Thursday, January 10, 2019
Two kinds of security theatre, not actual security: $8 billion a year for TSA to feel up grandma at the airport, $5 billion for part of a wall around which sex offenders will still get in
Maybe it would just be cheaper to bring them straight in and let them loose in the airports.
Good God the alt-right is dumb: Republicans need your votes but HATE your agenda . . .
They spend their valuable time and political power on their agenda, you fool.
The naiveté is breathtaking sometimes.
Remember when Donald Trump gave out Lindsey Grahamnesty's phone # for calling him a jackass?
The good old days.
Donald Trump gives out Lindsey Graham's cellphone number:
On Tuesday, Trump ramped up his attacks on the South Carolina senator — who made headlines Monday for calling the Donald a “jackass” — and even gave out Graham’s private phone number.
If Beto O'Rourke's dental hygienist was born in El Paso, why does she have to study to become a citizen?
Diana, wearing goggles and a mask over her face, said she was born in El Paso and that her father was a U.S. citizen. She added that her mother was born in a small town in Mexico and that she herself was a permanent resident in the U.S. while studying for her American citizenship.
Jerusalem Post boasts 6% of the new Congress is Jewish, complains Christians are over-represented
Wait until it's full of Muslim motherf*ckers and then see how you like it.
There are 34 Jews in the House and Senate, which is 6.4% of the total 535. All but two are Democrats.
Congress as a whole is overwhelmingly Christian — even more so than the country. Seventy-one percent of Americans identify as Christian, compared to 88 percent of Congress. Both Protestants and Catholics are over-represented on Capitol Hill.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
That's right, Miller, not only did the Indians steal Pinocchio from the Italians, Pipestone, MN, was originally an Italian fishing village
The original pronunciation was pi-pes-to-ni.
Will the cultural appropriation never stop?
Chicago Tribune joins NY Post in calling for another amnesty
[G]ive the president the money he wants to spend on concrete or steel fencing as part of a budget agreement that reopens the government.
In exchange, let’s see a deal on DACA.
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for December 2018
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for December 2018:
Max temp 53, Mean Max temp 53
Min temp 13 (tied for 11th highest min on record with 5 other years), Mean Min temp 4
Av temp 32.5, Mean Av temp 28.3
Av temp 2018 49.6, Mean Av temp 48.2
Precip 1.99, Mean precip 2.43
Precip 2018 44.45 (11th wettest year on record), Mean precip 34.60
Snow 3.2 (6th least snow in Dec on record), Mean snow 16.1
Snow season to date 17.6, Mean snow season to date 22.8
CDD 2018 1003 (7th highest season on record), Mean CDD 693
HDD 1000, Mean HDD 1130
HDD season to date 2472, Mean HDD season to date 2486
What a shock, right, libertarian New York Post calls for another amnesty as a compromise
Trump promised to end DACA and hasn't. He also promised to build a wall and hasn't.
We didn't elect him to compromise on these basic campaign promises.
The 1986 amnesty gave us the problem we have now. Another one will only give us another one, and another and another and another, wall or no wall.
End DACA! Build The Wall! Don't let people cut in line!
[T]he two sides need merely agree on granting legal status to the Dreamers.
Monday, January 7, 2019
Trump has learned nothing about politics
Going to the border he is. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Take Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck with ya and hand out some soccer balls why dontcha.
That will accomplish about as much as shutting down the government AFTER all your leverage is gone.
Sad!
Former House Freedom Caucus member Mick Mulvaney, now running OMB, finally outed as pro-amnesty
Along with Mike Pence.
Wake up and smell the coffee, people. There was only one Republican in the administration fighting the immigration fight, and Trump fired him. The rest of them have long, explicit histories of being on the wrong side of the issue, along with most everyone in so-called conservative talk radio.
Report: Trump ‘Regularly Asks’ Pro-Amnesty Mick Mulvaney for ‘His Thoughts’ on Immigration Issues
Barry Ritholtz doesn't live in Realville, calls recent wage gains "decent" when they are peanuts
Decent wage gains are showing up in paychecks. That should continue for a while. Workers had an average gain in hourly wages of 3.2 percent in December, well above the average of 2.4 percent during the past five years . . ..
