Chatinover spars with Cruz on Twitter

Texas Senator has tweeted about Island migrant situation more than 60 times and counting.

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Dukes County Commissioner Keith Chatinover was the target of a Twitter attack by Sen. Ted Cruz. — MV Times

Keith Chatinover said he was in a political science class at Vermont’s Middlebury College when the Twitter skirmish erupted.

Chatinover, a Dukes County commissioner, said Cruz quoted a Martha’s Vineyard Times article “back when he proposed sending refugees back to the Island through legislation rather than by sending a plane of them unannounced. And at the time, I said we would love to receive these refugees. I stand by that quote.”

Cruz attempted to use that earlier quote as demonstrating Vineyard hypocrisy, after Islanders jumped into action to welcome the 50 migrants and refugees who arrived by plane last Wednesday. Cruz has tweeted about Martha’s Vineyard 62 times since last Wednesday, much of it using misleading information such as the National Guard being used to “deport” them. But, early on, his tweets focused on Chatinover’s comment from 2021.

“Kudos to ⁦@GovRonDeSantis⁩ for sending illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard,” Cruz tweeted. “When I proposed the same last year, the elected leadership welcomed it: County commissioner Keith Chatinover: “I would LOVE Martha’s Vineyard to become a haven…”


The article in question, “Cruz bill seeks immigration port on Martha’s Vineyard,” published in October of 2021, highlights Senator Cruz’s effort to push legislation that would establish new immigrations ports of entry in places like Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. At the time U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, D-Bourne, suggested Cruz put forth the idea as a distraction from problems in Texas and that Cruz had a habit of things like that. 

“County commissioner Keith Chatinover also voiced opposition to Cruz in a text message to The Times,” the Times article states. ‘I would love Martha’s Vineyard to become a haven for new immigrants to this country, but Senator Cruz has no idea what he’s talking about regarding a ‘border crisis,’ Chatinover told The Times in a text message. ‘Immigrants make our country stronger (as evidenced by immigration from Brazil and other countries to the Vineyard), and he is trying to whip up racial anxieties for political gain, which is essentially the entire GOP platform anyhow.’”

Cruz has latched onto the actions by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sending two plane loads of migrants and refugees to Martha’s Vineyard last Wednesday. He’s been tweeting regularly about it for days and making appearances on right-leaning media.

“When I proposed this last year,” Cruz tweeted, “County commissioner Keith Chatinover said “I would LOVE Martha’s Vineyard to become a HAVEN for new immigrants to this country, but Senator Cruz HAS NO IDEA what he’s talking about regarding a ‘border crisis.’”

“Jeez I really am living rent free in your head huh @tedcruz,” Chatinover responded via Twitter.

 

Chatinover said Fox News and the Daily Mail, among others, reported on the Twitter exchanges between the two politicians. He also said a “cavalcade of MAGA supporters” commented on his tweets, tweeted at him, or direct messaged him. 

“I’m wearing the conservative media meltdown as a badge of honor,” Chatinover said. He went on to say, “They seem to think that I have reneged on my commitment to supporting immigration or refugee resettlement and I simply have not. So it’s interesting to see my apparent hypocrisy when I don’t feel like my position has changed at all.”

Recently, State Rep. Dylan Fernandes D-Falmouth, reiterated his disgust for the political and logistical manipulation of migrants during an appearance on Fox News. In a previous interview with The Times in Edgartown, Fernandes called into question the Christianity of anybody who would use human beings as political pawns.

“This is an example of the dishonest, self-righteous idiocy that Martha’s Vineyard produced.

Dems & their useful idiots say it’s ‘dehumanizing’ to send 50 people to a billionaires’ luxury island retreat. That makes no sense. What’s dehumanizing is Biden allowing 4.2 MILLION,” Cruz recently tweeted. 

An email to Cruz’s office seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned Monday.

22 COMMENTS

  1. “if you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” – Lindsey Graham
    Everyone knows what a clown Ted Cruz is.

  2. What is cruz’s view of florida’s covid monies used to fly 50 migrants with infants children and teenagers to an island without housing from texas?
    Oops sorry I don’t know what you are talking about said tc little man boy.

  3. Chatinover needs to spend more time in his political science classes and less time on Twitter. Hopefully he will learn we are a country of laws and the folks who came here last week were law breakers. The actions that MV took to move these people off the island were no less “inhumane” than the actions that brought them here. This is a national crisis and we just kicked the can down the road- literally. Our border towns are dealing with thousands of migrants every week with far less wealth and resources than our community yet it seems the ruling class here puffed up their chests, sacrificed little and told the world how virtuous we are. It’s disgusting. If we have these resources on Joint Base Cape Cod why aren’t we sending our homeless population there? Why aren’t we taking care of the homeless on Cape Cod there? We should all be ashamed that the Vineyard did little to alleviate this crisis.

