Jonathan Turley here.
Rep. James Comer, here, as of August 8th has a letter from a Penn Biden Center employee indicating:
March 18, 2021 – Annie Tomasini (Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the President and Director of Oval Office Operations) went to Penn Biden Center to take inventory of President Biden’s documents and materials.
The next panelist I had only ever seen in heavily photoshopped headshots. Mary Trump, the anti-Trump author and psychologist, looks so much like her uncle Donald under the stage lights it is hard to concentrate on what she's saying. That's just as well, because it's getting late and the self-avowed expert on Trump's "physic energy" has just repeated her baseless accusation that the former president enabled the Hamas atrocities in Israel.
Here.
And no one seems to be the slightest bit interested in how or why.
It's a scandal.
Meanwhile a so-called conservative coalition has now taken over in New Zealand after Jacinda Ardern resigned earlier this year.
You can throw all the billions you want at educating the masses, but you still can't make a purse out of a sow's ear.
A sane country would train the other 79% for careers which don't require college, but ours is not a sane country, otherwise we wouldn't have 1:1 ratios of administrators to students all over the place. College is producing some mighty fine jobs for the education industry and for the 20% who belong there, but God help you if you borrowed money to learn that one day you will die.
When I was a kid the unemployed PhD was the joke. Now it's the unemployed BA. You can see where this is going.
But maybe not.
The Morning Call had the story here.
Republicans repealed him but didn't have a replacement.
Scalise drops speaker bid as House devolves into further turmoil...
Rep. Jim Jordan nominated for House speaker, but falls short of votes needed...
. . . after mounting pressure, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)
condemned the “bigotry and callousness” at a pro-Palestinian rally
aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in New York
City. ...
In a sign of the growing pressure on progressives, Ocasio-Cortez earlier this week criticized the DSA-aligned rally in New York City’s Times Square, a stance that came after she was chided for supporting a ceasefire.
The rally, which was held in support of Palestinians, drew swift rebukes from leaders across the political spectrum. Ocasio-Cortez, whose district is not far from where the protests were held, eventually released a statement condemning it.
Here.
You know, before the government almost shut down, it came down to a couple hours. I was in my office and they finally came over from the House and they were like okay, well, this has to be unanimous in the Senate. Out of 99 of us, if one single one of us would've said no, the whole government would have shut down.
As if there were any doubt any longer.
Here:
And the US and EU should recognise that Hamas is not just a military force but also a political one.
It cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise. Only by recognising its legitimacy as a political actor – one that represents a substantial portion of the Palestinian people – can the west begin to provide the right incentives for Hamas to lay down its weapons. Ever since the internationally monitored 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power in Palestine, the west’s approach has manifestly contributed to the opposite result. Ultimately, however, lasting peace depends on the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel.
The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, condemned Carter at the time.
The Lutherans are "deeply concerned":
(LWI] – The Lutheran World Federation is deeply concerned about the attacks of Hamas on towns and the civilian population in Israel, and the subsequent actions of the Israeli army, which have claimed lives on both sides, and led to injury and mayhem in an already volatile region.
They condemn nothing.
What a worthless lot they are.
"Launched from Gaza". By whom?
"On all sides" = moral equivalence for the animals of Hamas.
What's important is "the status quo of the holy places", not that defenceless Jews were literally butchered by the hundreds.
They want no war in response to war. All the Jews would die, then. Is that what Catholics really want?
“On October 7, the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary, the world watched the operation launched from Gaza and the rapid call to arms from Israel that ensued. Almost 50 years to the day of the launch of the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, once again war is spilling out in the Holy Land. With it brings the mounting casualties and hostilities unfolding on all sides, and increased threats to the Status Quo of the Holy Places among Jews, Muslims, and Christians further dimming any hope for peace.
“The world is once again shocked and horrified by the outbreak of ferocious violence in the Holy Land. Reports have surfaced indicating large numbers of wounded and dead, including many civilians.
“I join with Pope Francis in his call for peace and his condemnation of this widespread outbreak of violence. As he stated in his Sunday audience, ‘May the attacks and weaponry cease. Please! And let it be understood that terrorism and war do not lead to any resolutions, but only to the death and suffering of so many innocent people.’
“May all who love the Holy Land seek to bring about among all the parties engaged in the fighting a cessation of violence, respect for civilian populations and the release of hostages.
