On the one-year anniversary of the Parkland school shootings, CNN anchor Erin Hill gave no pushback after she invited Florida Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to promote a gun control plan being considered by Congress. The same CNN show that has recently dismissed arguments in favor of border security that could save many lives each year also apparently saw no irony in the congresswoman pulling out the old "if it saves just one life" argument to justify infringing on the rights of law-abiding American citizens to acquire guns.
Tired of the empty rhetoric about school safety, one charter school in Florida has decided it’s time to bring in the big guns, literally, to protect its students from threats. Palmetto’s Manatee School for Arts has just hired two combat veterans — whom they’ve armed with semi-automatic rifles and handguns — to, as the principal put it, “put down” anyone who comes on campus intending to do harm.
In a move reported by the Bradenton Herald, Manatee School for Arts Principal Bill Jones explained that his school is not interested in trying to “talk” or “negotiate” with potential threats — they’re just going to take them out.
“If someone walks onto this campus, they’re going to be shot and killed,” Jones told the paper. “We’re not going to talk with them. We’re not going to negotiate. We are going to put them down, as quickly as possible.”
The Herald notes that the Public Safety Act enacted in 2018 in response to the horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School requires all public schools in the state to have armed security personnel on campus. While many schools have lawmen assigned to the schools as resource officers, the new law allows for some alternatives. Being a charter school, Manatee has even more leeway for who it uses for security — and how it chooses to arm them.
“Manatee School for the Arts, which has more leeway than regular public schools, has taken a more aggressive approach to the guardian program, hiring only military veterans with combat experience and arming them with Glock handguns and Kel-Tec RDB 17-inch semi-automatic long-guns, both which they carry at all times,” the Herald reports. “The rifle is a bullpup, a configuration that allows for a shorter firearm with a long barrel, and uses .223 caliber ammunition, same as an AR-15.”
Principal Jones stressed that while there’s “no guarantee” the officers will be where they’re needed at a particular moment, “certainly, the long gun gives you a better range.”
“People might think twice, particularly in our case, if you pull up and see a guy who is carrying a full-long gun,” said Jones. “If someone tried to come on campus with a weapon, before we had our guardian program, there really is nothing much to stop that.”
The choice of using only military veterans and allowing them to carry their semi-automatic rifles has gained national attention, including from CBS Miami. While many schools do provide security personnel rifles, they do not carry them; instead, the rifles are usually stored in security racks in their vehicles.
The administration has also mandated that the guardians use ammo for the long-guns that does not “over-penetrate,” specifying shells that will pierce basic body armor but not go through the intruder, which would pose a risk to others.
Jones also addressed the school’s decision to hire only combat veterans. “If you’re ever going to have an event on campus, I don’t want it to be the first time they’ve been shot at,” he told the Herald. “I don’t want them trying to figure who they are and how they are going to respond. That’s a life-changing experience and these folks, I don’t want this to be the first time they’ve asked themselves, ‘What am I going to do?'”
Broward County’s response to the Parkland mass shooting last February has been widely condemned because of the failure of security personnel to confront the shooter, which almost certainly resulted in more lives lost.
The Herald reports that the first guardian hired by the school is “a 15-year U.S. Army veteran who served three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq,” while the second “is currently undergoing required training by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.”
Ted Cruz Offers Brilliant Way To Pay for Wall After Conviction of Mexican Drug Lord ‘El Chapo’
Zach Gibson / Getty Images; Renegade98 / FlickrSen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration hearing on Capitol Hill on Dec. 12, 2018. (Zach Gibson / Getty Images; Renegade98 / Flickr)
As Democrats have avoided providing funding for walls or barriers as part of President Donald Trump’s priority effort to secure the southern border, some Republicans who support the construction of a border wall have sought out alternative means to obtain the necessary funding.
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz actually devised a rather ingenious plan last year that would utilize the forfeited and seized assets of Mexican drug cartel leaders to help pay for improved border security measures, especially barriers, fencing and walls, where necessary.
Business Insider reported that Cruz reminded everyone on Twitter of his plan on Tuesday following the guilty verdicts issued in the trial of former Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, which would utilize the estimated $14 billion in assets owned by Guzman to pay for a border wall, should prosecutors be successful in seizing those funds.
