Amazing.
Jamiel Shaw Jr., 17-year old African-American high school football star was shot dead by an illegal immigrant who mistook the young athlete for a gang member. Yet in spite of that, the media and the GOP Establishment continue to misrepresent Donald Trump’s position on illegal immigration. We’ll come back to this. But first?
Here is The Wall Street Journal on Donald Trump: “So referring to Mexican immigrants as largely criminals and “rapists,” as Donald Trump did, is no different than favoring immigration reform with legal residence if not citizenship, as Mr. Bush does.” To be fair, the WSJ was scolding Hillary for her bombastics in lumping all Republicans with Trump. But without doubt - as Trump repeated for the umpteenth time in his Las Vegas appearance where he shared the podium with Jamiel Shaw, Sr., the African-American father of his 17-year old high school football player-son killed by an illegal immigrant - the Trump context is not about “Mexican immigrants” but “illegal immigrants.”
Here is The New York Times: “Since the start of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, a vexing question has hovered over his candidacy: Why have so many party leaders — privately appalled by Mr. Trump’s remarks about immigrants from Mexico — not renounced him?”
Here is NPR: “NBC Dumps Donald Trump Over Comments On Mexican Immigrants”
These are but three media outlets -- the first coming from the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal --that leave the impression Donald Trump is out there assailing not only Mexican immigrants but immigrants in general.
Not to put too fine a point on it? This is not simply false - it is flat out untrue.
One would have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not understand that Donald Trump is talking about - catch this word - illegal immigrants. People who come over the southern border of the United States illegally and then commit crimes once here.
And yet? There is the media - shamelessly aided and abetted by members of the Republican Establishment - repeatedly spreading this falsehood over and over and over again.
Trump is scheduled for a rally in Phoenix, Arizona this weekend. Arizona has been plagued by crimes committed illegal immigrants. As noted in this space the other week The Washington Times reports this of the illegal criminal problem in Arizona:
“Crossing a bombing range doesn’t seem to make sense at any time — but in the Southwest, the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range has become a key route for drugs and illegal immigrants looking to avoid detection as they make the trek into the U.S.
…The area is used so commonly by drug gangs that it is known in the region as the “Goldwater East Tactical Range Smuggling Corridor.”
Arizona has repeatedly been in the news over the years for this very issue of illegals crossing the Arizona border and committing crimes. Yet here is the Arizona Republican Establishment suddenly spurning Trump for his stance, but going out of their way to attack him. Here is this from The Arizona Republic:
Trump shunned by Arizona's GOP establishment ahead of Phoenix visit
The story reads in part:
Arizona's top Republicans are snubbing Donald Trump as he prepares to bring his surging GOP presidential campaign and brash talk on immigration to Phoenix.
U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake and Gov. Doug Ducey will not attend the Saturday event — now set for the Phoenix Convention Center — hosted by the Republican Party of Maricopa County and featuring Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
"Donald Trump's views are coarse, ill-informed and inaccurate, and they are not representative of the Republican Party," said Flake, who with McCain was one of the authors of a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform that passed the U.S. Senate in 2013. "As an elected Republican official, I'm disappointed the county party would host a speaker that so damages the party's image.”
…"I just think that it is offensive to not only Hispanic citizenry, but other citizenry, but he's entitled to say what he wants to say," McCain said. "But I guarantee you the overwhelming majority (in Arizona) ... do not agree with his attitude, that he has displayed, toward our Hispanic citizens. We love them."
Over in the New York Times some persons identified as “Republican elders” were cited in this fashion:
Dispirited party elders, worried that Republicans are handing Democratic rivals a powerful campaign weapon by allowing Mr. Trump’s voice to be depicted as representative of the party, are sounding the alarm with growing urgency.
"The Republican Party is making a mistake if they think they can just remain quiet when he speaks up, or to demur or to just lightly distance themselves," said Peter Wehner, a former official in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. "He’s doing tremendous damage."
This is astounding. The US Border Patrol has and does document one incident after another of illegal immigrants who have crossed the US Border only to commit, yes, rape, “sexual battery to a child”, drug smuggling, murder and all the rest. This is no secret, as Ben Graham of MRCTV reports here.
Only now that Kathryn Steinle’s murder has finally made news, with Trump focusing the media’s attention on the incident, has Jamiel Shaw Sr. been able to get attention on the murder of his namesake 17-year old son , the high school football star in Los Angeles, by an illegal immigrant. Reported KTLA-5 :
“Shaw died at age 17 in a 2008 shooting near his Arlington Heights home when gang member Pedro Espinoza mistook him for a rival gang member because of the victim’s red Spider-Man backpack.
Espinoza, who was in the country illegally, was in 2012 sentenced to death for the murder. He had jumped out of a vehicle, shot Shaw in the stomach and then fired a second execution-style shot in his head.
Shaw was a running back at Los Angeles High School and had been named the Southern League’s most valuable player. He reportedly drew interest from Stanford and Rutgers universities.”
The Shaw family is scheduled to meet with Donald Trump on his stop in Los Angeles. What did Mr. Shaw have to say of Trump’s statements that have drawn all this outrage from the media and Establishment Republicans?
“Jamiel Shaw Jr.’s father told FoxNews.com that Trump’s comments about immigrants made him “happy for the first time.”
“When that happened, I felt good. I felt hope,” Jamiel Shaw Sr. said, Fox News reported.”
Shaw added that he saw Trump as a “breath of fresh air.”
One can only wonder. Just how big is the gulf that separates media institutions and Establishment Republicans from, say, Jamiel Shaw Sr? Is the media really determined to call Mr. Shaw - a black man - a racist for quite accurately blaming his son’s cold-blooded murder on an illegal immigrant? Are Arizona’s Senators McCain and Flake and the state’s governor and those Republican “elders” like Mr. Wehner really saying that rallying to the support of the African-American Jamiel Shaw Sr. and his family is doing “tremendous damage” to the GOP?
The Republican Party, not to put too fine a point on this, came into being to end slavery. To allow an illegal immigrant to not only cross the border but murder an American citizen - any American citizen but in this particular case a 17-year old African-American at that - is to effectively enslave the Shaw family to live the rest of their life without the son they loved and cherished.
With all due respect, whatever else Donald Trump is doing, he is showing just how wide the gulf between media elites and those who are running the Republican Party really is.
And Grand Canyon-sized doesn’t begin to describe it. Wow.