    • The Vineyard isn’t responsible for moving these migrants to Cape Cod. The Commonwealth is. Some are so desperate to find fault that they’re now pretending Islanders make official decisions for the state. Government doesn’t work that way.

    • Everyone knows what a clown the left are so it is a waste of time to educate them. They have been brainwashed since a young age and are beyound hope. Our only chance is the school system with the children and look what the left is doing to them.

    • interesting thought that military bases should house the homeless.
      I wonder what our top military brass thinks about that idea?
      Many people who are homeless have at least some resources, and many of them are in temporary situations through no fault of their own.
      However, the really hard core homeless that literally sleep in the street deserve some compassion. I would be willing to chip in to give them a warmer place to sleep for the winter.
      They would be much less likely to freeze to death if they took up residence on the streets of Palm Beach Florida for example. Perhaps the next time a bus full of legal migrants arrives in a northern city, the officials in that city should have a bus load of the homeless ready to take the return ride. I’m sure the good Christians of Palm Beach would give them all their spare change and let them sleep in their churches. They have a higher average income than the Vineyard after all.

      • How do you know that many ”homeless have some resources”? Yes indeed, they would be ”much less likely to freeze” if they took up street residence on the streets of Palm Beach. Similarly, they might also be less likely to freeze on the temperate climate streets, of say, in Caracas ? People make choices to improve themselves and part of that is where to live. Hard for the fifty who looked forward to life on the Vineyard when they got ungraciously booted to the curb in less forty eight hours! Shameful!

        • As someone that personally knows homeless people, Don is correct in those statements. They do have some resources. Sometimes those resources are people they know. Some homeless people have cars. They may or may not have jobs. It varies from person to person.

        • If I were hard core homeless and reduced to sleeping on the street, I would take my chances on freezing to death in Boston over sleeping on the streets of Caracas any night. But Palm Beach is a nice compromise. They have lots of churches there that would surely put up a bus load of homeless vets for a few nights.
          I wonder how long it would take the town of Palm Beach to kick them to the curb ?

    • Have you ever been to the border?🤔
      Have you ever actually seen with your own eyes 👀 the thousands of people?
      Didn’t think so.
      It’s all faux news for political division by the lying former resident and it’s cronies. But you believe what you want because you are just a pawn in their game.

    • I’m wondering why United States senator Ted Cruz is so prolific (and embarrassing) on Twitter. It seems to be the only way he communicates. He should be busy doing better things. And yet…

    • You need to spend more time ascertaining the facts…these people were NOT HERE ILLEGALLY…they have the LEGAL right to apply for asylum, which they’ve done…”The actions that MV took to move these people off the island”…really?? did you bother to read Gov Baker’s posts about the STATE taking charge of these people? Baker took over…it was not the island’s decision…

  4. Some posters do not understand the difference between legal and illegal border crossing. Must be in the water? Over thousands flood our Southern Border daily.
    2.1 million last year. Do you think it is the present administrations OPEN border policy?

    • It sounds like you’re the one that doesn’t understand the distinctions. “over thousands?” that’s not a number. We don’t have open borders. Asylum seekers are legal until proven otherwise. Biden detains more people than Trump and you claim he’s not doing the very thing you are asking him to do.

    • I do not think it’s the open border policy. Mainly because there is no open border policy.
      Again, if the border is so open, why are people drowning in the river, or dying of thirst in the desert ?
      I have asked you that a number of times , Steve..
      You don’t seem to have an answer.
      Perhaps someday newsmax will tell you.

  5. Don’t speak outside the margins of their talking points, Katie. And don’t let the facts get in the way of a good time.

  6. I see newsmax once in a while– they were the first one to break the story that the Biden administration was going to limit U.S citizens to one hamburger a month, Obama was a Muslim determined to impose Sharia law and that the federal government was putting covid vaccine in salad dressing.
    Today, they are warning that the Biden administration is going to “control” us by taking away all of our cash.
    https://www.newsmax.com/jameshirsen/digital-currency-government-control/2022/09/19/id/1088128/

    • Newsmax is a bigger joke than Fox. Relying on that source for information indicates a lack of critical thinking, common sense, and rationality. Newsmax had to issue an apology to the Dominion company after being threatened with a defamation lawsuit when they lied about voter fraud.
      Media Bias Fact check has this to say about that ridiculous source
      “We rate Newsmax Right Biased and Questionable based on the promotion of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience as well as numerous failed fact checks.”

      https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/newsmax-bias-credibilty-reliability/

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