Cruz tweeted, “America’s justice system prevailed today in convicting Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo, on all 10 counts. U.S. prosecutors are seeking $14 billion in drug profits & other assets from El Chapo which should go towards funding our wall to #SecureTheBorder.”
America’s justice system prevailed today in convicting Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo, on all 10 counts. U.S. prosecutors are seeking $14 billion in drug profits & other assets from El Chapo which should go towards funding our wall to #SecureTheBorder. https://t.co/hPwEUVM6SP
That tweet included a link to a story from The Associated Press detailing the several charges that Guzman had been convicted of, which included a number of drug trafficking and conspiracy-related charges that will result in his spending the remainder of his life behind bars in a U.S. maximum-security prison.
In a follow-up tweet, Cruz wrote, “It’s time to pass my EL CHAPO Act. I urge my Senate colleagues to take swift action on this crucial legislation.”
That tweet included a link to Cruz’s Senate page where he discussed the reintroduction of his bill titled “Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order” — the EL CHAPO Act — which would reserve any assets and funds seized from Guzman or other convicted drug lords for explicit use for border security.
In that Jan. 3 press release marking the reintroduction of the bill at the start of the new session of Congress, Cruz said, “Congress has a clear mandate from the American people: secure the border and build the wall.”
“Ensuring the safety and security of Texans is one of my top priorities,” he continued. “Indeed, I have long called for building a wall as a necessary step in defending our border. Fourteen billion dollars will go a long way to secure our southern border, and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and individuals.”
“By leveraging any criminally forfeited assets of El Chapo and other murderous drug lords, we can offset the cost of securing our border and make meaningful progress toward delivering on the promises made to the American people,” Cruz added.
The senator further noted that prosecutors were seeking the criminal forfeiture of all proceeds and profits derived from Guzman’s illicit drug trafficking empire, which has been estimated at upwards of $14 billion.
It remains to be seen if prosecutors will be successful in seizing and liquidating all or any of those assets, meaning the actual amount forfeited could be substantially less than $14 billion.
There is little doubt that Democrats opposed to the construction of any sort of barriers on the border will attempt to block or derail this effort by Cruz, either during the legislative process or in the courts, should the bill be passed and signed into law.
Regardless, this is an excellent idea put forward by Cruz. Hopefully, his fellow Republicans, and even some Democrats, will vote in favor of the bill, which Trump will most likely sign to fulfill his oft-mocked vow to make Mexico pay for the wall in a roundabout way.
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Twitter apologized on Tuesday after many conservatives on the platform reported that most of their posts’ likes and retweets were disappearing.
Among those who reported malfunctioning Twitter engagements was conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter, who claimed one of her posts which had thousands of likes had gone down to just 99.
Hey Twitter! This Tweet had THOUSANDS of “likes” an hour ago – suddenly it’s down to 99. Twitter management is removing “likes” from conservatives now? pic.twitter.com/5W5mYp368Q
Conservative organization PragerU, Muslim reformer Shireen Qudosi, conservative radio host Larry Elder, and journalist Yashar Ali were also reportedly affected.
WHAT’S GOING ON WITH @Twitter?!. For my last several posts, posted a few hours ago, the number of retweets and likes suddenly declined, dropping hundreds of retweets and likes.
Several Twitter users documented drops in engagement with pictures and video:
Larry, See screen shots of deleted retweets:
At 7:58 there were 448 retweets At 8:01 there were 349 retweets
See top of pics for time of screen shots. You’re the man Larry to help expose this censorship & the twitter lies. I have much more documentation. Let’s do it. DM me. pic.twitter.com/ZZRvbt4iFs
“Some people around the world are experiencing an issue with notifications, Likes, and Retweets,” Twitter proclaimed. “We’re working on resolving this and will follow up soon. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Some people around the world are experiencing an issue with notifications, Likes, and Retweets. We’re working on resolving this and will follow up soon. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Manufacturing wage growth hit its highest level in over a decade in December and stayed there in January.
