Category: Immigration

Closing Thought–19Jun19

Recently our beloved supreme leader issued his dictum that all aid would be cut off to the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras because they are doing little to curb the amount of immigrants headed to the US border……

His, Trump’s, slobbering supporters were all down with him on this unilateral use of his powers……but what the MSM has not done is tell the the rest of the story to his supporters…..

The Trump administration said Monday it is easing previously announced cuts in hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Central American nations of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala but will not allow new funding until those countries do more to reduce migrant flows to the United States.

The State Department said that after a review of more than $615 million in assistance that President Donald Trump ordered in March to be cut entirely, it would go ahead with $432 million in projects and grants that had been previously approved. The remaining amount will be held in escrow pending consultations with Congress, it said.

That $432 million, which comes from the 2017 budget, is being spent on health, education and poverty alleviation programs as well as anti-crime efforts that many believe help reduce migrant outflows from the impoverished Northern Triangle region. About $370 million in money from the 2018 budget will not be spent and instead will be moved to other projects, the State Department said.

“Previously awarded grants and contracts will continue with current funding,” department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. She added that assistance “to help the Northern Triangle governments take actions that will protect the U.S. border and counter transnational organized crime will also continue.”

(yahoo news)

Just to let his supporters know that his tough talk is just that…TALK!

And as they say…Talk is cheap!

South Of The Border Down Mexico Way

When Trump issued his ultimatum to Mexico I at first was worried because Mexican Avocados are divine…..but after some thought I figured this was just a way to divert the news from Trump’s problems…….

In the beginning was the threat…..

President Trump has vowed to slap new tariffs on all goods from Mexico—and to keep increasing them until the country stops migrants coming to the US. On June 10, the US “will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP,” the president tweeted Thursday. “The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied at which time the Tariffs will be removed.” The White House says the tariffs will rise to 10% on July 1, then go up 5% each month after that until they hit 25% on Oct. 1, reports the Washington Post. Earlier Thursday, Trump told reporters he was going to make his biggest statement on the border so far.

Trump said in a statement that after October, the tariffs will remain at 25% “until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory.” The surprise announcement came on the day that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador began to ratify the USCMA trade deal with US and Canada, which could now be in jeopardy, reports Reuters. The tariffs could devastate Mexico’s economy, though experts including trade lawyer Daniel Ujczo suspect Trump will backtrack on the move, as he did with his threat to seal the border in March. “This seems more theater and tactics than a strategy to solve the migration crisis and rebalance North American trade,” Ujczo tells the AP.

And then just a day before the tariffs were to take effect…..we have a deal! (Go figure!)

“Indefinitely suspended.” That’s the fate of the tariffs President Trump had warned he’d levy against Mexico, per Trump himself, who tweeted Friday that a deal on immigration had been signed with our neighbors to the south, per Politico. Trump had previously signaled there was a “good chance” a deal was coming to stave off a progressively increasing tariffs hit on Mexico, and he crowed Friday night that had happened. “I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico,” he tweeted. “The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended. Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border. This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States.”

How fortuitous….a deal just in the nick of time……appears my first reaction was the correct one after all……this was a game to divert attention…and then he can claim a success for something that was already a success.

Turns out Friday’s big immigration deal between the US and Mexico—or at least most of it—had already been struck over the past few months, officials on both sides tell the New York Times. The new agreement states that Mexico will deploy “its National Guard throughout Mexico” to stop migrants, but Mexico made that promise to Kirstjen Nielsen, former secretary of homeland security, back in March. The agreement also expands a program for asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while awaiting US legal confirmation, but that was struck in December and announced by Nielsen five days before Christmas. In the latest negotiations, US officials failed to add that America can reject asylum seekers if they hadn’t first tried refuge in Mexico.

I am glad we have a deal…..even if it was negotiated months ago…..but Trump did not doing anything most other presidents do…..take credit for successes.

My avocado affliction is safe….for now.

Since I am an old fart…..The title of this post made me think of an old Patsy Cline song…..

Closing Thought–05Jun19

Recently a story was reported about the children arrested and held on the border…..some were left in vans for hours on end before processing….

