In his Joe Rogan interview, President Trump said that his biggest mistake from his first term came from appointing “disloyal” people to important positions based on advice from career Republican politicians. So naturally this time around he’s picking people based in large measure on personal loyalty to him. The result is a much better cabinet than his first, but not a perfect one. I’ll go through the top picks with quick reaction on each.
Secretary of State: Marco Rubio. Meh. Marco has always struck me as an intellectual lightweight. He will doubtless be a much better Secretary of State than Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first choice, as well as all Democratic secretaries of state back to at least Cyrus Vance (if not further), but in terms of actual ability I’m not sure he’s better than Trump’s second Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. I would prefer someone like Victor Davis Hanson. Or even (dare I say it?) Rick Perry. This also starts the run of “Sure is a lot of people from Florida on this list.”
Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth. “Before joining Fox in 2014, Hegseth served as an Army National Guard captain in Afghanistan and Iraq and earned the Bronze Star medal for his service in the latter.” I don’t watch Fox (or network or cable news in general), so I wasn’t previously aware of him, but he wants to completely purge wokeness and DEI, so I’m firmly on Team Hegseth now.
Attorney General: Florida congressman Matt Gaetz. Boy, this one really has the left freaking out. As well it should. While I’m confident Gaetz has the steel to launch investigations of the Russian collusion hoax, the Trump assassination attempts, the lawfare waged against him, censorship efforts, January 6, etc., I worry that he hasn’t run a state attorney generals office, and thus won’t know how best to bring “resistance” staffers to heel. I suspect a seasoned Republican state attorney general like Ken Paxton might have been a better choice, but Texas conservatives won’t complain about getting to keep Paxton in his current job.
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. Meh. I liked Noem back when she kept her state open during the Flu Manchu panic, but then she went off tranny pandering by vetoing a bill banning men from women’s sports she had promised to sign. She later made amends, but the initial pander of caving to radical social justice pressure makes me worry that she doesn’t have the necessary gumption for such an important job.
Department Of Government Efficiency: Elon Musk And Vivek Ramaswamy. Putting aside why this isn’t simply the Office of Management and Budget (maybe to staff a new department from the ground up without “resisters”), this one Trump hit out of the park. Both Musk and Ramaswamy are going to bring outsider energy from two guys who simply don’t care what the MSM and the DC chattering classes have to say about them. Ramaswamy is the ideological firebrand that won’t be diverted from the task, and Musk is the radical innovator who’s not afraid to to make rapid, radical changes. Every Republican President since Reagan has said they’re for a balanced budget, yet somehow the goal has eluded every single one of them. Trump did not pursue a budget cutting agenda in his first term, but having been targeted by multiple tentacles of the deep state leviathan, I’m pretty sure he’ll come in with a newfound zeal for chopping the federal government down to size. And Musk has a talent for both management and radical disruption, which the federal government badly needs.
Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard. I’m skeptical this one works out. Tulsi is clearly sharp, and after this election she clearly needs some role in the Trump 2: The Venging administration. And she drive feminists crazy simply by standing there and looking pretty. But directing the national intelligence apparatus, especially one that will be institutionally hostile to reform from the git go, will take a very special, and very tough, director to fill that role, and I’m not sure Gabbard has the intestinal fortitude for the sort of brutal inter-agency knife-fighting necessary to defeat the Deep State. Very few men do, and even fewer women, and having served in the military isn’t sufficient to assure that. For a woman to succeed in this role, she’s going to need to fall somewhere on the Margaret Thatcher to Nancy Pelosi Iron Lady to Stone Cold Bitch spectrum, and I’m skeptical Tulsi meets that threshold. Maybe I’m wrong and she’ll suprise us all.
Robert K. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. No. Like Tulsi, you have to give him some role, and he probably has some good points to make about over-medication, junk food additives, and how the pharmaceutical industry has misled the public (especially over Flu Manchu vaccines and side effects) and commits regulatory capture of the people who should be overseeing it, but he has too many fringe, scientifically supported ideas, and he seems to support ObamaCare. There’s still a chance this selection works out, assuming the Assistant Director is someone who can keep Kennedy’s worst impulses in check, and having him as the designated bad cop may force the medial industry get its shit together (and give up its push to mutilate children for funny, profit and virtue signaling brownie points entirely). Then there’s this via Instapundit:
God forbid we let RFK Jr. be in charge of HHS, otherwise he might do something crazy like fund experimental gain-of-function research in Chinese laboratories and cause a global pandemic
But this could still blow up in Trump’s face. Rand Paul would have been a much better pick here, assuming he could be persuaded to leave the senate.
Border Czar: Former ICE director Tom Homan. Yeah, he’s got the starch.
Let a thousand ten million deportations bloom.
So I find it a pretty mixed bag.
Athena Thorne notes that all those selected were unfairly targeted by the very agencies they’re being tasked to oversee, and that probably does provide powerful motivation, as well as insight on the types of abuse that need to be rooted out. I’m just not sure that’s sufficient…
Whatever the true reason behind the Biden Administration’s decision to import millions of illegal aliens into America, they seem deeply intent on carrying it out despite widespread opposition from American citizens, even working overtime on it, right to the bitter end.
The Biden-Harris administration has authorized massive overtime so Department of Homeland Security agents can grant temporary status to as many illegal immigrants as possible before a new president is inaugurated, a Homeland Security agent told The Daily Wire.
“Jason” — an alias given to the agent, who spoke to The Daily Wire on the condition of anonymity, said supervisors have told workers in recent weeks that they should aim to clear the backlog of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applications within 120 days. Doing so would allow these illegal immigrants to live and work in the country, and shield them from deportation for two years. The department is offering 30 hours of overtime per pay period to expedite processing of the immigrants, who come from countries including Haiti, Venezuela, and Lebanon.
The Department of Homeland Security would not confirm or deny the allegation, or explain its motives. But the unprecedented number of TPS applicants — and the mandate to process them quickly — has put pressure on agents to approve applicants rather than investigate them further or deny them, Jason said.
“It’s much easier to approve a case than to deny a case,” he told The Daily Wire. “Denying it comes with a lot of writing and approvals from supervisors.”
