PrairiePundit

NY Times: Democrats Agree on Plan to End Government Shutdown Without Wall Funding The spending measures are expected to pass the House, but there is no guarantee the shutdown will soon end given the Senate is still firmly controlled by Republicans. The Democrats do not have the votes for their open borders policy in the Senate and they don't have the votes in the House to override a veto of their nonsensical border security policies.  Their uncompromising position deserves a rebuke.  They are just flat out wrong about a border fence or wall.  I think their real fear is that it will work. The only thing that has changed since they voted to support the fence a few years ago is that illegal immigration has gotten worse and they hate the President more than they care about border security.

Washington Times: Border authorities are referring 50 people a day for urgent medical care, including tuberculosis, flu and even pregnant women about to give birth, a top official said Monday, saying it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. Most of those in need of care are children, and a staggering 28 percent are under age 5, having been dragged along for the trip by parents who in many cases are hoping to use the children as a shield against speedy deportation from the U.S. The numbers were released after a full review was done of all children in custody of Customs and Border Protection in the wake of two illegal immigrant juveniles who died in U.S. hospitals in December. CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said most of those needing help were ill when they arrived at the border, and some appear to have made the initial decision to leave even while ailing. “Many were ill before they departed their homes,” the commissioner said. “We’re talking about cases of pneumonia, t

Washington Examiner: Trump: The country needs a 'slightly larger version' of the 'wall' around Obama's home ... "President and Mrs. Obama built/has a ten foot Wall around their D.C. mansion/compound. I agree, totally necessary for their safety and security. The U.S. needs the same thing, slightly larger version!" Trump tweeted. ... Someone should do a collection of all the Democrat politicians houses with walls and fences around them.

Jack Hellner: Frequently when President Trump says something, the media follow his statements with three words: "with no evidence." For example: He says there are criminals and terrorists in the caravan and they say that he has no evidence, even though there is plenty of evidence from government agencies. Yet when Democrats frequently say walls don't work, I never see the words "with no evidence" following the statement. It appears to me that journalists never seek examples and when they know that barriers do work. For Example: Prisons have walls to keep criminals in and unwanted people out.  Lawmakers make laws to require fences around pools (on penalty of civil liability) to make them safe. Why would they do that if barriers don't work? Forts have walls and gates.  Gated communities have barriers to keep unwanted people out. Many of the rich who have barriers protecting their homes pretend they are welcoming to all.  The White House has a fence.

NewsBusters: On Friday morning, CNN correspondent Dan Simon surprisingly admitted that U.S. law has sent the message to Central Americans that it is a good idea to bring childen with them to the country because it increases their chances of being able to stay, citing the mother of eight-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo, who recently died of the flu in Border Patrol custody. Between 4:08 a.m, and 9:03 a.m. Eastern, Simon appeared four times and recalled that Alonzo's mother had recently been interviewed by Reuters. In one appearance, he recounted: We are getting a better understanding of why this father and this son made this entry into the United States. The mother spoke to Reuters, and one of the things she told them is that they were under the impression that if you travel with a child, you have a better chance of gaining entry into the country. She says she was essentially encouraged by neighbors to do this. He then repeated a quote she gave to Reuters: "'Lots of

Abigail Marone: Much to the chagrin of carbon tax-pushing swamp dwellers, American voters have consistently rejected the tax and the politicians who support it. But carbon tax lovers won’t quit trying to repackage the same awful policy. The carbon tax is an all-encompassing tax that will massively expand the tentacles of the federal government while sending the cost of living soaring. Republicans, for their own good and ours, ought to stay away from carbon tax proposals. Carbon taxes are basically a tax on your daily existence. They make everything more costly and will hit low-income families and small businesses the hardest. On a day-to-day basis, people rely on energy for transportation to work or school, to heat their homes, and to conduct other basic functions of daily life. A carbon tax makes all of that more expensive — in some cases, prohibitively expensive. For example, a Canadian school district was forced to end school bus service for 400 kids thanks to a carbon tax. It c

