Tom Cotton
@SenTomCotton
If you’re an American stranded in Afghanistan, or know one who is, please contact my office immediately:
(501) 223-9081 or
evac@cotton.senate.gov
The situation is dire, but we’ll do everything in our power to help keep you informed and to help get you out.
4:06 PM · Aug 15, 2021
Angelo Carusone
@GoAngelo
Imagine being trapped in Afghanistan in this moment..and thinking best person to call is Tom Cotton of all people.
Honestly, if someone’s in that situation where Tom Cotton is the only number they can call, they’d be better off just calling NYC’s 311. I mean really. Tom Cotton.
Maggie Haberman
@maggieNYT
Cotton spokesman says that their office has heard from multiple US citizens in Kabul trapped behind Taliban checkpoints, who can’t safely reach the US perimeter and have no clear option for what to do. https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/s //
Nick Pappas
@NickAPappas
Have you considered the possibility this was so botched that they didn’t have anything besides a phone number on Tom Cotton’s Twitter account?
9:33 PM · Aug 15, 2021
Christina Pushaw
@ChristinaPushaw
Yeah, why would you call a Senator who served in Afghanistan when you could have called Biden?
Oh wait, Biden was on the phone to the Broward superintendent praising the forced masking of kindergarteners. Then he went on vacation.
8:02 AM · Aug 16, 2021
Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
Scummiest tweet of the week comes, unsurprisingly, from the head of Media Matters: condemning a US Senator for using his office to try to help Americans get out of Afghanistan safely rather than just tweeting empty, performative "demands" -- all because he's a Republican.
This is already a disaster in Afghanistan. But may get even worse.
There are thousands of Americans still trapped in Afghanistan. According to the Biden team, 5,000-10,000 are still trapped near Kabul, but John Kirby said they didn’t have a real count, showing more ignorance. //
Sara Cook
@saraecook
Replying to @saraecook
The below note went out this afternoon to American citizens requesting to be evacuated from Afghanistan, @alanacbs reports. It instructs people to come to Hamid Karzai Intl Airport in Kabul, but says the US govt cannot guarantee their safety as they make the trip. @CBSNews //
Richard Grenell
@RichardGrenell
American citizens are told they are on their own in Afghanistan.
Joe Biden has failed us.
The Afghan government started disintegrating a month or more ago. The intelligence community has been forecasting that the Taliban would emerge victorious within 90 days. And yet, nothing has been done to evacuate Americans or process eligible Afghans for refugee visas.
Apparently, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley had successfully sold President Trump on keeping a residual force in Kabul and believed he could sweet-talk Biden into doing the same. But, at the same time, the Pentagon did nothing to plan or prepare for the withdrawal to try to forestall the event. //
Eric Brakey
@SenatorBrakey
I am hearing the U.S. was unprepared in Afghanistan because the Pentagon slow-walked Trump’s withdrawal order—hoping they could pressure @JoeBiden to cancel the peace deal completely.
9:55 PM · Aug 15, 2021 //
Having worked directly for one of the three-stars on the Army Staff, I can tell you this resonates with me. The standard Pentagon response, at least on the Army side, to any task you don’t want to do is to nod vigorously while doing absolutely nothing. //
To me, this all sounds like the military leadership (can we start putting Lloyd Austin’s face on milk cartons yet, because he hasn’t been seen for a week) convinced itself that it had persuaded Biden to slow down the withdrawal and adhere to their recommendations. They might have convinced themselves that they had convinced Biden to cancel the Afghan withdrawal completely just as he had with most of President Trump’s initiatives. Then, unexpectedly, Biden decided that he was plowing ahead, and yes, his callous disregard for human life played into that decision and pulled the trigger on the withdrawal. The military and State were left flat-footed because they’d refused to take any preliminary steps needed to evacuate noncombatants and friendly Afghans.
One of the iconic social media images of President (so-called) Biden, other than him doing a faceplant on the stairs of Air Force One, is him with an ice cream cone. //
It seems as though the Taliban have seen the images.