Under the blistering Texas sun last July, 37 migrant children boarded vans for what was supposed to be a 30-minute ride. At the end of the road from Harlingen to Los Fresnos lay the promise of hugs, kisses and long overdue reunification with their parents, from whom they were taken when the Trump administration began systematically separating migrant families who crossed the border illegally.

But when the children, all between 5 and 12 years old, arrived at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s adults-only Port Isabel Detention Center, rather than seeing their parents, they saw a parking lot full of vans just like theirs, with children from other facilities who, just like them, were waiting to be processed and reunified with their parents.

It was 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 15, 2018.

Not until 39 hours later — after two nights in a van — did the last child step out of a van to be reunited. Most spent at least 23 hours in the vehicles.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/botched-family-reunifications-left-migrant-children-waiting-vans-overnight-n1013336

Seriously?

Where is the outrage?

Even a dog left in a hot van gets move sympathy that children…..this is not a country that I recognize any more…..these are children and Americans seem to not care…..not people I want to associate with on a daily basis.

But wait!  There is more!

For the past year and a half, Dr. Eric Russell has been traveling from Houston to McAllen, Texas, every three months or so to volunteer at the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center, a first stop for many asylum-seeking migrants who’ve been released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the Rio Grande Valley.

During his most recent visit to the clinic in April, when he saw more than 150 migrants, he noted a troubling new trend: a number of people reported that their medication had been taken from them by U.S. border officials.

https://news.yahoo.com/border-patrol-is-confiscating-migrant-kids-medicine-us-doctors-say-225354608.html

Where are the human rights crusaders?

There are laws that protect animals from this torture….but not children?

This is a low point…it is pathetic….and anyone that defends this is as pathetic as the policy.

Ever Heard Of ‘Cause And Effect’?

Closing Thought–31May19

I realize that the “invasion” of Latin Americans is important to this president and “tariffs” are his answer to all our economic problems…..whether you believe these fantasies or not…there is a thing call ’cause and effect’……

That is ….. one process or state, a cause, contributes to the production of another process or state, an effect, where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. In general, a process has many causes, which are also said to be causal factors for it, and all lie in its past.

A little simpler?

For every action there is an opposite but equal reaction. Did that help?

All that out of the way what am I going on about?

The newest utterance from Our Beloved Supreme Leader……

President Trump has vowed to slap new tariffs on all goods from Mexico—and to keep increasing them until the country stops migrants coming to the US. On June 10, the US “will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP,” the president tweeted Thursday. “The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied at which time the Tariffs will be removed.” The White House says the tariffs will rise to 10% on July 1, then go up 5% each month after that until they hit 25% on Oct. 1, reports the Washington Post. Earlier Thursday, Trump told reporters he was going to make his biggest statement on the border so far.

Trump said in a statement that after October, the tariffs will remain at 25% “until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory.” The surprise announcement came on the day that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador began to ratify the USCMA trade deal with US and Canada, which could now be in jeopardy, reports Reuters. The tariffs could devastate Mexico’s economy, though experts including trade lawyer Daniel Ujczo suspect Trump will backtrack on the move, as he did with his threat to seal the border in March. “This seems more theater and tactics than a strategy to solve the migration crisis and rebalance North American trade,” Ujczo tells the AP.

Is this just something said to divert the attention of the MSM?  Will it remain if the markets tank?

Does he realize that if this is law and the economic activity in Mexico ceases it will create more people in search of economic security?  (That is cause and effect)…..

This is a silly trade policy…it is that simple……

But let us look at other economic news……

How about those “tax cuts”?……..(Read and weep!)

Despite lofty promises from President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that went into effect last year have done little—if anything—to raise workers’ wages, boost economic growth, or spur business investment.

That’s according to a new analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), which appeared to vindicate warnings from progressive critics that the GOP tax cuts were little more than a scam designed to put more money in the pockets of wealthy Americans.

In its 23-page report (pdf), the independent research arm found that while the Republican tax law has not done much for workers or the overall economy, it has sparked a wave of stock buybacks, which primarily benefit rich executives.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/29/virtually-no-wage-growth-surge-stock-buybacks-study-offers-more-proof-trump-tax-cuts

Billions are pouring into the US treasury because of the Trump tariffs……..

President Donald Trump likes to talk about the money Washington is making from the spate of tariffs his administration has imposed on global trading partners. The catch? Most of it is probably coming from American pocketbooks.

