(from Judicial Watch, in part)
The U.S. Border Patrol alters statistics involving the apprehension of criminal illegal immigrants to conceal that thousands are being released, a new federal audit reveals. The frontline Homeland Security agency charged with preventing terrorists and weapons—including those of mass destruction—from entering the country also skews figures to drastically deflate the high recidivism rate of aliens caught entering the U.S.
The distressing details of this crucial agency’s crafty record-keeping practices are outlined in a scathing report issued this month by the investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The probe focuses on a Border Patrol system developed to address a smuggling crisis along the southwest border. It’s officially known as Consequence Delivery System (CDS) and is used to identify the most effective and efficient consequences to deter illegal cross border activity in each of the agency’s sectors. For the system to work, the Border Patrol must report accurate information involving illegal aliens who are apprehended.
Instead, it appears that federal agents on the ground are being ordered to fudge the numbers as part of a broader Obama administration effort to protect illegal immigrants and falsely portray the Mexican border as safe. The GAO report suggests that Border Patrol headquarters directed agents to misclassify criminal illegal aliens, presumably to hide the fact that they were being released instead of prosecuted. Officials interviewed as part of the probe “said that agents received oral direction from headquarters to reclassify criminal aliens who cannot be given a consequence of federal prosecution, and that written data integrity guidance to sectors did not include activities for checking the accuracy of alien classifications,” the GAO report states.
The misclassification of apprehended illegal immigrants resulted in nearly 4,000 criminal aliens being returned to their home country rather than prosecuted between 2013 and 2015, the GAO found. After analyzing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data, congressional investigators determined that an astounding 94% (109,080) of the 116,409 aliens given a consequence of warrant or notice to appear still had an open case and “may remain in the United States.” Thousands more escaped criminal prosecution because they were not properly classified. “Specifically, of the approximate 15,000 apprehensions of criminal aliens who were not classified according to CDS guidance between fiscal years 2013 and 2015, 8 percent were recommended for criminal prosecution (3,912 apprehensions) compared to 47 percent of all criminal aliens during that timeframe,” the GAO writes.
In some cases, Department of Justice (DOJ) restrictions limit the number of illegal aliens that can be referred for prosecution, the report says. This leaves agents in a bind and hesitant to apply consequences that require referral to federal partners. Here’s an example: “Rio Grande Valley sector officials said that while agents apprehended over 129,000 aliens in fiscal year 2015, the sector can only refer about 40 immigration-related cases each day to the corresponding USAO District (Southern District of Texas) for prosecution. Once this daily limit is reached, agents must apply an alternative consequence that is not the Most Effective and Efficient as defined by the CDS guide.”
Recidivism numbers are kept down by using an unscrupulous system that only classifies an apprehended illegal alien as recidivist if he or she had been previously caught within a fiscal year. The system doesn’t account for immigrants with no record of removal after apprehension and who may have remained in the United States without the opportunity to recidivate. The Border Patrol guidance also states that a first-time apprehension classification may be used on an alien that has been apprehended by another agency. Congressional investigators determined that the Border Patrol system slashed recidivism numbers in half. In one outrageous case cited in the report an “alien apprehended 54 times in the Rio Grande Valley sector between October 2012 and May 2015 was classified as a First Time Apprehension 6 times.”
Two of my ‘spies’ in FEDGOV tell me that President Trump requested letters of resignation from all department heads, so he could then choose which to accept. The FIRST he accepted was the head of the Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol has been, in varying degrees, hamstrung for the past eight years. Essentially, get paid but don’t do your job!
Reportedly, for the first time in it’s history, The Border Patrol (union) openly supported a presidential candidate.
Reports of wild cheering and dancing along the border once the election had been completed were unconfirmed.
Or rather a series of protests across the country (and the World), following the Presidential inauguration. Reportedly in significant numbers.
What exactly was being protested, and by whom?
It appeared to be largely women. Protesting Donald Trump’s history of misogyny. Because of a locker-room style comment he made eleven years ago. Some protesters showed class, by dressing like this:
To be fair, not everyone was dressed this way.
I did notice most of the ‘notables’ involved in the protests were ‘left of center’, demanding continued funding for Planned Parenthood (as an example), and more government funding for all their concerns (like free health care for all), and consisted of folks like (from this AP report):
(…) Pop diva Madonna made an unannounced appearance Saturday in Washington, joining hundreds of thousands of protesters who rallied for women’s rights in defiance of Trump.
Other celebrities at the massive demonstration included actresses Scarlett Johansson, Ashley Judd and America Ferrera, filmmaker Michael Moore and the feminist icon Gloria Steinem.
I did notice conservative women were absent – perhaps discouraged from appearing?
A friend’s protest sign:
Part of the protest was regarding protection of the environment. Here is one photo following a protest:
I’m certain more government money/labor will be needed to clean up after the protesters.
