At Ronald Reagan Library, GOP Candidates Reject Ronald Reagan’s Immigration Vision

“”Unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world,” said Reagan, calling the ability to attract newcomers “one of the most important sources of America’s greatness.” Immigrants help ensure that the U.S. remains “a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier,” he continued. “If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
It was the last speech he delivered as president and it was, as some have called it, a “love letter to immigrants.” And though he made no distinction between “legal” and “illegal,” Reagan was broadly willing to treat immigrants with humanity.

“Rather than talking about putting up a fence, why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit?” he said during the 1980 Republican primary debate. Four years later, during a presidential debate with Democratic candidate Walter Mondale, he explained, “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.” Reagan would follow through on that statement by signing an amnesty bill into law in 1986. Any immigrant who entered the U.S. prior to 1982 was made eligible for a pathway to citizenship, ultimately extending amnesty to nearly 3 million immigrants.”

https://reason.com/2023/09/28/at-ronald-reagan-library-gop-candidates-reject-ronald-reagans-immigration-vision/

Even Elon Musk can’t fully wreck Twitter’s one great superpower

“the TV ratings Nielsen reports have no correlation to the viewership numbers Twitter is reporting. For starters, as always, Nielsen is reporting the average viewership the debates generated, not the total number of views, which is what online outlets generally report. That’s not a new discrepancy, and at this point everyone in tech and media should know better but either doesn’t or pretends not to.

More important, under Musk, Twitter has moved to an even more fanciful description of “viewership,” where it’s not even pretending to count people who watch the video. Instead, it’s simply measuring the number of times someone has seen the tweet with the video scroll through their feed, as the Washington Post’s Will Oremus reports.”

https://www.vox.com/2023/8/24/23844369/musk-twitter-x-republican-debate-rnc-fox-news-tucker-carlson-trump-peter-kafka-media-column

What the GOP debate revealed about Republican health care hypocrisy

“On abortion, on health care for transgender people, even on mental health care, the candidates were comfortable flexing governmental authority to dictate the terms of medical treatment.
But when it comes to using that same authority to protect people during a global pandemic or providing health coverage to people with low incomes, they don’t want the government getting involved.”

https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/2023/8/25/23844263/republican-debate-national-abortion-ban-trans-care-covid

Trump Pushed To Condemn White Nationalist Proud Boys, Instead Tells Them ‘Stand Back and Stand By’

“Biden was pressed (as he has been this summer) to disavow violence and rioting by antifa protesters. Biden did so, saying “Violence is never appropriate.”

Host and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace then noted that Trump has been criticized repeatedly for refusing to denounce the violence that comes from white nationalists at some of these protests. Wallace asked Trump, “Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups to say they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of the cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?”

Trump said, “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but I would say, almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not from the right-wing.” After demanding from Wallace specific names of groups he should condemn, Biden and Wallace settled on the Proud Boys. Trump responded not with condemnation but by saying “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” Then he veered the discussion immediately toward antifa violence, saying “I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s gotta do something about antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem.”

That’s not a condemnation. Trump still, unlike Biden, seems unable to repudiate violence from people who support him.”

“Regardless of the president’s intent, the Telegram account for the Proud Boys reportedly immediately made a mockup a logo with “Stand Back” and “Stand By” as text, suggesting that the message they received is to wait for potential action. The Daily Beast reports that Proud Boys leader Joe Briggs wrote on Parler that in reality, “Trump basically said to go fuck them up. This makes me so happy.””

“given a chance to more carefully frame a statement, Trump was much more clear at telling the Proud Boys to “stand down and let law enforcement do their work,” according to Bloomberg’s White House reporter”

““They have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work,” Trump says of Proud Boys, adding “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are.””