The Biden administration insists that those approved for TPS status have been vetted. But Jason said vetting is really just box checking — literally. Jason said he wakes up in the morning, shuffles into his living room, and begins clicking buttons to approve the migrants each day, sometimes working late into the night to accrue overtime hours.
“I just think the general public should know: I couldn’t tell you if the people we are approving are criminals or not, theres no way to know unless they admit to it,” he said. “The U.S. government isn’t calling up Haiti and saying is this person a criminal?”
Illegal immigrants who have been granted TPS are largely vetted by government agents who work from home, never talk to the applicants, and often simply check to see whether the applicant admitted to committing crimes. There is no opportunity to ask applicants follow-up questions, evaluate their mannerisms for suspicious activity, or hear a story first-hand to assess for credibility.
Snip.
According to DHS data covering the nine months between October 2023 and June 2024, 98% of processed applicants were approved, while only 2% were denied. Remaining pending were 344,000 cases, mostly from Venezuela.
TPS applicants must fill out Form I-821, which asks them if they have ever been arrested, and to provide their own court records showing the offense if so. It also has them check “yes” or “no” to 41 questions such as if they have ever committed “Any particularly serious crime committed either in our outside the United States”’; if they have ever “participated in the persecution of any person on account of race”; and if they are “now engaged in activities that could be reasonable grounds for concluding that you are a danger to the security of the United States.”
The form also asks if applicants are “now trafficking in any controlled substance,” whether they plan to “violate any law of the United States relating to espionage,” and if they have ever been involved in “killing any person.”
“I’ve never denied someone because they put yes on a criminal question,” Jason said. “They don’t do that.”
Bonus: “Last month, DHS said it plans to add some 11,000 illegal immigrants from Lebanon — the country from which Hezbollah has launched attacks on Israel — to the list.”
Did anyone ask the American people whether they wanted to import illegal aliens from Lebanon into their communities? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
But it’s not just DHS that’s involved in importing illegal aliens into America, it’s also the State Department.
The Center for Immigration Studies recently hosted a panel discussion on components of border security that are often overlooked: those carried out by the State Department.
Philip Linderman, a retired State Department senior foreign service officer, explained that most people focus on the role of the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when discussing border security yet overlook other border security components that require action from the State Department.
Linderman also explained that several offices under the State Department’s control are involved in developing and implementing immigration policy, including the Bureau of Consular Affairs and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
He said that a new president must install a new secretary of the State Department that aligns with his goals.
Snip.
“It’s just astounding that the State Department administers these visa programs really without much accountability whatsoever for our quality control or analysis to see whether they’re doing a good job,” explained Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at CIS and a panelist in the discussion.
President Trump will have to make a lot of key personnel decisions correctly to restore border enforcement in his second term…
Democrats refuse to let rapists be deported, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Democratic assassin’s tree, Israel decapitates Hamas, more illegal alien voting schemes exposed, the boom falls on Eric Adams, Goines goes down, another Russian ammo dump goes boom, a commie sub sinks, Raptor 1 Cylon 0, and 50 Cent throws down some Diddy dirt for your amusement.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Man, Democrats sure love illegal alien rapists. “158 Democrats voted against a bill that would ensure ‘aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed sex offenses or domestic violence are inadmissible and deportable.’ The Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act (H.R.7909) bill was introduced by Republican Representative Nancy Mace.”
No, they really, really do. “ICE Detains Illegal Migrant Accused Of Raping Pre-Teen In Nantucket…More Than A Month After He Walked On Bail.” “After being charged with one count of rape of a child with a 10-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, [Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo] was allowed to ‘walk free on bail’ and immigration authorities were never called, according to a report from the New York Post.”
“Ryan Wesley Routh Wrote of ‘Failed’ Assassination Attempt in Letter to ‘World’ Months Ago; Offered $150,000 Bounty to ‘Complete the Job.’” Plus a refresher to the would-be assassin the media already seems to be trying to memory hole: “While Trump was golfing at his International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel with a scope sticking out of the fence and ‘engaged’ with the person, who was later identified as Routh, a Biden-Harris supporter and Democrat donor with an extensive criminal background.”
“Son of would-be Trump assassin arrested for child porn.” “Investigators say they discovered ‘hundreds’ of files with child pornography during a search of Oran Routh’s residence in Guilford County, North Carolina, on Saturday conducted ‘in connection with an investigation unrelated to child exploitation.’ The two charges he faces include receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography.”
In little more than a year, a once-obscure South American street gang has taken hold in the Big Apple, exploiting the migrant crisis to build a violent criminal enterprise from within the walls of city shelters.
Tren de Aragua, a Venezuela-bred crew of thugs, now terrorize Gotham with gun-toting, moped-riding hoods, sell illegal guns under the very noses of private shelter security guards, and run sleazy prostitution rings in neighborhoods suddenly besieged by the marauding migrants.
The gang, which also peddles a lethal fentanyl mix called Tussi or “pink cocaine,” has grown so fast that it has so far overwhelmed both average New Yorkers and the city’s elite police force.
Given how many FBI arrests have been sprung on NYPD brass over the last few months, I’m not sure how well that “elite” appellation still applies.
“Not every migrant is here to commit crimes, not every migrant is a gang member,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. “But these TDA guys hide very well in plain sight in the migrant community.
“We aren’t looking to grab the food delivery guy, but these guys go so far as to wear Uber Eats clothing, [use] the delivery bags while they’re out there committing their crimes,” the chief told The Post. “When we do arrest them, they are very eager to talk about the crime they have committed.
“They are unwilling to talk about TDA itself.”
The gang, whose name means “train from Aragua” (a state in north-central Venezuela) in Spanish, now runs citywide theft and robbery crews that have terrorized neighborhoods.
In Jackson Heights, a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue dubbed the “Market of Sweethearts” has become a testament to TDA’s muscle and influence, with vendors peddling stolen items and an open-air red light district that has migrant hookers walking the streets day and night.
Plus a feud between Tren de Aragua and rival illegal alien gang El Carro De Lost Caragijos 666, as well as a guide to gang tattoos. (Hat tip: TPPF.)
Former President Donald Trump has gained ground and is leading Vice President Kamala Harris in key Sun Belt states, according to a New York Times/Siena poll from Monday.
