SORRY NY TIMES ... THE REAL KEVIN McCARTHY HAS BEEN AN IDEOLOGUE, NOT A MODERATE

So the NY Times has dubbed Congressman Kevin McCarthy a moderate who has Tea Party "bona fides." Then they suggest that he's a deal-maker because, while he was in the California Assembly, he was able to get a $1 billion Central Valley earmark (on a $37 billion infrastructure project) from Gov. Schwarzenegger.

So, yeah, if we are to believe the NY Times, Rep. McCarthy is a moderate, a Tea Party favorite, and a deal-maker all in one. He's all things to all people. A savior of sorts, I guess.

It's coverage like this that convinces me that traditional print media can get lazy, or don't always do their homework.

To be sure, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank does a good job reminding us that Rep. McCarthy has trouble putting his thoughts together when he speaks. But stumbling over words on a regular basis - as Milbank notes - has never been an obstacle to high office.

The reality is that while he's been in leadership positions at the state and national levels Rep. McCarthy has been a big part of stonewalling and obstructing legislation that could have helped his constituents, and his country. He's been an ideologue, not a moderate. Let's take a look.

GUMMING UP THE WORKS: Rep. McCarthy's "no new taxes" pledge while he was an assembly member in California did nothing to help solve California's budget problems. In fact, he helped make budget matters worse with his Grover Norquist-inspired pledge. Once Rep. McCarthy left the state assembly, and the Democrats took over the legislature and the governor's office, taxes were raised. California is now staring at budget surpluses. Gumming up the works doesn't make you a moderate. It makes you an ideologue. I write about it here.

NO NEW TAXES PLEDGE, ON STEROIDS & THE PARTY OF NO: Rep. McCarthy's "no new taxes" pledge was taken to a new level when he went to Washington. It actually went on steroids. Once Republicans became the majority party in the House of Representatives - and Rep. McCarthy became Majority Whip - House Republicans effectively turned "no new taxes" into "The Party of No." As Robert Draper pointed out in Do Not Ask What Good We Do Rep. McCarthy and the GOP leadership pledged not to work with President Obama on the night of his first inauguration. And they have stuck to their pledge. Simply saying "No" doesn't make you a deal-maker. It makes you an ideologue. I write about it here.

DISTRICT TOWN HALL TURNS INTO GOP RED MEAT FESTIVAL: Rep. McCarthy held a health care town hall meeting in his district. It was supposed to be a Q&A that would inform district constituents about Obamacare. It was anything but an informative town hall meeting. Held at California State University, Bakersfield the event quickly turned into a GOP-McCarthy love fest, with Rep. McCarthy complaining about deficits (caused by Bush) and lecturing those who asked genuine questions about health insurance. Turning a town hall meeting into a political rally doesn't make you a moderate. It makes you an ideologue. I was there, and wrote about it here.

LEGISLATIVE GAME PLAYING / DROUGHTS ARE MAN-MADE?: For years the GOP has been opposed to big government (states' rights, you know), and scoffed at those who claim that climate change is man-made. Then, under Rep. McCarthy's guidance, House Republicans passed H.R. 3964 which was sponsored (wink, wink) by Rep. David Valadao. Supporters of H.R. 3964 claim that not only is the drought in California "man-made" but the problem requires the federal government to step in to manage California's water system (good bye states' rights, hello big government). Worse, H.R. 3964 does nothing to make it rain or snow, which is the real cause of California's drought conditions. But it certainly does much to promote the career of Rep. David Valadao, whose district sits adjacent to - you guessed it - Rep. McCarthy's. Legislative stunts like this don't make you a moderate. It makes you an ideologue. I wrote about it here.

