[Townhall] Ever since conservatives rallied around a GoFundMe campaign to fund the border wall, Democrats have tried to figure out stop it in its tracks. Currently, the campaign has raised more than $16 million of its 1 billion goal.
Now, Democrats are attempting to pass legislation that would block the federal government from accepting the citizen-raised funds.
Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee on Wednesday introduced House Resolution 7332, which would "prohibit taxpayer funds from being used to build a wall between Mexico and the United States, and for other purposes."
Currently, there are four co-sponsors: Reps. Karen Bass (D-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and Joaquin Castro (D-TX).
The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee.
#3
Seems the only way "citizen-raised funds" not collected through the tax system can be equated with "taxpayer funds" is if any money you personally possess is defined as "taxpayer funds" because you also payed taxes.
I can see Justice Roberts grinning vacantly and nodding affirmative...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/24/2018 8:44 Comments ||
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#4
An empty gesture. It will be DOA in the Senate and White House.
#5
There ought to be plenty of money for a wall. Find the $6bin Hillary (ahem) lost at State, the money missing from the Haiti earthquake relief fund, the tax money that should have come from running a for-profit CF, $14 billion seized from El Chapo's drug dealing (as recommended by Cruz.) There are most likely plenty of other such bake sales that would build a secure wall and border. What was saved from the new USMC agreement? How about the money saved by asking NATO to cough up? How about the money that would come from maintaining troops and weapons in Syria and Afghanistan? The closed down grab-a$$ congressional fund--another $15mil.
Congress is just diddling around to try to make us think they do something useful.
#6
There is a real logistical and legal issue with citizen crowdsource funding for this. Any donations, contributions, etc. to the government has to be made to the department of the treasury. Any funds done so go into the "General Usage" pool and the money can be spent on anything.
There would have to be a separate law and system set up for the government to use those funds directly for a wall.
#7
Won’t bringing home our troops from Syria free up some funds? Not to mention other areas where the president has quietly reduced spending — a million here, a million there...
#8
Trump should just create a 1933 mile by 1000 ft US military base on the southern border. All funds needed for appropriate base protection would them come out of the DoD budget.
[WFB] 112-year-old Richard Overton persevered for another year after falling victim to the worst humanity has to offer and, in turn, being sustained by the best it can muster.
Overton is now a two-time Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year honoree. He was first awarded the title back in 2014 at the tender age of 108 for his embodiment of everything great about America. The cigar-smoking whiskey-drinking gun-wielding World War II veteran has spent his golden years taking shots with governors and being recognized by presidents.
He's been generous with life advice over the years.
"Whiskey's a good medicine," he told Fox News in 2014. "It keeps your muscles tender."
He likes tommy guns, his M1 Garand, and army-issue shotguns but he says he has a special fondness for his revolver.
"I lay one of those things right there by my bed when I go to sleep," Overton said while showing off his gun collection to a film crew in 2015. "That's my friend."
In 2016, he told filmmakers about how whiskey, cigars, Ford trucks, cats, church, family, and friends make him happy and keep him going. That film was featured in a short film festival hosted by National Geographic.
[Wash Examiner] You want to know what’s going on in British politics at the moment? Frankly, cousins, it’s a bloody shambles.
I would use stronger words, but American newspapers are more fastidious than their British counterparts when it comes to profanities.
Overseas commentators look wonderingly at the chaos. What has happened, they ask, often with a hint of schadenfreude if they’re from Europe, to a nation that used to be famously level-headed? Have British politicians lost their minds? Are Brits experiencing some sort of collective nervous collapse?
Mental health metaphors are rarely helpful in politics. We are not witnessing a moment of communal psychosis. What we’re seeing has an altogether simpler and more prosaic explanation, and it’s this: When members of Parliament decided to allow a referendum on European Union membership, it never occurred to them that people might disregard their advice and vote to leave.
When the result came in, the establishment felt the rejection keenly. They refused to interpret it as a vote for more democracy or for a more global trade policy. Rather, they saw it as a rejection of everything that they ‐ that is, the elites ‐ had built up over decades. In company boardrooms and university common rooms and parliamentary committee rooms and civil service briefing rooms, there was a sense of injured disbelief.