But, going to the government teat seems to be their fallback. Wait! Can I say that? Great – I’ll probably have women dressed as boobies outside my door, now…
Naw, I’m not as important at The President. 🙂
(You all know I support legal protest – it’s a fine American tradition. I didn’t see any reports of violence or criminal damage. Good for you, ladies – and Michael Moore.)
SOME of us got what we asked for.
Some didn’t.
Originally, I was gong to post regarding the last administrations’ ‘accomplishments’ – Benghazi, Fast & Furious, Uranium to the Russians, The Iranian bribe, continuing Gitmo, continuing massive unwarranted surveillance on American citizens, Executive Orders in excess, medical insurance taxes, golf games, ongoing wars, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Then, it occurred to me I would be going backward.
What about the future?
Will DJT lessen the intrusions, black sites, unwarranted searches, etc.
I kinda doubt it.
Will patriotism be increased? Perhaps? Prosperity? Maybe. Crony capitalism? Perhaps, or it might remain the same as under the last administration.
Will the progressives fight tooth-and nail to keep all the socialist agendas they fought for the past eight years?
Of course.
Will Gun Rights improve? Maybe.
I’m taking a wait and see attitude – applauding those things with which I agree, and condemning those I don’t.
Hopefully, there will be much more applause this term than the last two!
God Bless The United States of America!
(I was gonna put WHITE in there, but didn’t wish to mislead!)
Well, it seems this Nation is indeed separated into two three factions: Those who support the President-elect, and those who hate him. (And those for whom the jury remains out).
I don’t think our long national nightmare is yet over…
Remember FOUR EIGHT years ago, when the Electoral College put a Black man into the White House? And many on the Right referred to him as The Black Jesus? Because the Left viewed him as the solution to all things ‘wrong’ with the Country.
And, after all, he wasn’t George W. Bush (or his weak carbon copy John McCain? Or Mitt Romney?)
Hope and Change? Fundamentally transform? (Pick one).
Well, now (if we’re thinking racially), we’ve replaced a Black man with a White man. (Not that other Black candidates weren’t possible – Condi Rice? Mia Love? Clarence Thomas?…)
If we’re NOT thinking racially, Mr. Trump is a populist.
He doesn’t appear to have read recent Supreme Court decisions, or, the U.S. Constitution, however. (wanting to ban flag burning, for example – reprehensible speech though it may be).
And Gitmo will remain, as will massive surveillance. As will issues with guns, illegal immigration, terrorism and civil liberties. Pending court decisions on the next administration’s actions.
And, I think many folks are harkening back to the days of Norman Rockwell. (The 40’s, 50’s?) Burying their heads in the sand, because we no longer have a Leftist President. Of whatever color.
Those of us who are concerned with civil liberties need to continue our watch into the next administration.
Lest we become blindsided colorblind.
(courtesy of Free North Carolina, in part)
It’s the Debt, Stupid, Clyde N. Wilson, Chronicles, February 2016, excerpt pg. 16
Abraham Lincoln was a devotee of the Alexander Hamilton/Henry Clay “American System” of public debt, tariff protectionism, government subsidies and a national bank. To finance his war in 1861, Lincoln turned to an income tax, and then succumbed to printing money. Nowhere in the United States Constitution is the federal government authorized to make paper money legal tender. By 1865, the public debt was $2.6 billion, and the direct/indirect cost of Lincoln’s war would reach $8 billion by 1900.
http://www.Bernhard Thuersam, http://www.Circa1865.com The Great American Political Divide
Public Debt, Then and Now
“Contrary to official capitalist wisdom, debt does not create economic growth. This idea is a swindle. Interest to the very rich . . . does not produce anything. It does not multiply creatively into new enterprises and jobs; it merely diverts ever-greater proportions of earning that might be fruitfully invested.
The proof is all around us. How could the vast unpayable federal debt, which absorbs much of the government’s income just for the interest bondholders, foreign and domestic, possibly be an economic stimulus? How can the immense and near universal burden of personal mortgage and credit card debt possibly indicate a healthy economy and commonwealth?
The matter is simple, obvious to anybody except a politician, a captive economist, or a media flack, and it ought to be conveyed to the people at every opportunity. Debt is killing us. Every wise man in recorded history has affirmed that debt is not a good thing. Debt can destroy a family, a government, a society.
Alexander Hamilton, an upwardly mobile immigrant bastard with a Napoleon complex, declared that “a public debt is a public blessing.” Troubled, but not surprised, Jefferson noted a connection between debt cruel taxation that undermined the independence of the citizens, warning that “we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”
Weighed down by government debt, the people would have to labor ever harder to pay the debt-holders, leaving them “no time to think, no means of calling the managers to account.” Jefferson avowed as a core principle that “the earth belongs in usufruct to the living,” but the living had no right to consume the earnings of posterity.
