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Tag: fight
US Mexico border fence

Republicans Only Exist To 'Fight,' Not To Make Policy

The border bill circus is the latest demonstration of a bedrock reality of today's Republican Party: It does not exist to achieve political outcomes. Its chief function is fan service.

The overriding concern of GOP voters, according to polls and to elected Republicans, is immigration. In the ranty precincts of the right, they believe that the southern border is open; that criminals, terrorists and drug dealers are crossing en masse. Among less febrile Republicans, the argument is that while legal immigration is good for the nation, we are swamped by illegal border crossers and must get control of a border that is out of hand.

Whichever version of the immigration argument they favor, every Republican who truly cared about solving the "crisis at the border" would presumably favor a bill that would have tackled — or at least ameliorated — the problem right now. In October, a group of senators including Shelley Moore Capito and Todd Young sent a letter to the president warning that 169 people on the terrorism watch list had been apprehended in the preceding 10 months. In early January, a 60-member delegation of House Republicans traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas. They were enraged, they said, by the fentanyl coming across the border.

In reality, fentanyl is mostly smuggled by American citizens, not would-be asylum seekers. Ninety percent of seizures occur at legal border crossings and interior vehicle checkpoints. In recent years, just 0.02 percent of people arrested for crossing the border illegally had any fentanyl in their possession.

Speaker Mike Johnson thundered that "One thing is absolutely clear: America is at a breaking point with record levels of illegal immigration." Rep. Mark Green, who yesterday announced his retirement from Congress, claimed that the FBI director had testified that members of Hamas can "just walk right in." But as The New York Times clarifies, Christopher Wray said no such thing. Rather, he explained in response to a tendentious question, that he could not 100 percent guarantee that none of those who evaded the border patrol ("get-aways") were members of Hamas.

While the risk of terrorists crossing the southern border is not zero, the Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh has shown that the southern border is not a common vector for terrorists attempting to enter the United States.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that most Republicans are unfamiliar with Nowrasteh's research and fully believe the Mark Greens and Mike Johnsons of their party who claim that we are being overrun by terrorists and foreign drug smugglers, to say nothing of immigrants "poisoning the blood" of real Americans.

Would they not be outraged by their elected officials' decision to tank a border bill that would achieve many of their objectives? The base has not been shy about accusing Republican leaders of cowardice and betrayal over much less. Yet on this issue, supposedly the one they feel most passionate about, they are tamely accepting that GOP congressmen and senators passed up a unique opportunity to get much tougher enforcement just in order to give Trump a campaign issue?

Well, some might explain, the average Republican voter thinks that if Trump is reelected, they will get even better (i.e., harsher) measures to keep immigrants out. But that is false.

The only reason the Democrats are willing to agree to a lopsided border deal that gives Republicans 80 percent of what they demanded and get nothing in return (like a path to citizenship for Dreamers) is because Democrats are worried that the issue hurts them with voters — and since Republicans linked support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to border security, Democrats would have to bend.

But that political calculation goes out the window if Trump is reelected. Democrats would not have any incentive to compromise.

So if GOP voters believe that illegals are flooding into the country to our sorrow and that we are in danger daily from infiltration by terrorists, how can they accept that Republicans would choose to continue this "unconscionable" status quo a day longer than necessary — much less the years it will likely take before another deal is possible? And if the Republican Party is a political entity, don't voters have a duty to understand political realities, including that this was a unique moment to achieve their cherished objective?

But if the party doesn't exist to solve political problems, if instead it exists only to "fight," then the voters' passivity makes sense. The GOP doesn't need to get control of the border, merely to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas. Lauren Boebert released a triumphant video after the (second) impeachment vote boasting that "Just now we impeached Secretary Mayorkas who has endangered our country by deliberately handing over control of our southern border to the cartel. Now that's delivering for the American people!"

No, that was a gross misuse of government power against an official that even the GOP's favorite legal advisers had said did nothing to merit impeachment. Besides, it was a pointless, empty gesture since the Democrats control the Senate and will certainly acquit him (as he deserves).