Red States: Maybe they’re on to something. ICE has released 1,600 migrants into the El Paso, Texas area and city officials aren’t too happy about it. Not even a little bit. They warn of a looming ‘crisis.’ Officials told CBS News that charities and non-profits are being “strained .” CBS writes: The incoming congresswoman of the Texas border city of El Paso is warning of an imminent ‘crisis’ as local officials and charities scramble to accommodate at least 1,600 migrants dropped off there by federal authorities in recent days. ” “We have these teams coming in to play in our Sun Bowl this weekend and the hotels are booked,” said incoming Democratic congresswoman Veronica Escobar. “We’re facing a real crisis coming up … to find places for all of these (migrant) families.” In an official statement, ICE said they were “forced to release the migrants to comply with a federal “timeframe” dictating the duration a family could be detained by federal authorities.” Department of Homela

Washington Times: The iconic photograph of a 2-year-old Honduran girl crying as her mother is questioned by a U.S. Border Patrol agent reached the cover of Time magazine before it was revealed that the toddler wasn’t caught up in President Trump’s zero-tolerance border policy and wasn’t separated from her family. For the White House, the misrepresentation of the photo and its use on the magazine cover with Mr. Trump staring down at the child is one of this year’s most egregious examples of “fake news” that Trump officials say is intentionally used to try to take down the president. The widely published photograph tops a long list of news items during the past two years that damaged the Trump administration before being retracted, corrected or otherwise proved false. Fake news appears to be everywhere and, contrary to denials by TV news anchors and White House correspondents, media watchdogs say the problem is real. American University communications professor Richard Benedett

NY Times: A Day, a Life: When a Medic Was Killed in Gaza, Was It an Accident? When an Israeli soldier killed Rouzan al-Najjar, Palestinians called her an innocent martyr. Israel portrayed her as a threat. The truth is more complicated. I don't know of any troops who deliberately fire into the ground with the intent to kill someone.  It would not surprise me that in Gaza the Palestinians put someone deliberately in a position where they might be killed while to cover for terrorist operations.

Daniel Sobieski: When talking about immigration, Democrats like to conflate illegal and legal immigration, dropping the word “illegal” and spouting meaningless babble about no human being illegal. They like to preach that illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than American citizens, a factoid that has been exposed as a lie . The murder of legal immigrant and Newman Police Corporal Ronil Singh on Christmas night by an illegal alien in the sanctuary state of California shows not only that the claims by Chuck Schumer and the “bride of Chucky” Nancy Pelosi that the Democrats support border security is a deadly and bald-faced lie. It highlights the difference between legal and illegal immigrants, between those who love America and want to be Americans and those who murder them. Pelosi and Schumer like to talk about the “Dreamers.” Well, Ronil Singh had dreams, too .... And now he is dead. The blood of Kate Steinle , Mollie Tibbetts, and now Ronil Singh and others is on

NBC News: President Donald Trump on Saturday tried to deny that his administration bears any blame for the deaths of children detained trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, even as his Homeland Security secretary was traveling in Arizona to meet with medical staff. Trump tweeted Saturday that any deaths are "strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally." It marked his first public comments following the Christmas Eve death of 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo, the second Guatemalan child to die in government custody in three weeks. Trump is claiming the "children in question were very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol." ... Who would be held responsible for similar deaths if the child had been born in the US and his parents dragged him on a perilous long distance journey through harsh terrain?   Would the parent be prosecuted for c

Alan Dershowitz: Ever since former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn was arrested for lying to FBI agents, I have argued that he had a strong defense to that charge: namely, that his lies were not material because the FBI questioned him for an illegitimate purpose — to give him an opportunity to lie, rather than to obtain information it did not already have. The question posed by the Flynn case is whether a lie can be material if the FBI already had indisputable evidence of the truthful answer and asked him the question for the sole purpose of giving him an opportunity to lie. As a civil libertarian, I believe the answer should be “No.” The proper function of an FBI or a grand jury interrogation is to obtain information they do not already have, and not to create a new crime by giving the suspect the opportunity to pass or fail a morality test with criminal consequences. Related to materiality is the claim that a suspect cannot be convicted if the question was not wit

Alex Parker: Due to implications and accusations of anti-Semitism ( here , here , and here ) — and a resultant spinoff ( here ) — the Women’s March has been in the news a fair amount lately. And the countdown’s begun to January 19th’s march on Washington. As the official website boasts, “#WomensWave is coming.” To that, I say: What the heck are you doing? After the election of Donald J. Trump — a lifelong Democrat and media darling who added an “R” to his name and, in a matter of months, magically became Lucifer, thanks to an unprecedented left-wing smear machine — Democrats lost their minds. As a result, a bunch of female Dems got together and wore pink hats. I salute the vendors savvy enough to capitalize on the kitty-eared beanie craze; surely somebody made a hefty sum. The ladies crowded together and screamed that…uh…they were ladies. Celebrities got onstage and said ridiculous things. People decried the election. Conservatives were not welcome; and yet, the women seemed so delus

