Oakland California mayor Libby Schaaf, let's lock her up

OK, let's be honest: Racism is so yesterday when unpatriotic Republicans and Democrats get rich and get votes off cheap foreign labor

Republicans specialize in spending money on putting Americans out of work, by importing cheap foreign labor and giving tax breaks to job-exporting corporations

Democrats specialize in spending money on things which don't work, like welfare recipients, not on things which do, like walls

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!

John Kelly blames Jeff Sessions for 'zero tolerance,' family separations along border:

“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.

Kellyanne Conway: Trump "Already Compromised" On Border Wall Funding, Originally Asked for $25 Billion:

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.

State elections board still refuses to certify Republican Mark Harris the winner in NC-9

North Carolina seat in U.S. Congress likely to stay vacant as fraud controversy intensifies:

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.

The US has wasted trillion$ in the Middle East if the president can't fly-in to Iraq like he can to Berlin

Laugh of the Day: WGVU's school closings page shows its most recent information dates to Dec 31, 1969, or 25.7 million minutes ago

The assholes in the media will report every illegal's rare death in custody but NEVER report on their much more numerous murders of Americans

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.

Donald Trump can fund the border wall without congressional approval:

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.”

Of course Justin Raimondo exonerates third parties from spoiling elections, that's his party's specialty

Laugh of the Day: SECDEF Jim Mattis resigned effective Feb. 28, 2019 to ensure a smooth transition, Trump boots him effective Jan. 1 after reading what he said about him

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis Resigning in February

After criticism, Trump pushes out Mattis sooner than planned

 

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.

All of our bets on China have been wrong:

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:

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.

POWELL: NEW FACTS INDICATE MUELLER DESTROYED EVIDENCE, OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE:

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.

It doesn't matter what side they're on they just want someone else to fight their wars

That's what she said: Max Boot thinks it was wrong to go in, now wrong to pull out

Trump's $5 billion request would build just 100 miles of new wall, 115 miles of replacement barrier

Ted Cruz says Trump 'won't capitulate' over $5B demand, enough for 215 miles of border wall — half of it replacement:

[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.