There's nothing wrong with his facts, just his perspective, which isn't long-term. He's content to compare his data to the Obama era, which sucked big-time. Note how he doesn't say that, however, big New York liberal that he is.
Year over year, the average gain in 2018 isn't even Bush-league let alone Clinton-league. And certainly not pre-Reagan-league, when workers in this country got much bigger raises on average than they do in this supposedly booming economy.
Barry likes charts. Here's the only one that counts, showing that raises for 80% of workers on average can't hold a candle to the late 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s (when Democrats couldn't stop complaining about George W. Bush's horrible economy).
Employers remain stingy, and there is no employment boom, or else they'd be hiring all the old people the greedy bastards fired in 2009 because they made too much money.
I KNOW.
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Actually record numbers of us WANT you to leave
[M]ost of the recent surge in Americans' desire to migrate has come among groups that typically lean Democratic . . ..
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Trouble already in the freshman Democrat club: Rashida Tlaib, MI-13, wants to erase Israel
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY-14, has come out as a Jew.
Must see video: Tucker Carlson says socialism is exactly what we're going to get unless we stop worshipping at the altar of (capitalist) materialism
Pretty smart coming from a guy who eschews intellectualism.
For example, I wish he had said that you can't have limited government without individuals composing it who first limit themselves. He says that, and more, just not in a lapidary way. Tucker is revolting against the reductionism of Conservatism Inc. to mere materialism. He is revolting against ideology, and it's amazing.
Here.
Bons mots:
Republicans see it as their duty to make the world safe for banking.
Questioning markets feels like apostasy to social conservatives.
Economics and culture are not separable one from the other.
Rural America now looks like Detroit.
Putting corporations first is bondage.
We tax capital at half the rate we tax labor.
Divided countries are easier to rule.
Market capitalism is not a religion. It's a tool.
Libertarians tell a lie when they say any deviation from market fundamentalism is socialism.
Ann Coulter says she agrees with AOC: Raise taxes on the rich
Ann just wants to punish the Koch Brothers in the process, but there's a better reason to agree.
Good government acts like a curb on a street, steering behavior. That's what taxing the rich used to be all about.
How so?
Once enacted in 1916, high taxation of ordinary income didn't result in high revenues for government. That's why the income tax was extended to almost all earners instead of just the rich when it became clear within a few years that government wouldn't have enough money to play in the international sandbox without more dough. For their part the rich won long term tax concessions through diverting derivation of income from capitalist enterprises, the latter benefiting not just themselves as owners but also individuals with jobs, the country with productivity, and the government with additional multiple streams of revenue. It was an intricate but effective way of benefiting all concerned.
The mistake with the Reagan Revolution was that it misunderstood human nature. It thought lots of new untaxed ordinary income would end up getting invested just the same way, and turn America into something never before seen. But the money didn't get invested the same way. It fled abroad where the cost of doing business was cheaper. It helped create middle classes wherever it went, but ours withered on the vine. Meanwhile the number of US billionaires mushroomed, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay went ballistic, and general income inequality increased dramatically. Real incomes for most people have barely moved up since the 1970s.
And now here we are with an America never before seen indeed, where libertarian advocates of this destructive system tell us with a straight face that this is patriotism.
Unfortunately, none of this is in the pea brain of AOC, let alone in Ann Coulter's, Kevin McCarthy's or Donald Trump's.
Michael Savage calls AOC "Alexandria Occasional Cortex", which is just . . . savage
I suppose of all the talkers I've listened to over the years, Savage has been my favorite. For his general positions on borders, language and culture, yes, but more so because he's an independent thinker. It's not just that he's independent. It's that he thinks. No thinking man is a party man. Which is probably why he's out the door.
Not sure I'm a podcast guy, but there's that for those who are more active than passive listeners. I like the radio because it's (mostly) live. Anything big which could happen you hear about almost instantly. And anyone could call in. It's more spontaneous and more exciting. I like to listen while I'm cooking dinner.