Trump gained in Arizona and is now leading Harris by five points with the two candidates polling at 50% and 45% among likely voters respectively, according to the poll. At the same time, Trump has also held onto his lead over Harris in Georgia by four points and in North Carolina by two points. (RELATED: Experts Say Major Swing State Is Once Again ‘Pivotal’ To Trump’s Chances Of Retaking White House)
While the Republican candidate is leading, a significant portion of likely voters across all three states are independents, according to the poll. On average, 31% of likely voters in the Sun Belt consider themselves Democrats, 33% identify as Republicans and 31% say they are independents.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and the guerilla journalists at Muckraker have teamed up to unearth a little scheme down in Arizona — registering illegal aliens to vote. And shocker, I wonder which political party those new “voters” might be supporting? I’ll give you one guess, and I bet you’ll get it right.
The illegals Muckraker interviewed said they were registered to vote at grocery stores, while others reported activists visiting their apartment complex and encouraging them to register to vote. Why does this matter? In 2020, fewer than 11,000 votes tipped Arizona’s electoral votes to Biden.
Fast forward to today, and recent polling shows former President Donald Trump holding a narrow lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Arizona, a critical swing state. With the race shaping up to be just as tight in 2024, the integrity of voter registration efforts takes on even greater significance — as does the lack of concern from the left.
It gets worse. The Oversight Project tried to track these individuals on the voter rolls but came up empty-handed — they were nowhere to be found.
This development comes just days after the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously ruled that nearly 98,000 people with unverified citizenship documents are still eligible to vote in state and local elections.
Jena Griswold, Colorado’s rabidly leftist Secretary of State who will forever be known for her anti-democratic drive to knock former President Donald Trump off the ballot, has suffered another election law loss in federal court.
The U.S. District Court for the Colorado District last week issued an order demanding the Democrat secretary of state release Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) reports suspected of containing dead registrants on the state’s voter rolls. The reports, according to a settlement, include individuals who may have died within the past three years.
It’s another significant election integrity victory for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), and another stunning loss for election transparency-stifling Griswold and ERIC.
“PILF has knocked down ERIC’s wall of secrecy in the voter list maintenance process,” J. Christian Adams, president of the election integrity watchdog organization, said in a press release. “States cannot use third parties to hide election records that the public has a right to see.”
Griswold ultimately signed the stipulation after the court denied her original request to dismiss the case. Judge Philip Brimmer ordered the secretary of state’s office to disclose the requested 2021 ERIC Reports by Nov. 1. Brimmer did allow minimal redactions to the ERIC Report Key. With the agreement reached, the judge dismissed PILF’s claim that Griswold violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993.
The long awaited indictments of New York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams finally comes down.
New York City mayor Eric Adams engaged in a nearly decade-long conspiracy that included accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources to benefit his political career, according to the federal indictment unsealed Thursday morning.
Adams is accused of accepting free airline flights and staying in luxurious hotels on behalf of Turkish business and government officials who sought to influence him.
He sought foreign money in part to benefit his 2021 mayoral campaign, according to the indictment. But some of the criminal conduct Adams is accused of dates as far back as 2015 when he was the Brooklyn borough president.
Adams had been charged with five counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals; wire fraud; solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national in two instances; and bribery.
He is the first sitting New York mayor to face criminal charges.
The 57-page indictment accuses Adams of funneling illegal foreign money through U.S.-based straw donors, including at least two New York construction companies, to reap over $10 million in public-matching funds based on false certifications that his campaign complied with finance regulations. The funds provide “eligible candidates with public funds to match small-dollar contributions from New York City residents,” the charging document says.
Adams also received free or discounted travel benefits on Turkey’s national airline from a Turkish official, who facilitated the funneling of the straw donations to Adams. These overseas trips included flights from New York to Turkey, India, France, Sri Lanka, China and Hungary from 2015 to 2019. These trips are valued at more than $100,000.
Other luxurious benefits included “free rooms at opulent hotels, free meals at high-end restaurants, and free luxurious entertainment while in Turkey,” the indictment states.
In January 2022, when Adams was inaugurated as mayor, Adams agreed to accept foreign contributions intended for his 2025 campaign while meeting with a Turkish entrepreneur whom the indictment dubs the “Promoter.”
The Turkish government sought influence over Adams, in part, to get his help to open a new consulate building in the city before the country’s president visited in 2021, prosecutors say. The 36-story skyscraper would have failed a fire inspection at the time.
Prosecutors say Turkish officials cashed in on their influence with Adams and he pressured the fire officials to open the building, which they did because they “were convinced that they would lose their jobs if they didn’t back down.”
The question, of course, is how the boom fell on Adams, but Bill de Blasio’s wife “mishandled” hundreds of millions in homeless funds and never received an investigation…
“Ukraine Destroys ANOTHER Ammo Dump! In Kammenyi, Krasnodar Krai.” Here’s my quick, handy description of the different between an “oblast” and a “krai’: I have no frigging clue.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly voted 26–25 to recommend Antony Blinken be held in contempt of Congress following the diplomat’s failure to appear for Tuesday’s hearing.
“Secretary Blinken’s refusal to comply with the Committee’s subpoena — despite months of notice and offers of accommodations — warrants contempt,” the resolution read.
The Republican-led committee has long sought to host the secretary of state as it investigates the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan over three years ago that left 13 U.S. service members dead.
Israel took out Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut. You would think Hezbollah honchos wouldn’t be hanging around their headquarters in the current conflict, but Israel reportedly took out five senior Hezbollah officials. Not sure if this is the strike or not, but it’s pretty shock-and-awe:
These are JDAMs using either BLU-95 500 lb (230 kg) (FAE-II) BLU-96 2,000 lb (910 kg) thermobaric warheads.
The double slap sounds and the jet plumes of orange tinted smoke out of the impacts signify an underground tunnel network being 'serviced' by thermobaric munitions. https://t.co/sZZQ1ngaXA
The blue is Israel. The lack of counter-activity (which would be in red) suggests Israel may have already crushed Hamas in Gaza.
