We Spend 4x More On Spying Than On Controlling Foreign "Visitors"

Customs, Immigration & Border most recent year: $18 billion

Estimated National Intelligence budget (secret):     $75 billion

Ve Haf Vays Of Makingk You Pay!

Why Critics Are Unpopular: They Don't Exaggerate Our Virtues

 

A critick is a man who, on all occasions, is more attentive to what is wanting than what is present.

 

 -- Joseph Addison

No One Likes A Rat, Even When He's Right

Which is why critics remain unpopular.

Story here:

A CNN/ORC International survey released Monday morning indicates that 52% of the public disapproves of Edward Snowden's actions, with 44% saying they approve of the leaks by the former government contractor who worked for the National Security Agency. ...

Fifty-four percent of those questioned in the poll, which was conducted Tuesday through Thursday, say the government should attempt to bring Snowden back to the U.S. and prosecute him for his leaks.

Let that be a lesson to you would-be whistleblowers out there: "No good deed goes unpunished".

Senate Amnesty Gooses Crossings: Build A Magnet For Illegals And They Will Come

Apprehensions of illegal crossers have shifted big-time to Texas, and soared, up 55% from a year ago.

The New York Times reports, here, and here (notice the politically correct terminology "migrants", and the appeal elsewhere in the story to "scholars" who deny the Senate amnesty has anything to do with the new surge):

Several parts of the border, like one 25-mile stretch west of McAllen, are at times not being watched, so the number of migrants who cross from Mexico without getting caught is surging, too, three agents said in interviews last week.

“It’s really demoralizing because there’s so much traffic passing through here and we can’t do anything about it,” one agent said Friday while on patrol, asking that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “And when you try to do something and they won’t let you do it,” he added, having been ordered during recent shifts not to drive his truck, “it’s just really demoralizing.” ...

Mike Salinas, an alderman in La Joya, Tex., a tiny city on the Rio Grande, said border agents there were frequently outnumbered. Last week, a single agent tried to round up a group of 20, most of whom he watched scatter and get away.

“People are just crossing without fear,” Mr. Salinas said, recalling crowds right in his backyard in recent weeks.

Reduce Nuclear Weapons. Use Them On Hollywood.

Marco Rubio's Immigration Bill Is A Magnet For Many More Illegals

Marco Rubio and friend

Peter Kirsanow for West Virginia Gazette Dot Com, here:

"The immigration reform bill has the potential to make things even worse. Not only will the bill grant amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants, it will act as a magnet for future illegal immigration and substantially increase the number of legal immigrants. It is conservatively estimated that the bill will result in 30 million to 33 million additional immigrants over the next 10 years."

Forbes Article Smells Pandering From Sen. Rand Paul

To which I say, excellent sense of smell.

Sen. Rand Paul panders on many issues, from abortion to right to work, and uses them to fund-raise, because that's what libertarians do: they have something to say about everything because the world does not conform to their ideology. It's why Obama also politicizes everything. There is no place where the light of his ideology does not pry.

If you thought the days of George Bush were over, where you fight ideology with a better ideology, you would be wrong. A spokesman for conservatism in politics eludes us still.

Story here.

Sen. Marco "Rube Goldberg" Rubio Thinks Fines On Illegals Will Pay For Border Security

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Quoted here:

“We need to register them as soon as possible, not just to keep the problem from getting worse, but we’re going to require them to pay a fine, and that’s the money that we are going to use to pay for the border security,” Rubio explained. “If we don’t get that fine money from the people that have violated our immigration laws, then the American taxpayer is going to have to pay for border security.”

Here's the most wildly optimistic estimate of total revenue from fees and fines on 11 million illegal aliens from The Christian Science Monitor: $2,000 per illegal over a decade. And good luck with that given all the work-arounds to fines and fees in the Senate bill. But, make the wild assumption you'll collect the full amount, and you get a paltry one time total of $22 billion.

The cost of security just on the Mexico border in 2012 was $11.7 billion according to BusinessWeek here. America is going to spend well north of $120 billion for border security over the next decade, and along comes Rubio telling us we need to flush the illegals out first before we secure the border in order to finance the security, otherwise the taxpayers will have to pay for it.

What a joke. We're going to pay for it anyway, big time.

In 2011 Republican Governor Rick Perry of Texas was quoted in The New York Times here saying a fence alone would cost $30 billion and a decade to build:

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, claiming superior experience as the leader of the state with 1,200 miles of the border, advocated a more complex strategy, combining fencing and surveillance technology with “a lot of boots on the ground.” Mr. Perry said that building a border-length fence would take “10 to 15 years and $30 billion” and would not be cost-effective.

Whatever the answer is to illegal immigration, the Senate amnesty-first bill ain't it.

Lois Lerner: Sen. Dick Durbin's Government Attack Dog Since 1996

George Will, here:

In the fall of 1996, at the [IL Senate] campaign’s climax, Democrats filed with the Federal Election Commission charges against [Al] Salvi’s campaign alleging campaign finance violations. These charges dominated the campaign’s closing days. Salvi spoke by telephone with the head of the FEC’s Enforcement Division, who he remembers saying: “Promise me you will never run for office again, and we’ll drop this case.” He was speaking to Lois Lerner.

After losing to Durbin, Salvi spent four years and $100,000 fighting the FEC, on whose behalf FBI agents visited his elderly mother demanding to know, concerning her $2,000 contribution to her son’s campaign, where she got “that kind of money.” When the second of two federal courts held that the charges against Salvi were spurious, the lawyer arguing for the FEC was Lois Lerner.

More recently, she has been head of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, which has used its powers of delay, harassment and extortion to suppress political participation. For example, it has told an Iowa right-to-life group that it would get tax-exempt status if it would promise not to picket Planned Parenthood clinics.