The 12-month moving average of wage growth rose to 3.9 percent in December, the highest level recorded since May 2008, according to the Atlanta Fed’s wage growth tracker. January saw wages remain at this very elevated level.
The Atlanta Fed’s wage tracker indicates that wages started moving sharply higher in 2018–just as America’s trade disputes heated up and tariffs were raised on steel, aluminum, and Chinese imports. Critics of the Trump administration had argued that the metals tariffs would hurt U.S. workers by raising costs for metals-using manufacturers.
Because it is a 12-month moving average, the Atlanta Fed’s track shows changes with a lag. It shows manufacturing wage growth moving sharply higher from August through the beginning of this year, rising from 3.4 percent to 3.9 percent.
The Atlanta Fed numbers suggest that one reason other methods of wage growth may be lagging behind expectations is that employers are turning to new workers and those who were recently out of the workforce to bolster their ranks in an era of low-unemployment. Those workers are often paid less than experienced veterans, which can drag down average wages even in a tight labor market.
The Atlanta Fed avoids this by looking at the wages of employees who have not changed jobs in 12-months. In other words, it counts how wages improved for employees who have been on the job.
Manufacturing wage growth ran between 3.9 percent and 4.0 percent from July 2007 through May 2008, when it slumped as the economy crashed. Prior to that, wage growth had not exceeded 3.8 since 2002.
Americans who switched jobs gained wage increases of 4.6 percent in the 12 months up to January 2018, according to a report in Bloomberg News.
The 4.6 percent score is the biggest jump in ten years.
Bloomberg reported:
Median wage growth for those who jumped to new positions picked up to 4.6 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest pace since October 2007, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Wage Growth Tracker. That compared with 3.4 percent [wage increaase] for those who haven’t switched jobs.
The 4.6 wage gain is offset by two percent inflation, so delivering a 2.6 percent real wage increase during the year to the Americans who switched jobs.
Americans who switch jobs include the workers who quit and then find a job, as well as the Americans who quit after accepting other employers’ wage offers.
The job switchers’ gains leaped in late 2018, from just a three percent gain in the fall to a 4.6 percent gain in January. The leap marks the highest wage gain for job switchers since late 2007, the peak of the housing bubble created by Congress and former President George W. Bush.
Rising wages are a big threat to investors because every extra million dollars spent on wages also tends to lower the company’s stock market value by roughly $15 million.
Tech Elites, Donor Class Unite with GOP/Dems to Outsource White-Collar American Jobshttps://t.co/xkjxF2dNss
The rising wages help explain the increasingly frantic efforts by business to raise their labor supply via immigration.
Data show that increased legal immigration holds down Americans wages. In Minnesota, for example, wages rose by 5.2 percent during 2018 because migrants comprise only ten percent of the workforce. In Texas, migrants comprise 22 percent of the workforce, and so wages rose by only two percent in the state during 2018.
That business pressure for more imported workers is changing Trump’s rhetoric. On February 11, for example, Trump predicted he will deliver more foreign workers to U.S. companies:
Speaking of jobs, we have to have more people coming into our country because our real [unemployment] number is about 3.6 [percent], 3.7 [percent] … We need people. So we want to have people come into our country, but we want to have them come in through a merit system, and we want to have them come in legally. And that’s going to be happening.
If implemented, Trump’s promise of more foreign workers would reverse the popular “Hire American” policy he promised in his Inauguration Day speech.
Americans’ wages are rising because Trump’s Hire American policy forces companies to compete for the American and legal immigrant workers who are already in the United States and prevents them from recruiting additional foreign workers.
Pay rose three percent in the 12 months leading up to December 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The biggest national gains were around Minneapolis, likely boosting Trump’s 202o support in the battleground state.
Trump was a businessman and real estate developer whose business was fundamentally shaped by the supply and price of labor. However, Trump does not talk about how his “Hire American” policy is forcing companies to compete for labor by offering higher wages to voters — even though rising wages would help his reelection chances.
Business lobbies back the federal governments’ economic policy of using both legal and illegal migration to boost economic growth.
But that policy also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors by flooding the market with cheap white collar and blue collar foreign labor.
