Good morning, kids. Another day and another "I can't even" link for you to retch your coffee up and raise your blood pressure.
The House voted 209-201 Monday night to sideline a resolution introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his disastrous mishandling of the border, even as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) greases the skids on a funding package that punts a broader border policy battle until the new year. . .
. . . Privileged resolutions require House floor action within two legislative days after introduction. Rather than voting on the underlying motion, Republican leadership chose to address the resolution through a Democratic motion to refer it to the Homeland Security Committee. Democrats altered their motion before the vote after previously preferring a vote simply to table the resolution.
Greene’s resolution read that Mayorkas had engaged “in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with the laws of the United States,” accusing him of “willful admittance of border crossers, terrorist human traffickers, drugs, and other contraband.”
Speaker Johnson’s decision to table the resolution was a clear signal that it lacked the votes necessary for passage. Some Republicans had been hesitant to step away from sacred “regular order.”
Greene and others argued that Mayorkas’ dereliction at the border has been made abundantly apparent through numerous committee hearings throughout the year, negating the need to waste time with formalities.
Johnson’s decision to accede to Democrats’ demands to toss Mayorkas’ impeachment into a committee recycling bin comes the same afternoon as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced support for Johnson’s continuing resolution (CR) government funding plan.
The Johnson CR postpones a fight on [so-called quote-unquote "president"] Joe Biden’s border policy until next year, with DHS funding extended through February 2.
Here are the eight schmucks who killed the resolution: California Rep. Darrell Issa, North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, Oregon Rep. Cliff Bentz, Ohio Rep. Mike Turner, North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, California Rep. Tom McClintock, California Rep. John Duarte.
At the end of the day, even if Mayorkas did get shit-canned, it would be the equivalent of draining the Gulf of Mexico with the first thimbleful of water during Hurricane Katrina. Whoever this bald-headed diseased testicle winds up being replaced with will be balder and more diseased than his predecessor. But to not even stand in unison over an issue that is so obviously non-controversial, despite the blanket corruption and criminality of the Junta and those who support it in and out of government (looking at you Chamber of Commerce and other alleged "conservatives") that will prevent any meaningful halting let alone reversal of a premeditated invasion, is yet again another reminder (as if we needed any) as to the fact that we the people of We The People have zero representation.
That's putting it mildly since time and again we are viewed as an existential threat to the illegitimate power structure that rules this nation, USA in name only. Meanwhile an erased southern border and anything even remotely resembling sane immigration control at every port of entry will all but ensure a repeat of 9/11/01. And conceivably orders of magnitude worse.
Thomas Friedman recently said something interesting: “The euphoric rampage of Oct. 7 that killed some 1,400 soldiers and civilians has not only hardened Israeli hearts toward the suffering of Gaza civilians. It has also inflicted a deep sense of humiliation and guilt on the Israeli Army and defense establishment, for having failed in their most basic mission of protecting the country’s borders.”
The humiliation and guilt do not seem universal. Our military and defense leadership do not seem to feel any responsibility for the border crisis. They certainly feel no shame for this egregious and ongoing insult to American sovereignty. For them, the military is reserved for events around the globe, even though most of these far-flung campaigns have only a tangential relationship to actual American security.
Our border is completely wrecked, and more than 2 million migrants are likely to arrive this year. Most of these people are poor, low-skilled people from the Third World. They are not likely to contribute much to our country, many will arrive and stay illegally or under fraudulent refugee claims, and they will receive substantial benefits unavailable to millions of struggling Americans. Collectively, this weakens our country.
While our rickety southern border contributes greatly to this state of affairs, the Department of Defense seems to have no interest in actually doing anything to help. They have repeatedly resisted deploying significant assets to augment the U.S. Border Patrol.
Trump received withering criticism from senior members of the U.S. military for his supposed disrespect for the military’s customs and for the suggestion that he might employ them during the nationwide riots in 2020. As part of their aversion to domestic deployment, the military has remained largely indifferent to protecting the border, as if national defense can only be conducted in the nether reaches of the world, many thousands of miles from our country’s borders and our people. . .