Abdulhaq Omeri
@AbdulhaqOmeri
#Taliban eat ice-cream #Kabul #Afghanistan .
It is hard to credit the idea that you could get four hardened fighters to pose with ice cream cones in Afghanistan today unless they were trying to send a message: that Joe Biden is a joke, and they are laughing at him.
That was pretty horrible to read — that indeed he was looking at Vietnam actions as a model of what he could get away with.
But that isn’t all. He blamed Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. But that wasn’t who was responsible. Guess who was involved in 1975, too? You guessed it — Joseph R. Biden and the Congressional Democrats.
Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸
@JackPosobiec
During the 1975 Fall of Saigon, Joe Biden had already been a Senator for 2 years
8:04 AM · Aug 15, 2021 //
In the spring of 1975, as North Vietnamese divisions approached Saigon, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese with connections to the U.S.—soldiers, officials, spies, interpreters, drivers, bar girls, cooks—begged their American friends and colleagues to help them find a way out. But the embassy in Saigon and the Ford administration in Washington were slow to face the gravity of the situation and reluctant to prepare an evacuation for fear of panicking the population into chaos. In mid-April, President Gerald Ford finally realized that the government of South Vietnam might fall, and he asked Congress for $300 million in emergency aid, including money to evacuate the remaining 2,500 Americans and their dependents along with up to 175,000 South Vietnamese.
But Congress, led by Senate Democrats, had no interest in throwing away more money on a lost war that Americans wanted to forget. The prospect of sending U.S. troops to help evacuate Vietnamese along with Americans was a nonstarter. Some of the most strenuous objections came from the 32-year-old first-term senator from Delaware, Joseph R. Biden.
“I feel put upon in being presented an all-or-nothing number,” Biden said at a rare White House meeting between the president and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 14. “I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out. I don’t want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out.”
Ford countered: “We opened our door to the Hungarians. I am not saying the situation is identical, but our tradition is to welcome the oppressed. I don’t think these people should be treated any differently from any other people—the Hungarians, Cubans, Jews from the Soviet Union.”
Biden and other Democrats were unmoved. In a Senate speech on April 23, Biden argued that the president lacked the authority to rescue any Vietnamese. “I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals” other than diplomats of third countries, Biden said. “The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese.” The U.S. should leave the task of protecting them to “the organizations that are available” and “diplomatic channels,” he added. A week later, North Vietnamese tanks entered the grounds of the presidential palace in Saigon just hours after the last helicopter carried the last Americans out of Vietnam. //
Here he is at the funeral of Sen. George McGovern in 2012, saying that he was right about Vietnam.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/we-cant-abandon-afghans-who-helped-us/618416/
....
Here he is at the funeral of Sen. George McGovern in 2012, saying that he was right about Vietnam.
Howard Mortman
@HowardMortman
.@AnnieLinskey : "2 weeks before Saigon fell in April 1975, Joe Biden was among senators summoned to WH for top-secret briefing on crisis Vietnam" https://washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-vietnam-afghanistan/2021/08/15/fd155518-fdd5-11eb-ba7e-2cf966e88e93_story.html
Biden told that story 10/25/2012 McGovern funeral:
"5 weeks later helicopters taking off roof...I was right"
7:00 AM · Aug 16, 2021
So, not only was Joe Biden involved in this debacle in Afghanistan, he was involved in the Saigon debacle as well. He didn’t have any moral compass then and he doesn’t have any moral compass on it now. All those folks who helped us are just to be tossed aside. All he had taken away from it by 2012 was that “he was right” when he was so manifestly wrong.
But someone apparently decided enough was enough — that he wanted to make his feelings known about Joe Biden on a Wilmington digital billboard. He clearly had a sense of humor, as well, as he trolled Biden.
