 |
| Image via Wonkette. |
“For every politician — Democrat and Republican — who is tut-tutting that [bigoted Kentucky county clerk Kim] Davis must resign, they are defending a hypocritical standard. Where is the call for the mayor of San Francisco to resign for creating a sanctuary city — resulting in the murder of American citizens by criminal illegal aliens welcomed by his lawlessness?
“Where is the call for President Obama to resign for ignoring and defying our immigration laws, our welfare reform laws, and even his own Obamacare?"1. The mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, should not resign for creating a sanctuary city because, in the first place, he didn't create one; that was done 21 years before he became mayor, under Art Agnos, in 1989:
“We had refugees seeking asylum from right-wing death squads,” Agnos told [the Sacramento Bee's Dan Morain] by phone. Catholic clergy urged Agnos to protect people trying to escape dirty wars in Central America in the 1980s. The Board of Supervisors approved the ordinance unanimously. Later mayors expanded on the concept.2. He also should not resign because it isn't illegal, unlike Ms. Davis's refusal to carry out the duties of the office for which she is paid, and in particular preventing her subordinates from doing it. What constitutes a "sanctuary city" in general is that municipal employees, including police, are not supposed to question people about their immigration status, and there is no federal law requiring them to do that, nor could there be, as Mr. Constitutional Conservative Tenth Amendment over there in the corner really ought to know (there are some state laws, but San Francisco isn't in any of the states that have them).
3. He should further not resign because in the specific case of the killer of Katherine Steinle, in which San Francisco police refused to obey an ICE request to detain the man after he finished serving his sentence for illegally re-entering the country, without charges, for reasons that were unconnected to any crime or potential crime but simply to spare ICE the trouble of holding him themselves, they were not only obeying local ordinances (from 1989) but also the Constitution and specifically the Fifth Amendment, all of which forbid them to detain a person without a proper warrant or judicial order.
4. And he should finally not resign because the killer's immigration status was a good reason to think he was more likely not to commit a crime:
the vast majority of the 11 million undocumented immigrant population are not criminals. They also commit considerably fewer crimes than Americans. One study found that “among men age 18-39 (who comprise the vast majority of the prison population), the 3.5 percent incarceration rate of the native-born in 2000 was 5 times higher than the 0.7 percent incarceration rate of the foreign-born.”The murder rate in San Francisco is the lowest it's been in decades, and much lower than that in most comparable non-sanctuary cities in the US. Although Cruz uses a plural in laying "the murder of American citizens" on Mayor Lee's door, no evidence has been brought forward that any other murder has been committed in San Francisco by any other undocumented migrant in the past 25 years. Obviously a killing like that of Steinle is a terrible and sad event, but there was literally nothing in Mayor Lee's conduct that would have made a difference if he had done it differently. The rarity of such events in San Francisco is what he's responsible for, not the fact that there is one exception, however awful.
5. And of course President Obama should not resign because using his well-established powers of prosecutorial discretion to decide which undocumented immigrants to deport first (give the physical impossibility of deporting them all simultaneously), and using it to start by deporting those who seem more dangerous (people with felony convictions), or adjusting the timing of particular programs within the Affordable Care Act, is not "ignoring and defying the law" but carrying it out in a sensible way. As for the thing about welfare reform, it was an entirely bureaucratic effort to give states more power within the terms of the statute. (Cruz, and the Heritage goons and others whose knickers are twisted over this issue show how little they care about "federalism"—they were only pissed off because the reregulation would enable states to give poor people more money.)
As to Kim Davis, according to the Kentucky Legislative Research Committee,
The county clerk issues marriage licenses (KRS 402.080) and files and records all marriage certificates (KRS 402.220 and 402.230). Military discharges may also be recorded in the county clerk’s office (KRS 422.090). On or before the 10th day of each month, the county clerk reports to the state registrar of vital statistics all marriage licenses issued and all marriage certificates returned (KRS 213.116). Each county clerk must furnish each applicant for a marriage license with a copy of a marriage manual to be prepared and printed by the Human Resources Coordinating Commission of Kentucky (KRS 402.270).It's not that complicated. Doesn't say a word about "if her conscience permits", or "if her faith allows", or "if she's in the mood". I've looked. She should resign because she's a lazy no-good deadbeat taking her pay ($80,000!) for nothing.
 |
| Image via Down With Tyranny. |
Casey County Clerk Casey Davis, who is not related to Kim Davis, tells U.S. News he believes there’s a difference between getting a divorce and then repenting and living in a same-sex relationship."That's exactly the problem!" Ms. Davis didn't explain. "They aren't repenting! They'll just sit there acting responsibly, paying their taxes and patronizing local businesses and possibly even raising children as if they were good citizens like anybody else! They're refusing to acknowledge that they're vile and disgusting and God is going to punish them in the eternal fire! And here I am being punished right here and now!"
No comments:
Post a Comment