Thomas Lifson: President Trump took a brilliant, gutsy step in confronting China over its parasitic trade strategy, and the signs today are unmistakable that he made the right call. Consider two developments in the last few days. China's principal stock market in Shanghai has closed out 2018 with the world's worst decline. The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong reports: Shanghai's stock benchmark ended 2018 as the world's worst market performer for a second year, falling 24.6 per cent over 12 months as an unprecedented trade war between China and the United States weighed on the Chinese economy and crimped corporate earnings. The city's key stock index closed the year at 2,493.90, while the benchmark on the smaller Shenzhen bourse fell 33.2 per cent during the period to 1,267.87. The combined capitalisation of the two exchanges fell by US$2.4 trillion to 43.3 trillion yuan (US$6.3 trillion) during the year, overtaken by Tokyo as Asia's largest e

Paul Bedard: Most Americans believe that illegal immigration is a problem but are split over what to do about it, according to a new survey. The latest Economist/YouGov.com poll found that 84 percent believe illegal immigration is a “problem” for the United States. And of that, 58 percent called it a “somewhat serious” to “very serious problem.” Another 26 percent called it a "minor probem," and only 10 percent said illegal immigration is "not a problem" ... Republicans hold an edge as the party most trusted with handling border security, 31 percent to 26 percent for Democrats. ... The Democrats have no serious plan for dealing with border security.  They hate the wall because Trump is for it.  Their proposed alternative measures to the extent they have any at all would be ineffective and require much greater manpower on the border than a fence would.  I get the impression that Democrat politicians are just going through the motions of supporting border secur

James T. Conway and Michelle J. Howard: Comment: EV leadership key to countering Saudi oil weapon This piece attempts to make the case for electric vehicles.  I think it falls short in several respects.  OPEC and the Saudis have significantly less impact on oil prices than they did before they attempting the kill the shale revolution with predatory pricing.  That moved backfired spectacularly.  The shale oil producers got more efficient and eventually cut their production costs below that of OPEC countries in many cases. The US is now the biggest oil producer in the world and that will grow even more when infrastructure projects to get that oil the markets and ports are in place in the coming year.  The main reason the US is still importing some oil is that refineries were developed to handle the heavy crude coming from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.  The oil from the shale wells is light crude.  If refineries were switched over to handle that oil, the US would be energy sufficient i

Chriss Street: The nonpartisan OpenSecrets website that tracks political spending revealed that Wall Street Democrats crushed Main Street Republicans in 2018 midterm fundraising by $385.4 million. Final campaign filing reports demonstrate that 1,435,474, or about only 1 out of every 221 of America's 321,418,820 residents, made a reportable contribution of $200 or more to a candidate or political action committee in the 2017-2018 federal election cycle. But this tiny 0.45-percent sliver of the American population accounted for $3,825.3 billion, or 71.1 percent of the $5.2 billion in 2017-2018 reportable contributions. Democrats also beat Republicans in the number of total contributors to their candidates and in every other major category of fat-cat giving. The concept of individual donors giving to both parties is essentially dead, with only 7,349 donors nationwide giving at least 33 percent of their contributions to candidates from both parties. That works out to about 1

Legal Insurrection: As part of the continuing battle to neutralize Hezbollah attack tunnels dug from southern Lebanon into northern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces has release a lot of interesting graphics, images and video. ... Video of tunnels being blown up is dramatic, but it destroys the evidence of the location of the source of the tunnel on the Lebanese side of the border. So Israel came up with a solution. It began to pump large volumes of concrete slurry into the tunnels, and then waited to see where it came out on the other side. Ynet News  reports on the results: The IDF flooded with cement and water the Hezbollah tunnels, which appear to have been dug from residential houses in Lebanese villages, as the Shi’ite terror group scrambles to salvage what’s left of their strategic assets. The tunnels near the northern city of Metula were deliberately filled with large quantities of water and construction substances such as cement and bentonite, in order to not