We were failed by 20 years worth of general officers. There needs to be an accounting. No matter what dumbf*** calls Joe Biden made, the military had an obligation to anticipate, do better, and not blame Biden for them screwing the pooch as they did in the past 72 hours.
cdrsalamander
@cdrsalamander
Anyone with 4-stars resign yet this weekend?
I distinctly remember all the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes abt reducing a footprint in Syria a few years ago ... norms and all.
Anyone? Did I miss something?
2:09 PM · Aug 15, 2021 //
ziegler.von.strahn
2 hours ago
something that not too many people know about........and might explain why we wasted so much there.
Afghanistan is thought to have about 1 trillion worth of lithium and other rare metals.
Now that we are leaving, will be interesting to watch how involved China becomes. //
Scotty2Hotty ziegler.von.strahn
2 hours ago
Yah, that's why we were there for 20 years and never took out billions in rare minerals.
Cuz we stayed there to get them.
The presidency of Joseph Robinette Biden has been an unmitigated disaster from the get go. There’s no other way to say it, and the political left knows it as much as the right. //
Afghanistan may be the latest example of how Biden and his team (actually, mostly his team) took a Trumpy idea and butchered it. The same goes for his coronavirus strategy, his U.S. border policy, and even with the “infrastructure” bill. //
It’s not just a return to declinist, uniparty politics. Joe Biden’s government has thus far appealed to the worst instincts of a totalitarian left at home, and the worst instincts of the relativistic left abroad. Still, why should we be surprised? Even Barack Obama tried to warn America prior to the November 2020 election.
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up,” Obama was quoted as saying last August. He went further, asserting: “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”
The Biden administration begged the Middle East to ramp up oil production Wednesday as American producers sit still on Alaska's frigid North Slope. //
Biden has been yanking permits and demanding new environmental assessments in an effort to cancel projects altogether. Last week, the Interior Department tossed out the analysis completed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), long held as the gold standard of assessing environmental impacts, and ordered a new supplemental review for leases in the Arctic refuge two months after they were suspended.
The Biden administration called the earlier review insufficient in a routine attack on projects it merely aims to cancel with the new assessment ordered to “identify the significant issues, including any legal deficiencies in the Final EIS [Environmental Impact Statement].”
“Everything we want to do, they want to stop,” Alaska’s frustrated Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy told The Federalist of the new administration. “We went from having a president who was all about creating opportunity to an administration that is all about cancelling opportunity.”
Meanwhile, current operations in neighboring Prudhoe Bay show oil and gas extraction can be done cleaner in the United States than in any other country with no harm to wildlife.
Oil and gas producers have been drilling the flat surface of Alaska’s Arctic coast 60 miles west of proposed sites in ANWR since the late 1970s. Objections to the project at the time were the same ones wielded by environmental leftists today that such operations would put the caribou in danger.
Contrary to the doomsday prophesies, the caribou have thrived, rising to peak population of 70,000 in 2010, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They have since fallen back down to 22,000 in 2016, consistent with their herd’s natural cycle, with still a higher population than the fewer than 20,000 estimated in 1997. //
The new administration staking out its opposition to drilling on environmental concerns while it welcomes extraction abroad with lower standards at first appears a classic case of NIMBYism. A look in ANWR’s backyard, though, will find the Iñupiat people as the sole tribe within the boundaries of the proposed area for drilling. They have demanded the right to develop their own land. Instead, Biden has kept operations in ANWR frozen, along with the development dreams of local villagers and Americans as a whole.
The issue here is not Hunter’s addiction or illegal behavior. Rather, it’s the intense corruption of the media and intelligence agencies, and how greatly our current president is compromised. //
A Russian woman, a drug dealer, and two of his compatriots may have stolen a laptop from Hunter Biden in 2018, Hunter told a prostitute in another sex video, leaving the president’s son concerned he may be blackmailed because of his father’s political position.
While the salacious video of Hunter Biden released earlier this week exposes more details about the troubling lifestyle of the president’s son, it reveals much more about a corrupt and complicit media, a corrupt and incompetent intelligence community, and a corrupt and compromised Joe Biden.