Rather than accept the verdict, a number of politicians, officials, and cartel business leaders immediately set to work to overturn it. Part of their strategy was to delegitimize the result ("Leavers lied! Leavers cheated! Leavers took Russian cash!"), but the bigger part was to ensure that no equitable exit deal could be struck. And, in that aim, they have succeeded.
[Breitbart] Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice published an op-ed Sunday in the New York Times in which she declares that President Donald Trump "does more to undermine American national security than any foreign adversary."
More dangerous than the Islamic terrorists who carried out the Benghazi attack, about which she lied to the world, blaming a YouTube video; more dangerous than the so-called "Islamic state," which she let take root after her boss, President Barack Obama, called them the "J.V. team"; more dangerous than Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which took over Crimea on her watch; more dangerous than Iran, with which she and her boss concluded a failed nuclear deal.
Rice wrote that Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria ‐ a conflict that the Obama administration allowed to drag on even after dictator Bashar al-Assad crossed Obama’s "red line" and gassed his own people ‐ represented "[c]utting and running," and she said that the departure of Secretary of Defense left the administration unstable (emphasis added):
#4
BTW Susan when did you and Obama get Constitutional authority for your foreign adventure in Syria. Yeah, right, who needs no stink'n Constitution. So, who's the greater threat to 'America'? /rhet question
Always with the Freudian Projection.
#6
Why is she not saying this dribble from prison?
It would be fun to see her in an orange jumpsuit on 60 Minutes saying "The b*tch (Swillary) set me up..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/24/2018 16:25 Comments ||
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#7
Rice was there at every step of the way. She'd be SecState right now if Hildebeast was POTUS.
A colleague of mine sums it well;
I believe it is very important to give credit where credit is due.
-President Barack Obama created the conditions for ISIS to flourish in 2010 and 2011, when he essentially stopped talking to Maliki, and then ordered the sudden drawdown in IZ (which caught DoD completely by surprise).
-President Barack Obama armed ISIS when his administration flooded Syria with hundreds of tons of light, medium, and heavy weapons (with John Brennan taking a major role in shifting those weapons from Libya to Syria).
-President Barack Obama then avoided targeting ISIS because of his fantasy unicorn force of amazingly moderate freedom fighters that was supposedly prevalent and mixed in among ISIS. Obama repeatedly denied ISIS was a problem, even as ISIS took over a vast swath of territory.
I am not a big fan of President Trump. That said, President Trump cleaned up the mess he inherited from Barack Obama. DJT did so without constantly blaming BHO for creating the mess (BHO blamed GWB for everything bad that happened from 2009-2017).
DJT has demonstrated a willingness to develop situations, as opposed to allowing situations to develop. That shows leadership and willingness to take decisive action. That is a marked departure from the Obama Admin's "Leading From Behind" policies. That makes some folks uncomfortable, because some folks don't understand that failure to make a decision is still making a decision, albeit a bad one.
Barack Obama's foreign policy will continue to fester and cause issues that DJT will have to clean up. BHO's ill-advised actions created problems with no good solution, but DJT is playing the hand he was dealt.
So...in all seriousness, if you have an issue with how President Trump acts, and you didn't have an issue with how President Obama acted, you have an infantile view of foreign policy. Stick to Instagram pictures of cupcakes and Facebook updates from Justin Bieber.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
12/24/2018 18:21 Comments ||
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[American Thinker] Defense secretaries come and go. President Obama had four of them in eight years, who had some unkind things to say about his leadership or lack of it. There was no talk of chaos or of the only adult in the room leaving.
Suddenly, the media are in a meltdown after "Mad Dog" Mattis announced his departure from the Cabinet after President Trump announced our departure from Syria:
Foreign Policy Pentagon reporter Lara Seligman wrote the press corp [sic] is contemplating suicide over Mattis' resignation, "I think I speak for all national security reporters tonight when I say I'm about ready to jump off a cliff. But at least I already wrote the "who will replace Mattis" story two months (only two months?????) ago[."]
Democrats who won't defend our southern border and who slept as Obama drew red lines with vanishing ink worry about an ISIS Obama created by a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq regaining strength and reforming in Syria and Iraq. The general Obama fired is suddenly a man of principle whose leadership was indispensable:
#1
...Keep this in mind too - 151 Democrats in the House voted against the waiver required to make Mattis SECDEF. And now they're hollering about how the military can't run without him...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/24/2018 4:16 Comments ||
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#2
Did the Media Care When Obama Fired General Mattis?