USA Today Might As Well Call Obama A Liar, Because He's All That, Every Day, 24/7

Here:

When news broke last week that the government has been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans, President Obama said he "welcome(s) the debate" over whether his administration has struck the right balance between national security and privacy.

That's questionable. If Obama really wanted this debate, he could have begun it when he first took office and learned in detail what has been going on in the name of keeping Americans safe from terrorists. Instead, the administration has worked to keep citizens in the dark for four-and-a-half years, and members of Congress have repeatedly killed proposals to let Americans know more. The only reason there's a debate now is because it was started by a leaker.

Hm. IRS Cancels Spy "Equiptment" Order For Some Reason.

Here.

Still can't spell, though.

DNI Clapper Lied To Congress And To Us And Pre-Meditated That Lie, Plain And Simple

The Clapper

The New York Times, here, which says Clapper is now in an awkward position (yeah, like being caught in flagrante delicto):

At the March Senate hearing, Mr. Wyden asked Mr. Clapper, “Does the N.S.A. collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

“No, sir,” Mr. Clapper replied. “Not wittingly.”

Mr. Wyden said on Tuesday that he had sent his question to Mr. Clapper’s office a day before the hearing, and had given his office a chance to correct the misstatement after the hearing, but to no avail.

In an interview on Sunday with NBC News, Mr. Clapper acknowledged that his answer had been problematic, calling it “the least untruthful” answer he could give.

Immigration Bill To Give Employers Cheap Labor Not Covered By ObamaCare

We don't get no stinkin' ObamaCare

So Philip Klein, here:

[I]f the immigration bill becomes law, some employers could effectively face incentives of hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire newly legalized immigrants over American citizens, because the immigrant workers would not qualify for Obamacare benefits.

As the implementation of Obamacare approaches, there have been many news reports about companies considering cutting back full-time workers to part-time, or taking other actions to get around the mandate penalties. The immigration bill would offer employers another way out – hiring fewer American citizens and more immigrants with provisional legal status.

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Naw, that's not intentional. Just an unfortunate unintended consequence.

In This Case, I'll Take The 29-Year-Old Stubble Over The 72-Year-Old Toilet Brush

Don't Talk To Me About The Rule Of Law

Millions of illegal aliens are about to get a pass for breaking the law, thanks to Marco Rubio and his fellow Republicans in the US Senate, while Edward Snowden is vilified as a traitor and has gone into hiding for blowing the lid on the spying tyrants those politicians are and hope to remain.

Don't forget. Paul Revere and company were considered traitors, too.

In 1776, NSA Metadata Could Have Isolated The Tea Party And Paul Revere

Tea Party center right, London Enemies list center left, Paul Revere in the middle

Story here.

IRS Wants 4 Coffee Trays With Concealed Cameras, Among Other Spy Items

Here's the link, see for yourself.

(Damn fools can't spell "equipment").

I imagine all that spy equipment comes in real handy right before they call in the boyz 'n girlz with the (illegal for the public) 14" barreled Remington 12-gauge shotguns they ordered in February 2010, here:

"The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to purchase sixty Remington Model 870 Police RAMAC #24587 12 gauge pump-action shotguns for the Criminal Investigation Division. The Remington parkerized shotguns, with fourteen inch barrel, modified choke, Wilson Combat Ghost Ring rear sight and XS4 Contour Bead front sight, Knoxx Reduced Recoil Adjustable Stock, and Speedfeed ribbed black forend, are designated as the only shotguns authorized for IRS duty based on compatibility with IRS existing shotgun inventory, certified armorer and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts."

And Now A Message From Operation Troll The NSA Dot Com

Hey! How’s it going? I’m all right. 

My job is so shitty I wish could overthrow my boss. It’s like this oppressive regime where only true believers in his management techniques will stay around. I work marathon-length hours and he’s made all these changes that have made it the worst architecture firm to work at in Manhattan. Like he moved the office to the Financial District and fired my assistant. She was the only one who knew where the blueprints were! I need access to those blueprints to complete my job! F my life, right? And he keeps trying to start all these new initiatives to boost revenue, but seriously we just need to stick to what we do best. There’s only one true profit center. I seriously feel ready to go on strike at any second.

I just read this article about how these free radical particles can cause the downfall of good health and accelerate aging. These could actually cause death to millions of Americans. If these particles are flying around undetected everywhere, does that mean we’re all radicalized?

Have you seen the second season of Breaking Bad? I just finished it. I couldn’t believe that episode where they poison the guy with ricin! That was the bomb! I won’t say any more because I don’t want to reveal the earth-shattering events to come.

Oh! So I’ve been planning a big trip for the summer. I’m thinking of visiting all of the most famous suspension bridges in the United States. So probably like the Golden Gate Bridge, The Brooklyn Bridge, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. I’m gonna bring my younger brother and I know he’ll want to go to bars, so I’m thinking of getting him a fake drivers license, but I hope that doesn’t blow up in my face.

Okay, I gotta run! I’m late for flight school. I missed the last class where we learn how to land, so I really can’t miss another one. Talk to you later!

Hillary's Reign Of Mayhem At State Besides Benghazi Deaths: Sexual Assault, Prostitution, Drug Dealing, And . . . Cover-Ups

Cover-ups? WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?!

CBS News, here:

'CBS News' John Miller reports that according to an internal State Department Inspector General's memo, several recent investigations were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off. The memo obtained by CBS News cited eight specific examples. Among them: allegations that a State Department security official in Beirut "engaged in sexual assaults" on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards and the charge and that members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's security detail "engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries" -- a problem the report says was "endemic."'