Friday, March 29, 2024

TIME Honors Illegal Immigrant, Transgender Teen Among “100 Most Influential”

This morning, TIME released its annual listing of the world’s “100 Most Influential People.” There were many unsurprising names on the list, including President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and White House aide Jared Kushner; as well as celebrities Chance the Rapper, Viola Davis, and Ed Sheeran. However, TIME also made some, shall we say, head-scratching inclusions which strongly suggest a liberal agenda behind the honors.

Take, for example, illegal immigrant Jeanette Vizguerra, who is featured on TIME’s list for, well, breaking the law. Vizguerra has been in the country illegally for 20 years, and was arrested in 2009 for using fake documents after making up a social security number on a job application. She was later ordered to leave the country but has remained thanks to her lawyer, who has successfully postponed her deportation five times. In 2012, while appealing a voluntary departure, Vizguerra went to visit her ill mother in Mexico, and then paid a smuggler in order to return her to the country. She has also avoided mandatory check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement by taking refuge at a Colorado church, as it is against ICE’s policy to enter places of worship. Apparently, these types of activities are admirable feats in 2017.

Another curious inclusion to the list was transgender teen Gavin Grimm, whose claim to fame is a demand to use a school’s boy’s bathroom despite Grimm being biologically female. Grimm sued the school district over its refusal to cave to progressive demands, but the outcome of the dispute is very much uncertain, with the Supreme Court having recently dealt Grimm a serious setback, declining to hear the case and vacating a favorable lower court ruling. This lack of legal influence did not appear to make much of a difference in TIME’s estimation, however.

And then, of course, there is former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose claim to fame is bringing politics into sports and refusing to stand during the national anthem during games, as a gesture in support of the destructive Black Lives Matter movement. Kaepernick may still be without a new football team, but, fortunately for him, being disrespectful and unpatriotic was evidently enough to gain a spot among TIME’s “Most Influential.”

And these are just the most egregious examples. TIME also deemed worthy of honor liberal commentator Samantha Bee, who infamously mocked a stage-4 brain cancer patient earlier this year; drag queen RuPaul; and the organizers of January’s Women’s March, including activist Linda Sarsour who in the past has defended Sharia law.

TIME’s list of 100 may indeed be the “most influential” in leftist circles. But the media should stop pretending it is anything more.

Photo credit: Tony Fischer via Flickr, CC BY 2.0

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