Alex Pareene, at Salon:
… Late in June, two Republicans, Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.) and John Hoeven (N.D.), inserted an amendment into the Senate bill to strengthen security at the American border with Mexico. No Democrats opposed the measure in a “test vote” before the Senate’s passage of the larger bill. The amendment’s proposals are referred to as a “border surge,” because “surges” are a great thing in Washington ever since “the surge worked” became a very popular catchphrase for a while. (Washington is full of very simple-minded people, on the whole.) So we will “surge” the border, just like we “surged” Iraq, and, like Iraq, we will Win the War, against Mexico and Mexicans.
Basically the “border surge” is a very expensive new expansion of a massive government program, only it’s the sort that conservatives like because it involves detaining people instead of giving them healthcare or something. The “surge” is a massive military buildup along the border, involving 700 miles of fencing, 20,000 new border agents, and more drones, perhaps even ones fitted with “nonlethal weapons,” for the Border Protection Agency to loan out to various other law-enforcement agencies. It will install, at various points along the border, an exciting array of new infrastructure and equipment of the sort usually not seen outside of actual war zones. Many lucky communities will soon have multiple new “fixed towers,” dozens of “fixed camera systems (with relocation capability), which include remote video surveillance systems” and “mobile surveillance systems, which include mobile video surveillance systems, agent-portable surveillance systems, and mobile surveillance capability systems,” and hundreds of new “unattended ground sensors, including seismic, imaging, and infrared.” Chuck Schumer described the entire deal as “a breathtaking show of force.” Even actual border-patrol agents are sort of confused by the proposal, which will double their ranks. “I’m not sure where this idea came from, but we didn’t support it, and we didn’t ask for it,” their union vice president told the National Review.
The whole thing will cost $38 billion. Fun fact! House Republicans recently attempted to cut $20 billion from the federal budget for food stamps. The measure failed when many Republicans decided the cuts weren’t large enough. But there is always money for new unattended ground sensors!…
PsiFighter37
When it comes to the budget, CREAM applies to the military-industrial complex. The rest of you fucking peons can pound sand and learn to love God enough so He will allow you to absorb the minerals from said sand so that you can survive. “Making it rain” means that Halliburton and Lockheed will drink mana from the skies while the 99% enjoy upwards rain, as in sand raining upwards and you have to clench your asscheeks to prevent unwanted friction.
PF37 +3 and back from Florida, remembering what it’s like to be an angry New Yorker just in time for the workweek
EconWatcher
I believe this was what McCain was referring to when he said we’d have the most militarized border since East Berlin. And he thinks that’s a feature, not a bug….
Central Planning
Is spending that $38 billion keeping people out supposed to help the economy/increase tax revenues by some amount greater than $38 billion?
What $38 billion in cuts did the republicans propose to offset this new spending?
dmbeaster
I think this crap was the price for Republican Senate support. It was not some sleepy provision that Dems overlooked. Parene is off in his characterization.
MattF
I remember hearing this and thinking that, apparently, there are people who hear the word ‘surge’ and do not immediately think ”expensive, short-term policy that will fail but will give the guilty parties time to get out of Dodge City.”
gbear
This would be the first bill that creates actual jobs that the republicans might be willing to pass since Obama’s original stripped down Jobs Act. Too bad it’s in the service of trying to out-Korea the border with Mexico.
maya
The “surge” that “worked” in EyeRack consisted of dropping pallet loads of freshly minted Benjamins all over the occupied areas to pay insurgents NOT to fire upon US Troops.( In another century, is was called tribute when the Mamelukes of Tripoli demanded it for shipping tolls and we went to war, or nearly so, over it. It’s how the Marines added the second line to their hymn and Marine officers got their Mameluke sword.)
So, we’re going to drop pallets of Benjamins on the border to pay illegal immigrants NOT to immigrate? Swell.
Redshift
I can’t remember which wingnut it was (maybe someone at Krugman’s blog) who declared recently that what we needed to do was:
1. Seal the border
2. End Big Government
…
I believe I actually laughed out loud at that. I don’t recall what his further bullet points were, but they amounted to “Profit!”
Violet
Union? Our border is being defended by soshulist union thugs? How did this happen?
max
If they had declared it as a New Deal for A Surge in the War on Terror and accompanied it with a No Fly Zone to Midwife Democracy in Arizona and they made sure to send all the, uh, surgers to Protect the Border in Taxicabs driven by Moderate Arabs… it would Win The Year!
max
[‘Politico would spooge so much, their livers would be shooting out.’]