. . . A very smart and anonymous writer, CatGirl Kulak, described how the ruling class’s chief concern is the overseas empire, which leads them to neglect the interior of the nation, along with its people: “Functionally America is an hourglass-shaped empire. It’s really two empires barely connected. It is a 19th century land empire conquered by American settler populace, and it is a 20th century Maritime and global empire conquered by the US Navy and barely closeted communist bureaucrats along with the foreigners they funded. These two empires barely interact . . . The place they meet, the narrow center of this hourglass is Washington DC. . . . Whilst Washington remains completely safe from any threat to its 20th-century Maritime empire . . . Washington’s 19th-century land empire has it by the throat.”
Washington foreign policy types like to play games of Risk overseas, because they know we have two oceans and a nuclear arsenal to protect us from conventional threats. This sort of power politics is mostly harmless to the ruling class; and, when a war ensues, the people doing the fighting and dying are, in their eyes, a bunch of disposable right-wing hicks from flyover country.
On the other hand, the same ruling class has completely lost its mind about January 6, because this was a rare and extreme nonviolent revolt by the denizens of the Inland Empire, which the Washington D.C. ruling class holds in great contempt, but also greatly fears.
It's an interesting essay by Christopher Roach but he omits, or I'd hate to think he's ignorant of the fact that the U.S. military does not have the command authority to deploy itself. That comes from the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. That aside, he does raise a salient point about the nature of national security and defense. In theory, DHS, CBP, INS are tasked with securing our borders and controlling who comes in and who doesn't. Yet, doesn't this also fall under the rubric of defense of the realm?
About the only time there was a real possibility of an actual foreign army would invade the continental US was some combination of Mexico and Germany just prior to our entrance into the First World War. IIRC, the intercepted "Zimmermann Letter" was, along with the sinking of the Lusitania part of the casus belli of Wilson declaring war on the Kaiser.
That said, don't the now millions of migrants flooding in from not only Latin America but from all over the world constitute an actual threat to our national security? Especially since an alarmingly large percentage of these invaders are military age males hailing not only from Latin America but from China and the Islamic world. Forget the bureaucratic interagency turf wars; our national command authority wants this invasion. In point of fact, those who are running this nation, mostly into the ground, comprise the greatest threat to the safety and security of every citizen.
With a great wave of opposition to their disastrous economic, foreign and domestic policies building now across party lines as we head into a national election (its highly, if not completely, compromised security and integrity notwithstanding), they sense a threat to their hold on power. Is it beyond belief that they would welcome acts of criminality and terrorism similar to what happened in Israel on 10/7? Recall "Operation Fast & Furious" where Obama directed Eric Holder to secretly allow illegal firearms to be shipped and sold in Mexico so that the ensuing violence south of the border – which claimed the lives of two American law enforcement agents – would bring about a popular call to restrict if not abolish outright the Second Amendment.
Consider everything that has happened to us before, during and especially since the Trump presidency. There have zero compunction or limit as to what is and what is not permissible in holding on to power. "By Any Means Necessary" is not merely a cheer. It is a tactic that they have and will continue to use and in ever more horrendous ways against us.
In a weird way, I almost hope they actually do steal the 2024 election, because if by some miracle Trump (who is at this point going to be the nominee regardless of whether he is indicted or even imprisoned by this time next year) actually overcomes the cheat and wins, do you really think this Junta is going to allow him to be sworn in? After the past eight years of painting him and all of us who vote for or otherwise support him as Nazis, white supremacists, and a literal "existential threat to our precious democracy?" (vomit).
We are at an inflection point here and really all over the world. With the doddering, pervert criminal and his puppet masters in Kalorama having hijacked the nation and destroyed our ability both diplomatically and even militarily to maintain the relative peace, prosperity and security of the past 80 years, there's no telling what can happen in the next 12 months.
Thank goodness we have the GOP ready to stand in the breach. Pfft.
NOTE: The opinions expressed in the links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
Follow us on Twitter: @CutJibNews
Follow us on Instagram: @Cutjibnewsletter
TIP JAR : Your support helps keep the lights on and is truly appreciated. Note: We are on Stripe, not PayPal.