Antebellum statesmen like John Taylor of Caroline and John C. Calhoun and economists like William Gouge and Condy Rageut made the same case. After the War Between the States, so did William Graham Sumner, Thomas E. Watson and countless other public men and thinkers.
Republicans (and their predecessors) have always been the party of bankers and bondholders, service to the rich being for them a natural and essential function of the federal government. Opposition to the federal debt was long a plank in the Democratic platform, but Democrats today are just as guilty as the Republicans in regard to the issue.
Lip service to the virtue of “low public debt” continued until Franklin Roosevelt discovered Keynes and declared that debt is no problem “because we owe it to ourselves” – “ourselves” being a conveniently vague and collective being.
The bipartisan bailout of misbehaving bankers and brokers that we saw a few years ago, and the failure of a multitude of presidential candidates to mention the matter, is not promising.”
Posted especially for Dave.
(from the NRA/ILA, in part)
Grandma Got Run Over by Obama: SSA Finalizes New Gun Prohibition Rule
On Monday, Barack Obama’s Social Security Administration (SSA) issued
The final version of a rule that will doom tens of thousands of law-abiding
(and vulnerable)disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
recipients to a loss of Second Amendment rights under the guise of recharacterizing
them as “mental defectives.” The SSA, for the first time in it’s history
will be coopted into the federal government’s gun control apparatus,
effectively requiring Social Security applicants to weigh their need for benefits
against their fundamental rights when applying for assistance based on mental health
problems.
Yeah, elderly folks don’t need to defend themselves, right?
In a pig’s eye!
This really torques my jaw!
Most of the ‘older’ folks I know have been gun owners and shooting their entire lives. To have the bureaucracy remove their rights with no due process is obscene.
Via Dan
“A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils.” ~Benjamin Rush, Letter to John Adams, July 21, 1789
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” ~James Madison, Federalist Paper 10
“It has been observed, by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny . . .” ~Alexander Hamilton, The Debates in the Several State Conventions, 1787, p. 253
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” ~John Adams letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814
Were it not for the Electoral College, small densely populated, mostly urban areas on the east and west coasts would have elected Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. The votes of the inhabitants living in the vast central land mass of the USA would have essentially been of no value, and the needs, opinions, and desires of those citizens would have been ignored by a President who owed them no loyalty. In fact, it would be possible for a candidate to win the election by campaigning only in those highly populated east and west coast areas without setting foot anywhere in between. That egregious lack of equality would lead to a dissolution of the country with unfortunate and disastrous results.
*************************
Many might be surprised to learn that the word “Democracy” does not appear in the Bill or Rights or the US Constitution. Nor does it appear in the Constitutions of the 50 States. A Democracy is “mob rule,” a dictatorship of the majority in which 51% of the citizenry rule the other 49%. Our freedoms and liberties are guaranteed to us because the framers of our Constitution, through past experience and careful consideration, gave us a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy . . . A governmental system based on the rule of law and not the rule of the majority.
After the War of Independence and the failure of the Articles of Confederation, when our Constitution was being conceived and written, the total population of the thirteen colonies was estimated to be 2,628,400. The thirteen colonies were not equal in terms of number of inhabitants, with Delaware being the smallest at 45,400 residents and Virginia the largest with 538,000 residents.
Does President-elect DJT have the gravitas to do what is necessary? Without compromising the Constitution?
AH! There’s the rub.
No extra-constitutional executive orders. No bulls-in-china-shops (in spite of the fact he has no verbal filters!)
Of course, as with GWB, it won’t matter what he does or says to some people, just because he’s (in their view) the wrong person.
Bayou Renaissance Man has a take on the recent (and ongoing) unpleasantness (in part):
I’m astonished that no-one has yet pointed out, publicly and loudly, that the organized anti-Trump protests following his victory in last Tuesday’s election are as organized, and as manipulative, as most of the other protests we’ve seen all year long. It’s the same professional agitators, going from issue to issue and from state to state, seizing on any popular idea and transforming it into a lever to undermine our nation, our democracy and our constitution.Consider:
- The Black Lives Matter protests were very clearly organized. Numerous police forces admitted or asserted that ‘outsiders‘ came into town to make trouble, then moved on to the next protest. They were funded by the same source that bankrolled the Ferguson riots ‘protests’.
- As soon as the North Dakota pipeline protests geared up a few months ago, what happened to the BLM protests? Suddenly there was hardly a mention of them. The reason was simple – the activists turning the pipeline protests into a violent anti-police, anti-The-Man free-for-all were often the same ones that had been behind the BLM nastiness.
- Now that President-elect Trump is the focus, what’s happened to the pipeline protests? All of a sudden we don’t hear Word One about them in the media . . . because those organizing them, and spearheading the violence there, are now organizing the protests and spearheading the violence in the anti-Trump protests.