MattF
@efgoldman: Ground sharks. I have an engineering proposal right here in my pocket.
Heliopause
Which is why I’ve been wondering why the left seems to mostly be in favor of this bill. For once I’m kind of glad the Crazy Caucus is likely to kill a bill that all the moderates and liberals are in favor of.
Redshift
@maya:
It would probably work better than anything else we’ve done (that is, if the people leading the anti-immigrant crowd actually wanted to reduce immigration, rather than have an easily-intimidated workforce and an issue to stir up the racist base.) Actually doing effective economic development in Mexico and Central America would be a more efficient way to translate dollars into lower illegal immigration than any additional militarization of the border. Not that effective economic development would be as easy as dropping pallets of cash, given the widespread corruption, but it’s sad that it’s not even part of the conversation.
Yatsuno
@Central Planning:
Oh u funnee!! Spending on oppressing browns they always find money for.
Violet
@MattF: Land shark?
Litlebritdifrnt
Today’s “whocudaknowd” prize goes to the Kansas lawmakers who approved a bill to allow anyone to carry a firearm in public places including schools. The insurance companies who insure the schools are all cancelling (refusing to renew) their insurance coverage.
http://freakoutnation.com/2013/07/07/teachers-with-guns-law-backfires-in-kansas-insurance-companies-refuse-to-renew-coverage-for-schools/
*snork*
Violet
@efgoldman: Ha! Great minds.
gene108
Simplest thing for Congress to do is to declare ware on Mexico, like Congress last did in December 1941 against Germany and Japan, and that way conservatives can have a fully militarized Southern border.
Yeah, it’d waste a boatload of military resources to defend a country we aren’t at war with, but since we’re moving to a quasi-militarized border with Mexico anyway, why not just go whole-hog and go all the way to a fully militarized border?
That way we can rest easier at night knowing hordes of Spanish speakers aren’t coming across the border illegally.
MattF
@Redshift: Hmm. I hadn’t thought of this, but as a matter of fact it’s sort of a Keynesian approach… Maybe I’m going to change my mind about this.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: That’s hilarious. Glad to see some real world consequences.
gene108
@gene108:
As I can’t edit my previous post, just wanted to clean up the broken sentence in paragraph two.
PsiFighter37
I wonder why no one ever bothers to ask why we don’t militarize the northern border. Is it going to hurt the Villager’s fee-fees if we dare suggest that we only want to keep the browns who speak Mexican out?
Or maybe we shouldn’t mention it so that those asshole conservatives think of it as a way to keep all of them blue states in the U.S. and paying welfare to those ungrateful, broke-ass Southern states.
PeakVT
@Heliopause: It’s generally favored because legalizing the current group of illegal immigrants who have been here for a long time is a good thing – they’ll get labor protections they don’t have now, and their kids will be able to grow up and have normal lives. We had a thread not too long ago on whether the bill will do enough to prevent future illegal immigration, and whether that should be a make-or-break deal.
gene108
@Redshift:
That was one of the arguments in favor of NAFTA; economic development in Mexico would reduce illegal immigration.
Generally globalization and free trade have proven to be the most effective anti-poverty measures have been adopted, but I don’t think that part of NAFTA worked the way American proponents thought it would work for poorer Mexicans.
gene108
@PsiFighter37:
I personally wouldn’t mind militarizing the Northern border. If I ever wanted to put in a foreign sleeper cell of terrorists and spies in the U.S., I’d hire Canadians.
They can pretty damn easily pass for Americans – see Peter Jennings, William Shatner (hard to believe he wasn’t born in Iowa, am I right?), Shania Twain, etc. – but they do not share our values on such things as profiting on other people’s healthcare needs, being impolite, and fending off French Imperial hegemony in weights and measures (i..e. the metric system).
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
Part of the problem is that a lot of the illegal immigrants who come over the Mexican border are not actually Mexican citizens — many of them are from even more impoverished Central American countries like Guatemala. So Mexico is doing fairly well, but their neighbors aren’t doing nearly as well and are crossing Mexico’s border into the US.
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Lolcelots. That way we can win the intertubes vote, too.
MikeJ
@PsiFighter37:
Actual terrorists have crossed (or attempted to) from Canada. The millennium bomb plot was foiled because they attempted to enter the US at a border station that was only manned every other day, and they picked a day it was manned.
gene108
@PeakVT:
It really depends on if you expand what is legal immigration.
