Kamala Harris Goes Full Cringe at COVID Presser, Personifies Being Out of Touch

Bonchie reporting for RedState

I’m reliably informed that Kamala Harris is Vice President of the United States, though her notable absence from the public eye might leave one wondering. She was brought out of hiding today to announce the passage of the recent COVID-19 “relief bill,” and Harris quickly reminded everyone why we don’t see much of her these days.

Here’s her cringy performance, proclaiming “help” is on the way like she’s about to run into a burning building and rescue a litter of cats.

Harris always looks like she’s not sure what to do with her face, whether it’s an interview or public remarks like this. In this case, is she supposed to smile and laugh or be more stoic given the seriousness of the pandemic? Heck if she knows, and that comes through in her comments, where she seems on the verge of giggling while reading stale one-liners about who this bill supposedly helps.

But it’s those one-liners that really show just how out of touch Harris, and the Biden administration as a whole are. A $1400 check is not going to help people who can’t put food on the table. It’s certainly not going to bring much comfort to someone who lost their job because Harris and her ilk pushed ridiculous, ineffective lockdowns.

This is a “let them eat cake” moment if there ever was one. These politicians destroyed the lives of millions of people when science continually said it didn’t need to happen. Now, they want to be praised and congratulated for throwing you some scraps while they spend even more of your money to pay off blue states and labor unions. There are no heroes here. Harris, the Biden administration, and a litany of blue state governors and mayors are the villains in this story.

Harris is just not good at this. We are all aware of the rumors of how she got her start in politics, but since then, she’s survived off playing identity politics, certainly in regards to gaining the vice-presidential role. If there was ever a video that encapsulates why she didn’t even make it to Iowa during her presidential run, this is it. It’s not really what she says as much as it is how inauthentic she appears when she says it.

Given how much pain the last year has caused to most Americans, no one should be giggling behind a podium, bragging that they are bringing help by spending other people’s money via the most pork-laden bill in this nation’s history. It’s an incredibly out-of-touch message, and one a decent politician would recognize doesn’t translate.

 

Article by Lewis M. Andrews in The American Conservative

 

Mistrusted Institutions Are Pushing America into a Debt Crisis

Like politicians of every age, both Republicans and Democrats have for decades complained about government overspending when out of office, only to resume rewarding their own supporters once back in power—almost always by amounts far above tax revenues. Now, as the resulting public debt ominously exceeds our annual GDP, the question naturally arises: Have we entered a fiscal danger zone?

More precisely, have we created the financial conditions that risk an abrupt downgrading of the dollar and attendant market turmoil? The kind of crisis that can only be stemmed with a brutal combination of large tax increases, spiking interest rates, massive cuts in public spending, and a painful streamlining of services at all levels of government?

The signs are not comforting. Last year, the prices of gold-related securities shot up, while the value of currencies from countries with relatively low government debt (Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden) easily bested the U.S. dollar. A host of other inflationary predictors, from world-wide shipping costs to the value of copper, are also shooting up—so much so that Leon Cooperman, Jeremy Grantham, Carl Icahn, Sam Zell, and other prominent investors have described the stock market’s current froth as an indicator, not of future growth, but of the spreading reluctance to hold cash or dollar-denominated assets. And while it is true that these same warning lights have flashed red in the past, only to be contradicted by subsequent events, surprise fiscal reprieves almost always occur in times of shared national pride or when the private sector trusts its governing institutions enough to risk investing in a more prosperous future. This is what prompted the fiscal turnarounds post-World War II and again in the early 1980s.

Indeed, history tells us that the most reliable sign of whether any country is only skirting the edge of a debt crisis or already falling over has as much to do with faith as it does with economics. For as long as the private sector trusts that its government and related institutions (courts, subsidized health care systems, schools) are chipping in to help reduce excessive debt, it will make the productive investments needed to provide the national treasury with added revenue.