The show is everything. Results don't count, only the fight.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Lauren Boebert

Police Probe Boebert's Latest 'Physical' Confrontation With Ex-Husband

A Colorado police department is actively investigating "an alleged physical altercation" between US Representative Lauren Boebert and her ex-husband, Jayson Boebert, that occurred Saturday night, The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger exclusively reports.

A Boebert aide told Sollenberger, "Jayson Boebert had called the police to the Miner's Claim restaurant in Silt, claiming that he was a 'victim of domestic violence.' The aide emphasized that Lauren Boebert denies any allegation of domestic violence on her part, and that the events as depicted in social media posts on Saturday were not accurate."

The aide also confirmed "police did come" but no one was arrested, and "a friend drove Boebert home."

When Jayson Boebert spoke to the Beast about the incident, he said, "I don’t know what to say."

According to the report, the incident occurred when Jayson Boebert apologized to the GOP congresswoman following a prior incident, and asked to meet. Rep. Boebert agreed, but only if the meeting could take place in public — which led the former couple to "Miner's Claim, a restaurant in Boebert's small hometown of Silt."

The senior political reporter notes:

Inside, at the table, Jayson Boebert apparently started 'being disrespectful,' 'being an a**hole,' and getting 'lewd,' the aide relayed. The alleged behavior revolted Lauren Boebert, but that seemed to make her ex more aggressive, the aide said. There was then apparently a physical altercation of indeterminate severity.

Jayson Boebert 'made a motion' towards his ex-wife, 'to grab her.' It was 'an aggressive move, not romantic,' the aide relayed.

As Lauren Boebert described it, the aide said, she tried again to keep him back and in the process 'put her hand in his face, put her hand on his nose.' (The Muckrackers’ post describes a violent confrontation, with the congresswoman landing two punches on her ex’s nose. The aide said that Boebert maintains she didn’t punch him.)

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Iraq’s Largest Refinery Ablaze As Militants, Government Fight For Control

Iraq’s Largest Refinery Ablaze As Militants, Government Fight For Control

By Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy Foreign Staff

IRBIL, Iraq — Skirmishes over Iraq’s largest oil refinery left part of the facility ablaze Wednesday as Islamic militants battled Iraqi security forces for control.

Iraqi state television reported that security forces remained in control of the refinery and electric-generation plants in Baiji, just north of the rebel-held city of Tikrit. But witnesses contacted by independent Iraqi media outlets reported that fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and their Sunni Muslim tribal allies had taken over at least portions of the facility and sent home the workers trapped inside.

Black plumes of smoke could be seen from at least a dozen burning storage tanks on local television stations as much of Iraq went into a panic over the possibility of a sustained gasoline shortage in a country already forced to import more than 100,000 barrels of gasoline a day because of high demand and crumbling infrastructure.

In addition to Tuesday’s announcement that the government had shut off the oil supply to the facility — either to stop the output from falling into ISIS’ hands or to prevent the facility from exploding amid the fighting — the German firm Siemens and the security company Olive said they’d cleared dozens of foreign workers and security guards from the complex, which has been surrounded by militants since much of northern Iraq fell in last week’s surprise takeover. The government, however, denied that foreign workers had left.

Government helicopters reportedly struck either the facility itself or rebel positions close by and, according to some witnesses talking to local media, caused the fires.

One executive with a Western oil-services company that’s working in Irbil — who spoke only on the condition of anonymity so as not to annoy the Iraqi government, which he does business with — said control of the facility appeared to be split between militants and an army unit that had been sneaked into the area recently to reinforce the beleaguered security guards usually assigned to protect it.

“We don’t exactly know, because Baghdad has lost all credibility with the oil industry this week,” the executive said. “They keep announcing things they wish were true instead of giving us the information we need to make proper decisions.”

He added: ‘This does not inspire confidence in their competence or their handle on events on the ground.”

Little in the performance of the Iraqi government has inspired much confidence of late, as tens of thousands of soldiers and police officers deserted their posts and fled the battlefield when ISIS — which previously had controlled large chunks of eastern Syria and the western Iraq province of Anbar — suddenly materialized in force on June 9. Within 24 hours, ISIS had overrun the northern city of Mosul, the country’s second largest, capturing huge amounts of military hardware and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars from banks.

