Pic: Anon
Words: Perry Gaskill
In the words of that great sage Yogi Berra, “It’s like deja vu all over again.”
Word this week is that there is yet another new immigrant caravan headed for the U.S. border. According to news reports and social media, asylum seekers are due to leave Tegucigalpa, Honduras today to start the long trek north. This latest caravan, that by some estimates could be even larger than the one in October, will apparently be shoving off despite the fate of the last one. Of the roughly 3,000 who remain of the 7,000 who arrived, they’re still mostly camped out in the mud of rainy Tijuana.
At this point, it seems fair to ask the simple question: Why another caravan?
And a possible partial answer is this: Under normal circumstances, what amounts to an invasion of the U.S. could be expected to spark some firming up of public policy in such a way that politics are set aside to meet a common foe. Events such as Pearl Harbor had that effect, as did 9/11. But these aren’t normal times, and it’s becoming more apparent each day that for one side of the congressional aisle, all that matters is getting rid of President Trump by any means necessary.
Even if it means trashing American sovereignty in the process.
Here are a couple of recent clues:
In a heated exchange at the White House on January 5, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi interrupted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s briefing on the number of illegal border crossings and told Nielsen, “I reject your facts.”
Nielsen said, “These are not my facts. These are the facts.”
DHS has based its numbers on apprehensions of illegals by Customs and Border Patrol which are currently estimated at roughly 800,000 per year or 2,000 per day.
What seemed to fly under the news media radar following Pelosi’s in-your-face confrontation was that apparently at no point did Pelosi offer her own set of figures as evidence that Nielsen was wrong. Which could mean, without stretching things too far, that on Planet Pelosi any hard data numbers are irrelevant in the context of destroying Trump. If you admit any numerical evidence, the risk is you might inadvertently acknowledge there actually is a problem on the border, and by extension that the President might be right.
Border crisis? What border crisis?
It’s also no surprise that Pelosi is not alone in being willing to resort to sleazy tactics. Over in the Senate, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, he sits on the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, had a chat with acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan last week about a White House plan to cobble together some alternate funding and use the Army Corps of Engineers to work on the border wall. This is in order to get around a current congressional refusal to fund any money for a border wall at all.
Durbin said in statement following the Shanahan meeting, “Using DoD funds to pay for the wall, when Congress was never asked to approve of such a plan, is a major breach of relations between DoD and the oversight committees. In my meeting with Acting Secretary Shanahan, I cautioned him that if President Trump directs DoD to circumvent Congress in such a legally dubious way on such a major issue, Congress will have to reevaluate its relationship with the Department and judge whether each instance of broad flexibility granted to the Department is worth the risk of abuse by President Trump.”
Meaning, apparently, that if Shanahan doesn’t “reevaluate” an inclination to follow the orders of his Commander-in-Chief, he’s going to have unpleasant things to think about.Or put another way, Durbin sounds like a couple of guys named Vinnie and Rocco showing up at the Pentagon and saying, “Nice little place you got here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”
Another post from our own Perry Gaskill. To me a PG post, besides being relevant to today’s issues, is a study in writing skills. I thought I had some chops in that arena, but enjoy; you are now in the realm of a master word-smith.
And he’s not the only one here.
No. Just fucking no!
Still waiting for that caravan of Hollywood stars up here on the Canadian border.
Should be arriving any day now.
Just no Scientologists please. You know who you are…couch jumping POS
Can we at least send Justin Bieber back… I’ll pay the postage.
And Samantha Bee.
Don’t forget Jim Carry.
Celion Dion
And Nickleback. For the love of God, please.
“Events such as Pearl Harbor had that effect, as did 9/11. But these aren’t normal times,..”
If the American People of today were around when the Pearl Harbor attack happened, much of the population would immediately begin praising Japanese culture, learning Katakana and march to the coastlines with large signs saying “Land Here!”.
I greatly fear that these times are in fact the new normal.
The old Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times” would, if translated correctly, probably be something like “May your life suck because you are living among and ruled by a multitude of idiots and a$$holes.”
The American people today only care about what affects them directly, the indirect cost of illegal aliens is something they’ve become willfully blind to. They just don’t care. We have a different perspective in my border neighborhood, and we want the damn wall built. Most of the existing wall in AZ was built by Army engineer units, I see no reason why they can’t build more.
Is it actual wall, or just old rusty PSP sections loosely bolted to T-posts? Hell, in the Otay Mountains, there’s still sections of the border delineated by a barbed-wire fence so broke-down you could easily step over it without noticing. Border Patrol does their best, but it sure doesn’t help when there’s nothing to even slow down cross-border traffic.
There’s several variations. There’s the newer bollard wall, there are sections of steel mesh, and there’s still a lot of the old PSP crap. There’s no fence to speak of across the San Pedro, just vehicle barriers. In some areas there’s a fence something like a rancher’s buck/rail fence, but it’s made of railroad steel. All this technology that folks claim is better than a wall doesn’t stop anyone from crossing. You’d be amazed at the technology DHS/CBP has now. All it does is tell you where somebody is crossing. It still comes down to an agent apprehending illegals.
“All it does is tell you where somebody is crossing. It still comes down to an agent apprehending illegals.”
Over a very large area, with no pinch points.
Exactly.