Here’s a very long range look at Lebanon and northern Israel, showing that while Hezbollah is still launching a few rocket attacks at Israel, Israeli air power is bombing the absolute snot out of Hezbollah, not only with strikes in southern Lebanon, but even all the way up near the northern border in the Bekaa Valley.
Israel is obviously able to hit targets in Lebanon with impunity.
You feel sorry for Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire, but pity is tempered by the fact that Hezbollah is part of the ruling March 8 coalition.
International law expert covers Operation Grim Beeper. “In the context of distinction, necessity, proportionality these principles of the laws of armed conflict being adhered to in an exemplary fashion.”
Bill to strip the tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations (like the Council on American-Islamic Relations) moves forward in the house.
“Pentagon to Send Additional U.S. Troops to Middle East as Regional Tensions Boil Over.” “The U.S. maintains about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, primarily tasked with counterterrorism operations. U.S.-controlled military bases also exist in Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, with a total count of U.S. military personnel in the region numbering around 40,000, up from the 34,000 troops stationed in the Middle East before the October 7 massacre.” But wait! Kamala Harris said we had no troops in a war zone!
A woman from Warrington, Cheshire, has revealed how her attempt to report a sexual attack led to her own arrest while the perpetrator remained free to assault others for nearly two years.
Helen Ingham, 48, recently waived her right to anonymity in order to share her harrowing experience with law enforcement after reporting an assault by Ahmed Fahmy, 45, a hotel manager whose reign of terror against women spanned more than 15 years.
There, as here, the left doesn’t want foreign rapists deported…
Democrats chances to take the senate this year appear to be dim. Good.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill on Monday aimed at streamlining permitting laws to facilitate the domestic construction of semiconductor factories.
The bipartisan legislation passed by a vote of 257 to 125, with 49 members not voting, and now moves to the president’s desk for approval.
The bill passed the Senate last year, and was passed in the House of Representatives this week as the “Kelly-Cruz substitute amendment.”
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) submitted the amended text of their Senate bill in December 2023.
When a bill passes as a “substitute amendment” in Congress, the original text is entirely replaced with new content. This new version of the bill, offered as an amendment, becomes the text that is voted on and passed.
It aims to accelerate the construction of U.S. semiconductor facilities, as the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 has made over $50 billion available to promote domestic production and innovation.
It will also streamline federal permitting by designating the Department of Commerce as the lead agency for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, exempting certain projects from NEPA, providing the Secretary of Commerce with greater authority to expedite reviews in coordination with state and local governments, and limiting court challenge timelines.
Snip.
Cruz supported one portion of the CHIPS Act but disagreed with another.
Cruz explained in 2023 that the CHIPS Act consisted of two key parts: the Facilitating American-Built Semiconductors (FABS) Act, offering a tax credit to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing investment, and the CHIPS Act itself, providing billions in direct subsidies to companies. While Cruz co-sponsored the FABS Act, he voted against the CHIPS Act due to his opposition to direct subsidies, favoring the more indirect incentive of the tax credit.
“Many companies have fired Gen Z workers just months after hiring them and several business owners said they are hesitant to bring on recent college graduates due to concerns about their work ethic, communication skills and readiness to do the job, according to a new survey. Six in 10 employers said they have already let go recent college graduates this year, while one in seven said they are inclined to refrain from hiring new graduates next year, according to a survey conducted by Intelligent.com.” Also: “Although they may have some theoretical knowledge from college, they often lack the practical, real-world experience and soft skills required to succeed in the work environment.” Also: “75% of companies reported that some or all of their recent college graduates were unsatisfactory.” There may be a bit of truth to this, but a lot of companies seem to be laying off and firing people of whatever age right now…
Seems like an Air Force F-22 Raptor shot down a UFO over Canada in 2023. This was during the Red Balloon Menace, but it sort of looks like a Cylon Raider from the BattleStar Galactica reboot.
Critical Drinker gives thumbs up on The Penguin. “Just the right balance between grounded realism and industrial gothic. It’s obviously still based on New York, but rundown, neglected, stricken by crime, corruption and decay. So basically just actual New York, then.”
A year after its censorship programs were exposed, the Global Engagement Center still insists the public has no right to know how it’s spending taxpayer money…
The State Department is so unhappy a newspaper published details about where it’s been spending your taxes, it’s threatened to only show a congressional committee its records in camera until it gets a “better understanding of how the Committee will utilize this sensitive information.” Essentially, Tony Blinken is threatening to take his transparency ball home unless details about what censorship programs he’s sponsoring stop appearing in papers like the Washington Examiner:
The State Department tells Congress, which controls its funding, that it will only disclose where it spent our money “in camera”
A year ago the Examiner published “Disinformation, Inc.”, a series by investigative reporter Gabe Kaminsky describing how the State Department was backing a UK-based agency that creates digital blacklists for disfavored media outlets. Your taxes helped fund the Global Disinformation Index, or GDI, which proudly touts among its services an Orwellian horror called the Dynamic Exclusion List, a digital time-out corner where at least 2,000 websites were put on blast as unsuitable for advertising, “thus disrupting the ad-funded disinformation business model.”
Mega-bank JP Morgan has officially left a $68 trillion investor coalition that is “focused on pressing the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to decarbonize,” according to Bloomberg.
In other words, the “fight” to decarbonize is imploding.
JP Morgan said it is leaving the Climate Action 100+ because it has “made significant investments in developing its own climate risk engagement framework”, the report says. The bank claims to have 40 professionals now focused on sustainable investing.
And the damage for the Climate Action 100+ may only be getting started. Lance Dial, a Boston-based partner at law firm K&L Gates LLP, told Bloomberg: “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more defections, especially given that there’s now a cost, such as potential litigation, that wasn’t there when companies joined.”
He added: “Attorneys general have subpoenaed firms about their membership of these groups.”
Remember that Chinese invasion we talked about earlier in the week? Republican U.S. Representative Tony Gonzales thinks it uses Sinaloa cartel.
In FY 2023, over 37,000 illegal Chinese aliens were encountered at the porous southern border, with an additional 20,000 having crossed since October when FY 2024 began. The federal data shows that the United States is seeing foreign invaders from more countries than ever before.
According to Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas), he believes the illegals crossing into California may indeed be staying there, he told the Daily Mail.