Radio certainly is changing. Laura Ingraham hung up the headset in November after many years carrying the baton on immigration. Burning the candle at both ends she was. Chris Plante out of DC is a very welcome alternative to Laura in the mornings. He's very quick upstairs, trenchant and funny.
It would be nice if Mark Steyn replaced Rush Limbaugh one of these days, but somehow I think the Rush Limbaugh show goes away when Rush goes away.
But all of them need to take more callers, and let them talk, dammit. Which is probably too much to ask. Most of the callers aren't any good.
But there was that guy, Geno from The Bronx . . ..
Yep, you guessed it, the inventor of sliced bread was white . . . and German-American . . . and from Iowa
Ve haf vays ov makinck your lunch qvicker.
The horror. The horror.
Otto Frederick Rohwedder (1880-1960)
Friday, January 4, 2019
Ann Coulter: The media are trying to convince Trump that if he abandons the wall, he’ll be a statesman . . .
Bush 41 accepted the Profiles in Courage award from Democrats for abandoning his Read My Lips No New Taxes pledge, many years later of course, proof that the voters were right to turn out the bum in 1992 for his betrayal.
Will Trump follow in his footsteps?
Nearly every Republican presidential candidate tried to con voters with these meaningless catchphrases about “border security.”
Here are The Des Moines Register’s summaries of some of the candidates’ positions on immigration a few weeks before the 2016 Iowa caucus:
Jeb Bush: “has called for enhanced border security.”
Marco Rubio: “proposes … improved security on the border.”
John Kasich: “believes border security should be strengthened.”
Chris Christie: “urges … using technology to improve border surveillance …”
Rand Paul: “would secure the border immediately.”
Carly Fiorina: “would secure the border, which she says requires only money and manpower.”
They all lost.
The guy who won: “Trump has said many illegal immigrants are rapists and are bringing drugs and crime to the United States. He has called for building a wall along the southern border, and has said he would make Mexico pay for it. He said he would immediately terminate President Barack Obama’s ‘illegal executive order on immigration.'”
Trump got more votes than any other Republican in the history of presidential primaries. No one was falling for “border security” then, and they aren’t now.
But instead of doing what he said and building a wall, Trump has hired people who don’t even grasp that the point is to make it unattractive to break into our country.
Start with your father Rashida, eldest of 14 children
Another Cooley Law School graduate rises to the level of her incompetence. Michael Cohen will keep a cot warm for you, Rashida.
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Rand Paul to Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts Puritan: Cut the petty holier than thou crap
Ain't gonna happen Senator Paul. There's something in the water up there in Massachusetts that once you drink of it, you're infected forever. Same thing happens with the water in Utah. But hooah anyway.
I don`t know how it really helps anybody`s cause for people to stand up there like they`re holier than thou. And it`s like, look at me, how virtuous I am. And I`m going to bring down the presidency by criticizing his character in front of the whole nation. It does nobody any good. And, in the end, I think it`s going to look petty, and I think there`s going to be a backlash to this. ...
I question [Trump] on policy when I disagree with him. He knows I have stood up to him. I have talked to him on the phone and he says, "I know where your principles are and I know you can`t move on this particular vote." And we still have a good conversation. And I think that`s different than attacking and trying to go for the jugular of someone`s character. And so I do think it`s different. ...
[I]f there were an election between Donald Trump in a primary and Romney, I think Romney would be wiped out.
Hooah Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney: The Senate doesn't care who you used to be
It is kind of sad. As a freshman, he could have come in, he could have written as the former governor of Massachusetts, his views on Elizabeth Warren running for office. He could have written about the shutdown and offered an idea, such as combining help for the DREAMers with building the wall and securing the border. He could have written about things he knows a great deal about.
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Among whites Trump 2016 underperformed Romney 2012 57%-59% overall, but crushed him with whites in eleven states and in seven to win the presidency
Mitt Romney is back, but he really ought to just zip it. He's a loser.
States where Trump 2016 (wins in red) outperformed Romney 2012 (wins in blue) among whites:
States where Trump 2016 (wins in red) outperformed Romney 2012 (wins in blue) among whites:
Florida 64%-61%
Indiana 64%-60%
Iowa 54%-47%
Maine 46%-40%
Michigan 57%-55%
Minnesota 50%-49%
Missouri 66%-65%
New Hampshire 48%-47%
New York 51%-49%
Ohio 62%-57%
Wisconsin 53%-51%.
