“In comparison to other global threats, the near collapse of societies in the hemisphere with the associated drug and [undocumented immigrant] flow are frequently viewed to be of low importance,” Kelly told Defense One. “Many argue these threats are not existential and do not challenge our national security. I disagree.”Who's to blame? Well...
...
Kelly said that budgets cuts are “severely degrading” the military’s ability to defend southern approaches to the U.S border. Last year, he said, his task force was unable to act on nearly 75 percent of illicit trafficking events.
The Democratic coalition wants increased funding and resources for SOUTHCOM and the State Department’s Central American Regional Security Initiative. For fiscal 2015, the Obama administration requested $130 million for the program, which covers seven countries, but that ask is a decrease of $30 million from the current year, the senators noted. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said an additional $161.5 million will be provided for CARSI programs to “respond to the region’s most pressing security and governance challenges” – but the administration has made no mention of additional resources for the U.S. military....Some of the problem is the usual problem: an inability to agree on what policies are right, especially in terms of admitting massive numbers of new immigrants (or waving away the fact that millions and millions are already here). The administration wants to increase foreign aid to the failing states as a mechanism for helping resolve the crisis; the Republicans in Congress want to eliminate that aid as a forcing mechanism to drive foreign action. The administration here as elsewhere has a preference for civilian resources, such as police and State department aid programs, over military action. The Republican response, to secure the border with National Guard forces while eliminating this foreign aid, is 100% opposed to the President's preferred strategy.
Many Republicans who have effectively blocked reform efforts blame Obama, saying his “amnesty” immigration policies have incentivized the mass migration from Central America. In a letter dated June 20, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called on the president to send the National Guard to the border. On Monday, freshman Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, introduced legislation to stop all aid to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
One might wonder if the Republicans in Congress really oppose mass immigration at all, given their frequent and repeated noises about amnesty; whereas there is no reason to doubt that the President has political reasons to favor the idea. In any case, their intense opposition is one of the most effective political strategies possible for preventing an effective response.
Hussein doesn't need Congress for things he can use a pen for.
ReplyDeleteThese Republican military industrial complex guys need to know their place. Only the IRS gets 500m extra for parties and such.
ReplyDeleteYou need a Democrat patron master and feudal aristocrat, to get the real goodies.
Ask Colin Powell how it works for the military.
Republican leadership, funded or allied with the Chamber of Commerce for restaurant staffing, are seeking compromise with Dems in the immigration issue.
ReplyDeleteThat is de facto the same as being for the Left's plan, or what Grim calls amnesty. Same result at least.
Of course the restaurant faction can fight the LEft, get rid of EPA and other business crushing regulatory taxes, and save a lot more money than by hiring lower wage workers, but the Left is scary. So they avoid fighting the Left, instead they compromise. Eventually, falling under the LEft's influence and hierarchy.
What I said was only that there was reason to doubt whether the Republican leadership was committed to the anti-amnesty side. If you want a link, here is one. I think Ymar is right that the Chamber of Commerce funding is looking for lower wage employees, without regard for whether it's better for the country to have mass-scale immigration (or, for that matter, a nation made up of more as well as poorer citizens).
ReplyDeleteWhat you said was [emphasis mine] One might wonder if the Republicans in Congress really oppose mass immigration at all, given their frequent and repeated noises about amnesty...., which sounded to me like you were saying some among them were proposing amnesty. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Breitbart link, even that one gets around to acknowledging Boehner's clear understanding of the situation: If you come in and plead guilty and pay a fine, that’s not amnesty. Reasonable men can dispute whether pleading guilty and paying a fine is an adequate price, but it's plainly not amnesty. For august and learned lawyers like Cruz to claim that paying a penalty is amnesty solely on the basis of their not liking another aspect of the proposal is just plain dishonest.
Finally, the Breitbart site has been disappointing since Breitbart died (might have been before then, too; I didn't frequent the site before then). Their distortions in the link you provided illustrate their own dishonesty.
Eric Hines
Well, we may be indeed disputing a nothing: the question of whether these and similar comments constitute "noises about" amnesty or not. I meant that their comments ("noises") on the subject were not encouraging; you seem to have thought I meant that they had voiced specific endorsement of the principle.
ReplyDeleteAs for Breitbart, I know little of them since the man himself died. But I think amnesty might include a nominal fine, rather than prosecution under the law as it stands.
What I think ought to be done is that we should allow anyone to come forward and register as an illegal, with the understanding that they could then never become a citizen, never vote, and would be deported once the situation in their home country was stable. Anyone caught illegally here without having so registered would be deported at once, as well as being entered into the list of people who could never be citizens.
In theory this would render millions or tens of millions already (and long) here permanently barred from citizenship or voting. This I accept.
On the matter of noises, you're likely right--it's a misunderstanding between what I read and what you wrote.
ReplyDeleteOn the matter of amnesty, even a nominal fine eliminates the possibility of it being amnesty. Amnesty allows the government of a nation or state to "forget" criminal acts, usually before prosecution has occurred. There can't be "forgetting" if a price has been exacted, and in a proper legal system, that price can't be exacted without prosecution.
We'll have to disagree on the matter of citizenship, and I suspect, on the matter of mass immigration. I've always held that only the most heinous of crimes want a lifelong penalty, which permanent barring from citizenship surely is. Entering our country illegally for no worse a reason than trying to make a better life for oneself or one's family surely is not a heinous crime. Indeed, if that man has been a productive citizen of his community since entry, and his only crime is that illegal entry, that's the drive, initiative, concern for family, willingness to take risks for gain--and betterment--that are the sorts of things that we, especially we conservatives, ought to want. Pay a price, whose magnitude short of open-ended lifetime is open to debate, and then enter the path to citizenship.
The answer, it seems to me, must include both a tightly secured border with lots of legal holes poked in it for easy legal entry, and elimination of visa quotas (which would combine, I suspect, to greatly harm the business model of the coyotes). I have no fear that the conservative message would be lost on these, and I have no more fear of labor price competition than I have of price competition for any other service or good.
Eric Hines
This is a way of thinking I can't understand. The president refuses to enforce the immigration laws as currently written. His administration has successfully sued to shut down individual states' efforts to do the border-security job the federal government refuses to do. His refusal is not based on a lack of funding. Instead he seems to be trying to manipulate Republicans into backing open borders by the threat that, if they don't, he will continue to refuse to enforce the borders. Republicans would vote him all the money he needed if they believed he would enforce the borders, but only a fool (or RINO Republican leadership) would ever fall for that con.
ReplyDeleteAmnesty always falls apart because no one in his right mind believes the "secure border" part of any amnesty deal would ever materialize. We've already played this game out once, and it's not as though the players on the Democratic side of the aisle have become more trustworthy in the interim. It's the big problem about not keeping one's word: one can't continue to trade on it afterwards.
"This is a way of thinking I can't understand."
ReplyDeleteDepends on frameworks. Most people think the US President is here to help America. They do not truly believe, that a President would kill Americans intentionally, except for a Republican.
This is engineered demolition. The Left wasn't talking about Bush making terrorists up to make himself more powerful. They were thinking of doing it already, when they made that charge. That's how they can think of it, cause they thought of it first.
O'Keefe exposed ACORN's status of forces agreement with importing child sex slaves from the US Southern border. Meanwhile, the coyotes have their own supply of kids they transport, more than ever now.
So whether this is intentional on the Left's part or not, some of it is intentional. Intentional for what, remains to be seen.