THE UNDEMOCRATIC SPIRIT: Rep. McCarthy's district was drawn to keep him in office, well, forever. This is actually not a big deal, and can't be pinned on Rep. McCarthy. Partisan redistricting is a national problem. The issue here is how Rep. McCarthy ducked debates with his 2012 congressional opponent, Terry Phillips, finally agreeing to one television debate. Then, in spite of Phillips having no chance of winning Rep. McCarthy got our local paper's CEO to plant a story for him so he could set a negative narrative about Terry Phillips on local radio. For those of you interested in these kind of issues, I write about it here. 

The point of all this is that the NY Times has done all of us a disservice by painting Congressman Kevin McCarthy as a work across the aisle "moderate" Republican who helped Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pass some legislation (all the while making sure no new taxes were raised to pay down the state's debt).

Helping your party's governor get things done, while turning your back on our nation's president, does not make you a consensus builder, or a moderate.

The reality is Rep. McCarthy is adept at embracing and pushing party trends. No new taxes, opposing immigration reform, opposing jobs programs unless they contain tax cut poison pills, no new spending for Veterans (even securing a "D" grade from the Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans of America), passing faux legislation that won't see the light of day, and an obscene obsession with saying no on the Affordable Care Act is not the sign of a moderate, or a deal-maker.

Then we have Rep. McCarthy standing by as House Republicans played fast with budget deficit figures, and even presented a budget with no numbers.

At the end of the day Rep. McCarthy's ascent says a lot about his ability to read votes, his discipline, and his perseverance. He is a hard worker. But his success is also a product of towing the party line and his ability to listen to people, while making them feel that he's their best friend (he's very good at this). He's even gotten many Silicon Valley leaders to say nice things about him, with many impressed that McCarthy "listens" but does not ask for money (his safe seat and leadership position grant him this luxury when he goes to the Silicon Valley).

Rep. McCarthy has also benefited from the tutelage and contacts of his predecessor, former Ways and Means chair Bill Thomas. Throw in the fact that he's in a safe congressional district, which allows him to throw money around Washington, and it's not hard to understand why Rep. McCarthy is where he's at today.

The problem for all of us is that Rep. McCarthy's ascent to the #2 position in the House of Representatives only means that the status quo (gridlock) will continue, and might even worsen.

If there is any glimmer of hope it's that Rep. McCarthy can count. His congressional district is now 35 percent Latino, and that number is growing.

Kern county, California. Rep. McCarthy's congressional district (click here) covers much of Kern.

Because of changing demographics in California there may come a point when Rep. McCarthy will have to shift his positions, or explain the votes he's tied himself to today. But this doesn't mean Rep. McCarthy is a moderate. It only means that he knows how to survive politically.

Until this day comes, it's a mistake to see Rep. McCarthy as the NY Times paints him. Up to this point he's been an ideologue who has put the interests of his party above good public policy. And we all know how that's turned out.

- Mark 

KEVIN McCARTHY'S DOUBLE LIFE

For those of you who haven't seen it, below I've attached the article Robert Price - editor and CEO of the Bakersfield Californian - wrote about Kevin McCarthy, our local congressman and aspiring Speaker of the House. 

In "A Tale of Two Cities and One Congressman" Mr. Price writes what Rep. McCarthy's constituents have been grumbling about for years. Kevin is more concerned about his position in Washington than the interests of his constituents, or the interests of our nation. Enjoy.

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Congressman Kevin McCarthy leads a double life.

In Washington, he's golden: Heir apparent to retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan, frequent and familiar White House guest, donor-connected darling of vulnerable Republican incumbents.

In Bakersfield, not quite so much anymore: He's still a man constituents really, really want to believe, considering his warm reception at fundraisers and service club luncheons. But recent events have at least some of them wondering on which coast his allegiances truly lie.

In Washington, he collects big checks and hands them out too. McCarthy personally raised $12 million in campaign donations in the second quarter of 2018, running his take in this election cycle to a cool $40 million, and he has already distributed half of that total to GOP candidates. That doesn't include Thursday's haul at the Capitol Hill Club, where McCarthy secured commitments for $10 million from House Republicans — with the biggest check, $6 million, coming from McCarthy himself.