At a postelection news conference on Wednesday, Trump misleadingly claimed that billions of dollars would “soon be pouring into our Treasury from taxes that China is paying for us.”

He got the first part right. Federal revenue from tariffs in the third quarter increased by more than 33% from the same quarter last year, Treasury Department data shows. And in October — the first full month in which all tariffs announced to date were in effect — the monthly collection appears to have doubled from the 2017 level to about $6 billion, according to estimates from daily receipts.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-tariffs-revenue-up-sharply-american-costs-increase-2018-11-1027713336

These Trade Wars are good for the US, right?

President Trump’s trade battles are costing the U.S. stock market $5 trillion and counting, according to Deutsche Bank.

Given the bulk of equity returns come from equity price appreciation, in an escalated trade war with China and now Mexico, the U.S. is losing trillions of dollars in foregone returns as markets sink on the negative headlines, the bank said Friday.

“The costs of the trade war in our view are about its indirect impacts,” said Deutsche Bank chief strategist Binky Chadha in a note to clients. “The trade war has been key in preventing a recovery in global growth and keeping US equities range bound. Foregone US equity returns from price appreciation (12.5% annual rate) for 17 months are worth $5 trillion.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/31/trumps-trade-wars-have-cost-the-stock-market-5-trillion-and-counting-deutsche-bank.html

Someone explain to me where the “good news” is in all this trade war stuff?

“The Country’s Full”!

Once again Trump has outdone himself on the issue of immigration…..he made another one of his lame ass statements…..”Turn around the country is full”…….(a paraphrase)…..

Donald Trump once again insisted the US immigration system was overburdened and illegal border crossings must be stopped on a visit to the US-Mexico border in California.

Trump traveled to Calexico, California, on Friday to view a section of the border barrier and participate in a roundtable on immigration.

“There is indeed an emergency on our southern border,” Trump said at the briefing, adding that there had been a sharp uptick in illegal crossings. “It’s a colossal surge, and it’s overwhelming our immigration system. We can’t take you any more. Our country is full.”

Trump, as he so often does, mixed fact with fiction when warning of the threat.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/05/trump-border-us-immigration-calexico

But a trip in the “Way Back Machine” and we can see that it is not the first time a president has tried to limit or exclude some from enterimng into the US……would you like to know when?

Sure you would!

The year is 1942 and a boat load of Jews fleeing Germany arrived in NYC……

In the summer of 1942, the SS Drottningholmset sail carrying hundreds of desperate Jewish refugees, en route to New York City from Sweden. Among them was Herbert Karl Friedrich Bahr, a 28-year-old from Germany, who was also seeking entry to the United States. When he arrived, he told the same story as his fellow passengers: As a victim of persecution, he wanted asylum from Nazi violence.

But during a meticulous interview process that involved five separate government agencies, Bahr’s story began to unravel. Days later, the FBI accused Bahr of being a Nazi spy. They said the Gestapo had given him $7,000 to steal American industrial secrets—and that he’d posed as a refugee in order to sneak into the country unnoticed. His case was rushed to trial, and the prosecution called for the death penalty.

What Bahr didn’t know, or perhaps didn’t mind, was that his story would be used as an excuse to deny visas to thousands of Jews fleeing the horrors of the Nazi regime.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/#lVgE6M2T0SFAHC18.99

See Trump is not the first president to claim national security while keeping immigrants out of the country.

My question for Trump is……if the country is full does that apply to whites looking for a better life?

 

Pentagon And The “Great Wall”

Just as the other Great Wall was erected to keep “invaders” out our Dear Supreme Leader is trying to erect one of his own (something he can point to as a material accomplishment of a weak presidency)…..

And where will the president try to slip cash out to pay for this worthless endeavor?

The Pentagon always has more money than it knows what to do with…..

The Pentagon has a list of $6.8 billion worth of construction projects it could choose to take money from in order to build President Trump’s border wall, according to a list belatedly provided to Congress on Monday.

But officials have yet to even decide how much Defense Department money they’ll use toward the wall, and so they haven’t decided which projects on the target list would actually be affected.