Julie Kelly: While the president worked during the holidays—including surprise trips with the first lady to greet U.S. troops in Iraq and Germany—anti-Trump “conservatives” worked hard on their laptops to warn Americans of impending doom for Trump’s presidency. Again. In an uncharitable Christmas Day screed , National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg served up some flashbacks from his NeverTrump past to yet again warn that Trump’s presidency will “end poorly.” Goldberg again condemned Trump for his lack of character; again blasted Trump supporters for emulating his bellicose style; and again unleashed a litany of alleged offenses—such as the president’s “rants against the 1st Amendment”—as evidence of why Donald Trump is, like, the worst president ever. Goldberg is lashing out lately: From his borderline-misogynistic diatribe against a female journalist who outed National Review for accepting donations from Google while possibly suppressing negative stories about the tech giant,

KTVU: The suspect accused of killing a California police officer the day after Christmas was arrested on Friday, along with his brother, co-worker and three other alleged accomplices, capping a two-day manhunt and providing a platform for the Stanislaus County Sheriff to rip into California's sanctuary laws. Those identified in connection with the shooting death of 33-year-old Newman Police Cpl. Ronil Singh are: Gustavo Perez Arriaga, who turned 32 on Friday; his brother, Adrian Virgen, 25; and co-worker Erik Razo Quiroz, 32. All are undocumented, Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said at a Friday news conference in Modesto, Calif. Early Wednesday morning, Singh, a narcotics officer with the canine unit, was shot to death outside a market when he pulled over a driver suspected of drunk driving. That man, now identified as Arriaga, took off and was at large until his capture Friday morning. Why Arriaga allegedly shot Singh is unclear, but the sheriff said that Arriag

The Drive: U.S. Army personnel at Fort Bliss in Texas are conducting a limited user trial of the service’s new 7.62x51mm Squad Designated Marksman Rifle, or SDM-R. This is the latest in a series of efforts to give individual infantry squads, as well as scout and combat engineering units, the ability to more precisely engage targets at longer distances. The service revealed the ongoing evaluations on Dec. 27, 2018, in a year-end wrap-up of developments associated with its new Futures Command, which includes a team dedicated to improving the lethality of individual soldiers. The first batch of nearly 120 rifles had gone to the 82nd Airborne Division and other select units in September 2018. “The Army's current rifle technology is most effective below the 300-meter [nearly 330 yards] range,” U.S. Army Captain Weston Goodrich, the Assistant Program Manager for Soldier Weapons at the Program Executive Office Soldier, said in an official interview in June 2018 . Trained snipers, h

Texas Tribune: In South Korea’s largest shipyard, thousands of workers in yellow hard hats move ceaselessly between towering cranes lifting hulks of steel. They look like a hive of bees scurrying over a massive circuit board as they weld together the latest additions to the rapidly growing fleet of tankers carrying super-chilled liquefied natural gas across the world’s oceans. The boom in fossil-fuel production in the United States has been matched by a rush on the other side of the Pacific to build the infrastructure needed to respond to the seemingly unquenchable thirst for energy among Asia’s top economies. When Congress lifted 40-year-old restrictions on shipping crude oil overseas in 2015, soon after the Obama administration opened the doors for international sales of natural gas, even the most boosterish of Texas oil men wouldn’t have predicted the U.S. could become one of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel exporters so quickly. Climate experts say there is little doubt increa

Buzz Feed: Last week the New York Times revealed that money from tech billionaire Reid Hoffman was used to run a small disinformation “experiment” aimed at helping Democrat Doug Jones win last year’s Alabama special Senate election. That resulted in Facebook suspending five accounts and Hoffman issuing an apology . But left unmentioned in the Times story was that one of its authors learned about the Alabama campaign when he spoke at an off-the-record meeting organized by the same group who ran the operation. A copy of a confidential report about the Alabama effort, obtained by BuzzFeed News, raises new questions about whether the project was — as the Times said — an “experiment,” or whether it was a straightforward Democratic attempt to replicate the model of the Russian Internet Research Agency. Scott Shane , a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times national security reporter, was one of a handful of speakers at a meeting held in Washington in early September by American Engagem

CNN: MAGA hat and campaign rhetoric cast cloud over Trump's Iraq visit Everyday Trump is President is a cloudy day for CNN.  There is nothing improper about the troops liking their Commander in Cheif or asking him to sign hats.  The media is exposing its bias with this type of story.

