#WendyDavis: alleged #BorderCrisis another "track right" opportunity

There's the old cliche that the Chinese ideogram for "crisis" is "danger" plus "opportunity."

Hence the headline, as Texas' Democratic gubernatorial nominee has rarely missed an opportunity to track right in her campaign, pandering for conservative voters that wouldn't toggle her name in a voting booth even if Davis got a Texas Open Carry nutbar to stand at the polling place.

This started last fall back in Waxahachie, as I documented in depth here.

Her unprecedented, and arguably arrogant, pre-primary endorsement of David Alameel in the U.S. Senate race was the next big step.

At about the same time, she started playing dodgeball with the word "abortion," even though it was an abortion-related filibuster last summer that catapulted her to the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

And now?

She wants to out-wingnut the GOP on the alleged "border crisis." Yes, there has been an uptick in illegal crossings, especially of minors, but the only "crisis" is the shabby treatment on our side of the border:

And state Sen. Wendy Davis, a Democrat campaigning for governor, responded to Perry’s announcement by calling for a different border surge: adding more sheriff’s deputies to the region.

“If the federal government won't act, Texas must and will,” Davis said. “However, we should be deploying additional deputy sheriffs to the border like local law enforcement is calling for.”

Sheriff's deputies can only act specifically on immigration enforcement, versus checking one's country of origin when stopping a person for some potential criminal offense, when deputized by the federal government.

Great.

We have two "mainstream" political party candidates who are both lawyers, and who both either don't know the basic legal fact that immigration is either a civil issue and a federal one only, or else don't give a damn. (I've just written about Greg Abbott on this issue, along with Rick Perry, here.)

We have a Libertarian candidate who is also a lawyer and who flat-out lies about this issue:

Our Constitution grants the federal government jurisdiction over naturalization, but not over immigration.

Wrong.

Article I, Section 8, where it says "The Congress shall have Power ... To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization" has always been interpreted by courts as arrogating specifically to Congress power over all aspects of immigration. (You don't naturalize native-born people, after all.)

And, related to that, the now-obsolete Article I, Section 9, about slavery, says:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit ...

Now, that's passive-voice "importation," but the idea of immigration is clearly there.

So, nice try, Kathie Glass, but that would be a big #fail.

And, we have a Green candidate who might as well be in fucking Timbucktu for all I know, having not even posted on his Facebook page since February.

It's times like this that, as much as it undercuts the idea of democracy, and as much as plutocrats in both mainstream parties plus the Libertarians like to hear this, that I defend not voting, when done as a reasoned choice, as one's right.

Reality? Greg Abbott, Wendy Davis and Kathie Glass should all have their law licenses revoked. Brandon Parmer should be shipped off to the actual Timbuktu.