In a word "No" except for now. They so dislike Trump (except for when he was a Dem) and so unhinged about HRC losing that anything he does becomes a target.
[ConservativeTreehouse] BLUF: General Counsel Boente, hired by Christopher Wray, ultimately concurred with Mueller and Rosenstein’s decision thereby blocking any internal investigative efforts under the auspices of protecting the integrity of the ongoing Mueller probe.
A bureaucratic catch-22.
As a result of team Mueller’s moves, multiple people including John Carlin, Mary McCord, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Carter Page and any other inside official with knowledge of the FISA application and downstream issue, is off-limits for DOJ-OIG questioning.
This decision was stunningly ironic considering that Dana Boente was the ultimate arbiter inside the internal debate. Remember, Boente was "acting AG" after Sally Yates was fired.
#1
There are those who say Huber is MII (Missing In Inaction). Not sure what Horowitz is doing at this time. Haven't seen much justice coming out of Justice.
Looks more and more like Mueller was installed to be the last regime's gatekeeper and act as a goalie. Dump the Mueller probe as a waste of time and money. The probe itself is standing in the way of justice for past misdeeds and crimes--obstruction of justice?
#2
As a result of team Mueller’s moves, multiple people including John Carlin, Mary McCord, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Carter Page and any other inside official with knowledge of the FISA application and downstream issue, is off-limits for DOJ-OIG questioning.
[JP] recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found a significant jump in Hamas’ popularity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Most strikingly, the survey found that if presidential elections were held today, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas were to square off, the former would win with 49 percent of the vote (up from 45% three month ago) compared to the latter’s 42% (down from 47% three months ago).
With respect to parliamentary elections, the poll, which surveyed 1,270 Palestinians across both territories, revealed that Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah faction are nearly deadlocked with the former projected to receive 35% of the vote (down from 36% three months ago) compared to the latter’s 34% (up from 27% three months ago).
"It’s been a long-known fact that Hamas is incredibly popular in the West Bank," former Israeli parliamentarian Dr. Einat Wilf, conveyed to The Media Line. "No elections are being held for a reason: The outcome is certain. It’s been a reigning assumption since my time in the Knesset [Israeli parliament] that Hamas will win an election, if one were to take place.
"The only thing keeping Hamas from taking over the West Bank, whether by elections or by force, is Israel," she stressed.
Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shlomo Brom, a Senior Fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, contended to The Media Line that the rise in Hamas’ popularity is "mostly because of the failure of the government in Ramallah and a [resulting] drop in Palestinian support for Abbas, and not because of anything Hamas has done."
This mirrors the poll’s findings, with a majority of Palestinians (53%) holding negative views of the PA. When asked to identify the party responsible for the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, respondents placed the brunt of the blame (43%) on the PA and Abbas, with whom 65% of Palestinians are dissatisfied.
"There is a myriad of reasons for this," Brom explained, "some due to his style of leadership and quasi-authoritarian regime in the West Bank, in addition to his treatment of Gaza as PA-imposed sanctions have greatly worsened the enclave’s socio-economic situation.
[PJ] Now that Donald Trump has signaled the departure of U.S. troops from Syria--to the consternation of many who were urging him to do it in the first place, no surprise--it's a perfect moment to ease some worries and do something overdue literally for decades: officially recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Given the behavior of Syria's horrendous dictator Bashar Assad--gassing women and children while destroying nearly his entire nation to "save" it and creating a refugee crisis that is turning Europe into the ghost of itself, not to mention allying with the homicidal terrorist maniacs in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah and, of course, Russia--the Israelis would have to be completely insane to give up the Golan.
Not even a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv would get them to leave so Syria can once again rain artillery over northern Israel as they did for decades. Everybody knows that, but few in this country or Europe want to say it out loud. Some claim that would endanger the so-called peace process that hasn't moved in those same decades. Of course, the opposite is true. Only by an accurate and honest assessment of the situation could there ever be a peace process.
Meanwhile, the only people being decent to the Syrians are, ironically, the Israelis. For years now during their endless civil war IDF soldiers have been sneaking across the border to bring thousands of wounded Syrians to Israeli hospitals for treatment, then quietly returning them to their home country. Can you imagine the reverse? I can't. (By the way, this is not a new story. The Israelis have been rescuing Arab citizens from the violence in their countries since, at least, the seventies.