But, as Canadian finance researcher Gary Marshall has observed, when ordinary individuals and businesses suspect that society’s governing institutions are tacitly collaborating to avoid their share of needed sacrifice, precautions begin to be taken that, in the end, only magnify the crisis. The capital that could have been directed to new or expanded enterprises, for example, goes instead to buying precious metals, foreign currencies, second homes, and other unproductive assets. The time that might have been spent on a growing a company’s sales is increasingly taken up with tax avoidance. And the charitable efforts that could have improved many communities are cut short, as both businesses and individuals flee to less institutionally regulated locales.

It is in anticipation of these developments that truly enlightened political leaders begin to call for a modest sacrifice on everyone’s part to get the nation’s debt under control—not a $1.9 trillion dollar spending increase. Yes, they say, the private sector will have to accept higher taxes, but government and other institutions will simultaneously have to shrink and become more efficient. There is a crucial point in every fiscal reckoning, notes Bridgewater Associates Chairman Ray Dalio in his economic history, Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises, when all factions must agree to absorb some loss or face something far more painful down the line.

Yet too often in the case of heavily indebted nations, the social institutions which have become dependent on deficit financing either refuse to recognize the problem—magically hoping to hand it off to the distant future—or try to justify a special exemption from any rescue effort. This, in turn, leads everyday citizens to become so mistrustful of the ruling class as to question its very legitimacy, a polarization that almost guarantees economic disaster.

One need only recall the end of the Roman Empire, when the combined bureaucratic despotism of the courts, the army, infrastructure contractors, and welfare administrators failed to stem the ever-increasing dilution of silver coinage (the ancient version of debt financing). The resulting harm to average landowners was so great that many preferred to live among the invading barbarians, even giving their new hosts advice on how to conquer Italy.

Has our own country joined the long list of economically crippled nations whose governing institutions were so blindly self-serving as to preclude a shared effort to bring down the debt? The most recent edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer, which annually surveys tens of thousands of people in 28 countries, gives little reason for optimism. It finds that Americans’ regard for their own social institutions has hit an all-time low, with private companies being the only organizations considered honest.

Public education provides perhaps the clearest example, not only of the extent to which many citizens have lost faith in a once-revered institution but of the extent to which they believe all mistrusted institutions tacitly protect each other. For as parents have become ever more concerned about the declining academic performance of U.S. schools, they find themselves fighting on two fronts: First, against local educators who argue that good exam scores are not nearly as important as bilingual instruction, softer disciplinary techniques, multicultural awareness programs, reduced testing stress, a smaller homework burden, automatic grade level advancement, and, increasingly, having a woke curriculum; and, second, against the heavily credentialed authorities from various nonprofits, universities, government agencies, and professional groups, all of whom support the public schools’ priorities—even while their own children, typically enrolled in private academies, do not suffer from the same watered-down curriculum.

The other reason to doubt the U.S. can avoid a fiscal crisis is the unwillingness of the political party which most often speaks for institutional interests to acknowledge a need for shared sacrifice on the debt. As far back as 2010, President Barack Obama refused to endorse the recommendations of his own bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, even though he claimed he wanted “to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.” When it finally came down to doing something, the president would not ask fellow Democrats to do their part.

Democrat cowardliness continued during the Trump administration, when party leaders in Congress stubbornly refused to work with a president they judged unfit for office. However sincere this appraisal of President Trump may or may not have been, the result was to give Democrats an additional four years to avoid taking a responsible position on the debt.

Now back in power, Democrats have spending plans that would jack up the deficit by an additional 9 percent of GDP, this despite warnings from one of their most respected economic advisors. Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and President Obama’s top economic advisor, has been trying (so far in vain) to make his party see that the measures being contemplated are “steps into the unknown” with worrisome implications “for the value of the dollar and financial stability.”

