[WND] Democrats know The Wall is imminent. Is the pending dread more psychologically damaging than the erection of The Wall?
Democrats know The Wall is what will finally break them, and no amount of Democrat and Democrat Media Industrial Complex (DMIC) agitprop will ever tear down The Wall. It will be the chasm between the old guard and the burgeoning Leninism within the party.
The Wall is deserving of proper name capitalization.
The Democrats know The Wall will achieve its intent, of deterring and preventing mass illegal immigration, which has resulted in an illegal-alien population the federal government has no true, accurate count of.
The Wall will be the physical affirmation of our historic, theory-of-black-swan, glass-ceiling-shattering 2016 win over Empress Clinton. Tax reform and withdrawals from bogus deals with Iran and climate change globalist welfare treaties aren’t palpable; I can’t take a selfie in front of the 2018 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act. United States Supreme Court justices are a bit more tangible, but the court isn’t omnipresent 24/7.
The Wall, though? That proposed happy marriage of steel, spikes and concrete? Oh, it will be glorious. I know President Trump has described The Wall as "beautiful," but we don’t care if it’s the ugly Christmas sweater of American architecture.
#2
The fall in population pressure on rents, lowered use of extortion funded services such as roads, schools and hospitals and undercutting wages will also lower the amount of economic-rent available for donors of the Dems (and GOPe).
#3
Eventually the Dems will move a useful idiot or two into a place of power in the Immigration and Nationalization service (like nearly every other department in the Federal Government) and they'll stop looking for folks that overstay their visa's (because resources) then what? GOP should be considering this sort of thing now, increase the number of work visa's combined with heavy, heavy penalties for overstaying or attempting to vote.
#5
#4 Those overstaying should be paid for by a guarantor. --Bright Pebbles
Charity should be paid for Voluntarily or it is Theft. Such a difficult concept for many people to grasp.
#10
I recall OldSpook and some others explaining long ago that we don’t actually need to wall the entire border, as long stretches are reasonably impassible. Rather, key sections need to be walled in order to funnel the movement of illegals to areas that can be easily defended. I’m not sure the term kill boxes was used, but that is how I picture the concept.
#11
"I recall OldSpook and some others explaining long ago that we don’t actually need to wall the entire border, as long stretches are reasonably impassible. Rather, key sections need to be walled in order to funnel the movement of illegals to areas that can be easily defended. I’m not sure the term kill boxes was used, but that is how I picture the concept."
Routing traffic from Civilian populace and into more difficult land structures is a great help to protecting OUR Citizens and infrastructure in the border towns and Ruals.
The import is to route it away from possible prime target areas for cartels, jihadis, cyotes, etc.
Exceprt:
[Tablet] Other former U.S. intelligence officials who have joined the anti-Salman campaign, include ex-CIA director John Brennan, who suggested the United States freeze arms sales to Riyadh, ex-deputy CIA director John McLaughlin, and former CIA official Ned Price. All three are MSNBC analysts, along with other former agency officers. One upside of the Khashoggi operation is that it has helped illuminate another part of the map of the new U.S. media‐MSNBC appears to be a destination of choice for CIA leaks.
Blurring the lines between journalists/analysts and officials/operatives is not simply a matter of convenient nomenclature. It’s part of a conscious strategy to legitimize the nature and structure of information operations by obscuring their political character. How dare Trump strip John Brennan’s security clearance! He’s infringing on the former CIA director’s free speech rights‐as a journalist.
Branding political operatives and intelligence officials as "press" is also intended to shield these newly minted "analysts" from possible prosecution. Evidence of their crimes and abuses may be found in the steady stream of classified intelligence illegally leaked to a complicit press corps for the purpose of marketing the Russia collusion narrative. By relabeling government officials as "journalists," the media is protecting both its clandestine confederates and itself.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2019 10:19 Comments ||
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#5
In other words, you don’t read the Lebanese press for news as such. Rather, it’s a kind of bulletin board where significant political actors, working through operatives with bylines, hint at their next moves, test the waters, warn rivals, issue threats, etc.