Washington Post: Homicides have soared in Baltimore — and arrests have plummeted — since the death of Freddie Gray Police and community leaders say the issue has roots in the deep distrust stoked by Gray’s death and in caseloads that are overwhelming. City officials in Baltimore reacted to the Freddie Gray situation with emotion rather than intelligence.  They thought the problem was the police and not the criminals.  They wound up with more crime and more homicides by pulling back the cops from the neighborhoods that needed policing the most. The way to reduce the killing requires increase police presence.  You have to increase the force to space ratio in those neighborhoods to deter criminal activity.  While some in those neighborhoods may resent the police presence, it is better than being dead.   Community policing is far superior to out of control homicides.

Jeff Dunetz: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents are calling for medical help from the CDC, Coast Guard, and the Pentagon to screen illegal immigrants and they’ve asked American and Mexican disease specialists to investigate the surge of sick migrants caught at the border after another illegal immigrant child died in U.S. custody. None of those steps will solve the illegal alien health crisis that few people are talking about. ... A DHS official told reporters that “literally dozens” of sick migrants are being transported to hospitals across the border each day and that growing numbers of children showing illness are present in border patrol custody. Given their young age, children will be most susceptible to disease. Anyone who has been a teacher or a parent knows that young children can be like little petri dishes when it comes to some illnesses. ... It does not help that these kids have been kept in unsanitary conditions while making their trek through Mexico. 

Washington Examiner: A huge majority of the Republican Party supports President Trump's handling of the partial government shutdown , according to a Huffington Post/YouGov poll released Thursday. The poll reveals some deep divisions between Republican and Democratic voters. A total of 84 percent of Republicans — 64 percent of whom strongly approve and 20 percent who somewhat approve — support Trump's refusal to accept a funding bill that does not include more than $5 billion for enhancing security operations at the U.S.-Mexico border. The gap is reversed on the other side, with 87 percent of Democrats unhappy with the Republican president's behavior, according to the Dec. 22-23 poll of U.S. citizens. [New: Trump threatens southern border closure amid partial government shutdown ] Overwhelming support for one's party also exists among Democratic poll respondents who say members of their party have properly handled the shutdown, now in its sixth day. While 69 percent o

Washington Times: For years, climate prognosticators have warned that human-caused global warming is fueling catastrophic sea-level rise, but now climatologist Judith Curry is rocking their boat. In her latest paper, Ms. Curry found that the current rising sea levels are not abnormal, nor can they be pinned on human-caused climate change, arguing that the oceans have been on a “slow creep” for the last 150 years — before the post-1950 climb in carbon-dioxide emissions. “There are numerous reasons to think that projections of 21st-century sea level rise from human-caused global warming are too high, and some of the worst-case scenarios strain credulity,” the 80-page report found. Her Nov. 25 report, “Sea Level and Climate Change,” which has been submitted for publication, also found that sea levels were actually higher in some regions during the Holocene Climate Optimum — about 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. “After several centuries of sea level decline following the Medieval Warm

NeonNettle: Thousands of German citizens have demonstrated against Angela Merkel'smass migration and open borders policy by flooding the streets following the recent stabbing death of a German man by a migrant. The death of 35-year-old Daniel Hillig, a local carpenter who leaves behind a widow, migrants from Syria and Iraq were apprehended. Last week, Neon Nettle reported that another migrant in Germany, who was suspected of committing hundreds of crimes, was left to roam the street after Angela Merkel's government admitted they do not have the power to deport him. ... The backlash has been on-going and growing over the past week, with thousands of Germans marching in the streets, calling for Angela Merkel's resignation and blasting the "Lügenpresse" for not reporting the truth about how migration is radically transforming Germany. ... There is more. Apparently, the local government is also attempting to downplay the public anger of what they call &q

USA Today: California authorities are searching for a man who killed a small-town police officer the day after Christmas, a manhunt that prompted a tweet on Thursday from President Donald Trump. Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said Thursday they have identified the suspect who fatally shot Newman Police Department Cpl. Ronil Singh during a traffic stop, saying the man is living illegally in the United States but not naming him. "We will relentlessly continue to hunt our suspect down and bring him to justice so that ... we can bring closure onto this community and this police department," Christianson said. “This suspect is in our country illegally. He doesn’t belong here. He is a criminal." On Twitter, Trump connected the "full scale manhunt going on in California for an illegal immigrant accused of shooting and killing a police officer" to his call for a crackdown on border security as a partial government shutdown over funding for a wall along

