With politicians saying that we need something like the Great Wall of China for America, here’s an article, with a quick 2 minute video, covering the Great Wall’s history. For the record, the Great Wall of China did not prove to be an effective defense against invaders. Here’s the link from history.com:
The devil is in Trump’s illegal immigration details
I’m an ordinary person and not an expert on anything, so I like to listen to ideas and people who claim to be experts. Donald Trump stirred up a lot of conservatives and other people who are angry about illegal immigration. The media coverage of illegal aliens, who should have been deported long ago, committing heinous crimes stirs justifiable anger and a demand that our laws be followed and I agree, illegal immigration must be addressed.
Trump’s promise to build a big wall sounds good and if that’s what border patrol officials believe will quell the flow, I can support that wholeheartedly. I also don’t believe cities should be allowed to defy federal laws and that issue should have been nipped in the bud, instead of allowing one political party to encourage lawlessness. If federal funds can be withheld to force compliance with popular liberal programs, then the Republicans should have the guts to compel cities to comply with federal immigration laws.
Listening to the experts argue back and forth, it seems that securing the border isn’t the only avenue where illegal immigrants enter our country. Foreigners who overstay their visas create another problem and that one should be addressed. And American businesses who hire illegals should be cracked down on too.
The problem with Trump is he throws out overly simplistic ideas that aren’t in the realm of doable. He said he is going to triple the number of ICE agents, so an agency of 15,00 could jump to 45,000, okay, that sounds fine.
Where he loses me is he insists that all illegal immigrants are going to be deported and I’m wondering how the logistics of that could possibly work and how much it would cost. The figure of 11 million illegal immigrants in the US gets tossed around a lot as a ballpark estimate, so how could that many people be rounded up, fed, sheltered and provided emergency medical care, and then processed and transported back to their home country? 11 million people is about the population of the state of Georgia. My mind can’t fathom how costly and difficult a process this would be.
Securing the border and eliminating sanctuary cities make sense, but some mass deportation and then some plan to bring back the “good ones” sounds kind of convoluted, imho. Start enforcing the laws and increase deportations, but how would immigration courts handle hearings and how expensive would it be to pay for lawyers for millions of illegal immigrants, if we went to some mass rounding up and deportations? Just from watching large movements of people and reading a lot about the refugee situations in areas where war or natural disasters compels mass movement – it’s quite an undertaking to provide basic humanitarian needs to large groups of people. Has Donald Trump even thought about the complexities and the enormous cost to what he’s proposing? Can anyone explain to me how this mass deportation effort would work, because I can’t imagine even a 45,000 ICE agency being able to cope with something of that magnitude?
And at the end of the day, when we’re talking about illegal immigrants, we need to keep in mind the cost vs. the benefit. Frankly, a lot of the “facts” on illegal immigrants bear little resemblance to the truth, because both sides excessively politicize the issue. Securing the border, coming up with better tracking of those here on visas, ending sanctuary cities – all speak to good steps to follow, but I am lost on how Trump’s mass deportation would work and I suspect he doesn’t even have a clue either. Illegal immigrants come in all types, and in a perfect world none of them has any right to be here, but I’d be happy if ICE was allowed to deport the drug traffickers and hardened criminals first, and then once they’ve got a handle on that we could decide on the illegals who are quietly working as housekeepers, agricultural workers, and children. A phased in program sounds more sensible to me.
Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Politics
Compromised six ways to Sunday
The UK’s Daily Mail offers better investigative reporting than our American press, so let me post a link to an older story from the Daily Mail, when this story about Hillary’s private email account broke in March of this year:
“Hillary Clinton’s secret email address is revealed as infamous ‘Guccifer’ hack exposed some of her messages and the White House washes its hands of the mess”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2978290/Hillary-Clinton-s-secret-email-address-revealed-infamous-Guccifer-hack-exposed-messages-White-House-washes-hands-mess.html#ixzz3jCJ215kd
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This report contains the information on Sidney Blumenthal’s email being hacked in 2013 by a Romanian hacker named Guccifer. The Daily Mail articles links to a Russia Today article, where they (being a Russian state-funded news organization) so helpfully published 4 of Blumenthal’s emails to Hillary Clinton. Now, if they accessed Blumethal’s emails to Hillary, it can be assumed they also have Hillary’s emails to Blumenthal. ALL of this information, not only the emails on Hillary’s server, but all those who used her server will be investigated, as the FBI traces who had access to this classified information found on the emails Hillary turned over to the State Department. How did it get on her server in the first place, who sent it, and did she relay it to others. If Blumenthal’s email was hacked, then it stands to reason that foreign intelligence not only targeted Hillary’s email, but also all of her close associates. This whole email scandal will only escalate in seriousness, because having this private server speaks to a reckless and criminal disregard for handling our nation’s most sensitive information. She is compromised six ways to Sunday and apparently she is the only one who doesn’t realize it….