“As I’ve spoken to different agencies about why some communities [groups of migrants] to one place and others go another, one: it depends on what cartel controls that pipeline,” Gonzalez said.
‘It’s very clear that the Sinaloa Cartel is the one controlling that operation and sending Chinese more toward the California corridor…California/Arizona corridor that they control. That’s half the equation.’
Another theory: “[Oriel Ortega], the former director of Panama’s border patrol told The Epoch Times that the United Nations’ migration agenda is behind the chaos at the U.S. southern border and that U.N. partners are making things worse instead of better.”
More “refugees” behaving badly, with Eritrean, East African, gangs battling it out at an opera house in The Hague.
Results: “Six of Ohio’s eight largest cities experienced a drop in gun crime after the state allowed its citizens to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.”
“Biden’s job growth is mostly immigrants working for low wages.” Also this: “The Department of Homeland Security has been issuing an unknown number of two-year work permits to illegal immigrants, which will keep them in the workforce suppressing wages and fanning the flames of discontent amongst Americans unable to find jobs until the next presidential election.” What the hell?
“Disinformation Inc: State Department bankrolls group secretly blacklisting conservative media.”
The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.
The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.
“Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”
GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list” that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.
The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.
GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post.
Another huge story that the news media has done it’s best to ignore: a toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. The blew it up to prevent a BLEVE and ended up releasing Phosgene gas. That’s carrying your World War I reenactment too far.
90-year California Democratic Senator old Dianne Feinstein to retire after 2024. But…
A few hour later she was evidently unaware she had retired. Increasingly, “crazy” or “senile” seem to be the two most common flavors of the Democratic Party…
Now that it’s less than two years before the 2024 Presidential election, a small crop of Republicans whose last names are not “DeSantis” or “Trump” seem to have convinced themselves that they’re viable Republican presidential candidates. These people are either wrong or running for Vice President. The lack of enthusiasm for all four of the would-be candidates is palpable.
Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. For some reason (photogenic?), NRSC has been using her as one of their email begathon pitch-critters for a while, which probably explains why I’ve been receiving countdown emails (“I’m making a special announcement in 6 days.”) for her-not-even-remotely anticipated run. One struggles in vain to find the significant party faction Haley appeals to. Soft feminist Republican businesswomen? Indian-Americans? Plus: She appointed Tim Scott to the senate. Minuses: Backed Rubio in 2016, and was soft on culture war/social justice issues until about late 2020, and refused to fight transgender bathrooms, very low-hanging fruit for actual conservatives, back when she had a chance as SC Governor. No thank you. Effectively running for Vice President.
Former Vice President Mike Pence. Former Vice Presidents (Nixon, Bush41) used to have the inside tract to a White House nod in the Republican Party, but those days are gone. A solid, unexciting Vice President in the Walter Mondale mode for the first 46 months of his term who royally pissed off Trump supporters with his words and deeds in the last two months. Rational or not, Trump supporters now seem actively hostile to a Pence run, and since they were his only potential base of significant support (and only if Trump didn’t run), that’s a real obstacle, despite him checking almost all of the right policy boxes. If he runs (I have my doubts, as he doesn’t seem to have even his own website), he’s effectively running in the John Kasich lane (right down to the “unexciting Midwestern governor” background), which is a one-way ticket to Palookaville. No thank you. The only candidate here that we know isn’t running for Vice President.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. There was a time when being Secretary of State was a solid stepping stone to The White House. And that time was “the early 1800s,” as Martin van Buren was the last to do it, and only after a stint as Vice President. Which is bad news for Pompeo, arguably the most successful Secretary of State since James Baker. Between the Abraham Accords and keeping the War on Terror coalition together long enough to destroy the nascent caliphate of the Islamic State, Pompeo was a vast improvement over the largely ineffective Rex Tillerson, and worked well with foreign nations and international organizations that were, to put it mildly, not wild about his boss. And he has some other impressive credentials as well. “He graduated first in his class from West Point, and from Harvard Law and was on Harvard Law Review. After six years in the House of Representatives, he became CIA director for Trump, and then secretary of state – the only person ever to hold both jobs.” His short congressional tenure earned him a 97% score from the ACU. For me one of the biggest problems with Pompeo is that, like Haley, I primarily know his post-office career as a guy constantly in my inbox begging for money, and also talking like a career politician that’s already cranking up the baloney factory before properly introducing himself for a run. As Beto O’Rourke found out, three terms in the house is exceptionally thin electoral experience for a Presidential run. Plus his attempt to use “pipehitter” as a catchphrase for some sort of imaginary blue collar credibility was just laughable, as the term conjures drug addicts rather than plumbers. There’s just a bit too much standard issue political phoniness here, and Pompeo strikes me as someone who’s time has already passed. No thank you, but the softest no thank you of these four.
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu. I was only vaguely aware of Sununu The Younger, but his attack on DeSantis for having the balls to fight the poison of social justice instantly rocketed him to the bottom of my list. You would think Romney’s failure would have soured the party on moderate business-oriented governors, but evidently Sununu didn’t get the memo. Likewise, I doubt modern voters are interested in voting for Bush Lite The Next Generation. No thank you. An unwillingness to actual fight for conservative values is automatically disqualifying, and I don’t him bringing anything to the table as a Veep pick.
So there you have it. Four people who are not going to be the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2024.
Colin Powell, Secretary of State for George W. Bush, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for George H. W. Bush, has died at age 84.
Powell, a consummate Washington insider, was fairly effective in both roles. As Secretary of State, he was much better at managing relations with American allies and various international institutions than (in increasing order of general competence) John Kerry, Madeline Albright, Warren Christopher, Rex Tillerson, Hillary Clinton or Al Haig, but not among the very best of the modern era (George Schultz, James Baker and Mike Pompeo), and was notably better than successor Condoleezza Rice. He kept the Blair government onboard for Operation Iraq Freedom (at considerable political cost to Blair), effectively used the temporary post-9/11 period of international goodwill, maintained the sanctions regime on Iran, and effectively represented a President who was not loved by the “international community.”
As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, he effectively managed inter-service relations and empowered General Norman Schwarzkopf to produce the most overwhelmingly impressive military victory by American forces since World War II.
