Stephen Miller versus CNN: Today's News for August 3rd

Full exchange between Stephen Miller & @acosta on Statue of Liberty & immigration. "It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree." pic.twitter.com/9eHTiNaR4G

— CSPAN (@cspan) August 2, 2017

If you have not watched the video above, please do. It is fun watching a media Leftist get destroyed.

Even more fun is how CNN downplayed it:

CNN:

CNN's Acosta, White House aide clash over immigration at briefing

CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta clashed with White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller at the press briefing Wednesday over President Donald Trump's support for legislation that would curb the level of legal immigration to the United States by instituting a skills-based immigration system.

Invoking the famous poem inscribed in the base of Statue of Liberty which beckons the world's "tired ... poor ... huddled masses yearning to breathe free" to America's shores, Acosta asked Miller if the White House was "trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country."

"It doesn't say anything about speaking English," pressed Acosta. "[A]ren't you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you are telling them they have to speak English?" 

Miller argued that speaking English is already a requirement for people seeking to become naturalized Americans, and dismissed Acosta's citation of the words on the Statue of Liberty, saying they were a later addition to the statue.

"The Statue of Liberty ... is a symbol of American liberty lighting the world," said Miller. "The poem that you are referring to was added later and is not part of the original Statue of Liberty."

Miller went on to ask Acosta just how many legal immigrants per year would satisfy a so-called "Statue of Liberty law of the land."

"Tell me what years meet Jim Acosta's definition of the Statue of Liberty poem law of the land?" he asked. 

Nowhere in the article do they mention Acosta's incredibly stupid comment calling Miller's argument against the Statue of Liberty poem as "National Park revisionism". While the poem, titled "The New Colossus", is an important part of American culture, poems aren't necessarily a practical way to dictate political policy.

Having said that, the reason for the confrontation was The Raise Act:

In a speech at the White House earlier Wednesday, Trump backed The Raise Act, legislation proposed by Republican Sens. David Perdue and Tom Cotton. The bill faces long odds in Congress.

Top White House aides have been working with Perdue and Cotton on the bill, which if passed would dramatically remake the current immigration system.

Trump cast the proposal as a way to protect American workers by reducing unskilled immigration and creating a merit-based system that grades possible immigrants based on their ability to work in the United States.

"It has not been fair to our people, to our citizens, to our workers," Trump said of the current immigration system, specifically citing low-income and minority workers.

The problem with The Raise Act is it doubles down on stupid. Our problem with illegal immigration is unskilled laborers entering the country by the millions. They do this because they can find work which pays better than in their home countries, even if it is illegal and sub-minimum wage. In other words, they are happily willing to work illegally, so what do we do? The Raise Act makes it even harder for them to come into the country legally.

Put aside all of Jim Acosta's feel-good platitudes, and The Raise Act is still dumb. But Stephen Miller made Acosta look like an idiot, when it could have easily been the other way around.

Trump's stupidity aside, he does manage to get something else right:

NBC News:

Trump Says U.S.‘Losing’ Afghan War in Tense Meeting With Generals

President Donald Trump has become increasingly frustrated with his advisers tasked with crafting a new U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and recently suggested firing the war's top military commander during a tense meeting at the White House, according to senior administration officials.

During the July 19 meeting, Trump repeatedly suggested that Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford replace Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, because he is not winning the war, the officials said. Trump has not met Nicholson, and the Pentagon has been considering extending his time in Afghanistan.

Over nearly two hours in the situation room, according to the officials, Trump complained about NATO allies, inquired about the United States getting a piece of Afghan’s mineral wealth and repeatedly said the top U.S. general there should be fired. He also startled the room with a story that seemed to compare their advice to that of a paid consultant who cost a tony New York restaurateur profits by offering bad advice.

Trump is the third president to grapple with the war in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, two American troops were killed in Afghanistan when a convoy they were in came under attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Trump's national security team has been trying for months to come up with a new strategy he can approve. Those advisers are set to meet again to discuss the issue on Thursday at the White House. The president is not currently scheduled to attend the meeting, though one official said that could change.

Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush went through multiple strategies over the course of their presidencies to try to stabilize Afghanistan. What set Trump apart in the July meeting was his open questioning of the quality of the advice he was receiving.

Are our generals really this stupid? How many empires have thrown their armies into Afghanistan, only to lose? The British and the Russians learned the hard way, yet the U.S. still cannot seem to learn this lesson after 16 years. At least Trump is starting to wake up.

As for the generals, they get the bear:

Finally, in other news...

CNN:

NAACP issues its first statewide travel advisory, for Missouri

The NAACP is sending a strong message to people of color traveling through Missouri: Go at your own risk.

The organization is circulating a travel advisory after the state passed a law that Missouri's NAACP conference says allows for legal discrimination. The warning cites several discriminatory incidents in Missouri, included as examples of "looming danger" in the state.

...The advisory was issued after Senate Bill 43 -- which makes it more difficult for employees to prove their protected class, like race or gender, directly led to unlawful discrimination -- passed through the Missouri Legislature in June. Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens signed it into law soon after.

Greitens and other supporters of the bill have said it puts Missouri's standards for lawsuits in line with other states.

But that's not how the NAACP sees it. The Missouri NAACP State Conference called the legislation a "Jim Crow Bill."

From Senate Bill 43:

Currently, under the Missouri Human Rights Act (MHRA), a practice is unlawful when the protected classification is a contributing factor in the decision to discriminate. This act changes that standard to the motivating factor. The motivating factor is defined to mean that the employee's protected classification actually played a role in the adverse action or decision and had a determinative influence on the adverse decision or action. The person must further prove that such action was the direct proximate cause of the claimed damages.

If anything, this requires discrimination claims to have a bit more clarity. Claiming discrimination as a "contributing factor" opens a whole can of worms, placing a heavy burden on the defendant to prove their innocence. For example, if an employer fires someone of a different race for a specific cause which can be proven by the employer, then the employee can just claim their race as a contributing factor, even when the employee is in the wrong.

But what does this have to do with minorities traveling to Missouri? Back to the article:

There have been other instances of discrimination in the state that could have elicited an advisory before this, several of which are listed in the warning. Among them are racist incidents reported at the University of Missouri that prompted protests across campus in 2015, as well as the state attorney general's annual report that found black drivers were stopped by police at a rate 75% higher than white drivers.

Pulling up that annual report, it shows that the blacks are 11% of the total population, yet they got stopped by police for 18% of all traffic violations. On the other hand, the arrest rate for blacks is also higher, 6.59% versus 4.18% for whites. Is this disparity due to racism? Possibly. Is all of this disparity due to racism? That is unknown.