In my area, Border Patrol has patrol vehicles, off-road patrol vehicles, patrol agents riding quads, horse-mounted patrol agents, foot patrols, and helicopters, alerted by drones, cameras, motion sensors, IR sensors, goddamn seismic sensors that can feel you walking within 200 yards, and the border is still a sieve.
Build the damn wall. No, it won’t stop cross-border traffic, but it will reduce most of it to known choke points. This in turn will allow Border Patrol to shut down those choke points more effectively.
I had a guy the other day try to cite the Great Wall of China as a reason not to build the border wall. I told him that’s a crappy example because the Chinese figured they could put up the wall, staff only the gates, then not bother to fund the guys on the gates, who in turn were only too happy to take the better deal the Mongols offered. I countered with Hadrian’s Wall, which was properly manned, properly funded, and as a result the Woads generally stayed on their fucking side of it. It didn’t fail until Rome decided not to staff it anymore, but that was around the time that Rome stopped doing pretty much everything right.
The wall will not replace Border Patrol. It is a necessary tool in their box that will work great if used properly. Immigration reform won’t do dick without a secure border, which requires a wall.
Exactly.
For those that keep saying we need tech not walls, they are full of it. We have had tech (like you noted) for a number of years, CBP is still just playing a huge game of whack a mole.
Build the wall, create chock points, help CBP to better do their jobs. It could work well enough that they could maybe put more agents on the ports of entry.
chock = choke.
Walls can’t be ordered or “guided” to ignore illegals.
This is an invasion of our country. It’s that simple. We have, as a country, the right and duty to all citizens, to secure and defend our borders.
I live is a fairly nice small town neighborhood. My rebuilt farmhouse home has a combination chain link, privacy, and picket fence. I also have heavy duty doors with dead bolt locks, locking windows, an alarm system, firearms, and a large size furbaby that will rip your lungs out thru your nose. There is also a multitude of various defensive items designed to ruin a dirt bag’s day. This is not to deter my friends and neighbors.
This whole open borders is just another way to keep the domestic enemies of our Republic in power. Another way to throw obstacles in front of President Trump. We have beat this point some many times on this and other sites. Vote, Vote, Vote, and Vote some more to keep the socialist politicians out. They are steady diluting each voting district for their ultimate ends. Educate your friends, neighbors, co-workers to this clear and present danger we are facing.
Did y’all see the blip yesterday(?) from Granny Frans House? A reporter showed up at the gate with a number of illegal immigrants looking for some sanctuary. Her security boys denied them entrance and called the local popo to have them “escorted” out of the area. Wrote them a trespassing ticket.
It’s gonna get worse. They will destroy this Country just to keep Trump from accomplishing anything.
Apparently the sum total of the Democratic platform and agenda these days is simply, “Orange man bad”.
Consequently they will contort themselves into new positions that require them to renounce the very positions they supported during the Obama years.
The Democrats revealed their true nature the day Obama was elected. The very next day Cindy Sheehan and all the anti-war protesters disappeared, when Obama added three nations to the bombing campaign the Democrats didn’t protest, when he increased drone strikes and added extra judicial killings of Americans not a word. I can only imagine had Bush done any of that the uproar that would have been seen daily would rival the current Trump brouhaha.
I’ve nothing against anyone who thinks war is inappropriate and protests, that’s their right as an American. I may not agree but I respect the idea that someone is so offended by military aggression that they feel the need to tell our government to stop. What I object to is the hypocrisy of those in the anti-war movement who were fine with war when the Cool Black Guy was conducting it but when the previous Rich White Guy was doing it.
This current border nonsense is indicative of exactly the same hypocrisy uttered by exactly the same Democrats, Pelosi and Schumer and a host of others were recorded explaining why border security to prevent illegal immigration was a must less than five years ago but today I’m supposed to believe that one tenth of one percent of the budget for the very same border security is a bridge too far?
I think the ladies doth protest far too much.
Somebody forgot to close their bold type?
The secret squirrel in charge of bold font was hampered by the government shut down. Looks like the free market saved the day.
hahahahahaha
I knew it was Trump’s fault somehow (:smile)
“𝐈 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈 𝐝𝐨, 𝐈 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝.” – The Most Interesting Man in the World. AKA apparently Perry Gaskill.
Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player. Yogi’s “deja vu” was originally marked as just plain italic because it’s a French term. Somewhere along the TAH posting chain, the markup was altered to bold italic for mysterious reasons. Besides that, I would never claim being the “Most Interesting Man In The World” when the title should obviously go to Hondo.
Democrats have always been populists, in that their dearest held principles were subject to change over time with public opinion. So I’m not surprised to see complete 180 turns on issues, but if nothing else Trump has shown how rampant this hypocrisy is. Things people supported fervently just a couple years ago are now “immoral” and Nazi-like. The only change is Trump.
So I agree, their whole platform is “orange man bad.” Surprised they picked up any seats in the last election with no platform on which to stand.
What happened to the days when one could put the wax on a victrola and listen to Mexico by the Rocketones on Melba, (1957) and now one has to worry about a rock being thrown at them.
Deep down in places you don’t like to talk about at parties…
You WANT me on that barrier or wall or whatever you’d like to call it,
You NEED me on that barrier or wall or whatever you’d like to call it.