All this is not to deny the role Republicans have also played in running up the nation’s debt. But history tells us that a fiscal emergency can never be solved until the party which speaks for a country’s regulatory and social service elites formally acknowledges what needs to be done. If we have learned anything from earlier times, it is that the growing public mistrust of education, health care, welfare, legal, and other governing institutions—combined with continued silence from the party which represents their interests—almost always transforms a big public debt into an even bigger financial crisis. 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/mistrusted-institutions-are-pushing-america-into-a-debt-crisis/

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Article by Andrea Widburg in The American Thinker 

 

Biden’s scary, boring, and bizarre address to the nation

On Thursday night, a masked Biden tottered down a long, empty hall to a podium. He then gave the most bizarre presidential address in American history. After a grim recital of “facts” about the last year, Biden emphasized multiple times that Americans had better take the vaccine – and be grateful to him for his amazing ability to get the vaccine to Americans. He also insisted that, vaccines or not, the government’s in control and can lock all of us up all over again.

Here, in no particular order, are the points that struck me:

1. Biden was more alert than he’s been in many months. Given how frail and confused Biden’s been lately, well, let’s just say his verve was suspicious. Even his eyes, which are usually tightly squinted as he struggles to stay alert and read his teleprompter, were wide open, almost scarily so. Still, he got visibly tired near the end, slurring his words and seeming lost.

2. The speech was both bizarre and boring. Despite the teleprompter, it wandered hither and yon, without ever touching clearly on a single point. It was a grim, depressing speech about a miserable year that probably won’t get better even with a vaccine because we must all remain scared and isolated.

3. Biden kept saying that he was going to tell the truth. He quoted a woman he allegedly met who told him her heart’s desire: “‘I just want the truth. The truth. Just tell me the truth.’”

“Tell the truth,” Biden said again.”

“My fellow Americans,” he said, you’re owed nothing less than the truth.”

Later, he added, “I will tell you the truth.”

And then he said, “In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be traveling along with the first lady” and a whole host of others, “to tell you the truth.”

Do you know who says things like that? Someone who’s lying.

4. Biden dragged in, almost randomly, the fact that there is a rash of attacks on Asians of late: “Vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans who have been attacked, harassed, blamed, and scapegoated.”

What he was implying is that people have been so maddened by Trump (whose name Biden never once mentioned) saying that the Wuhan virus originated in China, that it drove maddened white supremacists to attack Asians. As best as I can tell, the attacks against Asians come almost entirely from the Black community – and, more than that, from a segment of the Black community that is not in sympathy with Trump and is therefore unlikely to be influenced by him. What nobody on the left admits is that Blacks have long been hostile to Asians.

5. Biden opened with a nasty swipe at Trump: “A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked, denials for days, weeks, then months.”

This was not the truth. In fact, on January 31, Trump stopped travel from China, something every Democrat, from Biden on down, attacked as “xenophobic.” By early March, Trump had swung into action, partnering with the private sector to produce masks, ventilators, pop-up hospitals – and vaccines.

6. Speaking of vaccines, one of the nastiest things about Biden’s speech was his repeated emphasis on how spectacularly his administration had acted with regard to producing and distributing vaccines. This ignored entirely that it was Trump who supercharged their production and distribution. The entire speech was a perfect of example of damnatio memorieae – that is, the cancellation of Trump’s memory as if he never existed.

Trump must have been given a heads-up that Biden would do this for he sent out the following email message on Thursday:

I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful “shot” for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!

7. The main thrust of the speech was that everyone must get the vaccine (the wonderful Biden vaccine). However, Biden conceded that even with the vaccine, masks and social distancing must continue. Even with everyone vaccinated, by July 4, maybe we can gather with small groups outdoors. In other words, even as we’re all pumped full of a vaccine, nothing will change. But we should trust Biden and remember that we’re all in this together.

8. Here’s the scariest thing Biden said, although he slipped it in so quickly many may not have noticed (emphasis mine): “Fourth, in the coming weeks, we will issue further guidance on what you can and cannot do once fully vaccinated to lessen the confusion, to keep people safe, and encourage more people to get vaccinated.”

The vaccine, rather than freeing us, will bring us even more tightly under government control as the federal government mandates what you can and cannot do.

9. When he’d finished reading the teleprompter, Biden ignored a reporter’s shouted question, turned around, and tottered back down that long, empty hall.