But back in his hometown district, growers are still sweating President Trump's tariffs. California is on the front lines of this growing U.S.-China trade war, and Kern County, the state's biggest agricultural producer, is especially vulnerable. Tree nuts, a huge local crop, have been specifically hard hit, a fact that must be particularly painful given McCarthy's personal connections with people in the Kern County almond and pistachio business.

Thank goodness for that $12 billion federal farm aid package, right? You know, the money that's supposed to ease the impact of China's retaliatory counter-tariffs. Except the people benefitting from the aid package are primarily the producers of soybeans, sorghum, corn, wheat, cotton, dairy and hogs — in other words Midwestern states and not (except for dairy) California.

How can that happen, you ask, given McCarthy's co-starring role in the Donald Trump show alongside House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes of Fresno? They're both Trump favorites who've gone to bat for the president time and time again. And they represent vital California farming districts.

Tough luck, Central Valley. Republican strategists know their districts will send McCarthy and Nunes back to Washington in November (and California will still be blue in 2020) no matter what they pull on constituents. But things aren't so certain in vulnerable pockets of the heartland. So, campaign strategy, not district economic need, carries the day.

McCarthy has his challenges in Washington, too. His path to the speakership was cleared considerably when Ryan and the majority whip, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, endorsed him; Scalise had considered a run himself. But it was muddied again Thursday when Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, co-founder of the conservative Freedom Caucus, announced that he would seek the speaker post.

Most House Republicans recognize that Jordan is a long shot. But Jordan could try to extract promises from McCarthy, should Republicans hold the House in November. And one of those promises is sure to involve an immigration game plan that rejects anything that smells even remotely like amnesty.

Already McCarthy has had to go back on a promise to hold a vote before the August recess on a conservative immigration bill that included a much-needed guest-worker program for farmers. That flip put McCarthy in an awkward spot; just last month he had assured several rank-and-file members there'd be a vote, and his assurances compelled at least two congressmen to withhold support for legislation that would have created a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. They figured they'd have the opportunity to do so again in August. Now they probably won't.

“There are those of us (who) need to go back (home) and show that we’re doing all we can to do (on immigration reform)," one of those Republican congressmen, Dennis Ross of Florida, told Politico. "... And if it fails, it fails."

The American Farm Bureau Federation supports a guest worker program, and so does the Kern County Farm Bureau, which reprinted in its members' newsletter one of my recent columns criticizing McCarthy's conflicting allegiances.

Bakersfield has noticed, Kevin.

I'll concede McCarthy has one tough job. He's supposed to keep 236 Republicans in line and on the same page, a task that is quite impossible. He's also supposed to be looking out for the 707,000 people of the 23rd Congressional District, however, and when the interests of those two jobs diverge, he regularly chooses the former over the latter.

In Washington, McCarthy is the golden goose, the man you want by your side if you're an at-risk Republican member of Congress in need of financial assistance.

But back in Bakersfield, if you're an almond grower worried about who might buy your crop next year, or a grape grower wondering who might be picking yours, McCarthy looks, more and more, like a different sort of poultry.

Robert Price's column appears Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Reach him at rprice@bakersfield.com or @stubblebuzz. The opinions expressed are his own.

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- Mark

ILLEGALITY OF TRUMP SEEKING FOREIGN ASSISTANCE FOR CAMPAIGN LOST ON MINORITY LEADER KEVIN McCARTHY

If you didn't watch last night's 60 Minutes segment, where Rep. Kevin McCarthy basically shows the world he doesn't do his homework, know one thing: Kevin not only doesn't do his homework, but rather than admit he's wrong, or adjust his views when confronted with new information, he just changes topics. Check this out. 

When asked about President Trump effectively using the power of his office to extort campaign help from Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, GOP Minority Leader McCarthy muffed the question. The conversation with CBS's Scott Pelley went like this:

PELLEY: What do you make of this exchange? President Zelensky says, “We are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.” And President Trump replies, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” 

MCCARTHY: You just added another word. 