Where Trump underperformed Romney Trump still won the same contests, but also reeled in Pennsylvania which Romney did not. Overall Trump won 10 states to Romney's 4, largely on improved performance among whites.
States where Romney 2012 (wins in blue) outperformed Trump 2016 (wins in red) among whites:
Arizona 66%-54%
California 53%-45%
Colorado 54%-47%
New Jersey 56%-54%
New Mexico 56%-47%
North Carolina 68%-63%
Oregon 44%-42%
Pennsylvania 57%-56%
Virginia 61%-59%
Washington 46%-40%.
Exit polling via CNN.
Exit polling via CNN.
Peter Dutton of the US Naval War College doesn't think China can control the South China Sea
One of the rare hopeful appraisals I have read, which ought to be sobering . . . for China.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Next stop for beer-drinking Cherokee woman Elizabeth Warren: A visit to the hardware store "to get me a huntin' license"
Must be something in the water up there in Massachusetts that turns people into phony baloney plastic banana good time rock-n-rollas. Michael Dukakis in the tank, John Kerry goes a huntin', and now Elizabeth Warren cracks open a cold one in a New Year's Eve chat streamed live. Hm. Tongues are a-wagging. A drinking Indian, huh? Was it an India Pale Ale?
The article forgets to mention the incident involving John Kerry, who served in Vietnam.
Cashman: Elizabeth Warren racks up another Dukakis moment :
With the beer vid — trying to sell herself as your average
beer-swigging multimillionaire former Harvard Law prof who’s a champion
of the middle class — Warren has racked up two strikes in short order.
Three strikes and … it could be just Beto O’Rourke vs. Kamala Harris on
the left side of the Democrats’ debate stage.
Suddenly Obamacare is not much of a muchness to Democrats, a mere stepping stone to the socialist future
The next development will be Republicans arguing, as Paul Ryan did in 2012 about Medicare, that conservatism means we must preserve Obamacare for future generations.
Lindsey Grahamnesty points out that the Gang of Eight bill was tougher on border security than Trump is now
Suddenly the Gang of Eight bill is conservatism. Trump is now to the left of the entire Republican primary field of 2016 on immigration, begging for just $5 billion and willing to take less.
What suckers he takes us for.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: What I can tell you is Democrats have voted for 700 miles of the Secure Fence Act that had double-layered fencing. Call that whatever you'd like. In the Gang of Eight bill we had $42 billion for border security, including $9 billion for physical barriers.
The wall has become a metaphor for border security. And what we're talking about is a physical barrier where it makes sense. In the past, every Democrat has voted for these physical barriers. It can't be just about because Trump wants it we no longer agree with it.
There is nothing immoral about a physical barrier along the border in places that make sense. There will never be a deal that doesn't have money for the physical barriers that we all in the past have agreed we need.
Laugh of the Day: Trump calls Elizabeth Talking Bull crazy without calling her crazy
The president has this part of politics down pat. Too bad the follow through on policy utterly escapes him.
From the transcript here:
HEGSETH: She says she’s in the fight all the way, Mr. President. Do you really think she believes she can win?
TRUMP: Well that I don’t know. You’d have to ask her psychiatrist. But honestly, I just, you know --
(LAUGHTER)
Monday, December 31, 2018
H. Ross Perot's $13/hr factory jobs going to Mexico in 1992 should pay $27/hr today adjusted for inflation but pay only $18
The giant sucking sound clip from 1992 is here.
Perot characterized factory wages in 1992 as typically paying between $12 and $14 per hour.
Adjusted for inflation the $13 job in 2017 would pay nearly $27 per hour. The reality is it pays a lot less than that. Factory work in Michigan today basically starts at $15, up only 25% not 107%. The average manufacturing job paying $21+ is composed of a lot of such lower paying positions.
The reality is in Michigan that the top eventual $18/hr advertised wage is the equivalent of less than $9/hr in 1992.
The jobs have gone out of the country, expanding middle classes abroad while impoverishing our own at home.
