Immigration is broken, we hear you. How does twice as much sound?
Weekly News Roundup – 18 Aug 2024
This Week’s News
When is a “czar” not a “czar?”
The press continues its efforts to show that who it favors matters more than doing its job. Kamala has benefited from fawning coverage while at the same time not having to answer any difficult questions from the press for two reasons:
The press doesn’t want to risk its preferred candidate saying something stupid, and
The campaign doesn’t want to risk its candidate saying something stupid.
Since both the Democratic campaign and the press agree that she should be president, it’s in everyone’s interest to have her repeat the Biden campaign strategy of 2020 and just hide until the election is over.
One of the most blatant examples of the coordinated effort of the press and Harris’ campaign is in the approach being taken to “accusations” that she failed as the “border czar.” Since it would be difficult to impossible to claim that the Biden/Harris administration has successfully managed the border crisis, the Harris campaign, with assistance from the Biden Press Secretary and the press, has instead chosen to deny she was ever the “czar.” Part of this effort relies on the press and government removing old stories and documents that refer to Harris as the “czar.” It has gotten so bad that The Heritage Foundation, “a conservative think tank is demanding the Department of Homeland Security produce documents that refer to Vice President Kamala Harris as ’border czar.’"
For we mere mortals it is difficult to find proof that President Biden did in fact task Harris with leading “the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge,” but it can be found. Here is an article from March 24, 2021 in which Biden stated: “When she speaks, she speaks for me.” While in a separate article a senior administration official stated the VP’s role would “focus on ‘two tracks’: both curbing the current flow of migrants and implementing a long-term strategy that addresses the root causes of migration. Cabinet members, including the secretary of state, are expected to work closely with Harris on these issues.”
Voters are right to be concerned regarding some of the actions taken by Trump in the later stages of his presidency in 2020 but an arguably greater threat to democracy is the current media efforts to select the next president by hiding the truth from the voting public.
Leave it to the Liberals to break Hanlon’s Razor
Hanlon’s razor states “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” but looking at Canada’s immigration policy one wonders why it couldn’t be both. When discussing the Liberal government’s performance during since it took power in 2015 the question frequently seems to come down to “is it incompetence or corruption?”
ArriveCan, the app provided by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) during the COVID pandemic to allows travelers entering Canada to electronically submit travel documents and customs declarations, saw development costs rise from $80,000 to $54 million. Following the uproar the auditor general report determined that the “final cost of the controversial ArriveCan app is impossible to determine due to poor financial record-keeping.” Is this incompetence or corruption? Are we really expected to believe that $54 million was spent and nobody knows where it went? There’s no signing authority? It’s all taken out of petty cash in the top left drawer of the Minister’s desk while he was at lunch between 10 am and 2 pm. Maybe a little note was left: “I took $54 million. Signed Betty.” The Auditor General is correct, we’ll never know but I bet if we follow some bureaucrats and politicians from the departments in question we’ll see some very nice cars and vacation pictures
All are welcome. Terrorists included – a few weeks ago the RCMP arrested Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi, 62, and his son Mostafa, 26, on terrorism charges. “Mostafa Eldidi is not a citizen, but his father is, despite being charged with committing an aggravated assault for ISIS outside of Canada in 2015. That charge stemmed from an ISIS video, which showed a man dismembering a prisoner with a sword.” The failure of border security, the RCMP, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to discover this evidence before granting Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi citizenship is appalling but should not come as a shock. When close to a million people are let into the country annually, it’s impossible to properly screen them all. To put this number into perspective, it is equivalent to letting 10 million into the US each year or 1.6 million into the UK.
There are multiple paths to residency in Canada one of which is the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. While this was originally designed to help agricultural operations, it is now being used to fill lower-wage jobs across a number of sectors. This despite the fact that unemployment is above 6% and new arrivals in Canada have a higher unemployment rate than those born in the country. Put simply, Canada is bringing in people we don’t need and making matters worse for those already here. That would be bad enough on its own but a recent report from the UN has dubbed the program a breeding ground for modern slavery. The Liberal government has somehow managed to turn immigration into a perfect example of a system you would put in place if your goal was to damage the national economy, enable corporate corruption, and expose powerless workers to abuse. Well done!
Many who are fed up with the Liberal government claim it hasn’t accomplished anything in 9 years. That’s not true, it has accomplished a feat beyond the capabilities of any other government in Canadian history, it has turned the Canadian population against immigration.
Election Tracking
Well there’s good news and bad news for Trump, Harris didn’t rise but he did decline a cent so for the time being “investors” are heavily favoring the VP on the PredictIt leader board.
Harris – No Change
Trump -1 cent
RFK – No Change
Kamala opened up a bigger lead with bettors over the last week as well, extending her lead to 8.4% on RealClear Polling’s “Betting Odds” site. Current odds to win are:
Harris – 53.4% (+3.0%)
Trump – 46.0% (-2.1%)
Rest of the Pack – 0.6% (-0.9%)
The Donald did manage to improve in aggregated polling (+0.2%) but not as much as Harris (+0.9%) who now has a 2.7% lead in the polls. The question remains, is this still the “honeymoon period” or does this represent a permanent lead?
Once again, while Harris is the favorite in the polls and with investors and bettors, Trump retains his edge in the predicted Electoral College outcome. We shouldn’t be surprised if the upcoming Democratic National Convention (Aug 19th – 22nd) provides Harris with another bump in the polls but it’s hard to imagine it moving the Electoral College count. It wouldn’t be the first surprise of the campaign though so stay tuned.
What I’m Reading
There is No Cope – Konstanti Kisin argues that the reason there have been riots in Britain recently is not due to the “far right” as the press and left would have you believe but is in fact driven by a combination of economic and demographic realities combined with elite arrogance and mass immigration. Specifically, that the UK has an open border which the citizens do not support but which the elite insist on continuing. The elites know that if mass immigration were to end the tiny GDP growth that successive governments highlight would vanish and they would have to admit what many already know, that per capita GDP is shrinking. This is a similar argument being made by many in Canada.
Non-Political Item of the Week
I’m moving to Mars! – Ok, not today, but maybe down the road. Once the beachside residences are created. That will likely be a while, but Scientists have recently discovered a reservoir of liquid water on Mars. Yes, it’s deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet but it’s something. It’s a simple matter of getting the water from where it is, “six to 12 miles (10 to 20 km) in the Martian crust,” up to the surface…and then make the atmosphere breathable. Someone’s working on that right? Elon’s working on the transportation side, who’s got terraforming? Sigh. I guess for now I’ll just keep playing Terraforming Mars for now.
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
Back to politics this week. The Democrats and the press have been holding Harris’ VP pick, Tim Walz, up as a plainspoken, moderate. “He cut taxes for working people,” hunts and owns a gun, and was a high school teacher and a football coach. He’s just a regular guy. Is that true or is he a radical progressive who setup a phone line to enable Minnesotans to snitch on their neighbors during COVID and allowed his state’s health department to prioritize drugs based on race? People are complicated and politicians lie. So, what should we expect from Tim Walz? Listen in as Bari Weiss hosts a debate this week on her podcast:
Honestly with Bari Weiss - A Tim Walz Face-Off: Radical? Moderate? We Debate!