PELLEY: No, it’s in the transcript. 

MCCARTHY: He said- “I’d like you to do a favor 'though'”? 

PELLEY: Yes, it’s in the White House transcript.

There was a brief exchange where Scott Pelley tried to get Kevin to acknowledge that Trump was trying to secure political help from a foreign government in exchange for promised military aid (a quid pro quo), but Kevin quickly tried to change the topic. 

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From the released transcript; Ukraine's President Zelensky asks about securing promised - and paid for - 

military weapons. President Trump responds with his not so cleverly couched "favor" (request for help)

 on an invented conspiracy involving "Crowdstrike" and the Bidens.

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Seeing what was going on, Scott Pelley interrupted the GOP leader by lightly scolding Kevin for using the White House's talking points on the topic (which were accidentally sent to Democrats in Congress). 

Kevin immediately denied seeing any White House talking points, but then ignored Pelley's suggestion that Trump was (again) trying to secure the help of a foreign government for his presidential campaign (as this timeline strongly suggests), which the Mueller Report indicates he did in the 2016 election. More specifically, the Mueller Report leads one to believe - in part because of obstruction efforts - that "while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." 

As we know, many people were indicted or went to prison for Trump's "non-exoneration".

It was clear Kevin didn't like being exposed by Scott Pelley for not knowing what was in the released - and very public - transcript. Nor did he like being reminded that he is simply doing the bidding of the Trump White House by sticking to the inadvertently released White House talking points. 

(But being unprepared is old hat for Kevin. He wasn't prepared for our surprise "debate" on The Ralph Bailey Show two years ago here in Bakersfield, which you can access by clicking here and here.) 

Here's the larger point. Donald Trump learned nothing from the Mueller Report, which did not exonerate him. Proof of this is that Trump is now soliciting, and is prepared to accept, help from foreign governments in his re-election bid. And he is prepared to turn America's foreign policy commitments into a mob-like racket in order to get it.

Worse, he now has the full support of the GOP's Minority Leader and his party colleagues. They don't care that Trump wasn't exonerated by the Mueller Report, and could care less if he continues doing business as usual.

And, yes, this is going to get worse before it gets better. 

Sigh ...

- Mark

UPDATE (10-2-19): The reviews are in on Kevin's 60 Minutes performance. Peter Wehner, who served in the Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II administrations, referred to Kevin McCarthy as "weak and pathetic" while Raw Story makes it clear that Republicans are afraid of looking "like Kevin McCarthy on 60 Minutes."

KEVIN McCARTHY'S "BENGHAZI ADMISSION" OFFERS US A GLIMPSE INTO AMERICA'S POLITICAL DYSTOPIA ...

The fallout from Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Bakersfield) Benghazi admission continues. Revealing that the GOP set up a "special Benghazi committee" to go after Hillary Clinton politically makes it clear that the goal of holding so many hearings wasn't to better understand what happened in Libya as much as it was to drag Clinton's poll numbers down.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has done a good job of highlighting how Rep. McCarthy's Benghazi slip of the tongue was followed by a string of less than articulate gaffes (here and here). This is an issue the Washington Post's Dana Milbank began drawing attention to last year. Unfortunately for Rep. McCarthy, Milbank is doing some followup work on the topic.

While it might be fun for the media to hype Rep. McCarthy's gaffes, we have a far more serious matter to think about. Congressional Republicans are using the halls of government to plan and go after an unannounced candidate for president. This tells us several things about the Republican Party, which many of us have known for years:

* House GOP leaders are now in perpetual campaign mode.  

* Using the halls of government for activities other than governing is viewed as a legitimate use of our institutions by the GOP.  

* Convincing people the GOP can do a better job is not as important as creating a false narrative (which helps explain the modern GOPs culture of obstruction).

All of these, on their own, should be embarrassing to our nation (who needs to govern, right?). I may even take the time to discuss them at a later date. But not now.