The reality is that, during Trump’s tenure and despite the Afghan government’s many imperfections, Afghanistan had made great strides. The government controlled most of the country’s territory. There was real economic growth. Women could work. Children could go to school.
Further, the cost of fostering regional stability by maintaining a stable Afghanistan was well within reason. The U.S. was spending less in Afghanistan in a year than we used to spend in a week. American forces were training and advising Afghan forces. Our troops were not fighting wars and taking causalities. This was clearly sustainable.
And how, in heaven’s name, is Trump to blame for Biden’s disastrous decision to cut and run? Trump was negotiating with the Taliban, but there was nothing wrong with that. The negotiations were conditions-based, and Trump made clear the Taliban would be held accountable for its actions.
Moreover, Trump’s team made sure that if, in the end, the Taliban proved untrustworthy, the remaining U.S. force had been sized and scoped to present a serious deterrent to the Taliban and be sufficient to protect U.S. interests.
Trump, in fact, handed Biden a problem mostly solved. All Biden had to do was negotiate a lasting settlement from a position of strength or maintain an economy of force presence in Afghanistan if the Taliban failed to deliver. Instead, Biden just decided to call it a day and call the troops home regardless of what the Taliban did on the ground. //
This is the Obama-Biden playbook. Disengage in dangerous situations, and hope everything doesn’t go to hell in a handbasket. And when those fond hopes don’t pan out? Time to make excuses; shift blame; do anything but deal with the problem—unless there is absolutely no alternative. //
Biden is carrying on exactly the same foreign policy. Caving to Russia on Nord Stream 2. Refusing to confront China on the origins of COVID-19. Pleading with Tehran to let the U.S. back in the Iran nuclear deal.
No good will come of this.
[R]acial discrimination is not inherently racist. … The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination. – Ibram Kendi, How to Be an Anti-Racist. //
Liberal tv personalities like to accuse conservatives of being obsessed with CRT but what they are obsessed with is avoiding the return of segregation. This principal felt completely comfortable not only segregating her students, but doing it without even bothering to inform parents. That type of woke arrogance is too dangerous to tolerate.
But that is where we are all heading if the progressive left has their way. Joe Biden has repeatedly told us that election integrity reforms in states like Georgia and Texas are like “Jim Crow on steroids.” Yet here is a liberal educator (and presumed Democrat voter) who is literally resurrecting Jim Crow in her school and calling it a “special service.” Democrats are the ones who are going to have us all back in chains if we’re not careful.
The bill also gives the secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT) significant powers to direct funds. It all but eliminates the current formula for distribution of funds and puts almost all funding into competitive grants for the current DOT secretary, choo-choo-train-lover Pete Buttiegeg, to dole out. How does Graham think this will work out for his home state of South Carolina or any other red state?
What conditions will get rammed down the throats of voters in these states to get the funds required to maintain their infrastructure? Could it be the elimination of single-family zoning, which the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation seeks? How about a gas-powered vehicle ban like California’s? What other green policies could be forced on states in order to receive their highway funds? The list of progressive with-list items is endless.
The bill centralizes power in D.C. under the ever-growing bureaucracy in an agency that has presided over the complete degradation of our infrastructure through central planning. Much like the Department of Education has presided over the decline in the performance of America’s public schools, the DOT has failed to maintain America’s infrastructure. Congress should scale back the agency and give control back to states and local communities. Yet it looks like 17 Republicans, including Graham, still believe in the bipartisan project that does nothing but enlarges the central government.
The weeks upon weeks of negotiations leading up to the passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill were just the prelude to the absolute whopper that is the Bernie Sanders budget resolution, which hit the wires Monday morning and will hit the Senate floor Tuesday.
The $3.5 trillion document is a full-on attempt to remake the American economy, the labor markets, blow off our immigration laws, rewrite the tax code, impose a climate agenda, and profoundly alter the relationship between the government, and those it governs.
