Presumptuous Politics : Sep 8, 2016

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Border Wall Cartoons

Taking page from Trump? UK building 'big new wall' to stop illegal immigrants

Sept. 6, 2016: Migrants walk in the northern area of the camp called the "Jungle" in Calais, France.

In what could be a "told you so" moment for Donald Trump, the U.K. on Tuesday announced plans to build a "big new wall" at a border port in France to prevent migrants in nearby camps from sneaking aboard vehicles heading to Britain.
Robert Goodwill, minister of state for immigration, announced the plan for a wall in Calais, France, at a Home Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, saying it would be in addition to an already existing fence.
“We’re going to start building this big new wall very soon,” Goodwill said. “We’ve done the fence, now we’re doing a wall.”
The proposal is far smaller in scope than the kind of U.S.-Mexico wall Trump is demanding.
A Home Office spokeswoman told FoxNews.com the four-meter-high wall (about 13 feet) would be built along both sides of a one-kilometer (.6 mile) stretch of the main road into the Calais port. The office estimates it will be done by the end of the year.
Calais is a common point for migrants trying to enter the U.K. illegally. It is the narrowest point of the English Channel and has the most ferry crossings to England as well as being an access point to the Eurotunnel – the rail system that goes underneath the channel. The wall is intended to protect the road from migrants who frequently try to intercept vehicles approaching the port and jump on board.
Though the wall is significantly smaller than what Trump has proposed – and would protect a road rather than an entire border -- it weaves into Trump’s narrative that walls work and are a vital part of a comprehensive immigration policy.
Proponents of Trump’s plan have noted the success of other countries in building a border wall. The most commonly cited example is Israel, which built a wall along the West Bank that it says has been effective in reducing the threat of terrorism. Trump has cited Israel’s wall as justification for his own plan.
"You ask Israel whether or not a wall works," Trump told a New Hampshire crowd last year.
The migrant crisis in Calais has been a frequent issue of tension between the U.K. and France, with many in the U.K. concerned the French do not do enough to keep migrants from passing through.
In 2003, France, Belgium and the U.K. established “juxtaposed controls” – an arrangement by which British officials conduct immigration checks before passengers board the train or ferry from Calais, to prevent illegal immigrants from being able to lodge an asylum application on arrival in the U.K. Some French politicians have called for the arrangement to be undone.
The British government, meanwhile, has been pushing for stronger controls in Calais. A Home Office Committee report said the U.K. and France had invested in “additional fencing and floodlighting, CCTV, and infra-red detection technology.”
However, the report said the situation remained a “threat to UK security,” and noted the most common nationalities of migrants at Calais are Syrian, Eritrean, Sudanese, Iranian and Iraqi. It also found that between 5,000 and 7,000 migrants live in camps surrounding the area.
Bob Dane, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform -- which advocates for stricter immigration controls -- welcomed the U.K. move but warned that more needs to be done.
“Border fences are not only visible, physical symbols that proclaim a country’s sovereignty and right to maintain a rule of law, but they also slow the flow of unauthorized entry. That said, Britain, just like the United States, must understand that unless the incentives for illegal entry are eliminated, border barriers will be breached,” Dane told FoxNews.com
Dane said Trump's immigration plan could offer guidance for Europe. “In his speech the other night, Trump moved beyond just building the fence and addressed the broader push-and-pull factors. Britain, and really all of Europe, will need to similarly take this holistic approach if it ever intends to mitigate the impact of mass migration,” he said.
The wall comes as new Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May sets her sights on cracking down on immigration in light of the British vote to leave the European Union in June. Goodwill told the committee the government wants to reduce immigration to “tens of thousands” of people “as soon as we possibly can.”
Trump's wall plan remains controversial. A CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday found only 41 percent of voters back a wall across the southern border.

BIAS ALERT: Media dismisses military brass backing Trump

Boykin, (l.), and Bell, (r.), were among the former generals signing on for Trump.

