The Morning Report - 12/24/18

Good Christmas Eve morning kids. I'll attempt to be brief but we all know that that always seems to go south no matter what I do. In any case, as we head into the final week of 2018, the big stories are the so-called "government shutdown" as well as the departure of Secretary Mattis from the DoD over disagreement about the President's withdrawal from Syria and the Democrat-Left-Media complex's complete hypocrisy and obfuscation of facts about all of the aforementioned.

First up, the President and the Dems are at an impasse vis a vis the $5.7 billion in funding for the Border Wall and border security overall. The latter have dug in their heels despite the former having supposedly sent a proposed compromise involving less money and a different design (slatted steel sections as opposed to solid concrete). Some might still be freaking out that this signals a caving in from the President. I think it's a tactic knowing full well that the Democrats cannot under any circumstances give in. They have painted Trump as a combination tyrant/tantrum-throwing toddler. And 25th amendment talk is rearing its head again.

In any case, as we all know $5.7 billion dollars isn't even a rounding error in a $4 TRILLION dollar budget (.007%). And there are a couple of links that show the utter wastage of your hard earned taxes on all kinds of boondoggles, lucre and welfare that are greater by orders of magnitude than the wall. But, it's politics; the politics of the personal vis a vis opposing the will of the people and the mandate given to this President as well as the fact that a wall plus actual enforcement of our immigration laws is poison to the future growth and accrual of power of the Democrat-Left and the concomitant destruction of America as founded. And that cannot stand.

Also, a Honduran illegal alien used his Nancy Palsi-attributed spark of humanity to sexually abuse a 4-year-old girl and the Leftists are now calling on Hawaiian Judge Buch M. Danno to order a halt to the administration's policy of keeping potential asylum seekers on the Mexican side of the border. Lastly, Ol' Yeller (aka Mark Levin) puts all of it into a political/historical context as only he can - mostly with volume, NTTAWWT.

The other big story involves the surprise resignation of James "Mad Dog" Mattis as Secretary of Defense last week, which was supposed to be effective as of February. But the public and somewhat contentious nature of his exit, made all the more dramatic in the media has irritated the President and he has in effect now fired him as of January 1st, replacing him with second in command Patrick Shanahan. A few angles to explore here. First up is Mattis' departure/dismissal. The Democrat-Media-Complex is beside itself, conveniently forgetting that Obama fired Mattis as chief of CENTCOM because of his ripping the jug-eared Wookie-tamer's Iran insanity. As one of the links points out, Mattis and Trump disagree on strategy and tactics, while Obama and Mattis disagreed on policy and consequences. Remember all the media geschrei over Obama kicking Mad Dog to the curb? Funny, neither do I.

In the real world, my general feeling is that it seems to be a sound decision. We only have a couple thousand troops there anyway and again, the key question is what are our long-term goals there, what does "victory" look like and how do we really achieve anything remotely resembling that? That said, when Rachel Maddow is the new face of "neo-con," then I know it's the right move to bug out. And I'm in good company with the likes of Mollie Hemingway, Daniel Greenfield and others on this. I include a couple of links with the contrary position for your consideration as well.

Dang. Just lost the rest of this post and by the time I try to rewrite it from memory, New Years will have come and gone. In any case, just peruse the headlines and you'll see what's what.

Wishing all of you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a blessed holiday. Peace.

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

BORDER WALL, MIGRANT INVASION, AMNESTY, IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY

• DoJ: Illegal Alien from Honduras "Started Sexually Abusing Jane Doe When She Was 4 Years Old"
  
• US Government Wasted Billions Rerouting Boston Highway, Bailing Out GM and Other Boondoggles Than $5.7 Billion Requested For Border Wall
  
• Feds Spent More in 1 Month on Food Stamps Than Trump Wants for Year on Wall
  
• Trump Opponents Plan to Fight New "Remain In Mexico" Asylum-Seeker Policy
  
• Trump Insists on Steel Slatted Fence with Funding Counteroffer to Dems
  
• Levin: Here's Just How Little Influence "We the People" Have Had on Immigration Policy

  POLITICS, GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN THEATRE
  

• Mick Mulvaney Says "Very Possible" Partial Government Shutdown Could Last Way Longer Than Expected; Blames Nancy Palsi
  
• Schemer to Trump: "If You Want to Open the Government, You Must Abandon the Wall, Plain and Simple"
  
