VP Harris challenges Trump on immigration

September 19, 2024

On Wednesday, VP Kamala Harris spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 47th Annual Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. Harris took on Trump's nightmarish threat to deport millions of immigrants if he is elected.

Harris said,

While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward. We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history.

Imagine what that would look like and what that would be? How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?

Harris’s speech is here: Harris delivers remarks at Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute leadership event.

As VP Harris said, it is a dangerous fantasy to believe that Trump could deport ten million immigrants. An operation of that scale is beyond the resources of the federal and state governments combined. Although the effort would not succeed, it would lead to economic chaos as the labor pool is jolted by the sudden disappearance of workers who fill entry level service jobs, harvest America’s crops, provide home care for the elderly, and provide significant portions of the workforce in construction, hospitality, and manufacturing industries.

If you don’t have time to watch Harris’s entire speech, I recommend viewing the segment in which she frames reproductive rights as one of the freedoms guaranteed to Americans. She also notes that 40% of Latina women live in states with Trump abortion bans: Harris addresses impact of Trump abortion bans on Latina women.

VP Harris’s comments on abortion and reproductive freedom are powerful and moving. She continues to be an effective, focused campaigner who is sticking to the Democratic messaging of “freedom” and “an opportunity economy.”

As a reminder, Kamala Harris’s Opportunity Economy focuses on making the lives of middle-class Americans better. Her proposals include a $6,000 tax credit for families with newborns, expansion of the child tax credit, expansion of the earned income credit, a $50,000 deduction for new business owners, making rent affordable, incentivizing the construction of 3 million starter homes (as opposed to McMansions), subsidizing $25,000 of the down payment for first time homeowners, and reducing the cost of prescription drugs. See Issues - Kamala Harris for President: Official Campaign Website.

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The Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by 0.5%

The Biden-Harris administration significantly reduced inflation levels while sustaining robust growth in the US GDP. As a result, the Federal Reserve announced today that it was cutting the prime interest rate by 0.5% and suggested that additional cuts would be forth coming. See Federal Reserve Board - Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement.

Even Trump admitted that “it was a big cut,” although he suggested the timing was political. In truth, the cut was overdue. The Fed waited too long to reduce rates. See Common Dreams, Fed 'Waited Too Long' But Finally Cut Interest Rates. As noted in the Common Dreams article,

Center for Economic and Policy Research senior economist Dean Baker also welcomed that the Fed is changing course, saying: "This is a belated recognition that the battle against inflation has been won. Contrary to the predictions of almost all economists, including those at the Fed, this victory was won without a major uptick in unemployment."

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden achieved the nearly impossible—avoiding a recession while taming inflation. They deserve great credit for doing so—and voters are starting to realize that fact. See Harris closes gap with Trump on the economy, new Pennsylvania poll shows | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Per the Post-Gazette,

Pennsylvania voters no longer prefer former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris on the economy in a poll that shows the Democratic presidential nominee all but erasing the deficit on which candidate can best handle the top issue for voters this fall.

In a Quinnipiac University poll of likely Pennsylvania voters released Wednesday, Trump’s advantage over Ms. Harris was just 50% to 48%, a two-point advantage well within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

Harris continues to do everything just right. While there is no guarantee of success, we should be gratified that we have a candidate who is running such a terrific campaign!

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Trump's effort to cram voter suppression bill through Congress fails

Trump ordered Speaker Mike Johnson to make a futile attempt to pass a continuing resolution for the budget that included the GOP voter-suppression bill that would require proof of citizenship to register as a voter. (Note that our nation has survived for 235 years without requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.) The bill was doomed to fail—and Mike Johnson knew it. But Trump ordered him to jump and Johnson’s only question was, “How high, sir?”

See Roll Call, Johnson's stopgap funding package goes down to defeat.

To be clear, Trump wants to force the US into a financial crisis for political advantage. He said on Truth Social,

If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form.

But extremists in the GOP caucus know that Mike Johnson will cave. Per Marjorie Taylor Greene, “Johnson is leading a fake fight that he has no intention of actually fighting.”

Americans deserve better than a House GOP caucus willing to hold the budget hostage for Donald Trump.

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Trump's desperation is showing

Trump is promising tax cuts like a man who can smell defeat. On Wednesday, he promised New Yorkers that he would remove caps on federal deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Trump's position is absurd because he proposed and obtained the SALT caps as a way of punishing taxpayers in New York, New Jersey, and California (among other states). Now that he senses that he might lose, he is telling voters in those states that he will remove the caps he instituted.

Members of Congress immediately trashed the idea. Although capping the SALT deduction was unfair to taxpayers in states that fund their operations and pay into the federal coffers, reversing the policy would add $1.2 trillion dollars to the deficit. See HuffPost, Donald Trump’s Latest Tax Pander Flops In Congress.

Trump's flip-flop is a sign of his willingness to promise anything to anyone to be re-elected. Trump's desperation is a more reliable sign of the state of the race than the polls!

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Wall Street Journal debunks JD Vance immigrant / cat story

The Wall Street Journal published an article on Wednesday that reported (a) the city manager of Springfield told JD Vance that there was no evidence to support the cat-eating immigrant story before JD Vance doubled-down on the false claim on social media, and (b) the woman who filed a police report claiming her cat had been taken by Haitians later found her cat hiding in the basement of her house.

See Wall Street Journal, How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True (This article is accessible to all.)

Per the WSJ,

[Vance] asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” recalled [Springfield City Manager] Heck. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”

By then, Vance had already posted about the rumors to his 1.9 million followers on X. Yet he kept the post up, and repeated an even more insistent version of the claim the next morning.