Among the bill’s highlights:
- Amnesty for illegal immigrants
- Rewrites Medicaid statutes to bypass the Hyde prohibitions on federal funding for abortion
- Universal pre-kindergarten for 3 and 4-year-olds
- Paid family and medical leave
- Tuition-free community college
- Medicare expansion for dental, hearing, and vision
- Expansive climate change programs
- Language similar to the PRO Act, which is a card-check program for labor organizing, making it easier to unionize
- Expansion of the SALT deduction
- Empowers the IRS with more enforcement capabilities
- Does not include an extension of pandemic unemployment benefits
Despite the flowery promises in the White House “American Families Plan” Fact Sheet, The Heritage Foundation summed it up as follows.
Biden’s American Families Plan will hurt families. The AFP would increase Washington’s control of preschool, child care, community college, and four-year colleges.
The AFP is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, promising “free” assistance that will result in more debt for our children and grandchildren to pay.
The wolf promises to ease our burdens but, in reality, stands ready to take charge of the decisions that families and communities know how to handle best.
“More debt for our children and families.” Bingo. Including potentially catastrophic financial disasters for untold numbers of those children and families.
Part of Biden’s plan to fund the AFP is by amending federal estate tax law — the so-called “death tax” — that would eliminate stepped-up-basis on appreciated assets inherited by family members, meaning heirs would be forced to pay taxes on assets that increased in value during the lifetime of the deceased relative.
As reported by Just the News, current federal estate tax law — not to be confused with the various state inheritance tax laws — includes a stepped-up basis tax provision that allows an heir to report the value of an asset at the time of inheriting it, thus “stepping up” the cost basis to the current value of an asset at the time of the inheritance, at which point they could sell the asset immediately and essentially avoid paying capital gains taxes, or retain the asset and either sell it later at an appreciated value, at which point they would pay capital gains tax on the increase between the inherited value and the selling price — or retain the asset and pass it to heirs at death. //
If we’re talking investment portfolios — fine; we can have that debate at a later time. But we’re also talking about family farms — many of them, generational family farms — as well as other family businesses. //
One potential family disaster is the fact that most family businesses consist largely of illiquid assets. Large plots of land owned by farmers are a perfect example; the land can often push a modest farm valuation past Biden’s $1 million threshold. //
“Farmers responsibly pay taxes to contribute their fair share to our country. They should not have to face tax burdens to pass their land from one generation to the next. This is how we keep generations of families farming.
“Therefore, we need to maintain protections to ensure the long-term success of family farms. They are the backbone of economic activity in rural areas, and we know the production of food and fiber is a national security issue.” //
Jmied01 • 19 minutes ago
“If we close that loophole, that saves us $400 billion”
Ala Ozark’s Marty Byrde: The *** it Does.
As if merely because it exists, you were always entitled to it? Removing more money from tax payers under implied threat of force is SAVING you money?
Well, I’m just going to rob a bank! I’m only SAVING MONEY. Knocking off the corner store? Creating new income! Nabbing the purse of the little old lady across the street? Generating revenue! //
scgrl625 • an hour ago
Here's some facts. If you plan on leaving your spouse or children anything, set up a revocable trust. If a spouse or child receives your inheritance, they will not have to pay inheritance taxes on the monies and property received from that trust. Also, there are only 6 states in the US that require an inheritance tax. Those states are PA, NE, NJ, MD, KY and IA, but not all tax laws for those states are the same. Some heirs may have to pay, and some may not.
Here's a quote from Smartasset.com, story titled "All About The Inheritance Tax" by Amanda Dixon, dated 7-30-2021.