• Rabbi Fischer: Let the Government Shutdown - the Trump Filibuster - Last a Full Year or More
  
• Krispy Kreosote Christie: Trump Like "72-Year-Old Relative" Convinced He's Right"
  
• Black: The President's Enemies and Their Confected Drama
  
• Merkley Affirms Democrats Will Not Agree to Any New Funding for Border Wall
  
• Julian Castro Admits He'd Pull Troops Out of Syria After Blasting "Erratic" Trump
  
• What to Expect from a Kamala-Toe Presidency (marginally more attractive Michelle Obama - jjs)
  
• A Stooge Leaves Congress: Paul Ryno's Career in Perspective
  
• Justice Ginsburg's Failing Health

  FIRST AMENDMENT, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS
  

• ACLU Defends Traitor Manning But Silent About FBI Raid Against Reported Clinton Whistleblower
  
• The US Media's Hypocrisy with the World's Largest Jailer of Journalists
  
• Did the Media Care When Obama Fired General Mattis?
  
• Twitter Warns Jamie Glazov His New Book Violates Pakistan's Blasphemy Law
  
• After One More Patreon Ban, Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin Are Starting Their Own
  
• Battle Over the Anti Israel Boycott Act

  SPYGATE, MUELLER WITCH HUNT, DEEP STATE, COUP
  

• SCOTUS Intervenes In Apparent Mystery Mueller Case
  
• James Comey: "There's No Deep State" (now that it's in our faces, sure - jjs)
  
• V.D. Hanson: The Neverending, Mysterious Saga of Michael Flynn
  
• The Most Important Thing About Michael Flynn Is Not His Guilt, But His Politicized Prosecution

  FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
  

• Volcaono-Induced Tsunami Slams Indonesia, Kills 200
  
• Greenfield: Withdrawing from Syria Implements the Trump Doctrine
  
• Trump's "Victory" in Syria and Shameful Betrayal of the Kurds
  
• Saudi Arabia and UAE sending troops to help Kurds in Syria
  
• Are There Any "Good Guys" Left in Syria?
  
• Hemingway: Trump's Syria Withdrawal Policy Is Correct, But Communicated Horribly
  
• Argentine Prexy, Trump Ally, Persists with Shaky "Path to Change" a Year Before Election
  
• Third Canuck Detained in China as Legal Case of "Communist Princess" Continues
  
• Egypt's Christians Struggle to Rebuild Churches Despite 2016 Reform Law

  DEFENSE, MILITARY, SECURITY AFFAIRS
  

• Patrick M. Shanahan Named New Secretary of Defense
  
• Trump, Irritated By Resignation Letter, Pushes Mattis Out Early

  ISLAM, TERRORISM, SHARIA, DHIMMITUDE
  

• Hamas Tunnel Engineer Digging Under His House Killed in Tunnel Collapse
  
• ISIS Threat Depicts Vehicular Attack on Santa

  DOMESTIC AFFAIRS
  

• "It's Persecution": Bundy Attorney Calls on Fed Prosecutors to Drop Appeal in Standoff Case
  
• Seattle Under Siege
  
• New York's Growing Free-Rider Problem

  THE ECONOMY, STUPID
  

• Help Wanted: More Employers Looking for People Than People Looking for Jobs
  
• Billionaire Class Enjoys 15X the Wage Growth of American Working Class (legalize 25 million illegals and that will seen like chump change - jjs)
  
• The Miracle of $2 Gas Prices

  CHURCH SEX ABUSE SCANDAL, COVER UP
  

• Ticking Time Bombs in the Church

  HEALTHCARE
  

• Florida Confirms First Case of Rare, Polio-Like Illness in 2018 (gotta be Miami-Dade, Palm Beach or Broward - jjs)
  
• State Auditor Again Criticizes Louisiana Department of Health's Medicaid Eligibility Verification
  
• Cabinet Secretaries: Third-Party Payers Distort Health Market

  EDUCATION, INDOCTRINATION
  

• Chicago Teacher's Union President Slapped for Threatening Workers

  RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE, LYSENKOISM
  

• Denver Officials Considering Ban on Plastic Bags
  
• Who Will Own the Oil Fields?

  CULTURE WARS, HITHER & YON
  

• Good Roger Simon: Academy Favorite Vice Distorts History of Iraq War (it wouldn't be an Academy favorite if it didn't - jjs)
  
• The War on Christmas

posted by at 08:05 AM

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