The WSJ article takes a deep dive into the situation in Springfield and is well worth your time to read the entire article. The WSJ reporters lay out in detail how Vance and Trump are exploiting an immigrant population that is helping Springfield to grow and prosper after decades of decline:

The local economy boomed. Business owners said they were grateful to have workers eager to work long shifts and do what it took to meet production goals. New subdivisions sprung up in the cornfields outside town. New restaurants opened. The Haitian flag flew at City Hall.

Growth came with growing pains. The number of non-native English speakers in the public schools quadrupled to more than 1,000 children. The local clinic and hospital were overwhelmed with people fleeing a country where healthcare had been scant. Traffic increased, as did frustration with drivers more accustomed with the chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince than the orderly grid of Springfield.

One thing is clear: Vance and Trump know the rumors have no basis in fact but continue to promote them—thereby hurting the people of Springfield. Trump claims he will visit Springfield—over the objections of the mayor and the Governor of Ohio (both Trump-supporting Republicans!). The fact that Republicans in Ohio understand the cynical dishonesty of Trump's propaganda is a good sign

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Opportunities for Reader Engagement

Walk the Walk USA 

Tuesday, September 24th, 5:30pm PT / 8:30pm ET
Zoom event - Latest Recommendations: Walk the Walk USA’s 2024 Democracy Preservation Portfolio. 

Join Walk the Walk USA for its current recommendations in its science based critical work.  The efforts of grassroots partner organizations are now a recognized political force.  Our grassroots partners are selected in micro-geographies in battleground states, working down and up the ballot, with outsized impact. They have resources in place: fighting disinformation, supporting voters and protecting votes.  Their work starts before elections and continues year-round.  We must harness this energy for 2024, 2025, and beyond.  

Come to the zoom.  Bring a snack, a drink, and everyone you know. Voting by mail is starting already: the election is here.  This is the final stretch.  Now is the time to INVEST big to win: short-term and long-term.

Since Walk the Walk is run entirely by volunteers and has no overhead, every dollar raised goes to its effective grassroots partners.   Attendance is free - – Sign up here for the Zoom.  

Partners for Democracy

Partners4Democracy is hosting Special Event featuring Rep. Suzan DelBene, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and three candidates working to flip House seats from Republican to Democrat.  The event will be held on Wednesday, September 25 at 6:30 PM (EDT). 

Rep DelBene will provide her assessment of the Democrats’ chances of taking back the House. Joining her will be Kirsten Engel and Amish Shah, both from Arizona, and John Mannion from New York who will reflect on their efforts to wrestle seats from the Republicans.

P4D is a volunteer group which raises money for candidates who have a credible chance to win their races and for whom additional resources would make a difference.  It also supports grass roots groups in target states that work year round to organize and get out the vote among key constituencies.  P4D identifies volunteer opportunities for its network and holds monthly Special Events on topics of interest in the 2024 election.

Attendance is free. Register HERE for this Special Event.

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Concluding Thoughts.

I felt saturated and disappointed by the wall-to-wall coverage granted to JD Vance as he said increasingly ugly things about Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Having been caught in a bald-faced lie, Vance doubled-down on the lie by alternatively blaming Kamala Harris and the media for the plight of residents in Springfield.

The images of crowds shouting in approval as Vance attacked immigrants and the media made me worry that Trump's strategy of xenophobia and racism is working.

Trump's strategy is working—up to a point. He is feeding red meat to his cultish followers and they love it. But when the Republican governor and mayor both take public stances against Trump's lies, we know that Trump's strategy has reached the outer limit of its effectiveness.

I then read an article about a poll showing that the faith of Americans in the rule of law is increasing and my confidence was buoyed. People see through Trump; they are not being fooled; and their response to threat posed by MAGA is to increase their respect for and belief in the rule of law. See Dennis Aftergut in The Fulcrum, New poll reminds us that the rule of law is on the ballot.

As explained by Aftergut,

On September 17, the highly regarded World Justice Project released a detailed report reflecting some major good news amidst a continuing modest slide in Americans’ trust in our institutions. Encouragingly, WJP’s survey of voters shows that more than 90 percent of Americans in both parties — an unheard-of polling number — believe that preserving the rule of law is important or essential.

That vital fact tells us that, contrary to skeptics’ views, the concept of the rule of law is not too abstract to influence American voters in the upcoming election. People care very much about it, and the evidence of declining trust in our basic institutions suggests that the rule of law can play a potent role in the election.

What Aftergut says makes sense: People do care about the rule of law despite the somewhat abstract nature of the concept. Joe Biden focused on the rule of law during his campaign. After he withdrew from the race, I thought (mistakenly) that emphasizing defense of democracy and the rule of law was not a winning message.

I was wrong. It is.

It must be combined with other messages that speak to the immediate needs of voters. But they “get it”—voters know that without the rule of law, the other promises of democracy are empty. Lesson learned on my part! I will continue to amplify the threat to democracy posed by Trump and Vance as we also promote Kamala Harris’s opportunity economy and promise of freedom to all Americans.

Just knowing that an overwhelming majority of Americans still believe that the rule of law is important is heartening. Let’s be sure to include the rule of law and democracy in our efforts to persuade voters to support Kamala Harris (and Democrats up and down the ballot).

Talk to you tomorrow!

Daily Dose of Perspective

As I was taking images of the partial lunar eclipse with my telescope, I took a few images with my hand-held 35 mm digital camera. See below. The hand-held camera image below shows the small area on the “top” of the moon where the Earth’s umbra covers the moon. The area that looks like a “toasted marshmallow” shows the penumbra of the Earth touching the face of the moon. Although the image from my telescope was nice, the image below shows how the eclipse appeared to the naked eye as the moon hung low on the horizon.