There’s a demand for people to come to the U.S. If you make it harder for people to come here legally, than by default illegal immigration will still be an issue.
It’s like alcohol consumption during prohibition.
You can’t cut off something that’s been around for hundreds of years, people wanting to move the U.S., and expect nothing illegal to come up and fill the demand.
Roger Moore
@Litlebritdifrnt:
That’s OK. Everyone knows that buying insurance is defying God’s will anyway; if God wants to punish schools with massive liability payments for gun crime, who are we to argue?
CVS
Don’t be surprised when all this “exciting new infrastructure” starts to get turned inward.
Just sayin’.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@PsiFighter37: When it comes to the budget, CREAM applies to the military-industrial complex.
Accept this is more like Libertarian Police State. These same people gave the traditional military industrial complex the shaft with the sequester. So I supposed it’s about stopping brown people now and not commies.
eldorada
fences keep people in too, you stupid morons
PeakVT
@Mnemosyne: Northern and Central Mexico are doing okay. Southern Mexico (Oaxaca and Chiapas), not so much. And Mexicans still account for the majority (60%+) of illegal immigrants.
Roger Moore
@PsiFighter37:
Can we deport David Brooks? Pretty please?
PeakVT
@gene108: Has it occurred to you that the supply of illegal workers fills a demand for illegal workers, and that we might not be doing the best job of suppressing the demand?
Original Lee
@EconWatcher: Reading the description totally reminds me of Checkpoint Charlie. And not in a good way. Clearly these bozos are only thinking about the impact on non-U.S. citizens; I believe that U.S. citizens would be pretty freaked out if they ever had to cross the border. I would also think there would be a significant negative effect on property values near this monstrosity, but that may be part of the intent – a way to grab some land for cheap.
PsiFighter37
@gene108: As soon as they say something about loonies or ‘eh’, they’d be made.
@Roger Moore: I’d pretty much deport David Brooks to any corner of the earth, as long as it’s not a vacation locale that I’d want to visit in the near or distant future.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
NAFTA has done a lot to improve the Mexican economy; their per-capita GDP has gone up a lot since the 1990s. The biggest problem is that the growth has been very unequal. There have been a lot of new factory jobs, especially in the northern border cities, which have greatly expanded the Mexican middle class. But imports of American corn have devastated small farmers. It’s those out-of-work small farmers who have made a large fraction of the emigrants to the US.
JGabriel
Alex Pareene:
With just a slight rephrasing, and negligible change in meaning, this sentence reveals the essential sadism of the GOP, that is to say:
Mike in NC
I’ve lost count of the number of conservatives who rail against wasteful government spending but who have no problem with pissing away $40B or more to install minefields, belts of barbed wire, and machine gun towers on our borders.
Yatsuno
@Mike in NC: That’s not spending. It’s a security blanket for conservatards.
srv
@Central Planning: If we don’t let all those people in, then they won’t be able to collect food stamps, dummy!
Roger Moore
@Mike in NC:
It’s a Daddy State vs. Mommy State thing. The Daddy State is the part that protects and punishes; the Mommy State is the part that nurtures and develops. As long as the government is doing Daddy State stuff- starting wars, executing people, locking them up, etc., the Conservatives have no problem. It’s only when the Mommy State wants to provide education, health care, parks, etc. that they get upset. They couch it in terms of spending because that’s the way the 1% talks about it, but it’s really about the role of government.
Mike G
Repukes love Big Government when it involves inflicting violence, punishment and coercion, especially on brown people they don’t like. As a bonus this involves giving money to Repuke-oriented corporate interests like gun makers and Repuke-voting cop types and expanding the authoritarian Security State that gives them such a boner.
It’s government that actually helps people they can’t stand.
pokeyblow
@dmbeaster: And it is important to always give the republicans any price they ask, rather than being mean to them or applying any other political pressure.
Kyle
@Mike in NC:
I love getting lectures about fiscal responsibility from people who thought it was “worth it” to piss away over $2 trillion in Iraq.
raven
Read the “Tunnel of Cu Chi” where they dropped mexican bedbugs on the Ho Chi Minh Trail that were glued to a little transmitters and record needles. The theory was that the bedbugs got agitated when Charlie walked by so we could run arc lights on their asses as they “infiltrated”. Of course, they go agitated when ANYTHING happened by so we bombed a lot of critters with no ideology.
eta Damn, I goggled this and got my own post here in 2009!
