Posted on 07/23/2014 9:15:08 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s an odd tale of two very ideologically conservative icons coming down on very different sides of the crisis of unaccompanied immigrant children flowing into the United States. Radio and television personality Glenn Beck and former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have come out diametrically opposed to each other on what the nation should do to help—or not help—these children.
The mainstream press, or as she would call it, the “lamestream” press, doesn’t pay much attention to Palin any more, but she is frequently quoted in outlets like the Breitbart News and conservative newspapers such as the Anschutz-owned Washington Examiner. In a speech to the Western Conservative Summit, Palin described current immigration policies as turning America into an “unfunded charity” for “illegals” drawn to the U.S. by “DREAMweaver” Obama. According to Tony Lee in the Breitbart News, “Palin said that the ‘forgotten man’ who cannot catch a break will now see their tax dollars go to help take care of illegal immigrants while they are forced to compete with them for shrinking resources and jobs.”
In another article, Lee cited Palin’s contention that the Obama “administration was not dumping illegal immigrant children in exclusive liberal communities in Manhattan, Silicon Valley, and the Washington, D.C. suburbs to live with pro-amnesty advocates.” Lee headlined his article that Palin was concerned that the undocumented children were not being sent to Mark Zuckerberg’s neighborhood. Zuckerberg has been an active proponent of immigration reform, though primarily for immigrants with technical skills needed by the tech industry.
Palin doesn’t seem to have much empathy for the children, at least in her public statements. She was highly critical of House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who late last month said of the immigrant children, “Every child, every person, has a spark of divinity in them and is therefore worthy of respect…[because] we are all God’s children.” Palin responded that Pelosi is “either speaking such gibberish, considering her track record, or she’s confessing one heck of a great conversion.”
It doesn’t appear that Palin is going to be a leader of initiatives to help the unaccompanied children coming from Central America. Glenn Beck, however, is taking a very different position. This past weekend, he made a visit to McAllen, Texas as part of his Mercury One charity to take truckloads of teddy bears and soccer balls for the immigrant children detained there. Describing the children as “caught in the political crossfire” due to “no fault of their own,” Beck told his radio listeners, “my brain is with the law…[but] my heart is with anyone who is suffering.” Beck will be partnering with churches along the border to provide food, money, and toys to the immigrants.
A talented media manipulator like few others, Beck knows that his announcement of compassion and assistance for the immigrant children is going to earn him little or no support among his far right-wing audience. He acknowledged that his plan to assist the immigrant children is “a position more deadly to [his] career” than anything else he has ever done and has already resulted in subscriptions and donations to his program decreasing.
Nonetheless, Beck has given his spurt of compassionate conservatism a political twist. He complained that his aid distribution effort has been joined by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), but the mainstream press won’t cover Cruz’s role because it prefers to paint Cruz as a “hater.” “They cannot cover Ted Cruz going down to the border,” Beck said. “This gives Ted Cruz the ammo to be tough on immigration, to be tough on justice. Once you have mercy established, you have credibility to talk about justice.” The showman in Beck made sure that his show on the border included media-attractive events, such as his grilling chicken for the immigrant kids.
For his efforts, Beck has been slammed by other conservative media stars and declared a “huckster” by Michael Savage. Fox News commentator Greta van Susteren described Beck’s complaint about the lack of coverage he and Cruz have received as “nutty,” noting that bigger stories such as the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 by Ukrainian separatists supported by Putin’s Russia and the Israeli invasion of Gaza might have been more logical reasons for the limited press attention he received. “Glenn is really off the charts on this accusation about us not covering the border,” Van Susteren said.
Nonetheless, despite criticism from his ideological peers like Savage and negative impacts for his network, Beck is undaunted. “Please would you consider doing the hard thing as well would you resist the temptation to flee or break up your family, please don’t hand your child off to a smuggler in the middle of the night,” Beck said. “I can’t sleep at night thinking about your son or daughter and so I and about 150 volunteers and multiple semi-trucks are going down to our border and we will see your child…and we will care for them.”
It’s funny how suddenly there’s no separation of church and state. She supports abortion, then picks and chooses USCCB ideas about immigrant children to support her political views. She is nauseating.
Understood. I have enough humility to know I'm not among Free Republic's best and brightest. As a matter of fact, I always assume I may have it all wrong and thoughtfully accept correction. However, I don't hold conservative leaders, intelligentsia, figureheads, movers and shakers, etc. so lofty as to be above anyone's criticism. Obviously, I'm far more cynical than I am smart.
Cruz is a honorable man and his response to this crisis is exactly correct. Treat them with Christian Charity while they are here, but deport as quickly as possible.
