Changing of the border guard: Nielson out, McAleenan in
A change has been announced:
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday after butting heads with President Donald Trump over policy and border control issues. He recently asked her “to close the ports of entry along the border and to stop accepting asylum seekers, which Ms. Nielsen found ineffective and inappropriate.”
Trump has chosen US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan as acting DHS secretary, but will he have the toughness Trump desires in the role? Some officials told CNN that they don’t consider McAleenan “an ideologue or fire breather” when it comes to immigration.
McAleenan began his career in 2001. President Barack Obama appointed him as deputy commissioner of CBP in 2017. He became the commissioner in March 2018 after the Senate confirmed him, 77-19.
It looks like McAleenan has respect from both Democrats and Republicans. The Washington Post reported that he “is generally well-liked by leaders in both parties and is viewed as a neutral, technocratic law enforcement official, rather than an immigration hawk.”
However:
McAleenan has shown agreement with Trump about the border. He told The El Paso Times that “the border has hit a ‘breaking point’” during a visit in March…
My read on this is that McAleenan is in basic agreement with Trump, or at least Trump thinks he is, or Trump wouldn’t have appointed him. But he’s a guy with whom the Democrats have been on good terms in the past, and it’s hoped that he will spark more cooperation from them.
Good luck with that. I believe that it an absolute foundation of the Democrats’ plan for 2020 to not give Trump what he wants on the border issue (or really, just about any other issue), in hopes that his base will turn against him in 2020 and allow them to glide to presidential victory.
[ADDENDUM: And this is rather surprising: Bernie Sanders comes out against open borders. Just an old white guy after all, I guess.]
“Bernie Sanders comes out against open borders. Just an old white guy after all, I guess.”
Maybe not old enough for people with his mindset. He is also in favor of letting all prisoners behind bars vote in elections.
I recall that Hillary made a stab at this issue as well. (At least I think I did. It sounds impossibly dumb.) If the Republicans can’t capitalize on something this inane, what good are they?
My guess is that Democrats who previously had good opinions of McAleenan will immediately reverse that now that he’s a Trump nominee. I hope I’m wrong.
McAleenan will probably be calling for more money, more resources, more money, more people, and more money.
The Dems are likely to reject that, but then the Reps will be supporting – more money. Gov’t money.
The Wall is slowly getting built, and those who favor the Wall will mostly be voting for Trump; probably Reps, too. We’ll have two more years of the Wall becoming the biggest issue, unless there is a recession (15% chance?)
Milton Friedman was in favor of open borders, in general, without any gov’t welfare state. The existence of gov’t support made border control a necessity.
Trump has been increasing the number of legal immigrants. That should make it more clear that he’s against illegal aliens, not against immigrants.
“Bernie Sanders comes out against open borders.”
Political calculation? Sanders does have to do something to separate himself from his fellow progressives, yes? If so, a bit of a gamble given his young radical base.
I think it likely that Geoffrey’s got it: Bernie’s trying to draw attention away from Donkey-Chompers & crew, get a position more aligned with what is presumably the mainstream Dem base.
Still, I suppose he might be sincere….
Julie near Chicago, Donkey Chompers, bwahaha.
Milton Friedman was in favor of open borders, in general, without any gov’t welfare state. The existence of gov’t support made border control a necessity.
Dr. Friedman said that welfare states and open borders were incompatible. I don’t think he declared for one of the other. His objects in discussions of public policy were to explicate ways in which the commonweal could draw closer to a social optimum by respect for markets. It wasn’t his business to concoct polemics contra common provision per se. You want that, you read Ayn Rand or Rose Lane or the tricorn hat crew who offer homilies featuring Davy Crockett.
The relevant part from a posting by me on another thread above:
A major problem for Trump is, of course, that from the evidence–he cannot trust many parts/officials of the Left leaning Executive branch he nominally is in charge of and “commands” to follow his legitimate orders.
For example, in discussing the resignation/firing of the DHS Secretary last night on Tucker’s show, Kris Khobach said that he had been in the room with DHS officials when Trump told them what he wanted them to do, and while they gave lip service to, and agreed to follow his orders, a year later nothing that he ordered them to do had been done.
It appears that a lot of, perhaps a majority of the Executive branch is part of the “Resistance.”