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
The faux-conservatives?
Carly Fiorina on Hillary:
‘I Have Such Great Admiration and Empathy for Hillary Clinton’: Carly in 2008
Donald Trump on Hillary:
Filed under General Interest, Politics
Tidy bowl tales of Hillary’s private server….
You can’t make this stuff up! The UK Daily Mail reports:
“EXCLUSIVE: Hillary’s email firm was run from a loft apartment with its servers in the BATHROOM, raising new questions over security of sensitive messages she held”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3201367/Hillary-s-email-firm-run-loft-apartment-servers-BATHROOM-raising-new-questions-security-sensitive-messages-held.html#ixzz3jAqdt3TF
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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
Random thoughts on the GOP field
I’m going to ramble off some random thoughts on the GOP candidates this morning. Call me a contrarian to the nth degree, but when it comes to politicians, I spend my time finding contradictions in their public statements, comparing their past record or stated views with how they “evolved”, and I look for flaws. Of course, I also look for some positive aspects of both the candidate and his/her policies. And for me the defining issue for any candidate is character.
For instance, Jeb Bush flailed around on the Iraq War gotcha question, he’s tried to find a position on immigration that’s palatable to the conservative base,and he’s squishy on many other issues. On the character issue, despite his impeccable manners, I believe he lied when confronted with reports of him making disparaging comments, referring to Donald Trump as an “a-hole”.
Now imagine if during that debate, Jeb Bush had looked Donald Trump straight in the eye and said, “Well, Donald, I said that and I really feel that you do act like an “a-hole”. What would have Donald Trump’s response been? I would have had a smidgeon more respect for Jeb Bush if he had owned up to his words and if he had the guts to say it to Donald Trump’s face. He crawled behind weasel words and he keeps crawling further away from controversy.
Scott Walker has changed positions so many times, on so many issues, that I can’t even keep track anymore and while I admired his guts to fight back in Wisconsin, on the national stage he’s relying on too many consultants and too much polling data to find a position that gains traction.
Donald Trump garners so much attention and his followers seem to be galvanizing into more of a cult than a constituency and thus many of his supporters take each negative comment about Trump’s low-brow antics and wildly vacillating political positions and programs as a personal attack on them. I don’t understand what attracts conservatives to this vulgar, brash, obnoxious, disingenuous, faux-conservative egotist, but there you have it, his petty name-calling and bluster is working. Just paint me in his ” You’re Stupid” category, because I will NEVER vote for Donald Trump.
I believe Trump is a snake oil salesman. Lots of conservatives desperate for real change in Washington have signed on, so let’s see how long his reality show campaign lasts. He makes pie-in-sky promises, but with his immigration plan announcement, it’s obvious that he now has some actual experienced political professionals helping him create a coherent message and policy. Oh, and his plan to defeat ISIS is absurdly naive and insanely reckless, not to mention demonstrates an alarming lack of knowledge about history and geo-politics. See below on John Kasich – we would create, perhaps, a larger problem in the region. Time for them to actually read a little history and study power vacuums.
Ben Carson appeals to me on many levels – he’s humble, he’s thoughtful, he’s willing to carefully study and analyze problems and his personal story is inspirational. Plus, he’s shown an independent spirit and a strength of character to speak from the heart, rather than using carefully tested sound bites. I like him a great deal.
Carly – still like her too, but she runs the risk of sounding too scripted as she repeats the same sound bites over and over.
Ted Cruz shows an amazing ability to stay on message too.
John Kasich was on FOX News last night laying out his ISIS plan and it sounds tough, but it doesn’t come anywhere near dealing with the complexities in the region. He’s got a Trumpian plan too – go take out ISIS and come home – no nation-building. Sounds good, but then there’s that nasty power vacuum we’ve created again and someone(s) going to fill that and more fighting will ensue or perhaps Iran will move and gobble up that now ISIS-free territory. How an expanding Iran works to our benefit or lessens our threat from Islamic terror, I don’t know, but hey, “American troops wiping out ISIS, in weeks”, sounds good. In the real world, it ain’t that easy!
Just think we’ve got more than a year of this 2016 campaign to follow………. YAWN!!!
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics
“More miles than any previous Secretary of State”
As more classified emails from Hillary’s personal server came to light today, I began thinking back to that big claim to fame for her time as Secretary of State – “she traveled more miles than any previous Secretary of State”. Was she using this private server while she traveled too? How secure was that set-up? What kind of security implications does all that foreign travel present, if she was using her home-brewed server to conduct all of her business as Secretary of State?
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
