Michelle Malkin - Tasteless & Irrelvant

        In modern media, truth is now, too frequently, a casualty while hyperbole and outright lies have become, sadly, the new normal. Michelle Malkin, whose scribbles appear weekly in the Villages Daily Sun (and, sadly, far too many other national newspapers) has set the bar at a new low, however.

First a sampling of her work. Over the last year she has:

       Claimed that the Brooklyn Bridge was built by John Roebling using private funds, alleging to show the superiority of private enterprise. In fact, the “Great Bridge” (The title of David McCullough’s superb book on the subject) was built with public bonds sold by the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. The completed bridge belonged jointly to both boroughs.

       Publicly attacked Julia Louis-Dreyfus because she “allowed” her son to attend Northwestern University. “Huh?”  Yes, there was a questionable rape allegation at that school, and Malkin apparently believes most rape accusers are either deserving victims, liars, or simply sluts. The fact that Louis-Dreyfus’ son attends the University is irrelevant, as he was uninvolved, in any case.

       Most recently, Malkin singled out one DACA (“dreamer”) participant out of a conservative estimate of just under 800,000, who is, inarguably by any standard, a bad guy. In fact, he is a felon and committed a particularly brutal murder. Naturally, in Malkin world, this now becomes the label for all dreamers. This, of course ignores the fact that there are 900 dreamers in the military, countless others in numerous public service sector jobs, EMTs, Firefighters, etc. Malkin’s allegations make about as much sense as saying that since Jeffrey Daumer was a white, single, male, all white, single, males are cannibals.

        In an effort to provide a rational,data driven, argument on behalf of DACA, here is some simple data, uncolored by opinion.

1. Nine hundred, more or less, DACA applicants are serving honorably in various United States military forces.

2. 91% of Dreamers are employed; while concurrently, no undocumented persons are even eligible for welfare. Critics claim, broadly, that dreamers are burdens on the public teat in all areas. In truth, it is a fact that many dreamers currently in public school or having graduated from them, receive or have received, free or reduced lunch and the states' cost share for their education. In fact, however,  in six states the percentage of students receiving free lunch reaches over 60% of all attendees, with 18 states over 50%. These are, vastly, not dreamers, but children of poverty, most for generations.  A high end, likely exaggerated, cost figure for these services for "dreamers" (from an arch conservative source) comes to around $30 billion in state and federal funding. 

       What is not mentioned by those bemoaning this support of those in need, however, is that at the same time, Federal Farm Subsidies cost taxpayers more than $20 billion annually. Unlike working class, low paid, dreamers' and other families (not dreamer graduates, who do far better, as I’ll show later) farm subsidies go to such "poor, working class folks" as Senator Chuck Grassley, three Walton (Walmart) heirs, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Ted Turner, and many more. Among the members of the 112th Congress who collected payments from USDA were six Democrats and 17 Republicans. The disparity between the parties was far greater in terms of dollar amounts: $489,856 went to Democrats, but more than 10 times as much, $5,334,565, to Republicans. Some of these Republicans oppose the implementation of DACA. Weird, huh?  

3. Of current “Dreamers” over High School age, 72% are in advanced education programs, which surpasses the current 69% for all US high school grads. 90% of dreamers surveyed are employed, 80% have driver’s licenses and half of those are organ donors.

4.  For those receiving “Dreamer” status, wages rose from an average of $10.24 hourly to $17.46, with about 700,000 of 788,000 total employed. To put this in perspective: a married DACA participant in a single earner household with one child earns, on average, more than $10,000 above the federal 2017 poverty level and above the Medicaid eligibility level. Hardly the societal leeches which is Michelle Malkin’s typical characterization, huh?

       Lost in all this is the fact that Michelle Malkin is, herself, an “anchor baby” fortunate enough to have been  born in Philadelphia to Filipino parents who were here only on work visas. Malkin benefited from public schooling and a first class college education (Oberlin, whose liberalism she now detests, apparently) and that’s OK, because, just like all DACA participants, being here wasn’t her choice. However, being a shrewish virago, critical of others less fortunate and faced with a far harder struggle apparently is her choice.