As I’ve written here before, the President—any President and the limited number of appointees allowed to any President—at the head of and supposedly “running” these Executive branch Departments and Agencies, can order something done, but the millions of federal bureaucrats below them, tasked with actually implementing those orders, can simply ignore them, slow roll them, water them down, deliberately misinterpret them, implement some parts of them and not others—the obstructive techniques are many—in other words “Resist” them.
You see the problem here.
You can’t fire everybody, and you presumably don’t want to institute a political commissar system.
So what do you do?
Its a grubby business.
Well, first of all, if the Federal bureaucracy is 90% or more (according to reports, that’s what percentage of their political donations went to Democrats) Leftist, who are you going to get within those organizations to point out who the chief obstructionists, the chief “resisters” are?
Then, given the laws, civil service and union agreements, regulations, and procedures in force, can you fire, demote, or transfer the chief resisters?
What if, though–both management and rank and file–they’re all resisters?
You can see that this is a tough problem for Trump, and likely why, in some areas, Trump hasn’t made the progress you might have expected him to make.
Trump gives orders, everyone says, “yes, boss,” then obstructs, and doesn’t do anything he has ordered them to do.
I regret that I an man primeval that when I hearof the changing of the border guard I think of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSM4Cw_1V9E
Which I consider the march of the silly walks. So, OK, from the Pakistani side. What does it look like from the Indian side? Just as sill but women soldiers and dogs are involve.
But look. I’d be entirely comfortable in that Pakistani crowd. Even after they started chanting Pakistan. I would give you the minute mark but if you let the vid play you’ll hear it.
The important thing, though, and what you must always remember. I’m the racisst afraid of the darker other.
Anyways, when ever anyone says anything about changing of the border guard, this is what I think of.
Sorry, NEO, if maybe you were expecting better from me.
Neo and everyone else–Do check out the link Steve57 has posted above, showing the changing of the guard at the Pakistani border.
Words almost fail me in trying to describe what I’ve just witnessed–actually, I only got through a third of the video, because I was just laughing so hard, and the tears were streaming down my face, so that it became hard to see.
What a silly, overdone production–loved the chanting, the goosestepping, those little dancing in place steps–Pakistani clog dancing?–and the silly Cockatoo headdresses the guards wore, which seemed none to clean—the whole hilarious mess looked like something that Monty Python might have dreamed up.
Talk about “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
And Steve57, don’t apologize.
A good laugh is worth a lot these days.
Final question. Can these troops actually fight?
Snow on Pine, here’s what I know. The Indian Navy is worth a s***. The Pakistani navy stayed in port when the thousand pound gorilla (us) played in their pond.
Draw your own conclusions.
The Israelis are training India’s Black Cats, a wing of India’s special forces. If Indians troops are capable of taking the training then, yes, they can fight. From what I know of the Sikhs and the Rajputs, they can fight.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/when-21-sikh-soldiers-stood-against-10000-men-the-battle-of-saragarhi/
Why do you ask?
v?ravidy?
The science of being a warrior. I believe somewhere I have the sword manual for this brand of Indian swordsmanship.
Here’s the USN version.
https://www.navyandmarine.org/ondeck/1862swordmanual.htm
“Draw me not without reason,
Sheath me not without honor”
Viradyavidya. I believe. There is a Japanese term for the Way of The Warrior.
Right. Ask them how well that turned out. Here’s my way of the warrior. Find a woman and love her with every fiber of you being. Don’t let go.
Steve57
I was reminded of a discussion from one of the books in John Ringo’s “Paladin of Shadows” series, book II, “Kildar,” where his main character Mike Harmon gives his opinion that there are three kinds of military forces in the world–“show forces” that look good on parade, second, there are “regime protection forces”–essentially large police forces, there to suppress opposition to the regime, to break up riots, to ferret out guerillas, etc. and, finally, there are “field armies” designed to meet other forces in the field and to defeat them, and that, with the notable exception of a few elite units around the world–he cited Rhodesia’s Selous Scouts, and England’s Coldstream Guards–the military forces that look the best on parade are usually not the best at actual fighting.
I would argue there is a forth type of force. A gendarme that can can also deploy while fulfilling its main task of suppression. I think you may have included this under your “with notable exceptions” clause. I submit it’s by design.
What really bothers me is all of the people—apparently many thousands, perhaps even many tens of thousands—of military imposters/phony solders running around this country.
Exaggeration is one thing, but this goes beyond that.
Look on the Internet, and you can see what appears to be the very large scope of this problem.