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
The “border surge” exceeds the annual operating budget of the entire NIH by 7.2 billion dollars.
srv
What if we just dressed Border Patrol folks as Chupacabras?
JPL
The House will gladly spend 38 billion on border security and hand the money over to defense companies who are drooling at the very prospect. They just won’t pass the immigration reform part of the bill. The democrats will stand firm but after MSM accuses them of supporting the terrorist, they will cave. God Bless America but only the United States part of it …
Villago Delenda Est
The IMPORTANT thing with this huge Maginot Line in the desert, as with the boondoggle that is SDI, is that the right Ferengi get the contracts to provide all this shit at cost-plus-plenty-of-hookers-and-blow/booze.
Whether or not it actually accomplishes anything to do with “securing the border” is irrelevant. The important thing is the RIGHT people are gorging themselves at the taxpayer/bondholder trough, not those disgusting poors, particularly the disgusting poors who speak Spanish.
pokeyblow
@JPL: [continuing]…Obama will sign the law, and Balloon-Juice commenters will hurl invective at, and call racist, anyone who questions Obama’s doing so.
raven
Teresa Heinz Kerry is in critical condition.
Villago Delenda Est
@pokeyblow:
In the case of Special Timmeh, such invective is not out of place. He’s made his attitude clear.
The jury is still out on you.
pokeyblow
@Villago Delenda Est: by all means, please give me the rundown on all my racist comments.
Litlebritdifrnt
Ot but required reading. This made me cry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-rural-tennessee-a-new-way-to-help-hungry-children-a-bus-turned-bread-truck/2013/07/06/c93c5eec-e292-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html
I am reminded of Rush Limbaugh’s rant at this time last year when he wondered why the kids out of school and not getting school lunches couldn’t waddle to the cupboard and find a bag of Doritos or perhaps go to the dumpster at the back of McDonalds and find some food.
The right wingers in this country will not be happy until people actually starve to death. Serves them right. They should have pulled themselves up from their bootstraps and all that.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Villago Delenda Est:
Bingo.
Violet
@raven: Goodness. I hope she’s okay. Wonder what happened?
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
Has pokeyblow stopped by to whitesplain how the Senate bill is actually a terrible betrayal of something something and Mexicans would be better off dying in the Arizona desert?
raven
@Violet: hospital spokesman says Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is hospitalized in critical but stable condition in a Nantucket hospital.
Pat Lang has a rant about the yacht affair, may the bitter old motherfucker will chime in on this too.
Violet
@raven: Yes, I saw that. But there’s no info as to what happened to send her to the hospital. Critical but stable is not great, but better than not stable condition.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cacti:
No, as above, the emoprog position is that all the path to citizenship stuff will be removed and only the border security stuff will pass, with the approval of both the Senate and Obama. They’re all living in Mclaren World, with its 3-4 permanent unwinnable wars.
Southern Beale
Holy shit:
pokeyblow
@Cacti: Actually, shithead, immigration issues aren’t my usual “beat.”
I defy you, you miserable punk, to show me a case in which I said anything remotely similar to what you just implied.
Let’s have it, you shit-stirring piece of shit.
JPL
@raven: A friends daughter was in a physical rehab facility and shared a room with a long time Kerry volunteer. It was during the dem convention in Boston and Kerry along with his wife called the older lady. Anyway long story short, the woman told a story about going to their backbay home of the Kerry’s and Teresa taking this person out to her gardens and showing the volunteer, her secret garden. The lady in rehab had been a long time volunteer for community gardens, as well as volunteering in Kerry’s office. Teresa is suppose to be one special lady and I wish her well .
also.. I just let my friend know. The secret garden was Teresa’s place to escape and thought the volunteer would relate to it.
Cacti
@pokeyblow:
And yet, here you are to flap your gums about Obama and the Senate bill.
You don’t like the POTUS. We get it. Not a mystery to anyone.
Do you have anything remotely topical to say, or just the usual emo prog fapping?
pokeyblow
@Cacti: Actually, I’m flapping my gums about the pathetic, dispiriting BJ-commenters’ “oh well, republicans have to get what they want, and we can’t expect Obama to fight them” attitude.
You called me a racist and said I don’t care about people dying in the desert, you fucking asshole. Now back up what you said.
Unless, as everyone knows, you are just a mouthy piece of moldy dogshit.
gogol's wife
@JPL:
I noticed that the one comment on that story was about “Hanoi-John Kerry” spending time on her “$7 million boat!” They only love $7 million boats when Republicans own them. They are such scum.
