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.
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