The holiday season is approaching and it’s the time for miracles. For Salon, the unabashedly liberal site, Christmas may have come early with an op-ed from a liberal, tenured history professor from Austin, Texas, who says that he’s had it with the media lying about President-elect Donald J. Trump. Okay—maybe it’s not really a holiday miracle, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Al Martinez was honing in on one of Trump’s remarks, which got mangled in the press: that Mexicans are rapists. He juxtaposed what Trump said, followed by what the media reported, along with the notion that yeah—maybe illegal immigrants killing people is actually an issue that deserves some attention. Moreover, he later explains how Trump’s position is actually more in line with exiting federal immigration laws (how awful!), and that while the Left tried to paint the president-elect as a racist by naming this, that, and the other; they should count how many times he’s praised Mexicans. Heck, he praised them in the statement that landed him in media hot water to begin with back in 2015.
This is what Trump said:“When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. […] When Mexico sends its people they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you; they’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting.”
You might well dislike Trump’s words. I did. But let’s not make it worse. He did not say that all Mexicans are rapists. Yet that’s what many commentators did. For example, Politico misquoted Trump by omitting his phrase about “good people.” They said he was “demonizing Mexicans as rapists.” They argued that Mexicans do not really commit more rapes in the U.S. than whites. But that’s not what Trump claimed.
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It is no wonder that many people think the media is grossly dishonest. No wonder Mr. Trump’s critiques of the media make his followers cheer.
Trump was discussing crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants. Is it true that some people who illegally cross the border from Mexico are good? Yes. Is it true that some others commit crimes? Yes. Is that a problem? People disagree. Some conjecture that unauthorized immigrants don’t commit more crimes than U.S. citizens. But crimes by unauthorized immigrants, even murders, would not have happened if those individuals had not entered the U.S.
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The Texas Department of Public Safety identified 207,076 foreign aliens who were booked into Texas county jails from October 2008 through August 1, 2014. Their term “foreign aliens” includes both foreigners who are in Texas legally and foreigners who entered illegally. They were accused of 357,884 crimes in those 70 months, including these charges: 4,413 terroristic threats, 60,973 robberies and larcenies, 6,636 vehicle thefts, 78,682 assaults, 12,869 sexual assaults and offenses, 1,113 kidnapping, and 3,089 homicides.
That includes, an average of 1,383 charges of sexual assaults per year, in Texas alone. The real number of rapes and sexual assaults is larger since many victims do not report these crimes. According to the National Crime and Victimization Survey, 2008-2012, approximately 68% of sexual assault crimes are not reported. So I estimate that foreigners commit roughly 4,000 sexual assaults in Texas each year.
In Texas, roughly 529 foreigners per year were accused of committing murder. Plus, the FBI reports that 36% of homicides nationwide remain unsolved.
These crime rates are staggering and offensive. None of the women and men who were killed in by unauthorized immigrants in Texas would have died if the murderers had not entered the U.S. illegally.
These are not just words. Pause for a moment to think about a Texas woman whose husband was murdered one night. Think about parents who never saw their son again because he was murdered. Think of the thousands of families standing at the cemeteries.
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Trump says that everyone who didn’t enter the U.S. legally should return to their countries. “They have to go.” We might well disagree. But his view is closer to Immigration law. If you prefer amnesty then lawmakers have to create a law to that effect. Trump insists: “I want people to come in, but they have to come in legally.”
Regardless, countless many people think that Trump is racist against Mexicans. I suggest that anyone who thinks that should count how many times Trump has praised Mexicans.
Martinez said he is a Warren and Sanders fan, but these are liberals we can talk to without having the fear of being assaulted or smeared as bigots in a conversation. It also seemed as if Salon nixed some portions of his piece, which he re-posted in the comments section of Salon. This related to the times Trump has praised the Mexican people.
“He [Trump] says such things again and again, to tens of thousands of people at rallies in Texas, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arizona, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nevada, Florida, California, Virginia, Tennessee, Illinois, etc. Trump says: “I love the Mexican people,” they’re “great people,” he wrote. “People don’t know that he says these things because the press does not report it,” he added.
I may have been a bit knee jerk with Trump. No, I was very knee jerk with Trump because I wanted to see a solid Republican take on Hillary Clinton, I still feel if Rubio had won the nomination we still would’ve won, but Trump won the nomination. The primary was over. My guys lost and the only principle that mattered was denying Hillary Clinton the keys to the White House. Period. Yes, I criticized Trump on the campaign trail, only because even with him as our nominee, though deeply flawed, I thought he could still beat her since Clinton was worse. Regardless, in retrospect, let’s be honest that Trump endured the mother of all media attacks against him.
Still, even with the media coming at him from all sides, the points that Martinez noted, how the media distorts or refuses to report, drove voters in the rural parts of the country to ignore them. In fact, some could say that they bolstered his support among his supporters. To them, Trump was driving the media elite who in turn serves the interests of the cosmopolitan elites. Now, some of the Left might go after Professor Martinez for simply saying that the media shouldn’t lie, that there are stats that show illegal immigrants commit crimes, and that Trump might not be a radical on immigration as some are saying in the press. Yet, his point is mainly focused on the first part, which is that the media was caught lying pervasively this cycle. Maybe that was the kick that got Trump to not only beat Clinton, but also bring more Republicans into the fold. There were a lot of Republicans who were wary about Trump, though 90 percent ended up voting for him. You may not think Trump is a Republican, but the attacks on him were absurd. In fact, every attack on Republican candidates since the beginning of time has been ridiculous. Have we forgotten that Mitt Romney was a bully or something in college? That he will ban birth control? That he’s the devil incarnate? Those attacks have been lobbed; no one listens to them now.
So, bravo Mr. Martinez for writing this for Salon, though the lefty publication did post in August how the Iran Deal is a mess and it's all Obama’s fault. Again, broken clocks being right twice a day. As annoying as they are, this is why you should read left wing news sites because it's good to know the other side’s argument and sometimes you could be surprised by what gets published.