Sort of like the Washington Post, NYT, CNN, the BBC, etc.
BLUF
[Strategic Culture Foundation] Whatever the case may be, one thing looks certain right now, and that is Trump's newfound desire to unilaterally call the shots in his presidency. The Deep State must now be rightly wondering what Trump could do next: order the US military to build his wall on the Mexico border? Initiate indictments against the Clinton Foundation over "pay to play" allegations, among other things? Shut down the Federal Reserve and bring back the US Treasury to print America's money supply, as called for in the US Constitution? Everything is now on the table as far as Trump's options go, and that must certainly be of no small concern to the powers-that-be in Washington DC.
#1
Excerpt from a posting today entitled 'Pulling the Plug.' As we begin first by 'following the money,' this could be one of the sources of the Deep State's anger with DRT:
Unfortunately, armaments are one of a few exports where America still competes in the world economy. Indeed, the American strategic establishment today is, in the main, an army of sutlers where ethics like planning, programming, budgeting, procurement, and gun running have replaced erstwhile values like duty, honor, country – and victory.
[WSJ] U.S. population growth fell to an 80-year low last year amid declining birth rates, a new Census report shows. But it’s also telling that some states are booming while others are suffering a European-style sclerosis of population loss and slow economic growth.
One side effect of a strengthening national economy has been a widening disparity in state growth rates. The eight fastest-growing states by population last year were located in the West or South (Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Florida, Washington, Colorado and Texas).
And what do you know? These states have also experienced rapid employment and GDP growth spurred by low tax rates and policies generally friendly to business and job creation. Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Utah, Florida and Colorado ranked among the eight states with the fastest job growth this past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nevada, Texas, Washington and Florida have no income tax.
Florida recorded the highest level of net domestic migration last year and has gained 1.2 million people from other states since 2010. Many Florida transplants are retirees and tax refugees from the Northeast, but businesses of all sorts are also recruiting young workers from other states to serve the state’s booming population that has reached 21.3 million.
Then there’s California. Despite its balmy weather and thriving tech industry, the Golden State last year lost more people to other states than it gained from foreign immigration. Since 2010, a net 710,000 people have left California for other states. One reason is high housing prices, fueled by onerous land and zoning regulations, which have driven out thousands of middle-income families.
Jobs and businesses have also fled the state’s high taxes and regulation. A study this month by business relocation consultant Joe Vranich estimates that 1,800 businesses shifted jobs or capital out of California in 2016 and about 13,000 companies have left the state since 2008. Over the last decade $76.7 billion in capital and 275,000 jobs have moved out of the state.
While California’s population continues to grow because of its relatively high birth rate and foreign immigration, other states that are hostile to business have been less blessed. Nine states lost population last year including Alaska, Connecticut, Louisiana, Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New York, West Virginia and Wyoming. Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia and Wyoming are heavily dependent on the vagaries of energy prices, but the economic malaise in Connecticut, Illinois, Hawaii and New York is self-inflicted.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently blamed cold weather for the state’s population exodus, but last year frigid New Hampshire with no income tax attracted 3,900 newcomers from other states. Last year’s federal tax reform limited the deductibility of state-and-local taxes and may be driving more affluent households out of high-tax states, though it’s too early to have hard data. Immigration flows into New York City mask the economic debacle of upstate despite Mr. Cuomo’s corporate-welfare programs.
Illinois’s population has declined by 157,000 over the past five years, which is equivalent to the mid-sized city of Rockford. According to research outfit Wirepoints, more than 114,000 residents left the state on net in 2018 and nearly 1.5 million people since 2000. Cold weather? While Illinois’s population has declined by 0.8% since 2010, Indiana’s has grown 3.1% and Wisconsin’s by 2.2%.
These population shifts mean that several states including New York, Illinois and Minnesota are likely to lose House seats after the 2020 reapportionment. States that have been rapidly adding population like Arizona, Florida and Texas are likely to increase their representation. It’d be nice to think this would finally prompt Democratic politicians to rethink their anti-growth policies. But with state political cultures dominated by public unions and welfare spending, they probably require a much deeper crisis to face reality.