"If the value of the assets being transferred is higher than the federal estate tax exemption (which is $11.7 million for singles for tax year 2021 and $23.4 million for married couples), the property can be subject to federal estate tax. States have their own exemption thresholds as well. Estate taxes are deducted from the property that’s being passed on before a beneficiary claims it. However, President Joe Biden has proposed eliminating the “stepped-up basis,” a provision that resets the value of inherited property to its current market value when its original owner dies." //
skeptic62 • 6 minutes ago • edited
I would encourage those who would be impacted by Biden’s government seizure by taxation to consider this. Choose a worthy heir early and sell your property, farm or business to your heir for a dollar plus a lifetime lease for you and your spouse. You don’t have to move out of your house. You don’t have to shutter your business. Everything stays pretty much the same. So, when the Grim Reaper comes a callin’ Uncle Sam can only seize your liquid assets. Done right, this would be a much smaller bill. //
johncv skeptic62 • 4 minutes ago
They have you covered with "gift tax" rules. Maximum per year "gifts".
Joe Biden certainly isn’t the first president to violate his oath of office, but he might be the first in memory to openly brag about doing it.
As Biden announced a new “eviction moratorium,” he informed Americans that the “bulk of constitutional scholars” would say the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eviction moratorium is “not likely to pass constitutional muster.”
Not likely? It already failed.
In June, Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the majority Supreme Court that the CDC “exceeded its existing statutory authority,” even though he allowed the order to sunset. The president admitted as much, noting that the new moratorium is meant to give the administration time to act on “rental assistance” before the court again shuts it down. What stops Biden from stalling and trying a third time? A 10th time?
Biden admitted to the media that he would be circumventing the courts, the law, and his oath of office, in which he promised, to the best of his ability, to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,” not to infringe on the property rights of Americans to placate crackpot socialists in his party.
When asked today about the discrepancy, White House press secretary Jen Psaki promised, “This is also going to be a temporary solution.” Because, as Article 2, Section 5, apparently states, the executive can make laws irrespective of Supreme Court rulings, as long as he also crosses his heart and promises it’s only going to be temporary.
When pushed further on the matter, Psaki could not recall the moment when Biden was convinced there was solid legal ground to move forward. Probably because no such moment exists.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was far more honest, noting that this was “a huge victory for the power of direct action and not taking no for an answer.”
Not taking no for an answer—in this case, not taking no for an answer from the Supreme Court—is lawlessness. The process—the sacred norms that Democrats pretended to care about over the past five years—is irrelevant to engaging in “direct action” within government. It’s been clear from their efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court to their effort to undermine faith in federalism and countermajoritarian institutions.
“What is your response to Gov. DeSantis, who is using your words about ‘don’t be in the way’ and he’s saying ‘I am in the way, to block too much interference from the federal government.’ Your response, Mr. President?” O’Donnell inquired.
“Governor who?” Biden responded as people, presumably other reporters, could be heard laughing. “That’s my response.” //
DESANTIS: Well, I guess I’m not surprised that Biden doesn’t remember me, I guess the question is what else has he forgotten? Biden’s forgotten about the crisis at our southern border. I can tell you that biden has forgotten about the inflation that’s biting the budgets of families all throughout our country. Biden has forgotten about the demonstrators who are fighting for freedom down in Cuba and Biden’s even forgotten about the Constitution itself as we saw with what he did with this moratorium. And I can just tell you I’m the governor who protects parents in their ability to make the right choices for their kids’ education. I’m the governor who protects the jobs and education and businesses in Florida by not letting the federal government lock us down. I’m the governor who answers to the people of Florida not to bureaucrats in Washington. //
greginfla
44 minutes ago
The best thing the media could do for the leftist cause is to ignore DeSantis. They are giving DeSantis nationwide exposure, and as someone said, making him a peer with POTUS. This is similar to how Trump got tons of free marketing from the media. //
DeeInFL
....
I don’t know where you’re getting your data from but Florida is not out pacing Covid deaths from the delta variant. According to the CDC Covid tracker the 7 day average per 100,000 is the highest in Arkansas followed by Louisiana. Even looking at total Covid deaths prior to the delta variant Florida ranked 26th out of all deaths in Covid deaths per capita.
Praxis
Another solution in search of a problem.