If you can’t bear to listen to Biden, here’s a transcript of his speech. Or you can view it below:

 

 

 

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Nails It, Representative MTG Discusses The UniParty Process in DC as an Economic System

@TheLastRefuge2 for Conservative Treehouse

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has rapidly become one of the most ardent supporters of MAGA policy and political perspectives in Washington DC.  She is opposed by all the correct enemies as to reflect how the UniParty politicians consider her a risk to the DC system.

Yesterday MTG appeared on the Steve Bannon podcast to discuss her perspective and experience in Washington DC with Democrats and Republicans.  Ms. Greene notes her experience with the UniParty apparatus, a singular political outlook that surrounds all of the politicians occupying Washington DC.  The Conservative Treehouse has long discussed this exact issue.

MTG succinctly discusses how the Republicans failed to support the MAGA agenda after President Trump was elected; republicans controlled both the House and the Senate chambers yet they did nothing.   MTG is also one of the few voices who understands how DC is a business model, an economic system and industry that is supported by the politicians within it; and she is willing to call them out.  A very rare breed….  WATCH:

CTH often describes the background DC motives with the phrase: “There are Trillions at Stake.”  Expanding on MTG’s explanation of the DC economic business model, below we take another look at what that really means; and how DC politics is not quite based on the ideas that frame many reference points.

With people taking notice of DC politics for the first time; and with people not as familiar with the purpose of DC politics; we end up within two different references. Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity.

Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past.  There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.

In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.

Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now.

Outside groups, often called “special interest groups”, are entities that represent their interests in legislative constructs. These groups are often representing foreign governments, Wall Street multinational corporations, banks, financial groups or businesses; or smaller groups of people with a similar connection who come together and form a larger group under an umbrella of interest specific to their affiliation.

Sometimes the groups are social interest groups; activists, climate groups, environmental interests etc. The social interest groups are usually non-profit constructs who depend on the expenditures of government to sustain their cause or need.

The for-profit groups (mostly business) have a purpose in Washington DC to shape policy, legislation and laws favorable to their interests. They have fully staffed offices just like any business would – only their ‘business‘ is getting legislation for their unique interests.

These groups are filled with highly-paid lawyers who represent the interests of the entity and actually write laws and legislation briefs.

In the modern era this is actually the origination of the laws that we eventually see passed by congress. Within the walls of these buildings within Washington DC is where the ‘sausage’ is actually made.

Again, no elected official is usually part of this law origination process.

Almost all legislation created is not ‘high profile’, they are obscure changes to current laws, regulations or policies that no-one pays attention to.  The passage of the general bills within legislation is not covered in media.  Ninety-nine percent of legislative activity happens without anyone outside the system even paying any attention to it.

Once the corporation or representative organizational entity has written the law they want to see passed – they hand it off to the lobbyists.

The lobbyists are people who have deep contacts within the political bodies of the legislative branch, usually former House/Senate staff or former House/Senate politicians themselves.

The lobbyist takes the written brief, the legislative construct, and it’s their job to go to congress and sell it.

“Selling it” means finding politicians who will accept the brief, sponsor their bill and eventually get it to a vote and passage. The lobbyist does this by visiting the politician in their office, or, most currently familiar, by inviting the politician to an event they are hosting. The event is called a junket when it involves travel.

Often the lobbying “event” might be a weekend trip to a ski resort, or a “conference” that takes place at a resort. The actual sales pitch for the bill is usually not too long and the majority of the time is just like a mini vacation etc.

The size of the indulgence within the event, the amount of money the lobbyist is spending, is customarily related to the scale of benefit within the bill the sponsoring business entity is pushing. If the sponsoring business or interest group can gain a lot of financial benefit from the legislation they spend a lot on the indulgences.

Recap: Corporations (special interest group) write the legislation. Lobbyists take the law and go find politician(s) to support it. Politicians get support from their peers using tenure and status etc. Eventually, if things go according to norm, the legislation gets a vote.

Within every step of the process there are expense account lunches, dinners, trips, venue tickets and a host of other customary financial way-points to generate/leverage a successful outcome. The amount of money spent is proportional to the benefit derived from the outcome.

The important part to remember is that the origination of the entire process is EXTERNAL to congress.