Powell does owe a small measure of blame in that American involvement in Iraq turned out to be a long-running, expensive distraction whose ultimate success was only cemented under the Trump Administration, but that was clearly a bipartisan quagmire, as was the long-running, expensive, disaster in Afghanistan, in which the State Department played a very baleful role.
That he was a squishy Republican who backed Obama in 2008 shouldn’t change the fact that he was fairly adept at at implementing the policies of the Presidential Administrations he worked for, no matter how mistaken some of those policies may appear in hindsight. Powell was almost universally praised for effective and dignified management in successfully filling two different demanding roles.
He once described himself in an interview with the New York Times in 2007 as a “problem-solver.” He offered this analysis of himself: “He was taught as a soldier to solve problems, So he has views, but he’s not an ideologue. He has passion but he’s not a fanatic. He’s first and foremost a problem-solver.”
On February 19, 2020, The Lancet, among the most respected and influential medical journals in the world, published a statement that roundly rejected the lab-leak hypothesis, effectively casting it as a xenophobic cousin to climate change denialism and anti-vaxxism. Signed by 27 scientists, the statement expressed “solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China” and asserted: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”
The Lancet statement effectively ended the debate over COVID-19’s origins before it began. To Gilles Demaneuf [a data scientist with the Bank of New Zealand in Auckland], following along from the sidelines, it was as if it had been “nailed to the church doors,” establishing the natural origin theory as orthodoxy. “Everyone had to follow it. Everyone was intimidated. That set the tone.”
The statement struck Demaneuf as “totally nonscientific.” To him, it seemed to contain no evidence or information. And so he decided to begin his own inquiry in a “proper” way, with no idea of what he would find.
Demaneuf began searching for patterns in the available data, and it wasn’t long before he spotted one. China’s laboratories were said to be airtight, with safety practices equivalent to those in the U.S. and other developed countries. But Demaneuf soon discovered that there had been four incidents of SARS-related lab breaches since 2004, two occuring at a top laboratory in Beijing. Due to overcrowding there, a live SARS virus that had been improperly deactivated, had been moved to a refrigerator in a corridor. A graduate student then examined it in the electron microscope room and sparked an outbreak.
Demaneuf published his findings in a Medium post, titled “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: a review of SARS Lab Escapes.” By then, he had begun working with another armchair investigator, Rodolphe de Maistre. A laboratory project director based in Paris who had previously studied and worked in China, de Maistre was busy debunking the notion that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a “laboratory” at all. In fact, the WIV housed numerous laboratories that worked on coronaviruses. Only one of them has the highest biosafety protocol: BSL-4, in which researchers must wear full-body pressurized suits with independent oxygen. Others are designated BSL-3 and even BSL-2, roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office.
Read on to see mostly what those of you reading this blog knew last year, albeit with some new details. Such as…
It seems that even The State Department tried to block investigation of the lab leak hypothesis:
A report in Vanity Fair details actions by some members of the U.S. State Department to block efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus because the inquiry could open “a can of worms.” An internal memo sent to department heads by Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, warned “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19.”
The “can of worms” in question was the extensive funding by the U.S. government into the Wuhan Virology Lab’s “gain-of-function” virus research. It’s unclear whether DiNanno was concerned that an investigation would uncover evidence of a lab leak or the extent to which the U.S. was funding dangerous research.
Indeed, there’s a lot more going on with this gain-of-function research than has ever been revealed. There appears to be a powerful lobby within the U.S. government that is heavily invested in the dangerous research and is serious about keeping it quiet. Former CDC chairman Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab.
The pro-lockdown “experts” were shocked. If a state as big as Texas joined Florida and succeeded in thumbing its nose at “the science” – which told us that for the first time in history healthy people should be forced to stay in their houses and wear oxygen-restricting face masks – then the lockdown narrative would begin falling apart.
President Biden famously attacked the decision as “Neanderthal thinking.” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa warned that, with this order, Abbott would “kill Texans.” Incoming CDC Director Rochelle Walensky tearfully told us about her feelings of “impending doom.”
When the poster child for Covid lockdowns Dr. Fauci was asked several weeks later why cases and deaths continued to evaporate in Texas, he answered simply, “I’m not sure.” That moment may have been a look at the man behind the proverbial curtain, who projected his power so confidently until confronted with reality.
Now a new study appearing as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, highlighted recently in Reason Magazine, has found “no evidence that the reopening affected the rate of new COVID-19 cases in the five-week period following the reopening. …State-level COVID-19 mortality rates were unaffected by the March 10 reopening.”
Hunter Biden said he couldn’t remember his baby mama. Turns out she worked for him. And he fired her.
Every time Hunter is in the news, the MSM asks Joe Biden about…ice cream. “The record is now rife with individuals associated with foreign governments and intelligence organizations giving millions to Hunter and his uncle as well as luxurious expenses and gifts.”
Rashard Turner, founder of St. Paul chapter of #BlackLivesMatter learns better:
That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers union. I was an insider in Black Lives Matter. And I learned the ugly truth. The moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for black children. I resigned from Black Lives Matter after a year and a half. But I didn’t quit working to improve black lives and access to a great education.
Congressional Democrats just hit a snag in trying to cram through lots of budget busting bills using reconciliation.
While the Democrats have high, if not delusional hopes of fundamentally changing every aspect of American life, from federal voting dictates to essentially outlawing sub-contracting, the actual rules of the Senate have stood in their way. The filibuster, which Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (among others who are laying low) have pledged to not touch, means that Chuck Schumer and his merry band can’t force through things on a simple 50-50 vote.
The Democrats were given a shot of life a few months ago, though, in the form of a parliamentarian ruling that Schumer claimed greenlit most of his agenda. I expressed skepticism at the time in an article discussing the infrastructure package.
Chuck Schumer recently claimed the Senate parliamentarian gave him free rein, yet that decision has not been made public, and there’s probably a reason for that.
Well, it appears my skepticism was warranted. In what is claimed as a “new ruling,” the parliamentarian effectively rips the heart out of the Democrat agenda.
the ruling ALSO said Congress would have to start over. Repass budget in committees and bring them to the floor. in the senate, that would trigger another vote-a-rama. This would be exceedingly time consuming, and potentially politically risky.