The Pentagon also said Congress can make sure none of the projects suffer by passing an increase in military construction money for 2020, allowing the government to go back and replenish the accounts Mr. Trump wants to drain for his border wall.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/18/pentagon-lays-out-68b-projects-cut-border-wall/

Several projects would be delayed if the Pentagon has to shoulder the cuts to pay for Trump’s “Great Wall”……

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Monday forwarded to Congress the list of construction projects the Pentagon could delay to pay for President Donald Trump’s border wall.

The projects range across the country and around the world, from an air traffic control tower in Alabama to fuel tanks in Australia, according to the 21-page document.

“Decisions have not yet been made concerning which border barrier projects will be funded” under the president’s authority, according to the Pentagon memo attached to the list.

Democrats pounced on the list and Trump’s emergency declaration as a political stunt.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/18/pentagon-project-list-shows-congress-how-could-pay-trumps-wall/3204758002/

On a side note…the Pentagon plans to cut $31 billion from its budget (seriously?)…….

The U.S. Army‘s fiscal 2020 budget, which will be made public in mid-March, will cut $31.5 billion from existing programs to ensure that the service’s top priorities of readiness and modernization remain on track, Under Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said Tuesday.

Army senior leadership just wrapped up its version of “night court,” a time-consuming and tedious process in which top generals went through each program to find extra money for the service’s six modernization priorities and to fund efforts to increase the readiness levels of brigade combat teams, McCarthy told an audience at an Association of the United States Army breakfast.

https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2019/02/26/army-plans-cut-315-billion-coming-budget.html
 
It is always fun to see what the Pentagon does for they know that the Congress will shove lots of taxpayer money up their butts and tell they to play pretty.
 
This is all so much BS….

Money For The “Wall”

Closing thought–11Mar19

We all know of the damn silly event of the border wall and the national emergency that has been declared by our Beloved Leader…..an emergency without a reason….not a credible one anyway.

So if Trump succeeds where will the money come from? Which program will have to suffer because of a presidential ego trip?

Looks like we have an answer to that question……military pay and pensions may suffer……

The Pentagon is planning to tap $1 billion in leftover funds from military pay and pension accounts to help President Donald Trump pay for his long-sought border wall, a top Senate Democrat said Thursday.

The development comes as Pentagon officials are seeking to minimize the amount of wall money that would come from military construction projects that are so cherished by lawmakers.

Durbin said, “Imagine the Democrats making that proposal — that for whatever our project is, we’re going to cut military pay and pensions.”

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/03/08/pentagon_may_tap_military_pay_pensions_for_border_wall_114243.html

Not to worry though….this president only wants whats best for our troops, right?

To that I say BULLSH*T!

Maybe his damn silly proposal for a Space Force and the cash it will take for the start-up would be a better place to start…..after all it is a simple thing…he is just looking for something to hang a plaque on that bears his name……so the “Wall” is more important than anything happening in space, right?

Just more screwing by the Supreme Leader…..and you allow it…..

Border Security?

Okay cut the crap!

The term is a slogan!  A slogan to get the bobble headed morons to take notice….it means little.

We Americans have been bombarded with this bullsh*t for a year now. Time for the d/bags to define just what is the official terminology.

To some it is machine guns in high towers…..or minefields…..of drone missions…..or listening post….my point is NO politician has actually defined what it is other than a wall…..and no one is quiet sure what this person mean by “border security”?

First of all….is there some sort of true definition for border security?

THe Border Patrol definition……

CBP’s top priority is to keep terrorists and their weapons from entering the U.S. while welcoming all legitimate travelers and commerce. CBP officers and agents enforce all applicable U.S. laws, including against illegal immigration, narcotics smuggling and illegal importation. CBP deploys highly trained law enforcement personnel who apprehend more than 1,000 individuals each day for suspected violations of U.S. laws.

https://www.cbp.gov/border-security

Protecting the U.S. from the unauthorized entry of migrants often becomes the default criterion for establishing border security. Counting illegal crossings is inherently difficult, but we do know that unauthorized crossings are at their lowest point in 40 years, and the Pew Hispanic Center believes there are now as many Mexicans leaving the U.S. as entering. Studies have also dispelled the myth that immigration and crime are linked; in fact, the presence of a large immigrant population appears to actually help make a city safer.

(Politico)

All the things this “willfully ignorant” president does seem to realize that all the the thugs he worries about….the drugs, the thugs, “terrorists…..are coming in our country through normal entry points….