I’d love to be able to examine arrest records, or attendance records, from police forces all over the country, to see how many names and how many faces cropped up at all of the above protests over the past year. I’m willing to bet money there’ll be a lot of overlap.
One hopes Mr. Trump will find a way to cut the Gordian knot that ties all these anti-constitutional, anti-democratic, anti-American organizations and individuals together. It’s long overdue . . . and entirely necessary, IMHO.
Peter
An interesting perspective. Could it be that the same protesters move from protest to protest – almost as if it is their job?
(Remembering the OWS protesters and the similar folks who appear after mass shootings)
Finding a way to ‘cut the Gordian knot’ (as Peter puts it) + my .02…
CONSTITUTIONALLY!
And, of course, recognizing the other guy remains President for a while longer…
About these “protests”…
I wonder if it’s just Soros or SEIU (famous for earlier OWS busings) or LaRaza? Or a coordinated effort by community organizers (outside agitators) in all these groups?
I was told by a liberal friend that it didn’t happen against Obama, because folks think Trump is more dangerous (!?) Different strokes, I guess. I thought Obama was/is plenty dangerous…
As for me, there have been Presidents and policies with whom/which I disagreed over the past 40 years. But, I couldn’t leave school – I’d have been suspended. And work? Fired.
Besides, I had and needed to keep my job! (I’m guess this IS a job for many of these folks!)
(in part from Free North Carolina)
Via Billy
Paid fake protesters were bused in to the anti-Trump protests in Austin, Texas.
They must have spent a lot of Soros money on this operation.
There was a whole string of buses.
Everything they do is fake or paid for.
and…
‘Students’, aka Lenin’s useful idiots.
Funny how they sport MEXICAN flags and professionally-made signs…
The Internet says the epicenter of the protest activity is OREGON! (where Austin, Berkeley, Tucson, SF et al should relocate!)
Who knew?
At least this gives folks something to do.
(BTW – I’m all for protest – it’s a fine American tradition. Criminal damage, arson, rioting, and assault are crimes, not protest.)
(AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT)
There’s ‘movement’ to force the Electoral College to change their vote to coincide with the popular vote! (I wonder if such a movement would exist if the result had been reversed?), AND, a movement to amend the Constitution to make the Presidential Election by popular vote!!
Didn’t any of these folks take Eighth Grade Civics?
For those who missed it, The United States is a REPUBLIC, NOT a democracy (aka majority/mob rule). Please see the map below:
Do you REALLY want only the regions in blue deciding who becomes President? THIS is why the Electoral College was created. The Founding Fathers were smart cookies – thinking of fly-over States before the airplane was even invented!
Class dismissed.
The Silicon Graybeard (not a wild-eyed conspiracy guy!) brings us (in part)
Translates as “Let justice be done, though the world perish”. Apparently it’s not really a phrase from the Roman Empire but from a book in 1563. Wikipedia says:
This sentence was the motto of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, probably originating from Johannes Jacobus Manlius’s book Loci Communes (1563). It characterizes an attitude, which wants to provide justice at any price. Its first documented use in English literature was about half a century later.
Hat Tip to The Arts Mechanical for this information, in a piece called Nightmare Fuel, and it really is reading that’s not for the squeamish. He, in turn, links to a number of sources that are reporting on the truly disgusting things going on in Clinton Foundation’s universe. First a link to True Pundit:
BREAKING BOMBSHELL: NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes with Children, Child Exploitation, Pay to Play, Perjury
It’s. Not. Just. Bill. It’s all of them. From Reddit’s The_Donald forum :
BREAKING: I believe I have connected a convicted child abductor who was caught stealing children in Haiti with the Clintons
(…)
But wait! There’s more! (Sickeningly)
I truly believe the Clintons and their entourage to be evil. Morally bankrupt.
Even if none of the above allegations (many courtesy of Wikileaks) are based in fact.
Humans want to believe the worst about persons whom they already despise. It makes it easier to put them in the why would I want to elect THEM column.
Not forgetting about Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, Hillary’s gun control plans, the illegal sale of plutonium to Russia, arming ISIS, the countless mysterious deaths and intimidations, Bill’s serial rapes…
(I could go on – but I have to go take some Pepto now.)
This does NOT mean I am actively supporting the Republican candidate! He may be a pig and has used inappropriate language, and at best is a populist (see
Huey Long)
Libertarians? Two governors with scant international experience? One of who is a rebranded, gun-controlling Democrat?! And the Presidential candidate supports global-warming taxes?!
(I’m not even mentioning the Greens or the Commies… I know, I’m being redundant)
So VOTE. Vote not with your heart, but with your brain.
THE REPUBLIC’S SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.
Guffaw in AZ 