Within days, the group’s militants had reached the northernmost edges of Baghdad’s suburbs, backed by what appears to be a broad Sunni rebellion against the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who’s been widely accused at home and abroad of fostering unrest with sectarian political policies.

In Irbil — which remains quiet and under the control of the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government despite a local gasoline refinery remaining online — the loss of the highway from Turkey through Mosul, on top of the loss of the Baiji facility, caused a mild panic. Motorists faced long lines and severe limits on gasoline purchases.

But the oil industry executive said an impending shortage was, at least so far, unlikely to be truly disruptive.

“It’s a lot longer trip now (avoiding Mosul), but the Turks want to make money and can send it by land,” he said. “This seems a combination of both prudent rationing and psychological panic as people realize the conflict isn’t going away.”

Ahmad Al-Rubaye via Flickr

Kerry Says Five Released Taliban Risk Death If They Fight Again

Kerry Says Five Released Taliban Risk Death If They Fight Again

By Katherine Skiba, Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry, in his first remarks on the prisoner swap involving American soldier Bowe Bergdahl, warned Sunday that the five released Taliban leaders risk being killed by the United States if they re-enter the fight.

He spoke as reports emerged that Bergdahl, held for five years and released May 31, had been locked in a metal cage for long periods as punishment for trying to escape his captors.

Bergdahl’s release in exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees dominated the Sunday talk shows amid reports that the FBI was investigating death threats against Bergdahl’s family.

Kerry, talking about the prospect of the former Guantanamo prisoners returning to the battlefield, said: “I’m not telling you that they don’t have some ability at some point to go back and get involved, but they also have an ability to get killed doing that.”

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” he said Qatar, where the Taliban leaders will live for one year, would be monitoring the men and that the U.S. would also keep an eye on them. Asked whether he meant the U.S. would kill them, he replied, “Nobody, no one should doubt the capacity of America to protect Americans.”

Sen. John McCain, who was held captive in Vietnam for more than five years, took issue with Kerry in a separate interview on the same program, saying that 30 percent of the detainees released from Guantanamo Bay had resumed fighting and “we certainly haven’t been able to kill all of them.”

“So what we’re doing here is … reconstituting the Taliban government, the same guys that are mass murderers,” said McCain, an Arizona Republican who was the 2008 GOP presidential nominee.

McCain said he had previously signed off on the outlines of a prisoner swap to retrieve Bergdahl, but not specifically the “top five picked by the Taliban.”

Asked whether reports that Bergdahl deserted his Army unit made him less worthy of rescue, McCain said no. But he added that the obligation to bring back captured military personnel had to be weighed against whether the effort “would put the lives of other American men and women who are serving in danger.”

“And in my view, this clearly would,” he said.

Top Senate Intelligence Committee officials, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said they had not been briefed by the Obama administration on Bergdahl being tortured or kept in a cage, allegations first reported Saturday on the New York Times website. Feinstein chairs the committee; its top Republican lawmaker, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, echoed her.

Both said they had heard “rumors” that Bergdahl had tried to flee and both had concerns about the prisoner swap and what they saw as the administration’s lack of openness with congressional leaders. They spoke on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“What’s unfortunate is that I see no sign of the Taliban relenting,” Feinstein said. “And so some of us worry very much when we pull out (of Afghanistan), the Taliban finds its way back into power. And that would be tragic.”

David Rohde, who was abducted by the same Taliban faction as Bergdahl more than five years ago while on leave from The New York Times to write a book, said news reports about Bergdahl enduring harsh treatment sounded “very credible.”

Rohde, who also spoke on “Face the Nation,” escaped after being held hostage for eight months.

Now working for Reuters, he said Bergdahl needed to explain why he left his Army outpost, but cautioned that many rumors surrounded his own kidnapping in 2008. The journalist said he still regretted going to an interview with a Taliban official that led to his abduction near the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Of Bergdahl, Rohde said: “He will regret this for the rest of his life, I guarantee you.”

Rohde said he had spoken to Bergdahl’s parents, and alluded to the reports of death threats against them. “They are heartbroken by what’s been happening,” he said.

If any U.S. troops had died in the search for Bergdahl, “that would break their hearts as well,” he said.

©afp.com / Jacquelyn Martin