[Wash Times] Activists portray illegal immigration solely as a human story of the desperately poor from south of the border fleeing misery to start new, productive lives in the United States -- despite exploitation and America’s nativist immigration laws.
But the truth is always more complex -- and can reveal self-interested as well as idealistic parties.
Employers have long sought to undercut the wages of the American underclass by preference for cheaper imported labor. The upper-middle classes have developed aristocratic ideas of hiring inexpensive "help" to relieve them of domestic chores.
The Mexican government keeps taxes low on its elite in part by exporting, rather than helping, its own poor. It causes little worry that some $25 billion in remittances sent from Mexican citizens working in America puts hardship on those expatriates, who are often subsidized by generous U.S. social services.
Mexico City rarely welcomes a heartfelt discussion about why its citizens flee Mexican exploitation and apparently have no wish to return home. Nor does Mexico City publicize its own stern approaches to immigration enforcement along its southern border -- or its ethnocentric approach to all immigration (not wanting to impair "the equilibrium of national demographics") that is institutionalized in Mexico’s constitution.
The Democratic Party is also invested in illegal immigration, worried that its current agendas cannot win in the Electoral College without new constituents who appreciate liberal support for open borders and generous social services.
[PJ] During a discussion on the MSNBC show "Morning Joe" Wednesday morning, a liberal TV host let slip her view of what the media's "job" is, and it isn't "to report the news."
In a discussion about fears that President Donald Trump is "trying to control the media," co-host Mika Brzezinski complained that Trump is trying to do her job. Namely, to "actually control exactly what people think."
"Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts," Brzezinski said. "And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much so that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job." (emphasis added)
To be fair, Brzezinski later tried to clarify her remarks: "Today I said it's the media's job to keep President Trump from making up his own facts, NOT that it's our job to control what people think."
Even Canada has a la carte cable now. There's no good reason for the U.S. not to have it.
The reason we don't is greed.
Forced bundling is officious rent-seeking, even welfare, by the infotainment industry. Without it more than half of cable networks would collapse. That means half the network presidents, vice presidents, CFOs, and the rest of the staff at all these would be out of a job overnight. The flush of job-seekers at these positions would also mean that the remaining solvent networks would be able to fire their current ones and hire someone at a much lower salary, decreasing the pay scale overall.
Everyone in the cable and infotainment industries knows this, knows that it is coming some day, and does all they can to put it off for as long as possible, hoping they can get to retirement before the hammer comes down.
We are being bilked for billions by a bunch of officious thugs who are not allowing creative destruction in their own industry in order to make a few more bucks - and not letting the market decide who should succeed or fail.
Apply the anti-trust laws. Apply RICO if necessary. If these networks can't make it without artificial and illegal things like bundling they don't deserve to exist at all, and neither do the paychecks associated with them.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/23/2017 7:55 Comments ||
Top||
#6
If these networks can't make it without artificial and illegal things like bundling they don't deserve to exist at all....
That might also include our former Kenyan master's palletised Swiss Francs and Euros shipments to Iran.
[War On The Rocks] Many Americans were fond of Barack Obama. He left office with some of the highest approval ratings of his entire term. On foreign policy, as in most matters, he seemed reflective, deliberate, and rational. An effective communicator, he maintained composure and presidential poise, no matter the topic.
In rare moments of frustration, Obama channeled "disappointed sitcom dad" rather than "blustering bully." Love him or hate him, Obama was a gentleman. And that’s the problem. Mainstream progressives ‐ who cried foul at George W. Bush’s every move ‐ looked the other way as Obama expanded unfettered presidential power in foreign affairs. Why? Because they trusted him ‐ his judgment, character, and motives. Maybe that trust was warranted.
Here’s the catch: the 22nd amendment. No president may serve for more than eight years, no matter how beloved (by some). Furthermore, each chief executive creates important precedents for his successor. For this reason, many liberals ‐ and perhaps the former president himself ‐ may come to lament Obama’s principal foreign policy legacy: the unbridled expansion of executive power in matters of (endless) war.
Presidential primacy is nothing new, of course. Executive power has gradually expanded for centuries, especially since World War II. The Obama administration eschewed imprudent, large-scale, conventional invasions, but his legacy is also defined by a sustained campaign of extrajudicial killings of terrorists, expanding the range and geographic scope of military operations, and cracking down on media leaks and whistleblowers. In each sphere, Obama’s hawkish behavior surpassed even that of George W. Bush.
This is one reason why Republican criticism of Obama’s supposedly "weak" and "feckless" foreign policy was so confusing. Sure, it’s fair to debate the wisdom of the Iran nuclear deal, his handling of the Syrian civil war, and his near-total withdrawal from Iraq. These are thorny issues worthy of complex analysis. But to label Obama a "dove" is just empirically false.
Bush and his advisors ‐ think Cheney, Wolfowitz, and company ‐ thought big: massive invasions, democracy promotion, remaking the Middle East, etc. Not so for "no-drama Obama." He preferred more precise, discreet responses to regional terrorism. Bush may have started the covert drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, but Obama ordered ten times as many attacks. Look, many (maybe a majority) of the victims were dangerous, dedicated terrorists. However, militants’ family members and other innocent bystanders also perished. One might plausibly ask why the method of killing matters. War is war and it is hell, after all. Nonetheless, there is something unique, unsettling, and even "Orwellian" about a president maintaining "kill lists" and holding "Terror Tuesday" targeting meetings. Remember, the United States is not at war with Pakistan, Somalia, Libya, or Yemen. After 15 years of strife, it seems Americans became numb to just how unprecedented this is ‐ violating airspace to kill foreign nationals in sovereign nations on a weekly basis.
