We can end this practice by simply requiring a valid Social Security number, as the IRS inspector general has recommended. Senate Democrats have blocked this measure, too.
Help our unemployed get back to work. With a record 58 million working-age Americans not working, we need to get our people off unemployment, off welfare, and into good-paying jobs that can support a family. Doubling the already large and continuing flow of legal immigration, as the Senate bill proposed, clearly works against this goal.
Create the conditions for rising wages. It is the job of lawmakers to represent all citizens, not just the denizens of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and certainly not the narrow financial interests of international corporations with facilities spread across the globe. As long as we provide employers with an ever-increasing supply of low-wage workers from abroad, American wages are not going to rise. If a job is tough, or difficult, or in high demand, why shouldn’t wages go up?
Challenge the president’s lawlessness. The president made clear with his Monday announcement on executive actions that he plans to go even further in not enforcing America’s immigration laws. Congress simply has no choice but to use its substantial constitutional powers to confront the president’s lawlessness. And if the Senate Democratic majority continues to empower this illegality, then they should be exposed publicly and held to account for doing so. To violate even further his constitutional requirement to enforce the law – regardless of what other measures are taken – will ensure that the border crisis continues.
The immigration vision of President Obama and his congressional allies provides benefits for various CEOs, amnesty activists, and the citizens of other countries — but it offers nothing for American citizens besides lower wages and higher unemployment.
After decades of open immigration and lawless borders, it has become clear that it is time for a new immigration focus: one centered on the just and legitimate interests of the American people.
The Americans who bravely fight our wars, dutifully pay their taxes, and live their whole lives by the rules have every right to expect and demand that their representatives act faithfully on their behalf. Let that be our resolve on this July Fourth.
— Jeff Sessions is the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-jeff-sessions