Cacti
@pokeyblow:
Dislike the commenters here. Not emo-prog enough. Got it.
DU, Firedoglake, and Daily Kos are full of visceral dislike for the POTUS and emo-pants progressivism. Your usual insights would be met with the high fives and amens that you’re obviously not finding here.
pokeyblow
@Cacti: Fuckhead, you called me a racist and said I don’t care about people dying in the desert.
Where is your evidence for that, you little turdworm?
Do you just go around saying random unfounded shit about people?
Are you such a weak, dishonorable piece of subhuman filth that you can’t back up your words with facts?
What a jackoff you are. What a little fucking skidmark.
Now show me why you have grounds to say what you said about me, and watch me apologize. Like a mature adult.
Not an inconsequential piece of gonorrhea-soaked scrotum lint like you.
gogol's wife
OT, a person who is actually standing up for his beliefs and facing a six-year prison term, Aleksei Navalny, has made his final statement in court:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/world/europe/text-of-navalnys-closing-remarks-in-russian-court.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y&
JPL
@gogol’s wife: No kidding and the MSM continues to feed their sick ego. I wonder if David Gregory and the rest have a stash of diapers in their closet. We stand by Vitter but Weiner is bad..
As you can tell I have contempt for all of them .
geg6
@raven: @JPL:
She really is a wonderful and gracious person. Met her a couple of times (once for a scholarship fund raiser and once as a volunteer for her husband). Smart, funny and not at all like she’s been portrayed by the jealous media. I really hope she’ll be okay.
Cacti
@pokeyblow:
You are so interesting.
SiubhanDuinne
@PsiFighter37:
Fixéd.
pokeyblow
@Cacti: So the evidence for what you said about me isn’t forthcoming, is it?
You’re the kind of person who just calls people you don’t know racists, for no reason.
You’re the kind of person who says, about people you don’t know, that they don’t care about other people dying in the desert. Again, you say stuff like that based on nothing.
And when those you’ve insulted demand some evidence, you neither produce that evidence, nor do you apologize.
Sure seems like the way a fucking weaselly shithead acts.
You fucking jagoff.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven: I wish her well.
Cacti
@pokeyblow:
You finished, tiger?
JPL
@geg6: What concerns me is that she hasn’t been transferred to a Boston hospital yet.
pokeyblow
You obviously are, since I’m not the things you called me, you little coward punk piece of vomit.
Edited to add: and therefore you can’t produce shit to back up your lying filthy insults.
Kropadope
@pokeyblow:
Don’t listen to them. I’m sure your opposition to what passes will be determined based on a balanced cost-benefit analysis…
pokeyblow
@Kropadope: I’m not in a good mood, so, what in the fuck does that mean?
And like shitheel Cacti, I’d love for you to produce a quote from me consistent with his accusations; that is, if your weird post is made in his defense.
Kropadope
It means that I believe that you will take on honest look at whatever bill comes to the president’s desk, carefully think about whether the bill can help people and whether it entrenches bad practices. You will then come to a reasoned judgment whether the progress made is sufficient to justify any problems with the bill. After all, you would much rather save half Mexican immigrants from dying due to desert exposure than none at all.
Stillwater
Thanks for this Anne Laurie. I’d completely forgotten about “The Surge” and all the related insanity. It’s a good reminder of just how stupid the politics and policy around Iraq actually was. I’m apparently beginning to forget.
pokeyblow
@Kropadope: I’ve re-read what you wrote, and I’m quite sure it meant, sarcastically, something different.
That said, if there’s a policy here which requires commentary be limited to strict assessments of the costs and benefits of particular bills, to the exclusion of consideration of players’ (e.g., congresspersons’, president’s, lobbyists’, activists’, etc.) motivations for supporting or opposing various bills; and, further, to the exclusion of considering observed consistencies in behavior by those players over time… well, please show me the policy so I can understand it, OK?
That would be helpful, unlike your input so far.
Kropadope
I never said that all commentary needs to be limited to a cost-benefit analysis, I just meant to express my confidence, however poorly founded, that you will make an effort to judge any eventual bill on its merits and won’t rush to judgement based on preconceived notion of the president or the merits of the principle of compromise.
I find your responses very reassuring.
e.a.f.
This is going to be fun! Can you imagine spending all that money to keep people out of the U.S.A. and not enough money for food stamps. those politicians obviously have some problems between their two ears.