What caught my eye is something just as important: When Rep. Kevin McCarthy was being interviewed by Sean Hannity he effectively groveled and capitulated to Hannity's demands.

It was almost Orwellian. Think about it. Sean Hannity is a partisan hack who works for a fake news organization. Yet Rep. McCarthy felt no need to tell Hannity to back off because he's doing the people's work. He went along because he can't afford to alienate one of the grand wizards at Fox.

Watching Hannity berate and interrupt Rep. McCarthy was like watching a disappointed parent trying to discipline a kid who came back with a less than stellar report card. But this shouldn't be a surprise. Representative McCarthy couldn't direct the interview because he's not really in charge of the conservative agenda. Fox News is, and always has been.

Sean Hannity felt so empowered that he actually listed for Kevin the things he needed to do in order to get his support: (1) Defund Planned Parenthood; (2) Defund Executive Amnesty & Immigration; (3) Defund Obamacare; (4) Blow up the Iranian deal (because it will "lead to a modern day holocaust").

So, yeah, a second rate TV host was telling a sitting member of Congress - and the House Majority Leader at that - how to do his job. As if governing for all Americans comes second to his wishes.

Rather than telling Hannity that he's going to work for the American people Rep. McCarthy made it clear he was going to try and appease him and the gods at Fox News.

That Rep. McCarthy couldn't say anything to satisfy Hannity until about 5 minutes into the interview (clip below) isn't really as important as the fact that Sean Hannity views Kevin (and others in the GOP) as errand boys for the station's larger message and agenda. They view Republican talking heads who appear on their network as important only insofar as they help to legitimize Fox as a serious "news" source.

In this light, Rep. McCarthy was little more than a useful prop for the Fox network.

It's been this way for some time. Forcing answers on someone like Rep. McCarthy is actually old hat for Fox. Because they don't actually report the news Fox needs talking heads from Congress to give their program and message a sense of gravitas and urgency.

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Indeed, according to former George W. Bush speech writer David Frum, "Republicans originally thought Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox."

In the process Fox has created a parallel political universe that has little to do with the challenges of actually governing. Frum acknowledged as much when he pointed out, "conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, [and] its own laws of economics."

All of this reminds me of the apocryphal worker in the Soviet Union who famously commented, "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work."  For their part, the GOP is now mired in a modern political dystopia where their leaders pretend to lead, which Fox dutifully pretends to report.

Sigh ...

- Mark

You can watch the entire "Benghazi Admission" interview here. The Benghazi comments start at 4:21 in the clip. Rep. McCarthy asks Sean Hannity to help him with the GOP agenda at 5:39 ...

BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN TUTORS KEVIN McCARTHY ON GUN MASSACRES IN AMERICA

Robert Price, the CEO of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's hometown paper - the Bakersfield Californian - just penned a powerful piece on America's gun problem. At its root, America's gun problem is really a political problem which, because of his position in Washington, makes it Kevin's problem.

Read the piece, which I've copied below. You'll be glad you did.

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ROBERT PRICE: McCarthy's tired gun-violence talking points

Three years ago, in the wake of yet another mass shooting, a reader submitted an op-ed commentary to The Californian that laid out his thoughts on this national scourge.

The queue of reader submissions was long and our Opinion section didn't get to his essay right away. In the meantime others wrote pieces that expressed similar sentiments. His essay now seemed redundant, I told him. But never fear, I said, another mass shooting will come along soon.

He was taken aback by my cavalier certainty.

"But isn't that the point of your commentary?" I responded. "That these happen with predictable regularity and nothing changes?"

A month later, we updated his essay with the name of the latest shattered city and published it.

I could fish out that reader's essay from our archive and publish it again and, as long as I changed the location to Gilroy, El Paso or Dayton, no one would be the wiser.

I could fish out the same flawed evaluations of the causes, too. 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, in a Sunday appearance on "Fox and Friends," pinned this kind of gun violence on "video games that dehumanize individuals."

