Obama Administration Claims It Hasn't Yet Decided on Mega Amnesty;
Leaked Doc Shows Dozens of People from Ebola-Infected Countries Sneaking Across US' Southern Border

I think these two stories are related.

In the 1950s, British PM Harold MacMillan was asked what could derail his government's agenda. He famously answered, "Why, events, dear boy. Events."

The right has long argued that border control is important for national security reasons; occasionally, as dangerous infections diseases break out around the world, we've added that concept to the national-security argument.

Obama, meanwhile, is permitting a border surge to continue, not only failing to oppose it, but actively assisting it.

What might destroy the public's apparent willingness for a mass-amnesty?

Why, events, dear boy, events.

What if what "rightwing paranoids' paranoid fears" turn out to be right, and we do have a couple of ebola outbreaks traced to border-crossers?

What becomes of the Democrats' election hopes then?

Perhaps for that reason -- that events, dear boy, events could derail the Democrats catastrophically -- the Obama Administration is insisting that it has not yet made any decisions on its threatened, and much anticipated (for good and for ill) mass executive amnesty.

And they might have reports like this in mind.

This report covers a period of time from 2010-2014 -- it is mostly about the period before the recent outbreaks of Ebola.

However, there is no reason to suspect that people from Ebola-stricken countries have stopped trying to the enter the US through the sudden border, either.

And note that they provide the numbers for those crossing the border just in this past year (January to June 2014).

The report reveals the apprehension numbers ranging from 2010 through July 2014. It shows that most of the human smuggling from Syria and Albania into the U.S. comes through Central America. The report also indicates the routes individuals from North Africa and the Middle East take into the European Union, either to illegally migrate there or as a possible stop in their journey to the United States. The data are broken down further into the specific U.S. border sectors where the apprehensions and contact occurred.

Among the significant revelations are that individuals from nations currently suffering from the world’s largest Ebola outbreak have been caught attempting to sneak across the porous U.S. border into the interior of the United States. At least 71 individuals from the three nations affected by the current Ebola outbreak have either turned themselves in or been caught attempting to illegally enter the U.S. by U.S. authorities between January 2014 and July 2014.

I think those 71 came via a variety of ways (not necessarily the southern border), but then, the southern border is flagged as the most employed pathway.

Meanwhile, the State of the Union is Nervous.

Mount Sinai Hospital is performing tests on a patient who had recently traveled to a West African country where Ebola has been reported, the hospital says.

A male patient with high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms came to the hospital's emergency room on Monday morning, officials said.

The hospital says the patient has been placed in strict isolation and is undergoing medical screenings to determine the cause of his symptoms.

...

Mt. Sinai is following what the Center for Disease Control recommended last week when they sent a Health Alert to doctors and hospitals.

It should be noted that his symptoms are consistent with Ebola -- but also consistent with a hundred other ailments, too, and that this isn't anything like a confirmed Ebola case yet.

It's just a worry, at the moment.

By the way: People are pretty stupid with this kind of thing.

Obviously having a porous border increases the risk of a foreign communicable disease spreading here, whether that risk becomes a genuine fact or not.

But if it doesn't happen, people crudely assume, "Oh, the risk was 0% then, and all those people saying it was a risk were just silly."

Nope! The risk might have been 30%, and maybe we just dodged a bullet.

When the risk becomes reality, people do the opposite Dumb Math ("Oh, the risk was 100%.")

So both parties are prisoners here to People Who Don't Understand Risk or Math.

However, it remains true whether Ebola breaks out in the US or not: By not controlling the border, we are in fact increasing the risk of this eventuality.

Say... Fox's Ed Henry asks why Obama did not pass Comprehensive Amnesty when he owned Congress for a full term -- and when he promised to pass it within his first year of office.

Josh Earnest babbles something incoherently and then says THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

No Ebola in NY: The Mount Sinai case, NYC health officials say, was a false alarm:

posted by Ace at 05:55 PM

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