Congress does not write laws or legislation, special interest groups do. Lobbyists are paid, some very well paid, to get politicians to go along with the need of the legislative group.

When you are voting for a Congressional Rep or a U.S. Senator you are not voting for a person who will write laws. Your rep only votes on legislation to approve or disapprove of constructs that are written by outside groups and sold to them through lobbyists who work for those outside groups.

While all of this is happening the same outside groups who write the laws are providing money for the campaigns of the politicians they need to pass them. This construct sets up the quid-pro-quo of influence, although much of it is fraught with plausible deniability.

This is the way legislation is created.

If your frame of reference is not established in this basic understanding you can often fall into the trap of viewing a politician, or political vote, through a false prism. The modern origin of all legislative constructs is not within congress.

“we’ll have to pass the bill to, well, find out what is in the bill” etc. ~ Nancy Pelosi 2009
“We rely upon the stupidity of the American voter” ~ Johnathan Gruber 2011, 2012.

Once you understand this process you can understand how politicians get rich.

When a House or Senate member becomes educated on the intent of the legislation, they have attended the sales pitch; and when they find out the likelihood of support for that legislation;  they can then position their own (or their families) financial interests to benefit from the consequence of passage.  It is a process similar to insider trading on Wall Street, except the trading is based on knowing who will benefit from a legislative passage.

The legislative construct passes from K-Street into the halls of congress through congressional committees.  The law originates from the committee to the full House or Senate.  Committee seats which vote on these bills are therefore more valuable to the lobbyists.  Chairs of these committees are exponentially more valuable.

Now, think about this reality against the backdrop of the 2016 Presidential Election. Legislation is passed based on ideology.  In the aftermath of the 2016 election the system within DC was not structurally set-up to receive a Donald Trump presidency.

If Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election, her Oval Office desk would be filled with legislation passed by congress which she would have been signing. Heck, she’d have writer’s cramp from all of the special interest legislation, driven by special interest groups that supported her campaign, that would be flowing to her desk.

Why?

Simply because the authors of the legislation, the originating special interest and lobbying groups, were spending millions to fund her campaign. Hillary Clinton would be signing K-Street constructed special interest legislation to repay all of those donors/investors.

Congress would be fast-tracking the passage because the same interest groups also fund the members of congress.

President Donald Trump winning the 2016 election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.
The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation.  There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.

As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.

Exactly the opposite was true. All of the DC legislative briefs and constructs were/are antithetical to Trump policy.  There were hundreds of file boxes filled with thousands of legislative constructs that became worthless when Donald Trump won the election.

Those legislative constructs (briefs) representing tens of millions of dollars worth of time and influence were just sitting there piled up in boxes under desks and in closets amid K-Street and the congressional offices.  Legislation needed to be in-line with an entire new political perspective, and there was no-one, no special interest or lobbying group, currently occupying DC office space with any interest in synergy with Trump policy.

Think about the larger ramifications within that truism. That is also why there was/is so much opposition.

No legislation provided by outside interests means no work for lobbyists who sell it. No work means no money. No money means no expense accounts. No expenses means politicians paying for their own indulgences etc.

Politicians were not happy without their indulgences, but the issue was actually bigger. No K-Street expenditures also means no personal benefit; and no opportunity to advance financial benefit from the insider trading system.

Without the ability to position personal wealth for benefit, why would a politician stay in office?  The income of many long-term politicians on both Republican and Democrat sides of the aisle was completely disrupted by President Trump winning the election.  That is one of the key reason why so many politicians retired immediately thereafter.

When we understand the business of DC, we understand the difference between legislation with a traditional purpose and modern legislation with a financial and political agenda.

Lastly, this was why -when signing legislation- President Trump often said: “they’ve been trying to get this through for a long time” etc.   Most of the legislation passed by congress and signed by President Trump in his term was older legislative proposals, with little indulgent value, that were shelved in years past.