Donald Trump likely hoped that a letter backing him and signed by 88 former generals and admirals would prompt journalists to report on his support within military leadership -- what he got, instead, were media guns using Pentagon brass for target practice.
Trump, who on Wednesday delivered a major policy speech on the state of the U.S. military, was touted in the letter as a commander in chief capable of dealing with “enemies of this country [who] have been emboldened” by weakness in Washington.
“ … we support Donald Trump and his commitment to rebuild our military, to secure our borders, to defeat our Islamic supremacist adversaries and restore law and order domestically,” read the letter. “We urge our fellow Americans to do the same.”
The Washington Post immediately combed through the lengthy roster of signatories and noted that one, retired Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, was reprimanded for disclosing classified information in a 2008 memoir, “Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom.” Boykin also happens to be the co-founder and former commander of the elite Delta Force, and carried out missions in Iran, North Korea, Somalia and Colombia during his storied career.
He angered Muslims around the world in 2003 when, giving a speech about his hunt for a Somali warlord, said, “I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”
Boykin, who had become executive vice president at the conservative Family Research Council by the time the Pentagon investigated him, has long insisted he had permission for the disclosures and has hinted that the probe was politically motivated.
The list of generals and admirals was put together by Army Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow, a Holocaust survivor, and Rear Adm. Charles Williams of the Navy.
The Daily Beast also searched the list for anyone with a black mark on his stripes. In a story headlined “The Disgraced and Little-Known Generals Backing Donald Trump,” the outlet reported that four were present during a massive 1991 scandal in which more than 100 Navy and Marine Corps aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted 90 people at the 35th Annual Tailhook Association Symposium in Las Vegas. None of the signatories were charged, although one later served as a Navy lawyer in the case.
“To be sure, scores of the signatories had exemplary military records and continue to work in public service,” the Daily Beast article seemed to grudgingly acknowledge. “There are Vietnam veterans, three four-star generals and an admiral, as well as key commanders in the U.S. war in Iraq.”
The Washington Post even sought to drive a wedge between Trump and his military backers by noting that retired four-star Army Gen. Burwell Bell III was once a top NATO commander, and then noting that Trump has questioned NATO’s usefulness.
Three other four-star generals supporting Trump “all retired more than 20 years ago,” the Post wrote.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper scored a Tuesday night interview with retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who dismissed the names on Trump’s list.
"I didn't recognize many of those names as being there in the fight with me over the last 16 years," Hertling said. "There aren't a whole lot of names in the fight against Al Qaeda or several of the other forces."
The media was not the only party to seemingly scoff at Trump’s flag officer support.
“Compare where Trump is with where both Romney and McCain were,” Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the November presidential race, told Fox News. “They had between 300 and 500. I am doing better than any Democrat. He is doing worse than recent Republicans.”
For his part, Trump thanked the military brass for supporting him.
“I thank each of them for their service and their confidence in me to serve as commander in chief,” Trump said in a statement. “Keeping our nation safe and leading our armed forces is the most important responsibility of the presidency.”

Trump, Clinton rip each other over Iraq War, ISIS at military forum

Trump, Clinton trade jabs ahead of forum

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton slammed each other over the Iraq War and the fight against ISIS at a national security forum Wednesday, with the Republican nominee also appearing willing to allow undocumented immigrants wishing to serve in the military to remain in the U.S.
Though Trump and Clinton did not appear onstage together at the USS Intrepid museum in New York, the NBC News forum was a debate in all but name and came fewer than three weeks before the candidates' first debate.
Trump's response to a question about whether illegal immigrants who plan to serve in the military can stay in America marked another apparent shift for the Republican nominee, who caused outrage during the GOP primary with his call to deport all illegal immigrants.
"I think that when you serve in the armed forces, that's a very special situation, and I could see myself working that out," Trump said. "We need to be careful and vet carefully, but it would be a special circumstance, yes."
Trump levied unusual criticism against America's military leaders, saying the generals have been "reduced to rubble" during President Barack Obama's administration. He also suggested he would shake up the military's top ranks if he wins in November, saying there would probably be "different generals."
Trump remained persistently non-commital about his plans for defeating ISIS, insisting that he privately has a blueprint for taking on the terror group but wanted to remain "unpredictable."
"I have a very substantial chance of winning," he said. "If I win, I don't want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is."
Clinton took the stage first by virtue of a coin flip, and immediately faced a barrage of questions from moderator Matt Lauer about her email use at the State Department, where she used a personal email address and a private server.
The former secretary of state repeated her claim that none of the emails she sent through the server was marked "classified," "top secret," or "secret." However, she also acknowledged that "it was a mistake to have a personal account ... I make no excuses."
At times, Clinton grew visibly irritated with the repeated focus on her past actions, saying "I'm asking to be judged on the totality of my record."

Later in her segment, Clinton described her 2003 Senate vote to authorize military action in Iraq as a "mistake" and criticized Trump for supporting military action against Iraq in a 2002 interview on the Howard Stern radio show. She vowed that "we are not putting ground troops in Iraq ever again" to help defeat ISIS "and we are not putting ground troops in Syria ever."
"I was totally against the war in Iraq," Trump said in response. "I said it would destabilize the Middle East, which it has."
Trump accused Clinton of having a "happy trigger [finger]" regarding overseas military intervention, specifically criticizing her response to Libya's uprising against Muammar Qaddafi and subsequent civil war.
Clinton defended her support for U.S. military intervention in Libya, despite the chaos that has consumed that country since then.
"Permitting there to be an ongoing civil war in Libya would be as threatening and as dangerous as what we are seeing in Syria," she said.
Trump also spoke glowingly of Russian president Vladimir Putin, praising him for having "great control over his country." The real estate mogul added that if Putin "says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him." Trump also claimed, however, that Putin's compliments would not influence his decision-making as president.
Clinton has spent much of the summer trying to paint Trump as ill-prepared to be commander in chief and too unpredictable to make decisions that put American service members in harm's way. She drew an implicit contrast with Trump when asked for the most important quality a commander in chief must possess.
"Steadiness, an absolute rock steadiness," she said, "mixed with strength to make the hard decisions."