President Trump, in remarks from the White House the next morning, said much the same thing. "We must stop the glorification of violence in our society (that) ... includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace."

Except the data show no such link.

“Scant evidence has emerged that makes any causal or correlational connection between playing violent video games and actually committing violent activities,” the American Psychological Association maintains.

“The data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive” as data on video games leading to real-world violence, Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University who helped develop that policy statement, told the New York Times. "Literally. The numbers work out about the same. "

Even the Supreme Court came to that conclusion. Studies "do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively,” Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2011 majority opinion striking down a California ban.

McCarthy, the Bakersfield Republican who leads the House's minority caucus, dredged up another largely discredited factor in explaining this insane succession of mass shootings.

"What we've found as a common denominator here is it comes to mental health," he told The Californian in an interview days after the Gilroy attack. "... We've found time and again, in some of these shootings, that the information (about mental health concerns) was not provided" to law enforcement beforehand.

(I asked McCarthy's office about his statement regarding mental health issues and screening — is he proposing some specific legislation? — and to clarify his stance on the enhanced regulation of so-called assault weapons proposed by many, but I received no reply.)

McCarthy is right about this: The red-flag reporting chain is flawed.

But mental health experts, Arthur Evans, chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association among them, say people with mental illness are generally not violent and in fact are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators.

A country's rate of gun ownership is a far better predictor of mass shootings than mental illness data, Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama criminologist, told CBS News.

We're living a rerun. A horrible, nauseating rerun. Disaffected, angry young white man (in most cases) outfits himself in black (in most cases) and goes on a rampage.

Initial news reports, quoting confused, terrified witnesses, get half the facts wrong. CNN and Fox show us interviews with people who made it out alive. The police chief holds a press conference with the mayor, Republicans ask for thoughts and prayers, and then come the victim profiles and the funerals. In between there is hand-wringing, speculation, vilification and an increase in gun sales. 

Always followed by this: Flawed claims that video games and mental illness are primary causative factors.

Here's a possible correlation McCarthy might consider: America has by far the most guns in civilian hands of any nation and by far the most gun deaths. Pretty simple.

Are other factors at work? Of course. But until McCarthy, the man perhaps in the best position to meaningfully broach the subject in Congress, has the courage to set aside those same, tired talking points, readers will be submitting the same anguished commentaries.

And we'll try to publish them. If not this time, then next time.

Contact The Californian’s Robert Price at 661-395-7399, rprice@bakersfield.com or on Twitter: @stubblebuzz. His column appears on Sundays, Wednesdays and Saturdays; the views expressed are his own.

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- Mark

MY KERN RADIO DEBATE WITH REP. KEVIN McCARTHY ... AND WHY WE'RE IN THE DACA MESS WE'RE IN TODAY

This past Tuesday,  after it became clear that Donald Trump was going to rescind DACA (or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), I did a series of media interviews. One of the interviews I did was on The Ralph Bailey Show, which is produced by KERN Radio. During the interview Bakersfield's congressional representative, and House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy called in to discuss the president's DACA decision.

This was a surprise because I thought Rep. McCarthy was going to call in after I left the program (for another interview). It didn't matter to me either way because I was there to talk about DACA, and immigration. Having Rep. McCarthy on the program was only going to make it more interesting.

 ____________________________________________

From KERN Radio's website.

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Once we got going one thing became very clear: Rep. McCarthy doesn't care to listen to anything that's going to take him off of his narrative.

There was also something else that stood out. Rep. McCarthy really didn't want to discuss the 2013 immigration legislation (Senate Bill 744; admittedly, I forgot the number on air). After I asked Rep. McCarthy why the GOP didn't vote on a bipartisan piece of immigration reform legislation (1:30 into the clip), that was crafted primarily by Senate Republicans, he said there weren't enough votes. Then our discussion drifted into terrorism and national security.