“As we pray urgently for peace, we recall especially all the families and individuals suffering from these events. We call on the faithful, and all people of good will to not grow weary and to continue to pray for peace in the land Our Lord, the Prince of Peace, called home.”
Here.
Compared to November 2020, my new budget plan payment for combined natural gas and electric for the coming winter will be 42% higher than it was three years ago, despite the fact that natural gas prices have normalized almost to the penny.
Electricity is up 25% since Green Energy Joe got elected and isn't coming down, but that can't account for it since I consume far less electricity than natural gas on an average basis. More than 65% of my energy consumption in kWh is from natural gas in the last year, as it is every year, less than 35% is from electricity.
A 25% increase to 35% of my old bill would result in a total payment today less than 9% higher. Instead it's 42% higher.
Remember that the utility uses natural gas to generate the electricity, too, and it's paying normal prices today for the gas, not the inflated prices of the recent past.
There's no excuse for the extra cost I'm paying.
The utility is price gouging.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the unfolding violence.” ...
[Larry] Summers tweeted: “In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today.”
Recent Harvard graduate, gun control activist, and president of Leaders We Deserve David Hogg has absolutely nothing to say about hundreds of slaughtered, gunless Israelis on his feed.
He is indeed the Leader We Deserve from America's premier university.
Meanwhile, in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog, indicated that Americans are among Hamas’ hostages.
From 31%, 35%, and 33% respectively two decades ago.
Growing percentages of the electorate are alienated from both parties.
Joe Lonsdale, here:
The founders set up a country in which aristoi would rule alongside and with the people, first among equals, primus inter pares, but not over them in the monarchical or oligarchic sense. Nobody would have a permanent or divine right to rule in the United States. The founders had had a sense of duty to rule honorably, and a sense of humility that their governance wasn’t an end in itself — but a means of preserving the rights of the people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This man is a small sea of confusion, who writes that aristocracy is "rule by the few".
The oligarchs laugh at Fugazius.
. . . on England, and on Ireland, Germany, Italy, and the rest.
The libertarian impulse to go Galt, to run away, is a feature of America, not a bug, a built-in self-destruct mechanism which went off most spectacularly and destroyed the root in 1861.
The rest of the plant has been withering and dying on the vine ever since, overtaken by tenacious weeds.
Freedom for Christian religion combined with plenty of Lebensraum, home country memory, and time made it seem otherwise in the face of the steady decline, but here we are with Scylla and Charybdis for choices come November 2024.
The Declaration of Independence was a repudiation of politics. Two thirds of the country was not down for the struggle. Secession was a repudiation of politics. There was resistance to military conscription everywhere, but especially in the Confederacy. We were content to let the world burn for more than two years before the Japs forced our hand on December 7, 1941. We have right now the unthinkable European land war in its 20th month and sports is what trends on Twitter day in and day out. Mao killed by the tens of millions during The American Century. Americans quietly go to church every Sunday while tens of millions are aborted. It all began with migration, the most basic form of repudiating politics.
We do not need, in short, to relearn to think politically. Most of us have never thought politically in the first place. Apolitics is our politics, but this horror vacui is why the left seems to have won and why we hate them. We hate politics. As polarized as we think we are, as rigged as our politics is, 100 million eligible Americans still did not vote in 2020.
You do not get political blood from this turnip.
Ultimately, nothing could be more un-American than to give up on America.
The American idea, alas, is precisely to stay out of it.
Here.
A study published in the European Journal of Endocrinology showed that all trans people were at a “significantly higher risk” of a host of serious and potentially deadly medical conditions, including heart attacks and strokes.
More.
The campaign ads for Trump write themselves.
In the Grauniad, here:
“A border wall is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” the Democratic Texas congressman Henry Cuellar said. “It will not bolster border security in Starr county.
Full time also still averages 50.3% for the first nine months of 2023.
Recession delayed, again.
Compare previous full year averages:
FILE - A border wall section stands on July 14, 2021, near La Grulla, Texas, in Starr County. On Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023, the Biden administration announced that they waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction, marking the administration’s first use of a sweeping executive power employed often during the Trump presidency. The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas. (Delcia Lopez/The Monitor via AP, File)
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration announced they waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction on Wednesday, marking the administration’s first use of sweeping executive power to pave the way for building more border barriers — a tactic used often during the Trump presidency.
The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a busy Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.” According to government data, about 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded in this region during the current fiscal year.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in the notice.