America as a whole can thank the Founders for creating a federalist system that allows the economic and political safety valve of interstate policy competition. Emphasis added
#3
Before the aristocracy SCOTUS struck it down, voters had to be residents for a given amount of time before they could cast ballots. Long time past for a new SCOTUS that can read the Constitution* and severely restrain itself from amassing power to dictate.
*The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
[SmallWarsJournal] Foreign policy in the Trump era is a tug-of-war, a test of wills between national pragmatists and global utopians. Binary equations might be simplistic, but if it has done nothing else, the Trump agenda has exposed the venal politics and pratfalls of "social" democracies, here and in Europe. The contest is a struggle, as irony would have it, between voices arguing for change and the "business as usual" crowd.
Conventional strategy in the west is nothing short of Kafkaesque. Imperial NATO expands and picks fights with Russia whilst sponsoring regime change fiascos in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, and Libya, just to name a few. Absurd attempts to suppress Muslim tactics in the field have become a game of "whack-a- mole while Islamic state sponsors are feted as allies or "partners." Persian, Arabian, and Pakistani terror sponsors now enjoy a kind of kinetic immunity while the rest of Mohamed's flyover country has become a free-fire zone for American nerds. An exceptionally written opine.
#3
Donovan has produced a jewel. If you have time to read nothing else today, read this. Two of my favorite paragraphs provided below:
Globalism in all its historical variants has three milestones; first zeal, then coercion, and finally implosion. Eric Hoffer put it best. “Every great cause begins as a movement, then becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” The United Nations, as an example, is already a destination sierra hotel for failed politicians from around the globe.
Unfortunately, armaments are one of a few exports where America still competes in the world economy. Indeed, the American strategic establishment today is, in the main, an army of sutlers where ethics like planning, programming, budgeting, procurement, and gun running have replaced erstwhile values like duty, honor, country – and victory.
#4
This headline caused me a moment of panic. The first thought that hit me was that Fred was shutting Rantburg down. That was not a pleasant thought. I was very happy to open it and just see a regular article.
It's off topic I know, but just thought I'd share:p
#7
a test of wills between national pragmatists and global utopians
I tend to think of this in terms of the Patriots versus the Globalists. The globalists, in the sense that it has evolved is not our friend. It tends to favor the "banksters" as well as gut the wealth of a country and destroy its culture; a parasitical relationship. This doesn't mean we can't have friendly relationships with other countries that are beneficial to all parties.
#8
@JohnQC
Just like Self interest means working nicely with others and focusing on what you do (least worst) best so the whole economy reaps comparative advantage.
#9
Lost me at that sentence... poor picked on Puty-pute
I have precious little sympathy for Putin but his country is greatly diminished from the Evil Empire days of the Soviet Union so I don't see him as much of a threat either. Whatever goes on between Russia and Ukraine is beyond our sphere of influence and I really don't give a damn.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/01/2019 12:13 Comments ||
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#10
I did a search on sierra hotel and found that it has been used to mean shit hot. I could see how it might also be used to mean shit hole. But in this context it seems like the meaning is more like sinecure.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/01/2019 12:22 Comments ||
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#11
Crimean War, Part Deux?
Do we need a Real Life re-enactment of the movie Charge of The Light Brigade(1968)? Before we start a war with Russia, to stop its adventurism in Ottoman Turkey the Ukraine, could we be clear on exactly what we are getting involved in?
#14
On this day in 1883:
"A macrame vest? Now, you watch it!"
He snarled, understandibly crotchety,
But pulling the curtain,
He sat for that certain
Disturbing ceramic of Cochiti.
[IsraelTimes] Twelve months ago, the US embassy was in Tel Aviv, the Iran deal was humming along, Paleostinians were enjoying aid, and a peace plan was just a twinkle in Jared Kushner’s eye.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ran for the presidency as a disrupter. When it comes to his managing of the US-Israel relationship, he has been precisely that.