In reality, Rep. McCarthy didn't want to discuss the 2013 legislation in any great detail because not only did it have bipartisan support (which I pointed out) but he knows what the larger story reveals.

ROOTS OF OUR DACA MESS
In a few words, we had an immigration bill in 2013 (SB 744) that had bipartisan support, but Speaker John Boehner decided not to bring it up for a vote in the House of Representatives. Why? In real simple terms, Boehner didn't bring it up NOT because, as Rep. McCarthy said, the legislation didn't have the votes. What Boehner and the GOP leadership (including Kevin) feared was the legislation would put reform minded members on record, or that it might pass. This would be followed by Tea Party extremists going after vulnerable Republicans during the primary elections. This is the real reason Speaker Boehner refused to bring the immigration bill up for a vote.

So, yeah, the GOP leadership sacrificed a comprehensive immigration bill (SB 744) because they believed it would force many congressional Republicans into having to deal with Tea Party opponents, and possibly losing their seats in a primary election.

When Rep. Eric Cantor lost his primary election to a Tea Party opponent in 2014, immigration reform in a Republican led Congress was dead in the water.

So much for country first. Political survival was the name of the game here.

For Rep. McCarthy to say on air the legislation didn't have the support it needed to pass in 2013 is, quite frankly, an "alternative fact" the GOP wants America to believe today.

Here's something I failed to bring up during our discussion (in part because Kevin steered the discussion towards terrorism). Because the GOP failed to vote on the comprehensive immigration legislation in 2013, the DACA program created by President Obama's executive order in 2012 became our de facto immigration policy for our young undocumented population.

Keep in mind that President Obama always said that DACA was a temporary policy, put in place to protect ambitious students and workers. It was always supposed to go away (become irrelevant?) once Congress acted to create and pass comprehensive immigration reform. This never happened. The presence of DACA today, in many ways, is a product of the GOP's failure to act in 2013. 

Because some of what Kevin and I said on air became garbled as we began to speak over one another (he's got stuff to say, and so do I), below - courtesy of KERN Radio 1180, and The Ralph Bailey Show - are some of the things I tried to explain to Rep. McCarthy.

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* I KNOW MEXICO: After being prodded by Ralph Bailey (Ralph asked me, "Why are you so afraid of controlling our borders"?), Kevin referenced how scary things are on the border, and asked if I had ever spoke to border patrol agents about what's going on there. I gently reminded Kevin that not only have I spoken to border patrol agents (and DEA agents) about what goes on at the U.S.-Mexico border (as a university professor I/we get to speak to a lot of people), but reminded him that I have lived in Mexico, and even taught (at the university level) there for a year. In the FYI category, I also teach a class at CSU Bakersfield on the Politics of Mexico, have driven and traveled extensively around the border area (without body guards), and regularly give lectures on drug economies in Latin America/Mexico.

* NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF: I tried to explain to Kevin that, for all of his worries about terrorist attacks (the "suitcase bomb"), there were more terrorist attacks around the world, and more violence in America, 30 years ago than we have today. I even tried to explain that you stand a greater chance of winning the lottery than you do of getting involved in a terrorist attack, but to no avail. Fear sells. 

* 9/11 HAS MANY USES: Kevin tried to bring 9/11 into the conversation, so I responded by saying, "I'm not going to help you sensationalize 9/11" and told him that "the numbers [odds of being caught up in an attack] aren't there." The fear mongering continued.

* LOST COMMENTS: My final comments were cut off from the segment posted by KERN Radio, but I'm pretty sure I made it clear that Trump's DACA decision was not legally required, and what's happening today is driven by a larger political agenda tied to fear and paranoia.

There were a few more moments in our discussion that were hard to discern, but you can hear it all by listening the audio clip above, or by clicking here.

- Mark

UPDATE: FYI, our discussion was picked up by Think Progress, which you can access by clicking here. I'm going to be blunt here; the Think Progress article makes our exchange appear more exciting than it really was. Good writing can do that :-).