 

Article by Andrea Widburg in The American Thinker

 

Tucker Carlson exposes the dangers of the Biden military

In an epic segment (and I do not use the word “epic” lightly in this case), Tucker Carlson directed desperately needed attention to the Biden administration’s policies regarding the American military. Obama started the process of turning the military into a social justice institution. While Trump managed to slow the process, Biden’s administration, with help from a highly partisan Pentagon. is purging the military of people expressing views with which Democrats disagree while doubling down on race, radical feminism, and transgenderism. Defense is an afterthought.

On Monday, in honor of International Women’s Day, Joe Biden read from his teleprompter about the military’s pro-women initiatives. He boasted about promoting women, combatting sexual assault, and getting them into fighter jets and attack helicopters. He got a lot of flack for a seemingly silly statement about “maternity flight suits,” although healthy pregnant women were already flying during the Trump administration. Conservatives erred in focusing on this because there was more going on and it was quite serious.

The really nasty thing was the implication that the two women Biden was promoting had previously been denied the opportunity because of Trump. Back in late February, the New York Times had reported that the two women hadn’t been promoted last fall because Trump only promoted white men:

For the defense secretary at the time, Mark T. Esper, and Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the tricky part was that both of the accomplished officers were women. In 2020 America under President Donald J. Trump, the two Pentagon leaders feared that any candidates other than white men for jobs mostly held by white men might run into turmoil once their nominations reached the White House.

That is complete and unmitigated horsepucky. First, notice the weasel words about “jobs mostly held by white men.” The left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations looked at both race and gender in the military – and what you’ll see if you follow the link is that the military as a whole is predominantly white and male and that the officer ranks roughly reflect the general representation of both women and minorities in the military. As young officers rise up, and older officers from a more white and male era retire, presumably the representation will be even more accurate.

Second, going back to the 1970s, Trump was the first major developer in New York City to promote women to important positions. Trump was also hugely pro-female in his White House hiring, including giving women highly responsible jobs. He has been the most effortlessly and naturally pro-woman president ever.

Let’s be straight here: Esper and Milley were lying.

The fact that the Pentagon would lie this way is an important insight into the problems facing America’s military. As Tucker Carlson explains in a “must-see” video, the Pentagon has become highly partisan – a departure from the American military’s 238-year history of being a non-partisan institution. This trend started under Obama. Indeed, it probably started even before then, as college graduates marinated in leftism started to rise in the ranks beginning in the late 1980s.

Obama purged generals, presumably for malfeasance or incompetence, but somehow all the ones left behind were Democrats. His military leaders focused hard on feminism (remember the troops made to walk in high heels?) and encouraged transgender people to serve, as well as promoting homosexual activities – something separate from allowing homosexuals to serve. And of course, there was the obsession with race in what had long been America’s purest meritocracy. In addition, the military went all-in on climate change, which meant subordinating quality to carbon emissions. All of this took time, energy, money, and focus away from the military’s real job: defense.

Trump managed to slow the process. He poured funding into weapons’ systems again but still drew the wrath of the military-industrial complex because he refused to start new wars and was drawing down troops from the old wars. Not only did this put him at odds with weapons manufacturers, but it also put him at odds with high-level officers who had fewer promotion opportunities and, worse, had fewer chances of highly paid sinecures in the defense industry after they retired.

With Biden in office, all the worst trends are accelerating. Rather than laboriously write it all out, let me hand the baton to Tucker Carlson who, after ribbing Biden about maternity flight suits, gets to the main point: The left is turning the military into a partisan institution that is highly focused on “social justice” and that views half of America as the real enemy:

Full Tucker Carlson segment responding to the DOD's criticisms of his show:

"If the Pentagon can show that pregnant pilots are the best, we will be the first to demand an entire air force of them."

"The U.S. military is not a vehicle for achieving equity." pic.twitter.com/kK2mZBWrOr

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 12, 2021

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The Shameful Tragedy of Open Borders

The Biden Administration’s reversal of Trump-era immigration enforcement policies seems less motivated by concern for the common good and more about a blinkered case of "Orange Man Bad."

by Josh Hammer at American Greatness

The United States’ southern border is wide open right now. Unaccompanied alien children, single alien men, and intact alien families are all pouring over en masse.