Reconciliation is a very narrow process, and the Byrd Rule requires that anything included in a reconciliation bill must deal with taxes and budgetary issues. You also have stipulations about deficit offsets that must be taken into account. You can not pass regularly legislative items under the guise of reconciliation.
Given that, this ruling essentially defeats HR1, the ProAct, and much of what is included in the current “infrastructure” bill. Of course, none of those bills were likely getting support from Manchin anyway, but with reconciliation off the table to get this stuff passed, Schumer is now officially out of options.
Corn, soybeans, and wheat have been trading at multiyear highs, with corn having risen from around $3.80 per bushel in January 2020 to approximately $6.75 now. Chicken wings are at all-time record highs. It is getting more expensive to eat.
Copper prices have risen to an all-time high. Steel, too, recently traded at prices 35 percent above the previous all-time high set in 2008. Perhaps most famously, the price of lumber has nearly quadrupled since the beginning of 2020 and has nearly doubled just since January.
Naturally, with raw materials prices soaring, prices of manufactured goods are jumping, too. That is especially noticeable in the housing market, where the median price of existing homes rose to $329,100 in March—a whopping 17.2 percent increase from a year earlier.
The cost of driving is soaring, too. According to J.D. Power, cited in the Wall Street Journal, the average used car price has risen 16.7 percent and new car prices have risen 9.6 percent since January.
My answer would’ve been blunt – What I like about being white is I’m free to think anything I like; believe anything politically and not be prejudged by liberals for it. I don’t have people assuming I vote a specific way, for a particular party, simply because of my skin color. That no matter what I believe, I won’t be called a traitor to my race, a sell-out, or some racial slur like “Uncle Tom,” or “Uncle Tim.”
What I like about being white is I don’t have to suffer the bigotry of leftists demanding I conform to how they insist I must think.
Hill and pretty much every left-wing pundit, TV personality, reporter, academic, actor, etc., do not extend that same courtesy to, say, any black conservative. Ever.
In that answer, it would have exposed Hill for what he was trying to do to Rufo, and it shows what the left is now: you are your skin color. If you refuse to conform, if you won’t be what they demand you must be, you are their enemy.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid announced that he is able to form a new government, in another step towards ousting longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lapid’s coalition is made up of parties from the left and right wings of the political spectrum, many of whom would not normally sit together in the same government. For the first time in Israel’s history, an Arab political party—the Islamic conservative United Arab List—signed on as part of the prospective governing coalition.
The new government must survive a vote of confidence in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, but the Knesset will not be in session for another twelve days. This means that members of Lapid’s coalition may defect in the meantime, potentially sending Israel to another round of elections.
Before Democrats start celebrating the fall of their designated bogeyman, the man likely to replace Netanyahu in the new government is Naftali Bennett, who is even harder right than Bibi:
Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett have reached an agreement to rotate the prime minister’s position between them as they race to meet a Wednesday midnight deadline to finalize a coalition government to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule.
Under the agreement, Bennett will take the premiership first, but the two are still working on finalizing their ruling coalition, which would include parties from across the political spectrum. The Associated Press reported that as of 6 p.m. Wednesday in Israel, there was still no sign of progress.
Bibi would be going into the opposition. This isn't American politics, where losing a presidential election confines you to the outskirts of politics (usually). From the opposition, Bibi, who runs the largest party in Israel, is well-positioned to become PM again in the mid-term.
A-listers including actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Steven Spielberg have raised the stakes with their backing of candidates. Spielberg and his wife have finally supported activist Maya Wiley, while Paltrow has supported Ray McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, Bloomberg reports.
The majority of those identified as actors or part of the entertainment industry have opted to join Paltrow in backing McGuire, who has vowed to boost film tax credits, Bloomberg reports. Figures who have donated to McGuire include “Despicable Me” producer Chris Meledandri, filmmaker Spike Lee and comedic actor Steve Martin. McGuire is also the only candidate not accepting public matching funds, Bloomberg notes.
Other candidates getting attention from Tinseltown include Scott Stringer and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Actress Scarlett Johansson has donated to Stringer, while Yang has reportedly received financial backing from actor Michael Douglas.
Also: “Recent polls, however, show Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in the lead.”
“Google’s Diversity Chief Removed for Decrying Jews’ ‘Insatiable Appetite for War and Killing.’ No doubt they’ve moved him to their Republican Deplatforming division…
The US State Department’s former lead investigator who oversaw the COVID-19 task force into the origins of the virus believes SARS-CoV-2 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and may have been the product of bioweapons research, according to Fox News.
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology is not the National Institute of Health,” David Asher – now a senior fellow at the Hudson institute – told Fox News in an interview, adding: “It was operating a secret, classified program. In my view, and I’m just one person, my view is it was a biological weapons program.”
Asher has long been a “follow the money” guy who has worked on some of the most classified intelligence investigations for the State Department and Treasury under both Democratic and Republican administrations. He led the team that uncovered the international nuclear procurement network run by the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, AQ Khan, and uncovered key parts of North Korea’s secret uranium enrichment. He believes the Chinese Communist Party has been involved in a massive cover-up during the past 14 months. -Fox News
“And if you believe, as I do, that this might have been a weapons vector gone awry, not deliberately released, but in development and then somehow leaked, this has turned out to be the greatest weapon in history,” Asher told a Hudson Institute panel discussing the origins of the pandemic. “You’ve taken out 15 to 20 percent of global GDP. You’ve killed millions of people. The Chinese population has been barely affected. Their economies roared back to being number one in the entire G20.”
According to Asher – who interfaced with the Chinese government as the State Department’s lead representative during the 2003 SARS outbreak – the CCP’s behavior surrounding COVID-19 reminds him of criminal investigations he’s overseen.
“Motive, cover-up, conspiracy, all the hallmarks of guilt are associated with this. And the fact that the initial cluster of victims surrounded the very institute that was doing the highly dangerous, if not dubious research is significant,” he said.
One wonders who it was that first gave the MSM their marching orders: “Never say ‘China virus!’ Never say that it might have come from the giant viral lab researching coronavirus in the same city it originated in!” The fact that they continue to label this very logical inference a “conspiracy theory” after Trump has left the White House suggests a desperate need to please China among our so-called media elites.