Times: Kurdish militias have asked President Assad’s forces to enter territory they control to defend against an imminent Turkish offensive in northern Syria. It marks a major turning point in the conflict as President Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria forces a realignment of alliances between the country’s myriad factions and a scramble for territory and influence. In a statement this morning the Syrian army claimed that it had entered the strategic town of Manbij, bringing it back under the control of Damascus for the first time since July 2012. The Syrian flag was reportedly to have been raised over the town. “Responding to the calls of people in Manbij, and regarding the full commitment of the Syrian Army to its national responsibilities… ... It is becoming more obvious every day that Turkey has no real interest in going after the remnants of ISIS.  Their goal all along is a genocidal attack on the Kurds who have been doing the heavy lifting in the fight aga

Washington Post: Disinformation targeting Roy Moore’s Senate bid may have broken the law, Ala. attorney general says The attorney general said his office is exploring the disinformation campaign deployed against Moore, a Republican, and said he was worried that the operation could have affected the closely fought race. It should be against the law to engage in clearly fraudulent campaign practices.  This is very different than campaign promises.  It involved allegations that were clearly false and intended to influence the election.  It is election theft by false pretexts.

Jim Hanson: The Washington Post has caused itself a major scandal since it has come to light they and their martyred “reformer” Jamal Khashoggi were publishing anti-Saudi propaganda for Qatar. They tried to bury this in a pre-Christmas Saturday news dump, but that can’t stop the damage this will do to their reputation. “Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post , proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government,” the Post wrote December 21. The Post says they were unaware of this, although Khashoggi’s Qatar connections were well known. They will have to answer for what is either incompetence in connecting these dots or simply not caring as Khashoggi’s attacks on President Trump and the Saudis fit right in with their narrative. The Qatar Foundation denies they were paying hi

Joe Concha: Forget bias. Forget animus. Forget missing a self-awareness gene. And forget attempts to outdo yesterday's hyperbole with uber-hyperbole. Because, when it comes to coverage of the Trump administration and the figure at the top of it, what many in our media have become is utterly, tediously predictable. Exhibit A this week is the president's surprise visit to troops in Iraq. Leading up to it was a story by NBC News that went viral, declaring that Trump would be the first commander in chief since 2002 to forego the presidential tradition of visiting troops at Christmastime. The story was picked up by dozens of news organizations, including this one. ... First lady Melania Trump broke with tradition and joined the president on the visit to Iraq and later Germany. A first lady has not visited a war zone since Lady Bird Johnson in South Vietnam in 1969. The usual suspects, including actress and progressive activist Alyssa Milano, jumped on board, eventually promp

Washington Times: President Trump’s lawyer Rudolph Giuliani said in an interview published Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller should be investigated over the disappearance of text messages sent by Peter Strzok, a former FBI official removed from Mr. Mueller’s probe into the 2016 presidential election over remarks he made during the race disparaging of Mr. Trump. “Mueller should be investigated for destruction of evidence for allowing those text messages from Strzok to be erased, messages that would show the state of mind and tactics of his lead anti-Trump FBI agent at the start of his probe,” Mr. Giuliani told The Hill. “That should be investigated, damn it, that should be investigated fully. You want a special counsel, get one for that,” Mr. Giuliani said, The Hill reported. Mr. Strzok, 48, a former counterintelligence official, participated in the special counsel’s investigation into the 2016 election prior to being removed in July 2017 over the discovery of text me

Mark Hewitt: In 2011, the Department of Homeland Security canceled a project to build a technology-based “ virtual fence ” across the Southwest border, saying that the effort on which $1 billion had already been spent was ineffective and too costly. Politicians who funded billions of dollars of “detection technologies” didn’t listen to U.S. Border Patrol, which tried to explain that detection of illegal aliens and smugglers is not the problem along the border but stopping them from crossing is. Virtual or electronic walls are not deterrents, they are detection capabilities and don’t contribute anything to deterrence. Real walls are deterrents and are the only thing that really work to deter and prevent illegal border crossings. There are long histories that hard fencing initiatives, from the Great Wall of China to T-walls (or Bremer barriers) that protected U.S. troops in Iraq, work and work well. Hard border strategic fencing initiatives such as Operation Gatekeeper , Operatio