Outgoing Trump Chief of Staff General John Kelly attacks Jeff Sessions, was just one in the retinue opposing Trump's policies whom Trump himself appointed
That's rich, attacking the only guy in the administration who tried to implement the policies the candidate ran on.
Good riddance!
“What happened was Jeff Sessions, he was the one that instituted the zero-tolerance process on the border that resulted in both people being detained and the family separation,” Kelly said. “He surprised us.” ... “The president still says ‘wall’ – oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats," Kelly said. "But we (moved away from) a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.” ... “Illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people,” Kelly said. “I have nothing but compassion for them, the young kids.” ... He said the job was arduous and he often clashed with Trump over policy. But he was determined to stay through the 2018 midterm elections.
Trump already compromised on The Wall, and that's the problem
Trump gave away 80% of what he wanted without getting anything in return.
It's political malpractice.
Even worse, he's shut down the government now over the remaining 20% at the most politically inopportune time, having nothing left to bargain with.
The time to have done this was when Republicans were in control of Congress, in January 2017, or February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January 2018, February . . ..
Forgive us for thinking he was never serious about The Wall, at all.
The Wall is now and may always have been simply a political tool, like opposition to abortion. He stopped being serious about it in August 2016 after the immigration issue secured him the nomination, when this "advisor", Kellyanne Conway, came on board from the Ted Cruz campaign, which likewise was never serious about The Wall. Ted had one throwaway line about immigration in his entire speech announcing his candidacy, that's it. It was Trump who completely blindsided him and the rest of the Republican field with the issue. But ever since it's only red meat for the base. He never made it a priority, and fired the only person actively pursuing immigration reform in his administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. That's how unimportant The Wall has been to the president.
The Wall riles up the news, keeping Trump in it, that's all.
I believe the president has already compromised. He originally asked for $25 billion. The House is at $5.6 billion. They did their job. The Senate has to come back. It is a modest investment.
Saturday, December 29, 2018
State elections board still refuses to certify Republican Mark Harris the winner in NC-9
Harris filed an emergency petition earlier on Friday to be certified as victor of last month’s election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. His request was rejected by a state elections board reviewing whether mail-in ballots were illegally handled in some rural counties.
But the future of that investigation was thrown into doubt by a state court ruling and newly passed law. The state elections board was disbanded on Friday, after a state court on Thursday declined to extend a stay on a previous order declaring the composition of the board unconstitutional.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said he would immediately appoint an interim board to continue the investigation until a restructured elections board was due to begin operating at the end of January under a new state law.
Friday, December 28, 2018
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Monday, December 24, 2018
So why did Trump appoint a Secretary of Agriculture who doesn't support The Wall?
The only other explanation than the one below is that Trump isn't really serious about The Wall and never has been, and is only interested in how he can play the politics of The Wall.
Opposition to the wall within Trump’s own administration has prevented progress on this issue, which is wildly popular with the GOP’s conservative base and is the consequence of the president surrounding himself with establishment advisers who have worked to thwart his populist agenda from within. For example, after being briefed on the concept of selling USDA commercial paper to pay for border security, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s then-Chief of Staff Heidi Green shot down the idea by curtly stating, “The secretary does not want the wall.”
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Eight House Republicans who voted against funding The Wall include Amash and Upton in Michigan, eleven others didn't even bother to vote
Funding passed the US House 217-185 with 31 not voting.