Throughout 2018, Trump made a series of decisions that have had vast implications for Israel’s future ‐ for its conflict with the Paleostinians, and for its efforts to thwart Iran’s quest to obtain a nuclear weapon and spread its influence throughout the region.
And, throughout it all, he has put Israel in the center of the news, and made it a focal point of his administration.
In typical Trumpian fashion, the president made the last year one of upheaval and controversy. Here are the five ways that he upended US-Israel relations in 2018.
The paragraphs below the headings can be read at the link, for those interested,
Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem
Withdrawing the US from the Iran deal
Cutting US aid to the Palestinians
Pulling US troops from Syria
TEASING THE RELEASE OF HIS PEACE PLAN
Throughout 2018, Trump’s peace team ‐ led by his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Jason Greenblatt ‐ has signaled that the publication of its proposal was imminent. There has been no definitive indication of what the plan will entail; although Trump once said he preferred a two-state outcome.
In recent months, officials have said the plan is "completed" but that it would be released "when the time was right," making it the biggest elephant in a room full of them. In 2018, finding the right time evidently eluded the Americans.
Trump himself vowed during the UN General Assembly in September that it would be unveiled by January. It now seems unlikely that the White House will release the plan with Israel heading into an election this spring, and many see a summer rollout as the earliest likely window.
With the plan gathering dust, it remains one big question mark, with the potential, Trump-style, to one day further disrupt not only the US-Israel relationship, but also the broader Middle East.
#2
Fired James Comey ☑
Suspended John Brennans security access ☑
Lowered income taxes ☑
Hired John Bolton ☑
Hired Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch ☑
Hired Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh ☑
Announced a modest 2019 pay raise for the military ☑
[The Hill] A majority want President Trump to declassify documents pertaining to the Russia investigations, according to a new The Hill-HarrisX poll.
Fifty-nine percent of registered voters contacted for the survey said they want Trump to declassify the documents, with 14 percent saying they want the information kept secret and 27 percent not sure.
"Generally speaking, I think Americans view transparency as a good thing, so it's not surprising to me that most Americans want the documents to be declassified," Mallory Newall, research director at the Ipsos Public Affairs polling company, said during Monday's broadcast of Hill.TV's "What America's Thinking."
"Americans approve of [Mueller's] investigation, they want a full and fair investigation and are in favor of transparency at all points throughout," Newall continued.
Several Republican members of Congress have asked the president to declassify documents from the earliest days of the FBI's investigation which they believe will show that high-ranking officials withheld relevant information from judges in order to obtain warrants to monitor members of Trump's former campaign. They have also sought to declassify DOJ briefing papers that were presented to congressional leaders which they say might include information about possible abuses by investigators.
Declass puts sunlight on things which is usually a good thing in government. It ought to be done unless it compromises grand jury indictment or military tribunal processes.
The Mueller probe was based on lies to begin with. The FISA warrants were obtained fraudulently, the Steele dossier was made-up B.S. and the Trump campaign and duly-elected POTUS was illegally spied upon by Obama's intelligence agencies. Moreover, it seems the Mueller team tried to destroy Stzrok-Page emails. Its stated purpose was to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians. However the purpose seems to be to exonerate Hillary and take down Trump.
If Declass would stop the Mueller fishing expedition, witch hunt, it would be good for the country.
#5
The Circular Innuendo Theater gets tiresome, doesn't it? Someone (supposedly) "Leaks" Classified, then Someone is Outraged by the (unsubstantiated) "Facts" that were leaked by that Anonymous person, and then a circle of Pundits get progressively more outraged by each other's outrage.
De-Classify and let the Facts Speak For Themselves™ ... It would be such a pleasant change
#7
Trump should honestly appoint a special counsel to investigate Mueller and his team. Make it COMPLETELY open ended and ensure that EVERY computer and phone are taken via SWAT raids right as it's being announced. Shoot anyone who resists. Appoint a Texas Ranger to do the investigation.
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.