If there is an immediate hiring of 20K new “border officers”,its a nice make work project. However, how are they going to do 20K security clearances to make sure they don’t hire crooks? when they went on a mad hiring spree for airport security many of those hired had criminal records. This ought to be fun. The cartels can now ensure some of their people get hired and work from the inside.
If the government was truly concerned about people coming in from the south why don’t they just station army personnel there. It isn’t as if they didn’t have any.
Of course building a fence along Mexico is just a waste of money. People just need a boat and can float in. They can go to Canada and then come in through the vast expanses where no one is.
There are politicians who just want to spend money. Their friends get the contracts to build the fences and everybody goes home happy, except the tax payer. Wouldn’t be a bit surprized if they hired non documented workers to build that wall.
One does have to ask though, if the government was laying off workers on a temp. basis to make budgetary cuts why are they going to spend all that money on a fence and hire 20K workers. Oh, well, next election perhaps the voters will figure it out. In the meantime perhaps the candidate for Montreal’s mayor’s position had it correct, Americans are stupid.
pokeyblow
@Kropadope: Thanks for your opinion. I didn’t ask for it, and I find it neither interesting, nor informative, nor helpful.
Of course, you can feel free to offer me your thoughts anytime. But I hope you don’t.
Kropadope
As far as it being helpful to show you a policy, I don’t know any more than one might know about the various proposals by reading the news. I’m on my cellphone right now, so I’m not going to spend the time digging them up. I obviously have no idea what the final product will be.
As far as the particular policy at issue in this story, I’m not a fan of the idea of severely militarizing our border, but some new technology and personnel certainly couldn’t hurt.
I would point out to the border first crowd that Obama has already done a lot to reduce the flow of new illegal immigrants and has increased deportations, but I don’t for two reasons. The “border-first” people aren’t well represented here and can be pretty intellectually dishonest about what is needed what is already being done.
Mike in NC
@e.a.f.:
Exactly. Plus, I’m pretty sure most US Border Patrol officers are required to be fairly proficient in Spanish for obvious reasons. A great many of them are themselves of Mexican descent.
Is the US Government going to hire 20K new employees and provide them with language training on top of everything else? Apparently wingnuts and Republican US Senators can’t be bothered with such mundane details.
Kropadope
@Mike in NC:
I know what they’ll get behind to solve that inconsistency…better access to higher education. Republicans, the fans of personal responsibilty that they are, will line right up.
mai naem
The assumption is that people still want to come here. Today, I was talking to a Mexican guy who’s got his green card and deciding whether it’s worth it to go ahead and get his American citizenship. He’s thinking of moving back because he actually thinks things are better in Mexico. The only reason he wants to get his American citizenship is because he doesn’t want to get screwed out of his social security benefits down the road which he thinks might happen if he doesn’t get his US citizenship.
Also too, I have relatives who have chosen to move to Australia, NZ and Canada instead of the US because 1/the immigration system here is broken.Who want their life in limbo for 8-12 yrs because the US govt. can’t get their shit together, and 2/ US Healthcare – yeah, people know about the US healthcare system and how it sucks. BTW, these are college educated professionals with money and skills needed by this country.
billB
Out here in Oreeeegon, we have a considerable coastline/border. I can assure you we monitor it closely with old folks walking the dog during the day, and a significant number of teenagers having secret keggers all night.
e.a.f.
@pokeyblow:
the language you are using can be described as simply bad manners. It does nothing to advance your argument. Try again.
e.a.f.
@billB: that should be fun to watch. A jet boat roars up, discharges people, the people run and are picked up by waiting vehicles. So what are old people going to do, pull a George zimmerman. Young people on the beach at night, right I remember those days. Was lucky if we could walk before breakfast. Upp Oregoooon will be well protected. Now lets check the state of Washington.
e.a.f.
@mai naem: Yes the nice thing about all three countries is they do have good health care systems and strict gun controls especially Australia.
The U.S.A. has lost a lot of appeal to immigrants. The medical system isn’t good. The high rate of murder by gun. The education system is some wacky in many states. The lack of control women have over their bodies. Then there is the growing lack of freedom as the result of the Supreme Court decisions.
At one time a lot of those negatives were overlooked because there was an opportunity to make a good living. Those days are over in the U.S.A.
schrodinger's cat
@Redshift: The stupid, it burns. Since we need big government to seal the border.
schrodinger's cat
That’s why people risk their lives to come here across the southern border and many people wait for years in immigration limbo land waiting for their green cards.