At this point, the only thing we know for sure about the presidential election is that if Donald Trump loses, it will be because of his personality, and if he wins, it will be because of immigration.
I know this because the media are publishing almost as many stories about the wonders of immigration as they are about Trump being Adolf Hitler. The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC, the lickspittles at Cato -- you can't open your computer or turn on the TV without encountering a tidal wave of lies about our beloved immigrants. (Former Washington Post readers, you'll just have to take my word for it.)
In the Times, Linda Qiu produced a whopper of an article purporting to refute Trump's malicious nonsense about immigration, and as an immigrant herself, she must be completely unbiased, so I'll use that as my template.
Qiu begins with the silly claim that Trump and his vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, blame everything on illegal immigrants. (Her article is already hanging in my Museum of Straw Man Arguments.)
"Be it gun violence, high housing costs, long wait times at emergency rooms or an impending depletion of disaster relief funding," she writes, "Mr. Trump and Senator JD Vance have offered the same diagnosis: All are because of unauthorized immigration."
Well, maybe not exclusively because of illegal immigration. (Only RACISM can be blamed for everything.) But while immigration is not 100% responsible for these problems, it's hard to think of anything that's been made easier to solve by dumping millions of uneducated, poverty-stricken, non-English-speaking people on our country.
Nevertheless, Qiu claims Trump and Vance are not merely overstating the case, but are completely wrong. You see, she has "experts."
One "expert," Ieva Jusionyte, a professor at Brown University, said, "Vance is not correct that there is an influx of illegal guns from Mexico ... It is simply not a thing."
I totally trust someone who says, "it is simply not a thing." If she threw in "not on my bingo card" or "saying the quiet part out loud," she'd have sold me right there.
Except Jusionyte's claim is absurd. Where do liberals imagine criminals get their guns? According to the Department of Justice, the guns used in crimes mainly come from illegal sources, to wit: people involved in the sale of illegal drugs, markets for stolen goods and other criminals or criminal enterprises. (How about the much-maligned gun shows? A grand total of about 0.8% of guns used in crimes come from gun shows. Ninety percent of guns used in crimes do not come from any retail source at all.)
As it happens, Mexican cartels are a gigantic criminal enterprise right on our border. They move enough fentanyl, synthetic methamphetamine and other drugs into our country to kill about 100,000 Americans every year. But, according to Jusionyte, not guns -- no sir! Perhaps cartel enforcers protect their "multibillion-dollar narco empire" (New York Times) with complaints to the HR department.
The Times' Qiu cites other "government data and experts" who claim we're the ones sending guns to the cartels. (NYT rule: Always blame Americans.)
Liberals have been pushing this lie for 20 years. They finally got so desperate that Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, had to start putting U.S. guns directly into the hands of Mexican drug cartels so that Democrats could blame innocent American gun dealers. (For my younger readers, look up "Operation Fast and Furious.")
Except Holder got caught, so the Democrats' next idea was to dummy up a phony study that's been refuted a million times, but was bought hook, line and sinker by the crack Times reporter.
Citing "U.S. and Mexican governments and independent researchers" -- I just hope the independent researchers use phrases like "that's not a thing" -- Qiu somberly reported that "about 70 percent of firearms recovered at crime scenes in Mexico came from the United States."
That is precisely the opposite of the truth -- also my idea for the Times' new motto.
Mexico doesn't send all guns retrieved from crime scenes to the U.S. for tracing, only the ones with serial numbers, indicating they came from the U.S. About 70% of guns used by Mexican criminals have no serial numbers and no conceivable connection to the U.S., and, therefore, were never sent to the U.S. for tracing.
It's only among the roughly 30% that were sent to the U.S. that a majority were traced to the U.S. That's the Democrats' big gotcha: Guns from the U.S. were traced to the U.S.! It's a miracle! On the other hand, more than 80% of all guns found at Mexican crime scenes were not from the U.S.
This is the sort of stupid game liberals play to try to convince us that all guns are bad and all Mexicans are good -- definitely better than Americans, with their nasty gun culture.
As for housing, anyone with the intellect of a parakeet ought to be able to grasp that more people in need of housing will inevitably drive up the price of housing. It's called the Law of Supply and Demand. If Qiu has figured out a way to repeal that law, she should publish immediately. Not only will she win a Nobel Prize in economics, but everyone in the world can have beachfront property and a classic six on Park Avenue.
On the other hand, if she hasn't repealed the law of supply and demand, Qiu is, in fact, dumber than a parakeet.
Finally, of course mass third world immigration harms our schools, hospitals, Social Security, disaster relief and every other service meant for the American people. First, there are the gobs of money required to accommodate millions of non-English speakers -- like bilingual teachers, doctors, nurses, law enforcement officers, court translators, etc. All mandated by law.
But also, since 1970, we have been deliberately bringing in the poorest, least-educated people in the world. They don't come close to making enough money to pay for the massive amounts of services they consume. Every additional schoolbook, teacher, bus driver, janitor, hospital bed, catheter, liver transplant -- that's on you, taxpayer. (If Kamala Harris is elected, you'll be on the hook for illegals' transgender operations, too.)
Not surprisingly, a majority, 54%, of immigrant-headed households are on welfare, compared to only 39% of U.S.-born households -- i.e., the people government assistance was intended to help. For illegal immigrants, the figure is 59%. It might be time to update liberals' favorite cliche to, "We're a nation of immigrants on public assistance."
What happened to the claim that immigrants, especially illegals, aren't allowed to collect welfare? Oh, yeah, that's a lie.
Among other free stuff, illegals get free school breakfasts and lunch, as well as women, infants and children (WIC) benefits, plus emergency room care for all their medical needs. Some states give illegals Medicaid and SNAP. Most important, illegals simply need to drop a baby, and they can immediately start collecting full welfare on behalf of their allegedly, but not really, "American citizen" kid.
I don't like Trump's personality either, but since the left will not stop bringing in the third world until our country is the same as every other country and there's no reason for anyone to come here, we don't have much of a choice on Tuesday.