There are imposters who have never served a day in the military and claim they did, people who might have served for a couple of weeks and gotten kicked out, people who served a full enlistment but, then, just couldn’t resist claiming or inflating their military rank, guys who never served a day or washed out of boot camp become Sergeants—low ranking soldiers become Senior Master Sergeants, ordinary swabbies suddenly become Admirals or Commanders, an E-2 is suddenly an O-5, etc., and job titles are changed from mundane ones to more glamorous ones.
These phonies often claim to have been serving overseas and/or in combat zones or actual combat, when they weren’t.
See the recent example of Indian “Elder” Nathan Phillips aka Nathaniel R. Stanard who, despite being a refrigerator mechanic who never left the states or saw any combat, claimed to have been a Vietnam Veteran who saw combat, with the imaginary job title of “Recon Ranger.” ***
Then, quite often, the next step is slapping a bunch of insignia and combat awards they never earned on their uniforms, and sometimes, as well, taking the next step of altering their DD-214, their discharge document.
Some of these wannabes are obvious nuts, and their imposture so over the top that its fraudulent nature is immediately obvious. But the majority are not so obvious and easily detected, especially when an increasing percentage of our population has had no military experience, nor has any familiarity with our military. ****
Then, there is saying, as well, that they were in some elite unit and—sometimes, to hear them tell it—in the thick of the fighting—they were Navy Seals, LRRP unit members, Force Recon, Green Berets, Special Forces, Delta Force, Parachutists in the 101st Airborne, phony POWs, etc.
Some even claim to have earned the Medal of Honor (MOH).
There are apparently far more people running around, saying that they have been awarded the Medal of Honor, than the 71 actual Medal of Honor recipients who are now living.*
Unfortunately, you can buy any one of these medals with little difficulty these days, even the MOH, the sale of which is a Federal crime with jail time and a $100,000 fine attached.
But according to the story linked below, a MOH was for sale on Ebey in 2003 for $2,200 dollars. Moreover, back in 2003, it was discovered that the sole company authorized by the Federal government to make MOH medals was making additional MOHs “off the books,” after hours and selling them.**
Many military imposters are throwing on a uniform they’ve likely bought from a military surplus store, and parading around our towns and cities, and some have even bluffed their way into supposedly secure military bases.
Such military imposters may be the obnoxious braggart with the loud motorcycle who lives down the street, but they are also, some of them, Judges, high government officials, and even members of Congress.
They are feted in their hometowns, give interviews to newspapers and on TV about their military adventures, have told spellbound elementary students about there horrific experiences as a POW during the Vietnam War, they go to the head of the line, are “thanked for their service,” are given preferential treatment at the bank, given a leg up in hiring and promotions, free food and drink at restaurants, a break on things like purchase prices for homes and on home mortgages, and they often get the girl.
Moreover, some of the military imposters have also used their supposed military service, phony wounds and heroism to scam people—especially women, organizations, and even the VA, which has been scammed out of tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits by these phonies who have received compensation for their supposed injuries and service-connect disabilities.
These military imposters are stealing the valor and honor that rightly belongs to people who have actually served their country, and often paid quite dearly for doing their duty and defending this country.
Many of these frauds also commit other crimes and, thus, give real veterans a very bad name, and so help to perpetuate the stereotype of the drunk, crazy, and violent Vietnam Vet.
There is a Stolen Valor Act (passed into law, struck down by the courts, rewritten, and made law again) that makes displaying higher level medals you were not awarded and getting some monetary benefit from your pretense a Federal crime, but the number of people who are actually prosecuted under this Act seems to be very low and, meanwhile, there is this plague of locust level of phonies seemingly covering the landscape.
I suspect what appears to be a great upsurge in the prevalence of military imposters/phony soldiers is just one small effect of the general decline in morality, as people whose moral training would have, in the past, restrained them from carrying on this kind of imposture in the past are no longer restrained, and can now convince themselves that what their doing is “harmless,” and not “really” immoral or unethical.
See http://www.cmohs.org
** See https://www.stripes.com/news/medal-of-honor-appeals-to-some-collectors-but-sale-is-a-federal-offense-1.13541
*** See https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2019/01/nathan-phillips-military-record-reveals-he-was-not-a-vietnam-combat-veteran/
See also https://connectingvets.radio.com/articles/nathan-phillips-military-service-record-documentation
**** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_P7nUEjF48
Cont’d–See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiSkgwLT4s
Ask Danang Dick Blumenthal.