#4
in most matters, he seemed reflective, deliberate, and rational.
Can I get some of whatever this fool is smoking.
In most matters Otrauma was uninterested NOT disinterested. He didn't give a crap about anything except his own thin skinned feelings, power and legacy.
[DAWN] THE desperately misguided quest of the PML-N government to revive military courts will continue today and, improbably, the government may be contriving to make a terrible situation worse. A parliamentary meeting has been brought forward and the government’s intense lobbying will now take place with news of a new military operation dominating the national discourse overnight. The government may try and bulldoze the principled and sensible parliamentary resistance among elements of the opposition, but what would be even more shocking is if the government makes a rumoured concession to the religious right on the issue. As reported in the media and openly acknowledged by the JUI-F in particular, the resistance on the religious right to military courts is not because the courts are anathema to the rule of law, but that they were instituted only for religiously inspired and sectarian Death Eaters. The religious right is demanding that if military courts are to be revived, no explicit reference is to be made to religion or sectarianism in the framework for the courts.
The context is vitally important. In the wake of the APS Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. attack, when the military leadership effectively forced parliament to give the army powers to try civilians for terrorism-related offences, the only resistance that parliament was able to put up was to keep the focus of military courts somewhat narrow -- permitting only the trial of so-called jet-black bandidosforces of Evil waging war in the name of religion or sectarianism. The explicit reference was introduced to prevent the military from expanding the use of the courts to other civilians deemed to be waging war on the state, such as the Baloch separatists. Perhaps the MQM too was concerned that, with the Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... operation still relatively new and allegations about the party’s links to India being aired publicly, political parties could be targeted by military courts. Other parties may have had similar concerns about legitimate political or regional struggles being caught in the fundamentally undemocratic pincers of the military courts.
It is vital to stress that military courts were a distortion of the Constitution and the rule of law that no democratic society ought to have inflicted on it. There is no scenario in which such courts are justifiable. But that does not mean military courts cannot be made even worse in practice. The government’s craven capitulation to the military would be compounded if it succumbs to political pressure from the religious right to exclude the specific references to religiously inspired or sectarian militancy in a revived framework for military courts. From a slippery slope to the floodgates opening, the changes being demanded by the religious right are unconscionable and have frightening implications. The PML-N government will be no less to blame if military courts are revived, especially in an expanded form. Consider what the government could have achieved if it had directed its lobbying efforts towards criminal justice reforms.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2017 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11123 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] ACCORDING to the high priests of public morality, many normal Paks have become so heartless that they rape and kill little girls or sell deadly poison under the label of essential drugs, or foodstuffs -- because the moral order has collapsed. But they are unlikely to offer this explanation for the recent carnage in Sehwan.
Such simplistic answers prevent identification of the material factors contributing to the wave of savagery in the country and make remedial action difficult, if not impossible.
The foremost cause of the rise of beastliness in society is that the law has ceased to be a deterrent to crime. The state’s effort to meet this situation by making penalties for offences harsher misses the point that the majesty of the law rests not so much on punishments as it does on the public belief that nobody can escape paying for his misdeeds. In today’s Pakistain, most wrongdoers believe they can get away with anything.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2017 00:00 ||
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[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Breitbart] The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is plagued by financial troubles, with annual revenue falling by over 50 percent over the last two years, a study finds. The challenge of modern governance everywhere.
However, "the decline in revenues may not have an immediate effect on the group’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks outside its territory. While hurting Islamic State finances puts pressure on the organization and its state-building project, wider efforts will continue to be necessary to ultimately defeat it," points out the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) and accounting group Ernst & Young in its study.
Moreover, ISIS and its affiliates have expanded to multiple countries where they may find sources of income other than what is available to them in their so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
Page 7 of the study outlines the specific sources of ISIS revenue.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
02/23/2017 07:27 ||
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Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
The article suggests that ISIS (terrorism) could be turning to the opium fields of Afghanistan as a potential funding source. Could there possibly be a proof of concept? And what of Chicago, Houston and LA? But I digress.
As the fledgling caliphate matures, it will likely move on to more advanced schemes of revenue creation such as; foreign aide programmes, weapons sales, and nuclear counter-proliferation, an ISIS NPR, Ernst & Young or RAND type studies. Did I mention weapons sales ?
#2
McShhhhame to the ressssshhhhcue! "Friendssssshhhh, we schhhhhhimply mushhhhht not allow thesechhhhh moderate killershhhhhh to perischhhhhh from the Earth!"
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/23/2017 10:01 Comments ||
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#3
ISIS running short of other people's money
Ah. I think I see the problem. They don't have paper money and a Fed.
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.
[Wash Times] Activists portray illegal immigration solely as a human story of the desperately poor from south of the border fleeing misery to start new, productive lives in the United States -- despite exploitation and America’s nativist immigration laws.
[PJ] During a discussion on the MSNBC show "Morning Joe" Wednesday morning, a liberal TV host let slip her view of what the media's "job" is, and it isn't "to report the news."