Eight House Republicans voted against funding The Wall (the question involved in this piece of sausage, Child Protection Improvements Act of 2017, is humorously described as "On Motion to Concur in the Senate Amendment to the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment with Amendment", part of politicians' perennially deliberate efforts to obscure what the hell they are doing so that we tire of tracking it):
Justin Amash, MI-3
Ken Buck, CO-4
Carlos Curbelo, FL-26 (defeated in 2018)
Will Hurd, TX-23
Erik Paulsen, MN-3 (defeated in 2018)
Ros-Lehtinen, FL-27 (didn't run in 2018, seat flipped)
Fred Upton, MI-6
David Valadao, CA-21 (defeated in 2018)
Eleven House Republicans didn't bother to vote at all on funding The Wall:
Diane Lynn Black, TN-6 (didn't run in 2018, ran for governor and lost in primary)
Barbara Comstock, VA-10 (defeated in 2018)
Jeff Duncan, SC-3
Randy Hultgren, IL-14 (defeated in 2018)
Darrell Issa, CA-49 (didn't run in 2018, seat flipped)
Lynn Jenkins, KS-2 (didn't run in 2018)
Walter Jones, NC-3
Mia Love, UT-4 (defeated in 2018)
Kristi Noem, SD (didn't run in 2018, ran for governor and won)
Peter Roskam, IL-6 (defeated in 2018)
Dave Trott, MI-11 (didn't run in 2018, seat flipped)
[Red indicates they'll be back in the US House in January 2019, to torment us.]
Marshall Auerback: George W. Bush's naïve China Fantasy mimicked FDR on Joseph Stalin
Liberalism misunderestimating our enemies, as usual, because it believes human nature is essentially good.
In contrast to diplomat and historian George Kennan’s famous telegram about the old Soviet Union (which correctly rebutted US president Franklin D Roosevelt’s naïve assumptions about Josef Stalin and provided the diplomatic underpinnings for a sustained policy of Western containment after World War II), today’s Cold War 2.0 is typified by what author James Mann calls the West’s “China fantasy,” a notion encapsulated by former US president George W Bush’s remark: “Trade freely with China, and time is on our side.”
Yellow Vest protests against high prices of essentials like fuel, electricity, food and water spread to Tel Aviv
Copycat protests are popping up everywhere, in some cases adapted to pre-existing political factions representing disparate issues such as marijuana legalization, which is hardly what it's about in France.
'YELLOW VEST' PROTESTERS SWARM THE STREETS OF TEL AVIV:
'YELLOW VEST' PROTESTERS SWARM THE STREETS OF TEL AVIV:
The movement which only started a week ago, in mid-December, in Israel, followed the wave of "yellow vest" protests in France that started in May 2018, mainly objecting the high coast of living and rising fuel prices.
The Israeli copy has similar objectives- stop the rising electricity and water prices, which they believe will directly affect food prices.
Sidney Powell: Special Counsel Robert Mueller committed crimes by wiping Peter Strzok's and Lisa Page's cell phones
Comey and the FBI committed similar crimes in the Hillary investigation to protect her and her associates.
The Inspector General of the Department of Justice reported late last week that Mueller wiped Peter Strzok’s cell phone of all messages during the crucial time he was working for special counsel. The IG was unable to recover any text messages from it.
This was after the inspector general informed Mueller of the extreme bias of Strzok and Page evidenced by thousands of text messages on their phones. These messages were so egregious they required their termination from Mueller’s squad. Not only did Mueller hide this development from Congress, but he destroyed evidence on Strzok’s phone and allowed DOJ to do the same for Page’s phone. That’s a crime. Mueller put Paul Manafort in solitary confinement for simply trying to contact a witness.
Any ethical law Department of Justice official would have taken custody of all electronic devices of Strzok and Page immediately upon discovery of their extreme bias and blatant misconduct — or certainly upon their termination — and preserved all the evidence. For Mueller to destroy this evidence is blatant obstruction of justice that warrants his immediate termination. The same is true for Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein who was “overseeing” it at the time.
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Trump's $5 billion request would build just 100 miles of new wall, 115 miles of replacement barrier
[T]he $5 billion the House has approved for a border wall would be enough for about 215 miles of barrier. Less than half of that — about 100 miles, mostly in South Texas — would be frontier that doesn't already have a fence. The rest would go to replace older, less-effective fencing or to build secondary fencing. ...
Senior officials from the Homeland Security Department briefed journalists Friday afternoon on what the proposed $5 billion could accomplish. Their estimate of 215 miles' worth of new and replacement fencing works out to more than $23 million a mile, on average. That's far higher than the nearly 700 miles of barrier already in place along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Most of that was authorized under President George W. Bush, in the Secure Fences Act of 2006. The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2009 that put the initial cost per mile at $2.8 to $3.9 million. But that was in urban areas, where roads were already in place. Some of the replacement fencing installed during the Trump administration has cost about $8 million a mile. The more remote the area, the higher the cost. Homeland Security officials insisted that comparisons are inappropriate. "Every mile of border is different," said one official. "It depends on the terrain" and other factors.
