pacino wrote:jerseyhoya wrote:drsmooth wrote:Mike McCaul (R-TX) allowing as to how his bill is measured & well-balanced, despite being basically written on a napkin a day or so ago and not subject to any kind of discussion, input from security authorities, etc.
Are there any adults in Texas, at all?
47 House Democrats join a veto proof majority in passage
are YOU for it? Or did you come in for political points?
I love that you all do nothing but snipe at Republicans, and then I post something, and my motives become very important. Imagine if I asked if someone posted something for political points every time something about Republicans was said?
doc posted about a bill being written on a napkin and there being no adults in Texas, then a sizable chunk of the House Dem caucus votes for the bill an hour later in the face of a veto threat. I'm sorry that I posted about that happening. Because no one else tries to score political points or makes snide comments. Just me.
I think it sounds perfectly reasonable from the Politico summary - "The Republican legislation, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, would require the FBI, Homeland Security Department and director of national intelligence to certify to Congress that any refugee from Syria or Iraq is "not a threat to the security of the United States" before being allowed to settle in the United States."
The DNI and FBI director have both suggested there are serious challenges in the screening process. The CIA chief wants to strengthen refugee screening. If top members of the Obama administration are talking like this, it's not exactly the fringiest thing in the world. A pause at the very least in the wake of the Paris attacks to evaluate how they were able to get back and forth from Syria, and look at ways to prevent the same thing happening here seems prudent.
I'm fine with some small number coming over eventually, but we've only taken 2,100 people and are talking about maybe 10,000 more when there are 4.5 million refugees. I wouldn't want to dramatically increase our share because I think even if it does nothing in a short term threat, there are medium/long term radicalization concerns that seem to be exacerbated by concentrated areas of refugees as Minnesota has shown with their Somali refugee population and ISIS. Europeans by and large have been significantly worse than us at integrating their Muslim populations, so them taking huge numbers seems like a disaster waiting to happen to me. The squabble, on our end anyhow, is over a tiny sliver of the problem. I thought this piece from Reihan Salam was pretty good on something we should look at with helping the refugees in larger numbers, more efficiently, and without the downside risk.