I'm sure he is. However, I interpret from the earlier quote he wanted his involvement in this to be high profile so to make the point. I am all for Christian Charity to those less blessed in this life. My problem in this specific case is how it's being done. It shouldn't be a media event. Anyone with access to print or electronic media sees us feeding, housing and generally caring for the invaders. The message getting out is our Southern border is open and we are caring for those who come and will be cared and accepted in. The only dissuading message getting out to this invasion are the reports of protests at receiving facilities or citizen groups patrolling stretches of border.
In my opinion, as erroneous as it may seem, Cruz is unintentionally aiding in this the message of open boarders despite his rhetoric. I have to wonder if the regime isn't laughing at Cruz and Beck for their part in this. Furthermore, you should know as well as I no one is going back. Both the Republicans and the Democrats will never do such a thing.
I understand your position on this. But, as you said, we disagree.
I feel for these kids - I really do but having their parents dump them here in the US is not going to fix all their problems. There are people all over the world who want to come to the US - we simply cannot take them all in. They are going to have to fix their own countries. They see what we have here and they want it so they just take it. The kids in many African countries have it far worse - we can't fix everyone's problems.
Even if we began deportation hearings today, which we are not going to do, and secured the border right now, which we are not going to do, there is no way, by law and by simple logistics, that all of these illegals will be out of here by tomorrow.
We should do those things, but they still leave us with a lot of people in our care for some period of time, some of whom are children.
Gov. Palin is right that we don’t want the government caring for them — but someone has to, and if we don’t want our tax dollars going for this, that means churches and private charities have to do the job for whatever time these children are here. And they can do it more efficiently, too.
So if you don’t want them on the public rolls, then you ought to support Beck and others in their private activities to take care of the kids while they’re here — while working to support all measures to get them home ASAP and stem the flow of new people into our country illegally.
Glenn has talked about why he left Fox. it was to start The Blaze, after Fox tried to tone down what he was saying about Islamofascism. (Prince Bandar is the #2 stockholder in NewsCorp.) When they tried to control what he had to say about what is probably the single most important issue of our time, he left.
My mother always warned me never to feed stray animals because you’ll never get rid of them afterwards.
Cruz is exactly right. They are victims of Obama and the Democrats. He also said that Obama and Reid are holding them hostage, which is exactly on target.
Exactly. This is what Cruz and Beck are saying, but somehow some people are determined to make it something else.
Beck has been attacking conservatives, how do you think conservatives are going to respond?
Attacking conservatives? When and where? I’ve been listening and I have literally never heard that.
Now, Dr. Savage, whom I also like, has done it and gotten away with it.
“Palin doesn’t seem to have much empathy for the children”
Sarah Palin is a patriot standing up for America and law and order.
In Anglo-American law—which shows a lot more compassion for illegals than Aztec `heart surgeons’—children as young as 5 years old have been found culpable for forming the requisite intent for an act to be considered criminal.
Unless these are toddlers, they know what they’re doing. And due to the HHS `black-out’ on photos, all the pictures I’ve seen show mostly guys and some women invaders in their 20s and 30s.
Glenn Beck can take his Pelosi-like concern—”It’s for the children!”— and stick it where the Sun don’t shine.
He’s morphing into Chris Matthews.
“Rick needs to learn how to use a search engine.”
And he needs to stop writing about her; I think he used her name 18 times in the excerpt alone!
On his Friday radio show, Glenn Beck suggested those who do not want to pass out soccer balls and teddy bears to illegal immigrant children at detention centers with him are "pusses."
....<> Talk radio host Glenn Beck defended his decision to bring meals, soccer balls, and teddy bears to illegal immigrants detained on the southern border during his radio show on Wednesday.
Beck said “conservatives only look like they just want judgment, and the liberals only look at it as mercy. You cannot you cannot have a rule of law if it is nothing but mercy you cannot have justice without mercy.”
This is true of some on both sides, and that is what he said. Furthermore, true or not, this is the image portrayed by the media and others. What Glenn is saying is that we must have justice and mercy.
Yeah, sure——guranteed if Beck had his druthers he’d prefer to be on Fox in front of an audience getting paid bigtime——rather than paying out to get The Blaze (the what?) noticed.
I don’t want to play the theologian but Jesus, at His birth, was given gold, myrrh and frankincense — three very precious commodities.
His family was not destitute.
Burt Lancaster was pretty good, wasn’t he?
You got that right.
Then when up is as slow to respond as a libtard`s thinking?
Then uses way too many pop ups with ads "conveniently" situated behind the "X outs" so if you`re not careful, you end up giving the creep owner more ad money hits?
Interesting, Bishop Romney claimed that he and his father BOTH marched with MLK, and neither one did.
"Mitt Romney went a step further in a 1978 interview with the Boston Herald. Talking about the Mormon Church and racial discrimination, he said: “My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit.”"
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