The fact is that per gallon tax takes all the factors into account all by itself. Weight, mileage, distance driven, all inherent to this very simple and defensible system. No need for armies of planners and seat moisteners 'estimating' costs and impacts.
What they want is twofold...yet more costs ladled onto drivers in an attempt to force them off the road with economic pain, and the ability to micromanage your driving down to the tiniest detail. And they want a wedge to start having scaled rates for distance as economic punishment, and to ration mobility, all while reaping punitive taxation windfalls.
There is zero reason not to simply do this for electric vehicles, and leave everyone else alone.
due to COVID and Trump ending the catch-and-release program, illegal crossings hit an all-time low in 2020. Then Biden sent the Bat-signal, and the cartels – who likely saw a huge drop in revenue because they were unable to get their normal quantities of drugs and people across a much less populated border – are looking to make up for a loss of revenue. So the coyotes (yes, liberals, the word is “coyote”) evangelize throughout Mexico and Central America about how easy it is to get into the United States and recruit clients they’ll eventually treat worse than animals, using them to smuggle drugs into the country, or as sex slaves, as indentured servants at illegal marijuana grows, or simply pack them so tightly into vehicles that there’s barely room to breathe.
The coyotes’ concern isn’t with ensuring that these items of inventory (that’s really what the people are to them) are breathing when they get to the United States. Dead or alive, the family owes them the money. The smuggled are expendable; if one needs to be pushed off the top of a 30′ border wall and paralyzed or killed to create a distraction, so be it. If they lose one van full of people due to a crash, well, that’s just the price of doing business. The cartels are probably more upset at the loss of the van involved since it’s an income-producing asset. If it’s regularly carting 30 people over the border, that’s $300,000 a trip. //
Wednesday’s crash was the third mass casualty vehicle accident involving illegal immigrants this year. In Imperial County, California, 13 illegal immigrants died in a fiery crash on March 1. Border Patrol sources told Fox News that coyotes jammed 25 illegal immigrants into a Ford Expedition, which has a seating capacity of eight and drove into the US through a hole that cartels had cut through a portion of an old section of border fencing:
With high profile audits of votes from the 2020 election are underway in Arizona and Georgia, what seems to be a spooked as well as woke US Department of Justice has sent a second sternly-worded memo to the states warning them that any attempt actually to verify the votes cast in 2020 carries the potential risk of violating the Civil Right Act. This is from BuzzFeed News so take its accuracy for what it’s worth… //
The hook the DOJ is using to stick its nose into what is an inherently and exclusive state function; the idea that auditing the results of a completed and certified election could trammel the civil rights of anyone, even someone who may have stolen an election, is just nonsense. At the same time, there is absolutely no doubt that the Gestapo waiting in the wings at Justice would leap at the chance, like flying monkeys from a castle wall, to harass and intimidate state officials trying to uphold state election law which the current regime finds inconvenient.
Why is the DOJ attempting to stretch the law in this manner? Why do they even care about the results of an audit which, worst casing it for the Democrats, can’t change anything?
This is my assessment.
2022 is a must-win year for the Democrats. //
There is a strong feeling across the nation that Joe Biden did not win but rather cheated his way into the White House by a massive influx of ballots of dubious authenticity injected into the system by partisan judges rewriting existing laws in favor of new “COVID voting rules.” This has inspired at least 17 states to pass new laws designed to curb abuses of mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, counting votes after election day, and all manner of other Third World bullsh** created by the courts out of whole cloth.
All that is needed is a showing of fraud in any of the audits underway to sink the Democrat falsehood that voting fraud is rare. (My personal view is that it is systemic and endemic in some jurisdictions.) If that happens, you will see more states enact laws to foil vote fraud. //
“If there isn’t a way for us to repeat what happened in November 2020, we’re f—ed,” said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the Stacey Abrams-founded New Georgia Project.
“What happened in November 2020,” of course, is widespread and flagrant vote fraud at every step of the process.