Quick Hits: Volume CCCXLIX

 - Given the mass influx of illegal aliens through the southern U.S. border, the issue of immigration has become a top three concern among voters this election cycle. Had President Joe Biden not reversed former President Donald Trump's immigration executive orders at the beginning of his term, this wouldn't be the crisis it is. But to take action now would be an admittance of his administration's ineptitude on the issue while also alienating his voters who strongly support open borders. 

On Tuesday, Biden issued an executive order to limit asylum seekers into the country. But as The Editors at National Review point out, this will accomplish little.  

The claim is that the new executive order will impel administration officials to close the border once the seven-day average of illegal entries hits 2,500 per day. But there are many loopholes that allow the administration to avoid this and continue to admit bogus asylum seekers at a rate of over a million per year. The executive order would not address the 1,500 migrants per day who use the CBP One app at ports of entry. It doesn’t affect the tens of thousands of migrants a month who fly directly to the United States and are “paroled” into the country, via a kind of rolling amnesty for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The executive order does little to combat the pipeline of asylum seekers who come from countries outside of the Western Hemisphere. Ukrainians, Russians, Afghans, and Eritreans have been pioneering a path of flying to South America and then crossing the formerly impassable Darién Gap on foot before trekking through Mexico to the U.S. border. The U.S. encountered 6,000 Chinese nationals crossing the Mexican border in December 2023 alone.

What the Biden administration has done consistently is propose rules that allow them to wave in more immigrants but advertise the new guidelines as border-control measures. For example, the Times claims that in May the administration proposed a rule change that would allow officers to quickly identify people who are ineligible to receive asylum, such as those who have been convicted of “a serious crime.” In fact, the proposal to allow asylum officers to make snap assessments gave the administration more leeway to process people through its border turnstile, without an adversarial interview with a judge.

In February of 2021, the Biden administration issued an executive order it advertised as “Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration System and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans.” The results afterward? Tent cities springing up across the West Coast, and mayors in Chicago and New York trying to dump recent arrivals onto nearby suburbs.

Nobody fell for the political ruse then. We hope nobody does now.

Like the felony conviction against Trump, this will barely (if at all) move the needle in Biden's direction. Especially in light of a damning Wall Street Journal report discussing his ever diminishing capacity.  

- From the millisecond Caitlin Clark was drafted #1 overall by the WNBA's Indiana Fever, there have been players past and present proclaiming that she's in for a rude awakening. Specifically, it's not going to be nearly as easy to score 30+ points per game in the pros as she did in her final year at the University of Iowa. 

While I take no issue with Clark being incessantly trash talked, suffocated defensively or on the receiving end of hard fouls, it's downright thuggish to take cheap shots and then celebrate it. 

It's no accident that attendance at Indiana Fever games (home and away) has risen dramatically since Clark's arrival. And it's also not a coincidence that WNBA teams are now able to charter flights given the increase in revenue the league is experiencing thanks to Clark's presence. 

In the end, I believe any animosity shown towards Clark is a result of sheer jealousy. The WNBA has not been all that popular in the more than quarter century of its existence despite it containing exceptionally talented athletes. But the idea that people are now paying attention on a level not seen in the league's history has pissed off a lotta current and former players to the point they're practically shouting "WHERE Y'ALL BEEN?!?!?!" 

- Oh, man. Progs are eating their own here in Minnesota. 

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty alleged publicly again Tuesday that DFL Gov. Tim Walz treats her differently than her male predecessor because she's a queer woman, a claim swiftly rebutted by the governor and his allies.

Moriarty initially made the comment to a Star Tribune reporter on Sunday as she revealed that she would drop the murder and manslaughter charges against State Trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting of Ricky Cobb II last summer during a traffic stop.

The top prosecutor in the state's most populous county talked at length about her critics, including the governor, saying they are delegitimizing the system.

She said the criticism was personal as well. "I never saw this happen to my predecessor," she said in the interview. "Why is the governor treating me this way? Why is the governor questioning me is something I've asked myself and others quite a few times."

When asked why she believes that to be the case, Moriarty said, "I think it's because I'm a queer woman in this role. I think it's because he looks at the political winds and which way they're blowing and I think that's what he reacts to, which is horrible."

Yeah Mare, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact you attempted to hand down unconscionably lenient sentences to violent offenders but then look to prosecute a law enforcement officer while attempting to disallow a "use of force" expert who could provide exculpatory testimony. And then those who believe it was unjust to prosecute MN State Trooper Ryan Londregan in the first place were tantamount to January 6 rioters in your eyes. 

Nope. No possibility whatsoever that woeful incompetence was why criticism was directed towards you.

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