Assange says public has right to know about upcoming release of Clinton documents

Assange: Clinton, liberal press creating 'demon' climate

More documents connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign are set to be released as early as next week, according to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Assange said in an interview with Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity, which aired Wednesday, the public has a right to know about these documents.
While he didn’t give much information regarding the details of the documents, Assange did say that, “the material we are working on around the clock is significant”.
During the interview on “Hannity,” Assange said that the liberal press is legitimizing a “ruling party candidate to come out and say that opposition leaders and the press are foreign agents in order to turn around a domestic scandal, that’s a really serious problem.”
When discussing the DNC leak, Assange said that “we saw the resignation of five of the top DNC officials including the president.” He also added that, “in fact MSNBC, Politico and NBC were exposed as conspiring with the DNC to subvert Bernie Sanders campaign.”
The WikiLeaks founder added that the public is the one that runs with the scandals, suggesting that the liberal media pushes certain agendas aside.
While WikiLeaks is determined to “wake people up” and expose the truth the public has very little to worry saying, “we publish information from political parties and governments, were not interested from private individuals unless their billionaires or trying to manipulate or to drive the political system in some way.”
Hannity asked Assange if he had any information regarding Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump, Assange said they would publish any information they had, but while he “makes controversial statements, he doesn’t have any history of being in government”.
Hannity then joked that Trump doesn’t use his email personally, a reference to Clinton’s ongoing email scandal for using her private email address during her time as Secretary of State. Clinton’s server had over 2,000 emails containing classified material.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell gave Clinton tips for private email use

Did Clinton destroy evidence during email investigation?

The House Oversight Committee released an email exchange Wednesday between Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of State Colin Powell in which he advised her on the use of personal email.
The exchange between Clinton and Powell took place two before the start of tenure as secretary of state. According to The Wall Street Journal, Powell told Clinton that he used a personal computer to conduct government business and took steps to ensure his digital correspondence wasn’t “going through the State Department servers.”
Powell said he had "a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line ... so I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers. I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts."
The emails were cited in the FBI’s notes about the possibility that Clinton or her aides mishandled classified information during her time at the State Department. The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI quoted some, but not all, of the conversations between Powell and Clinton.
Clinton told federal authorities that she didn’t follow Powell’s guidance, even though she used a private email account to handle government business. FBI Direct James Comey recommended no charges should be brought against Clinton, but said that she had been “extremely careless” with classified documents.
According to The Journal, Powell responded to Clinton’s note on Jan. 23, 2009 saying he used a “personal computer” and a PDA. Clinton had asked Powell’s advice on how to bring her Blackberry along with her to the State Department.
The latest release appears to show that Powell acknowledged that he exchanged work-related emails with foreign leaders and State Department officials using a personal device. He said the setup allowed him to “bypass the government’s computer network.”
“I didn’t have a BlackBerry. What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient.) So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers,” Powell told Clinton, according to the paper.
“I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.”
The release of the email by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. came on the eve of a House Oversight hearing in which Republicans are expected to focus on Clinton’s use of a private email server and whether the State Department had been forthcoming with Freedom of Information requests.
However, Cummings came down on Republicans accusing lawmakers of holding Clinton to a double standard during the investigation into her private email server.
“If Republicans were truly concerned with transparency, strengthening FOIA, and preserving federal records, they would be attempting to recover Secretary Powell’s emails from AOL, but they have taken no steps to do so despite the fact that this period—including the run-up to the Iraq War—was critical to our nation’s history,” he said.
Clinton has repeatedly said the she’s followed in the footsteps of her predecessors in regards to using a private email server to handle government business.
Powell has denied encouraging Clinton to use a private email server.
A spokesperson for Powell issued a statement last month, saying he had “no recollection” of a dinner conversation between him and Clinton about using a private email server while in office.
“He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department. At the time there was no equivalent system within the Department.
"He used a secure State computer on his desk to manage classified information," the statement added.
The Wall Street Journal reported that federal law requires government email exchanges to be preserved for archiving and could be released through FOIA requests. Powell appeared to be aware of that an warned Clinton about using her BlackBerry for government work.
“There is a real danger. If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it (sic) government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law... Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.”
Powell also warned Clinton about the possibility of being hacked by foreign agents. He said he had numerous meetings about why he couldn’t bring his BlackBerry into secure areas of the State Department.