Last week President Donald Trump “announced his intentions to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), just weeks after nine American were ambushed and gunned down less than 100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border by cartel members.” Sarah McConnell at The Texan has details on legislation to enact that proposal:
After the president said he was considering designating Mexican cartels as FTOs in February, Texas Rep. Chip Roy(TX-R-21) supported by other members of the Texas delegation introduced legislation intended to do just that.
According to the Department of State, the FTO designation is granted by the Secretary of State in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) as a means of helping to fight terrorism by “curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.”
The Bureau of Counterterrorism within the State Department (CT) monitors foreign organizations known to be connected to terrorist activities, including engaging in, planning, and preparing attacks.
In addition, the CT carries the responsibility of identifying potential targets for designation based on capability and intent to conduct terrorist activities.
After the CT identifies a potential FTO designation and demonstrates that the foreign organization in question engages in or is capable of terrorist activity through a detailed record, the Secretary of State in partnership with the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury then decides whether or not to grant the designation.
If the designation is granted, Congress is notified and given one week to review under the terms of the INA.
The designation officially takes effect when published to the Federal Register provided Congress does not vote to block the designation within the allotted time frame.
An entity legally fits the criteria for FTO designation under the terms of the INA if it:
Is a foreign organization,
Engages in terrorist activity as defined in the INA, or
Threatens the national security of the United States or U.S. nationals through terrorist activities.
In effect, the FTO designation authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to freeze all assets and block financial transactions conducted by the terrorist organization.
That’s great and all, but I doubt Mexican drug cartels keep the majority of their funds in the United States. Some, yes, but I bet the bulk are in Mexico, Caribbean tax havens and Switzerland. In addition to those giant piles of cash they keep around for washing cars, buying drugs, exchanging hostages and buying politicians.
(That photo of a giant pile of cash was taken from accused Chinese-Mexican Sinaloa Cartel druglord Zhenli Ye Gon, was seized in 2007, and has $207 million in U.S. currency alone. It’s been circulating a while, and recent pieces that claim it was seized from someone else or is worth more (I’ve seen $22 billion) are untrustworthy.)
Additionally, the designation restricts the ability of foreign organizations and their affiliates to travel to the United States and makes it illegal to provide resources to the terrorist organization.
The designation also has foreign policy implications, as it stigmatizes terrorist organizations, brings awareness to other nations of the dangers of said terrorist organizations, and helps to curb terrorism financing internationally by encouraging other countries to also consider designating organizations as such.
This will help some, but drug organizations tend to be fairly nimble about moving their money around, and have so much of it that it’s easy to bribe officials up and down the line to make look the other way, an advantage most Islamic terrorist organizations don’t have.
After announcing his intentions to designate Mexican cartels as FTOs last week, President Trump has been met with resistance from Mexican government officials despite the president’s offers to provide added border security measures and other forms of assistance to the country.
Citing concerns over U.S. intervention in the country, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcel Ebrard issued a statement following President Trump’s announcement saying, “Mexico will never admit any action that means the violation of its national sovereignty. We will act firmly. The position has already been transmitted to the US as well as our resolution to deal with transnational organized crime. Mutual respect is the basis of cooperation.”
Mexican President Andrew Manuel Lopez Obrador has also declined aid and other forms of assistance offered by President Trump.
It’s hard to get more hands-on with Mexican drug cartels when the Mexican government wants you to stay hands-off.
Can such declarations win the War on Drugs?
No.
Human desire for illegal drugs is so strong that even the death penalty hasn’t prevented a thriving illegal drug trade in China, and there was even one in the Soviet Union. A further problem is that large swathes of Mexico’s government is believed by many to be in the pay of various drug cartels. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman claimed that he had paid a $100 million bribe to then-Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto, and Guzman also claimed to have bribed a onetime campaign associate of current president Lopez Obrador. And those are just allegations from one trial of one cartel head. Mexico itself has proescuted many more officials for cartel bribery charges. “Would you prefer to take a million dollars from us, or to see your entire family tortured to death in front of you?” is a powerfully persuasive argument to many Mexicans.
Is there any way to win the war on drugs? As a science fiction writer, I could spin up a scenario where our military and/or mercenaries (think letters of marque and reprisal) simultaneously decapitate all the major cartels by taking out their leaders and lieutenants, while simultaneously seizing control of all the known coca fields, and maybe clandestinely blowing up an illegal Chinese fentanyl factory or ten, and simultaneously legalizing drugs, and offering zero-cost drug fixes in safe surroundings for registered addicts and whisking a certain number off to giant treatment/rehabilitation/internment facilities off in Montana or Idaho or someplace where gangs wouldn’t immediately bribe someone to start dealing to the suddenly isolated addicts, and massive job programs for registered/ex-addicts to clean up America’s cities at below minimum wages while they complete treatment programs while also retraining for better jobs to integrate them back into the community. I can see that cutting illegal drug use by 80% of more while draining all the profit from the cartels, all at a cost of only, oh, about four or five political and/or constitutional impossibilities. It might not work, but it probably wouldn’t fail any worse than the system we have now, especially in the places where Democratic Party mayors already let drug addicts openly shoot up in the street.
I would also like a pony.
Short of that, or some technological fix (one injection and the nanoassemblers in a junkie’s bloodstream to produce a heroin rush whenever desired for the rest of his life), or even less probable Social Darwanist solutions (such as John W. Campbell’s proposal to put free barrels of heroin on every street corner; by the evening everyone who couldn’t handle it would be dead and the rest of us could get on with our lives), I don’t see any government policy short of full legalization of all illegal drugs making any significant difference in the problem.
But as much as I support drug legalization, I suspect I’ll get two ponies before that happens.
Would declaring the cartels terrorist organizations make a big difference? If it actually lets us take out the cartels, then briefly, and marginally, until new cartels form to fill the vacuum. During that time, Mexico might indeed improve to become a less violent place, possibly only temporarily, or the new cartels might be more circumspect in their violence, or more willing to peacefully carve up business. If, however, it results in a permeant American military presence fighting the cartels, then it would probably make things worse.
As a persuasion play for the current cartels to knock off the violence and take a lower profile, then it might indeed have some value.