Since Trump took office, Congress has approved $341 million for 40 miles of replacement fencing and new gates in San Diego, New Mexico and West Texas, plus gates in the Rio Grande Valley to close gaps between existing fence. Of that, 34 miles is complete.
Earlier this year, Congress provided an additional $1.375 billion for about 84 miles of new and replacement border barrier. That includes levee wall in the Rio Grande Valley, with construction expected to start in February, plus some new wall construction in that area of South Texas, along with replacement barrier in Arizona and California. ...
When Congress authorized wall funding earlier this year, it restricted construction to designs already in use.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Rush Limbaugh thanks Mark Meadows today when it was Meadows who helped stop the immigration showdown in October
Neither Meadows nor Limbaugh (Ted Cruz supporter) really want the wall.
And Trump obviously doesn't either, otherwise he wouldn't have treated the issue like he has, in sharp contrast to his campaign for president.
Here's the grifter today taking money from you suckers:
Nancy doesn’t even run the House yet, and she’s out there saying Trump couldn’t get the votes — and he did, and it was because of Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan and the Freedom Caucus. They did their special order earlier this week and they let the president that know they would have his back. It’d be easy for the president to think that he’s isolated, but it was I think a very important thing that they did to make it a point to go to the floor of the House and special orders to make sure that everybody knew — not just the president — that they, significant number of Republicans in the House, would have his back.
Justin Raimondo on General Mad Dog Mattis resignation: We got the leaker
And maybe his conduit, too.
Trump has no veto weapon in the criminal justice reform bill to get the border wall
The criminal justice reform bill passed the Senate 87-12 on Tuesday and the House 358-36 on Thursday and awaits the president's signature.
He could hold it hostage to get what he wants on the wall today even though he supports the bill, but Congress has the votes to override his veto, 66 in the Senate and 287 in the House.
Worse still, a government shutdown tonight would shut down Homeland Security and the State Department only, both of which are kind of critical to controlling immigration in any event, wall or no wall.
The president has yet to come anywhere near mastering the art of getting what he wants in DC.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Lame Duck House passes $5 billion border wall funding attached to spending bill 217-185
House passes spending bill with border wall money — setting up shutdown stalemate with Senate:
During a televised Oval Office fracas last week, Pelosi challenged Trump by saying he did not have the votes for wall money in the House. It turns out he did.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
WaPo in March: 7% of Obama 2012 voters stayed home in 2016 (4.4 million), 1.6 million of them black
WaPo spins this, chalking it up to 1) Russian voter suppression of stupid people (pretty damn condescending!); 2) Republicans (!) dredging up Hillary's own 1996 statement that blacks = super predators to suppress their vote (naw, she's not racist); 3) Obama wasn't on the ballot, suppressing the black vote!
But why blame blacks, WaPo? Kinda racist of you to put it all on them, especially in Michigan and Pennsylvania. 2.8 million others stayed home, too, you know. Their votes count just as much as black votes, don't they? Don't they? Well let's hear it for the young, disaffected voters for Bernie in the primaries! They didn't show up either, apparently. Why? They also found Hillary quite revolting. Trump revolted them too, but that goes without saying. What matters is the Democrat candidate suppressed all these votes, but WaPo and the Democrats, but I repeat myself, just can't bring themselves to utter this truth.
Anyway, it's nice of WaPo, and The New York Times, finally getting around over a year and a half later to pointing out what we were pointing out only days after Election 2016:
Hillary sucked more than Trump did.
Exit polling suggests that black voters made up 12 percent of the electorate in 2016, down slightly from 2008 and 2012. Trump’s claim that many black voters stayed home ... is correct. ...
Eleven percent of black Obama 2012 voters stayed home. ...
In 2016, black turnout was down eight points from 2012, helping
contribute to that lower percentage that black voters made up of the
overall electorate. ...
About 5 million white Obama 2012 voters supported Trump; about 1.6 million black voters stayed home.
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