Yet he thumps his chest like a crazed primate about some token to his presidency….a lousy short ass wall.

 

Do I Want A National Emergency?

A good question!

The president keeps threatening day after day that he will call a national emergency and get his wall that way.  Pundits keep pointing out to the people that the border is not in crisis but in Trump’s mind there is a crisis…but now he is calling it a humanitarian crisis…a change from a couple of days ago…..

But back to the question….would I want to see trump declare a state of emergency on his own?

I have thought about this and have decided that I would be upset but I could live with the precedent that Trump set by calling for the national emergency.

Why would I go along with Trump on this?

Easy peasey…..when we have a Dem president he could do what Trump did…..call a national emergency to handle climate change or the opioid epidemic or our infrastructure or…..well you get the idea….so yep Mr. President declare away and set up a precedent for the GOP to lose their minds over in the future.

But let’s look at this national emergency thingy……

The United States is in a perpetual state of national emergency.

Thirty separate emergencies, in fact.

An emergency declared by President Jimmy Carter on the 10th day of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979 remains in effect almost 35 years later.

A post-9/11 state of national emergency declared by President George W. Bush — and renewed six times by President Obama — forms the legal basis for much of the war on terror.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/22/president-obama-states-of-emergency/16851775/

Is this president so self-centered and ego-centric that he cannot see the harm this moronic move would do…if not then I say be a man step up and declare that emergency.

I get sent a lot of papers by grad students hoping for that advanced degree and recently I was sent one about the use of the national emergency….a timely paper indeed…..

The use of emergency powers by executives has been surrounded by intensive scholarly debate since the Second World War. Victor Ramraj has previously stated with clear conviction that there “will always be a danger that executives, even well-meaning ones, could abuse emergency powers, which has been demonstrated by historical and contemporary events”.[1] Upon examination of Ramraj’s statement, it will be argued that he is correct in his assertion that emergency powers can be abused by executives. On this basis, a two-strand argument will evolve, which will be split into two parts

https://www.e-ir.info/2019/01/05/emergency-powers-and-executives-an-ever-present-danger-of-abuse/

These powers that the “Executive” is given can be abused and I think Trump is the best at abusing the powers of the presidency.

It’s That Inescapable Crisis

After the speech of a couple of days ago….the key word of that day was …CRISIS.

I seems that the President has ginned up a new crisis that needs dealing with….the dreaded “caravan” was a dud after the midterms so something new had to be found….it was all this “illegals” flowing across our Southern border.

It is a crisis…..Trump made sure that word was drummed into our brains during his short uninformed speech of Tuesday night…..

But did you know that there are truly some situations that Trump could use the term Crisis and be accurate……

The border is a big deal, and the problems are real, But, as Axios’ Stef Kight writes, often lost in the shutdown madness is whether the crisis is bigger than other vital issues facing the country:

  • Since that tweet, 547 people have been shot in Chicago, and 111 people have been killed, according to data from the Chicago Tribune.
  • 86 people were killed in the Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif. Trump visited after the fires — but he’s now blaming California for not exercising “proper Forest Management,” and is threatening to cut off emergency aid to the state.
  • An average of three men are killed every day in the U.S. by police officers, according to an estimate in the American Journal of Public Health. That would mean about 255 American men had been killed by law enforcement since Oct. 16.
  • There’s no real-time data on deaths from the opioid crisis. But with 67,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC, it’s likely that roughly 16,000 Americans have died of drug overdoses — including opioids — since October.
  • Suicide rates continue to climb despite a healthy economy.
  • Seven U.S. military officers were killed in Afghanistan since Oct. 16, including six combat deaths. Trump signaled a strategic shift but never addressed the nation about it.
  • In Syria, at least 191 civilians were killed by the U.S.-led coalition between Sept. 10 and Nov. 17, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

And rather than address a devastating report by government scientists in November on the economic impacts of climate change, Trump simply said he doesn’t believe it.

There are truly many situations in this country that could be called a crisis….but the bullshit on the border is NO crisis…..a manufactured crisis with NO validity.

Plus if this is so damn important why didn’t it come up when he had a huge majority with White House and both Houses of Congress…it would have been a breeze to get something then…..but it just was not that big of a deal then….as it should be now.

Enough Said!