Anecdotal horror stories abound: On Thursday, for instance, U.S. Customs and Border Protection tweeted: “Within 24 hours, Laredo North Station Border Patrol agents apprehended 111 individuals during 3 separate human smuggling attempts involving commercial trailers.” This is a legitimate crisis, notwithstanding self-serving presidential obfuscation to the contrary. And it is a legitimate crisis entirely of the Democratic Party’s own making.

As this column has previously noted, CBP data evinced as early as October that border apprehensions were skyrocketing in anticipation of a possible Joe Biden presidential victory. By the lame-duck period of the Trump presidency, U.S.-bound migrant “caravans” were already forming in Central America’s troubled Northern Triangle region. But what was at that time a developing problem has now predictably metastasized into the first full-blown—and entirely self-inflicted—political disaster of the young Biden presidency.

Immigration policy analysts frequently speak of “magnets”—rhetoric and policies, that is, that tend to incentivize vulnerable or opportunistic migrants to partner up with rapacious cartels and transnational human trafficking rings to enter the United States illegally. The biggest illegal immigration magnets of all are amnesty proposals that would provide illegal aliens currently in the United States with a “pathway” to permanent legal status or citizenship.

But there are innumerable other magnets—among them, presidential campaign rhetoric promising lax law enforcement and affirmative post-inauguration policies, such as the Biden Administration’s lamentable nixing of President Donald Trump’s highly effective “Remain in Mexico” policy and the revival of the Obama-era practice of “catch-and-release,” wherein illegal aliens apprehended at the border are processed and released expeditiously into the nation’s interior while awaiting their immigration hearings, often never to be heard from again.

The upshot of the illegal immigration magnet is that migrants rationally respond to incentives. This is hardly an earth-shattering revelation; in fact, it is the central tenet of “homo economicus,” the dismal science’s fictitious conception of the perfectly rational, incentive-driven human that pervades neoclassical economic modeling.

But illegal immigration—let alone the extraordinarily high volume of illegal immigration now underway—is not an abstract or academic concept. Yes, policies such as amnesty and catch-and-release are fundamentally unjust insofar as they deprive U.S. citizens of agency over the most consequential decisions that citizens in a free republic are ever asked to contemplate: who else to admit into the body politic.

Untrammeled illegal immigration undermines and renders unintelligible the very concept of sovereignty. But there are also tangible, sweeping harms from widespread illegal immigration. Democrats who wish to downplay those harms for the sake of boosting intersectional street cred with their “woke” base are doing no one any favors.

The open borders agenda massively empowers and enriches the smuggling rings that the media typically refer to as the “drug cartels,” but which are better understood as barbarous transnational criminal syndicates that sometimes even sync up with Chinese fentanyl exporters and internationally recognized terrorist outfits, such as Hezbollah. These are some of the most vicious organizations in the Western world and, as even the New York Times reported in 2019, are known for widespread murder, rape, and sexual violence committed against female migrants. Ranchers along the often-barren high deserts of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona are imminently endangered by the cartels’ depredations in their own (literal) backyards.

Blue-collar workers of all races and backgrounds are hurt by an uncontrollable deluge of cheap, low-wage migrants who lack labor market bargaining power for the simple reason that they are not here legally. Pro-immigration enforcement states are perversely penalized in the U.S. Census—at least under the erroneous prevailing practice, which Trump sought to change, of counting both legal and illegal aliens—when they lose congressional representation to “sanctuary city”-enabling blue states that mollycoddle illegal aliens.

The true tragedy of this shameful ordeal is how foreseeable it all was. Trump’s immigration enforcement policies, especially those like Remain in Mexico, helped stanch illegal immigration inflows and restore order to our porous border. Much as with the Biden Administration’s kowtowing to the Iranian regime in the foreign policy arena, its reversal of Trump-era actions on immigration enforcement seems less motivated by genuine concern for the common good of the polity and more motivated by a blinkered case of “Orange Man Bad.” Such posturing might play well among the blue-checked Twitterati, but the American people pay the price.