[National Review] My weekend column was about Syria, a topic that is raging because President Trump is pulling out, and because this seems to have been the last straw for General Jim Mattis, who resigned as secretary of defense.
I’ve been discussing this on Twitter and find myself on the other side of people with whom I normally agree ‐ no surprise since, in my column, I am in disagreement with David French, with whom I am normally in lockstep on these kinds of issues.
And no surprise, then, that I am very sympathetic to the denunciations of President Trump for the impulsiveness of the pull-out. There is a lot to be said for this. As I observed in the column, it is especially shameful if the president decided to pull out in response to a threat from Turkey’s Islamist despot, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Even though I was against intervention in Syria, and even though I think it was playing with fire to ally with the Kurds under the circumstances (more on that in a moment), I would rather the president seek an authorization for use of military force (AUMF) to protect the Kurds than leave them to Erdogan’s tender mercies. I don’t think we should be in Syria, but I’d support it in order to show the world that we don’t let those who bleed with us get pushed around, much less annihilated.
On that subject, I’d note that the president is not the only one in this system who may seek an AUMF or a declaration of war. This is a power the Constitution vests in Congress.
While I have my differences from time to time, I like Senators Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and Tom Cotton, as well as some others who are complaining about the president’s rashness. But I object to the cynical game they are playing. They well know that their diva routine for the media is not the option the Constitution gives them. They could, at any time, have proposed an AUMF that would legitimize combat operations against whoever they believe are our enemies in Syria ‐ not just those who would ravage the Kurds, but those they keep saying (with great persuasive force, by the way) are our geopolitical enemies: Assad’s regime, Iran, and Russia. They still could. If they were right, it would be a great way to show how wrong Trump is.
But, of course, they won’t do that. They haven’t done it up to this point because they know Americans are broadly opposed to war against these enemies in Syria at this time. If they had been able to get the equivalent of a declaration of war from the people’s representatives, that would have meant the Syrian expedition had the backing of the public. You need that in a democratic republic to fight wars effectively. Having skipped this essential step, they naturally find it easier to complain about how Trump is mucking things up than to concede that the public did not want troops in Syria in the first place.
This, I must say, is what riles me. I understand the anger my friends are feeling now, but I don’t understand why they don’t get the anger I felt, and feel, over the fact that this intervention commenced without congressional authorization. A number of us argued that the intervention was not only lawless but reckless: We were going into a powder keg in which it was very likely we would end up in combat not just with ISIS (which may barely be covered by the rickety 17-year-old AUMF that covers al-Qaeda) but with Russia, Iran, and Syria ‐ as, in fact, has happened, albeit on a (so far) minimal scale.
#1
The whole thing is pure globalism. We have no interests in Syria. Why did we ever get involved? We allied with al Nusra for fucks sake.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
12/24/2018 5:40 Comments ||
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#2
Well, there was Bath House Barry's risible "red line." There was McSsssschtain, who never missed an opportunity to bomb if he could help it. And plenty of others, all comfortably in the rear-view mirror now...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/24/2018 7:58 Comments ||
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[Herald] The Star Trek actor, 87, suggested a portion of the complaints made against men were driven by women bearing a grudge.
The #MeToo movement has its origins in 2006 when activist Tarana Burke first coined the phrase. It went viral in 2017 following a tweet by the actress Alyssa Milano in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
It has since become an all-encompassing name for the movement against sexual harassment and discrimination.
However Shatner, immortalised for his portrayal of Captain James T Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, believes it is being exploited by women with scores to settle.
Replying to a fan on Twitter, Shatner said: "My issue is that women use me too as a weapon when they don’t get an autograph, when they don’t get their way, etc & the circus that ensues is comical and sad. aka hysterical."
1610s, "characteristic of hysteria," the nervous disease originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus; literally "of the womb," from Latin hystericus "of the womb," from Greek hysterikos "of the womb, suffering in the womb," from hystera "womb," from PIE *udtero-, variant of *udero- "abdomen, womb, stomach" (see uterus).
#3
There is some hysteria, but some grifters have weaponized the #MeToo movement as the latest Kavanaugh hearings show. All that happens with most movements, that doesn't mean the core of the movement is false.
