On Banning Muslims Howie Carr Got There First

There is the latest Beltway narrative that the entire political establishment has gotten up in bipartisan unison and are denouncing Trump. So there you go. You can't' criticize any other Republican other than Trump-and Carson of course, and maybe Cruz.

All the guys who actually have support. In truth the picture is far more messy. While Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus are disagreeing with Trump here they aren't repudiating him.

But it's the talk show hosts that matter more in trying to suss out where the base really sits, not Paul Ryan, Morning Joe, or Jennifer Rubin. They are not leaving Trump, though Laura Ingraham seems a bit cautious about his latest outrage.

Ingraham, first up in the rotation, showed the most outward skepticism of Trump’s proposal on Tuesday.

“In this case he didn’t need to do this, he didn’t need to say this,” Ingraham said. “It hurts the cause of populism and nationalism for someone to approach it in that way.”

“The establishment has no credibility,” Ingraham said, and “Bush and Rubio are not going to go up as a result of Trump’s comment.” But Trump “lit a Christmas candle with a flamethrower, you don’t need to do that. Cruz’s approach is a better one, Rand Paul’s approach is probably a better one.” Cruz has proposed legislation banning refugees from countries that contain territory controlled by terrorist groups, like Iraq and Syria, and Paul has proposed a bill that would halt immigration from over 30 countries with “high risk” of terrorism."

Ingraham said instead of a pause in Muslim immigration, she supports “a pause on immigration period coming into this country.”

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/conservative-talk-radio-hosts-dont-reject-trump-in-wake-of-m#.inZdq0oWy

But hopefully you notice that this is an even more radical thing than what Trump said. He said pause Muslim immigration, she said pause it period.

And while Cruz and Rand aren't outright calling for a ban their plans would amount to something like it.

"Limbaugh, for his part, didn’t criticize Trump for his comments, though he didn’t specifically endorse the content of Trump’s proposal. Instead, he gave an extended soliloquy about Trump’s relationship with the media and with his party’s establishment."

“You Republicans, you can denounce Trump all day, all week, all month, and the Democrat Party and the media are still gonna say you laid the table for it,” Limbaugh said. “You can condemn Trump all you want, but it is not going to buy you any love or respect or admiration from the drive-by media and the Democrats. Now, folks, the conventional wisdom is that Trump is scum, that Trump is a reprobate, that Trump is dangerous, that Trump is obscene, Trump’s insane, Trump’s a lunatic, Trump’s dangerous, Trump’s got to go. Why join in with that phrase? Why join that crowd? We never fall in with conventional wisdom here."

By the way, if you've listened to Rush at all, you know this is his standard operating procedure-he usually doesn't take a specific position at least at first. He's very cautious. In that sense, Ingraham has gone out on a bigger limb than Rush has policy wise.

But then again, Rush has gone one better today. He's provided a justification for the policy. Or at least-and this is often just as good-a historical context. He argues that, after all, Jimmy Carter put a ban on Iranians during the Hostage Crisis.

And indeed, if you do a search, you find that all the Right wing outfits are running this story.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/261062/carter-banned-iranians-coming-us-during-hostage-daniel-greenfield

Anyway, I was wondering where Howie Carr is on all this. He boasts-like Rand Paul-that he got there first:

"Hey moonbats, guess what… 
prez can ban Muslims from U.S."

"For the record, this is what I tweeted out Sunday night after Obama’s pathetic address from the Oval Office:"

“time to close the border. No racial profiling. Nobody NOBODY can come in. What could be fairer?”

"So I’m not with Donald Trump on banning only Muslims, never was. I want to turn off the immigration spigot the Constitutional way, the doable way. (If you ask a terrorist flying in from Karachi if he’s a Muslim, what do you think he’s going to say?) It’s time to stop immigration, not just because of terrorism, but also to halt rampant lawbreaking and the multi-billion dollar abuse of the welfare system by undocumented Democrats.:"

http://howiecarrshow.com/hey-moonbats-guess-what-%E2%80%A8prez-can-ban-muslims-from-u-s/

Aha. So Carr is actually criticizing Trump for not going far enough. A ban on all immigration, period.

Here’s another document I’d like to put on the record. It was sent to me by someone in the office of a Republican senator (hint: not Kelly Ayotte or Susan Collins).

"It’s federal law, from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 – a year in which the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency. I’m going to guess that among those voting to make the following words the law of the land was Cong. John F. Kennedy D-MA."

“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

There you go. Trump is surely not losing any votes in Howie Carr nation. Howie also had a poll of his own fans and 50% are more likely to support Trump now, 39% about the same, with just 11% less.

Those a la Lawrence O'Donnell who think this is the end for Trump are smoking the kind of weed the kids kill for. One other thing you hear is that Trump has topped out and his latest comments mean he can't expand beyond 30%.

How do you know? Some recent polls have shown him with close to 40%. But in these early contests with 14 candidates, 30% is enough for a landslide.