The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were some of the federal laws waived by DHS to make way for construction that will use funds from a congressional appropriation in 2019 for border wall construction. The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.
Related stories
Although no maps were provided in the announcement, a previous mapshared during the gathering of public comments shows the piecemeal construction will add up to an additional 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the existing border barrier system in the area.
“The other concern that we have is that area is highly erosive. There’s a lot of arroyos,” said Starr County Judge Eloy Vera, the highest-elected official in the county, pointing out the creeks cutting through the ranchland and leading into the river.
Starr County is home to about 65,000 residents spread over about 1,200 square miles (3,108 square kilometers) that includes ranchland and part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
Environmental advocates say structures will run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and animal species like the ocelot, a spotted wild cat.
“A plan to build a wall through will bulldoze an impermeable barrier straight through the heart of that habitat. It will stop wildlife migrations dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a horrific step backwards for the borderlands,” Laiken Jordahl, a southwest conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Wednesday afternoon.
During the Trump administration, about 450 miles (724 kilometers) of barriers were built along the southwest border between 2017 and January 2021. Texas Governor Greg Abbott renewed those efforts as part of his ongoing immigration enforcement from the state level after the Biden administration initially halted them at the start of his presidency.
The DHS decision on Wednesday contrasts the Biden administration’s posturing when a proclamation to end the construction on Jan. 20, 2021 stated, “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection had no immediate comment.
The announcement prompted political debate by the Democratic administration facing an increase of migrants entering through the southern border in recent months, including thousands who entered the U.S. through Eagle Pass at the end of September.
“A border wall is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem. It will not bolster border security in Starr County,” U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar said in a statement. “I continue to stand against the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective border wall.”
Political proponents of the border wall said the waivers should be used as a launching pad for a shift in policy.
“After years of denying that a border wall and other physical barriers are effective, the DHS announcement represents a sea change in the administration’s thinking: A secure wall is an effective tool for maintaining control of our borders,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in a statement. “Having made that concession, the administration needs to immediately begin construction of wall across the border to prevent the illegal traffic from simply moving to other areas of the border.”
An American tourist, 40ish, destroyed two second century AD Roman statues at the Israel Museum because they violated the Torah.
Sad story.
OK who does that other than ISIS and the Taliban?
Ground Beef: $5.076 / $3.807, up 33.3%
Pork Chops: $4.359 / $3.339, up 30.5%
Bacon: $6.502 / $5.613, up 15.8%
Chicken: $1.958 / $1.495, up 30.97%
Dozen eggs: $2.043 / $1.396, up 46.3%
Dried beans: $1.702 / $1.344, up 26.6%
Gallon milk: $3.927 / $3.036, up 29.3%
Cheddar cheese: $5.897 / $5.308, up 11.1%
Cup of yogurt: $1.576 / $1.115, up 41.3%
Here:
When he ran for president in 2016, few of Donald Trump’s promises thrilled his supporters more than his pledge not just to build a wall on the southern border, but to force Mexico to pick up the tab. “And who’s going to pay for it?” he’d say at his rallies. The crowd would shout back joyfully, “Mexico!” It wasn’t about the money; the point was to conjure a fantasy of America standing tall and dominating our neighbor; their humiliation would be our glory.
A fantasy is just what it was, as Trump now admits. At a speech in Iowa on Sunday, he blurted out the truth. “When you hear these lunatics back there,” he said, pointing at the news media, “say, ‘Trump didn’t get anything from Mexico,’ well, you know, there was no legal mechanism. I said they’re going to help fund this wall, but there was no legal mechanism. How do you go to a country, you say, ‘By the way I’m building a wall, hand us a lot of money.’”
Of course it was about the money. Everything is about the money.
It wasn't a fantasy to neoliberal Bush 43 pal Vicente Fox, who took it seriously enough at the time when Trump first proposed to make Mexico pay that he wouldn't pay.
This is revisionist history by Trump and by Waldman, which pretends there was no Border Wall Funding Act of 2017, nor serious elite opposition to its provision for a foreign remittances tax.
Trump would simply like to erase the history of his phony immigration promises, and Waldman would simply like no one to entertain seriously the particulars, which show there is a giant pot of money easily taxed to pay for border security.
Foreign remittances to the Latin South reached $142 billion in 2022, and Mexico's share was $60 billion.
The government of the United States farts away billions of dollars every minute of every day. Funding a $25 billion wall is a flea on that elephant's back. The fierce opposition to it is the thing of real size.