#4
doesn't mean the core of the movement is false
True in a limited way. Now & then I meet a sincere person, but I meet far more hypocrites and circus performers. "Everybody lies" - Dr. House
Posted by: Boss Spoper5850 ||
12/24/2018 14:46 Comments ||
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#8
James Kirk, paraphrased: "But the instinct can be fought. We're men beings with a million savage years of being blamed for the behavior of the worst among us, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're horndogs, but we're not going to grope women today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't grope today."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/24/2018 17:55 Comments ||
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#9
Well said, M. Murcek.
a fair number of "hysterical outbursts" from female patients have been among the most sincere things I have ever heard.
Sincere is not the same as true or correct, Anguper Hupomosing9418. Like that witness against Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, whose little adventure turned out to have happened with another boy, and anyway she started it.
[Townhall] Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker has passed the ethics test, according to the Department of Justice. Following an investigation, Whitaker has the green light to oversee the Robert Mueller Russia investigation.
Democrats won't be happy. They still have several issues with Trump's temporary appointment of Whitaker, including his apparent inexperience. They've also accused Trump of circumventing Congress with the appointment, demanding that Whitaker sit before a Senate committee before taking on the responsibility of acting AG. Critics also note how he often Whitaker has publicly criticized the probe he's now overseeing. Yet, following an ethics probe there's no need for him to recuse himself, the DOJ announced Thursday.
Now that Whitaker has been cleared, he'll begin receiving regular briefs on the investigation.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was criticized and insulted by President Trump after he recused himself from the Russia probe because some members of Congress were concerned by statements he made in his confirmation hearing and the fact that he was a surrogate for Trump's presidential campaign.
[NationalReview] The near-destruction of ISIS in a matter of months (losing 99 percent of its landed caliphate), the restoration of sound defense budgeting, a reestablished sense of deterrence, and stable recalibration with allies were the signature achievements of James Mattis. And it seems a mistake not to have him finish a four-year stint at Defense.
No doubt continued U.S. deployments in both Afghanistan and Syria loomed large in Trump's sudden decision to leave the latter even if it would cause Mattis's departure, as well as the sense that as 2020 looms he wants MAGA orthodoxy throughout the cabinet.
The abrupt pulling of U.S. troops out of Syria is likely a mistake ‐ given that for the size (about 2,000 troops on the ground) and cost of the deployment (few casualties), we were keeping ISIS moribund, somewhat checking Iran as well as Russia, and protecting the Kurds and what was left of the democratic Syria resistance. True, Syria was a mess, unlike a relatively stable Iraq in late 2011 (see the comments of Vice President Biden and President Obama), when the U.S. likewise abruptly left and opened the door for ISIS. Yet Syria's future now is either going to be much more of a mess or soon a calmer colony of Russia and Iran.
No doubt the U.S. will likewise be reexamining the soon to be 18-year-long slog in Afghanistan.
The problem with all these deployments as they transitioned from emergency interventions to near-permanent stationing was that grand strategists never clearly articulated to the public how such investments kept the U.S. far safer and how long such basing would be necessary, especially in terms of costs to benefits. Both arguments in theory could be made (cf. South Korea), but the public at least never was assured by a series of Afghan deadlines, surges, redirects, recalibrations, withdrawals, and radical changes in command, tactics, and strategies, or by a Syrian tragedy of false red lines, lies about the elimination of poison gas, invitations to the Russians to adjudicate U.N.-enforced WMD compliance and with it entrance back into the Middle East after a 40-year hiatus, ISIS as "jayvees," the role of NATO "ally" Turkey, and prior restrictive lawfare tactics, etc. Ditto the Clinton "We came, we saw, he [Khadafi] died" misadventure in Libya, ending in Benghazi.
The irony is that under Mattis, we were finally getting to a smaller but deadlier footprint abroad and, at least in Syria, fulfilling Trump's "Bomb the sh** out of ISIS" promise in the sense of more rubble/less trouble realism. Trump's base is neither pro-isolationist nor pro–nation-building interventionism, which leaves something in the middle like "Don't tread on me" Jacksonian realism that his generals seemed to be enacting.
With the Mattis departure ends the Kelly/Mattis/McMaster troika of generals, who in retrospect served the administration ‐ and the country ‐ honorably and effectively in difficult times.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice published an op-ed Sunday in the New York Times in which she declares that President Donald Trump "does more to undermine American national security than any foreign adversary."
