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Certain Immigrants Not So Favored(CA)
Los Angeles Daily News ^ | 3/5/17 | John Phillips

Posted on 03/05/2017 3:03:00 PM PST by Mark

STATE SENATE

Certain immigrants not so favored

When former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., decided to write a book about his life in the U.S. Senate, he titled it “Herding Cats: A Life in Politics.” In his experience, that’s what it was like trying to get a hundred senators on the same page.

In California the felines are a little bit easier to control — they all seem to hate President Trump and are willing to do anything possible to block his agenda.

Not long after President Trump was elected, state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, promised, “We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution. ... We’re going to do everything in our power to protect our people and our values as Californians.”

The main point of contention appears to center around Trump’s vow to deport immigrants who came here illegally. De Leon has accused the president of wanting “to shock and awe and instill fear.”

Which is why it’s funny that last week de Leon’s Senate shut up an immigrant colleague and had her physically dragged off the Senate floor.

The forcible ejection went down when state Sen. Janet Nguyen, R-Garden Grove, the first Vietnamese American in the country elected to a state senate seat, dared to criticize late state Sen. Tom Hayden’s, D-Santa Monica, support of the communists in Vietnam. Nguyen immigrated to the United States from Vietnam by boat in 1981 when she was 5 years old, fleeing a brutal communist regime that killed members of her family.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Hayden and his then-wife Jane Fonda took their anti-war activism to the extreme and openly supported a communist military victory for the North Vietnamese, over our allies in South Vietnam. That was an inflammatory position that led many, including myself, to believe that he and Fonda were traitors to the United States.

Fast forward to October of last year — Hayden died and members of the Democratic majority decided to invite his third wife and widow, Barbara Williams, to the floor of the Senate last Tuesday so that he could be eulogized.

Out of respect for the widow, Nguyen decided to wait until Thursday to deliver her critical remarks. In Vietnamese Nguyen said, “Mr. Hayden sided with a communist government that enslaved and/or killed millions of Vietnamese, including members of my own family. Mr. Hayden’s actions are viewed by many as harmful to democratic values and hateful towards those who sought the very freedoms on which this nation is founded.”

As soon as she transitioned to English, Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, a friend of Hayden’s, told her to zip it. She didn’t.

That’s when the presiding officer, Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, had her 86’d from the Senate floor.

De Leon has promised to investigate the situation.

For the record, this isn’t the first time that California Democrats have tried to tell Nguyen, and her fellow refugees fleeing the horrors of communism, to take a hike.

In 1975 when Republican President Gerald Ford asked California to accept half a million Vietnamese refugees, then-Gov. Jerry Brown told him to drop dead. Brown’s argument was, “We can’t be looking 5,000 miles away and at the same time neglecting people who live here.”

And then he threatened to block refugee flights into Travis Air Force Base, just outside San Francisco.

But that was back when refugees were fierce anti-communists who voted Republican.

I guess California is only a “sanctuary” for those willing to shut up and toe the Democratic Party line.

John Phillips is a CNN political commentator and can be heard weekdays at 3 p.m. on “The Drive Home with Jillian Barberie and John Phillips” on K A BC/A M 790.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; US: California
KEYWORDS: calsenate; immigrants; politics; vietnam
Train to nowhere describes this state as a whole.
1 posted on 03/05/2017 3:03:00 PM PST by Mark
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To: Mark
In 1975 when Republican President Gerald Ford asked California to accept half a million Vietnamese refugees, then-Gov. Jerry Brown told him to drop dead. Brown’s argument was, “We can’t be looking 5,000 miles away and at the same time neglecting people who live here.”

But since then millions of Mexicans they're pouring in, choking off social services, jobs, schools, hospitals, jails are A-OK?

2 posted on 03/05/2017 3:53:06 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: dragnet2
"We can’t be looking 5,000 miles away"----

How far is New York from CA?

3 posted on 03/05/2017 4:08:18 PM PST by Mark (Celebrities... is there anything they do not know? -Homer Simpson)
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To: Mark

4 posted on 03/05/2017 4:17:19 PM PST by Impala64ssa (You call me an Islamophobe like it's a bad thing)
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To: Mark

I think he was referring to the distance between California and Vietnam. 5000 miles? Let’s put it this way, I would NOT want Captain Jerry Brown flying me across the Pacific! ;)


5 posted on 03/05/2017 4:39:23 PM PST by Frank_2001
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To: Mark

“our values as Californians”

We know what this guy means by that.


6 posted on 03/05/2017 5:49:54 PM PST by SharpRightTurn (White, black, and red all over--America's affirmative action, metrosexual president.)
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To: dragnet2

If Hispanics voted 70% Republican Gov. Brown would have attack dogs chase them across the border.


7 posted on 03/05/2017 5:50:11 PM PST by cradle of freedom
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To: Impala64ssa

Hilarious. :*D


8 posted on 03/05/2017 5:51:51 PM PST by cradle of freedom
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To: Mark

About 3k more or less.


9 posted on 03/05/2017 5:53:25 PM PST by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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