That annual inflow of roughly one million legal immigrants — as well as the population of two million visa workers and eight million working illegal immigrants — floods the labor market. The flood spikes profits and Wall Street values by shrinking salaries for 150 million blue-collar and white-collar employees, and especially wages for the four million young Americans who join the labor force each year.
The federal government’s cheap labor policy widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.
Immigration also steers investment and wealth away from towns in Heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and supervise the large immigrant populations who prefer to live in coastal cities. In turn, that coastal investment flow drives up coastal real estate prices and pushes poor Americans, including Latinos and blacks, out of prosperous cities such as Berkeley and Oakland.
Guatemalan head of intelligence Mario Duarte said during a visit to Washington Tuesday that the migrant caravans heading to the U.S. southern border are “well-planned” and “well-organized” by those wanting to “weaponize those in need.”
“This was not a spontaneous event. It was well-planned. It was well-organized,” Duarte, head of the Secretariat of Strategic Intelligence of Guatemala, said at an event hosted by the Center for a Free Secure Society at the National Press Club.
He said different intelligence, law enforcement, and military agencies found evidence that the October caravan from Honduras to the U.S. — which at one point contained about 40,000 migrants — was organized in advance.
There was a call on October 5 in Honduras for citizens to join a “massive migration walk to the United States,” he said. “We detected logistical preparation throughout Guatemala and Mexico, to be able to bring all these people to the U.S. southern border.”
He said the main organization behind the caravans was a non-governmental organization based out of Chicago, called Pueblos Sin Fronteras, led by organizer and pastor Emma Lozano.
“They started working with Honduran, Guatemalan, and Mexico counterparts,” he said. “The organization was impressive to say the least. They used mainly [social media apps] WhatsApp and Facebook.”
He said Bartolo Fuentes, a Honduran activist, was the main leader of the caravan on the ground, and that he came into Guatemala beforehand to scout and send money to places migrants could stay as they moved through Guatemala towards Mexico. Duarte said the group also connected with international NGOs like Oxfam.
He also gave details of the tactics the caravan used as it pushed into Guatemala.
“We had a big, huge contingent of police officers protecting our border. Unfortunately this migrant groups put women, the elderly and children as young as 40 days of age at the front, and started pushing and pressing against our police force,” he said.
“We could not even use tear gas … because some of the smoke could hurt the small children,” he said.
“It became an unsustainable situation. Children were being pressed against the fence. Some of them were actually were already suffocating because of all the pressure behind them. So we had to retreat our police forces and to allow these migrants to go through our border,” he said.
Duarte said Guatemala heeded the United States’ call to try to stop the caravan from reaching the U.S. border. He said they set up 12 different roadblocks on the way to Mexico, to delay the migrants.
“Through that work, we also identified a total of ten operational leaders with the caravan,” he said.
Duarte said they also identified more than 100 migrants from the Middle East traveling in the caravan — a claim President Trump had alluded to in an October 22 tweet.
Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws!
“We also intercepted a total of 126 special interest aliens during these caravans, special interest aliens from countries and with probable links to Islamic extremists,” Duarte said.
Duarte warned that another big group of migrants coming from different countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and from Cuba, is headed to the U.S.
“Their intent is to make a 30,000 strong caravan to go all the way up through Central America, Mexico, and come to the U.S. open border,” he said.
Duarte assessed that the migrants traveling in the caravans were being used as pawns as a way to destabilize the U.S. and partners in the region.
“This new way of doing politics, which is how we are actually analyzing this, we are calling it, and we are using this term, now it’s weaponization of those in need,” he said.
He did not blame the migrants, who he said were in search of economic opportunities, or trying to escape conflict, persecution, terrorism, human rights violations, and other things.
“As human beings and societies, we cannot ignore … difficulties other face in life,” he said.
“Unfortunately cruel heartless manipulative political actors and radicals have taken advantage of those in need, and are utilizing them now as lethal weapons of invasion of political influence, and as their own private parties of picketing mobs. That’s what this is,” he said.
“Let’s not lose our real capacity of analysis. The migrant caravans are not spontaneous. They are being politically orchestrated and well-funded with a specific political objective.”
The House Republicans moved an amendment opposing antisemitism through the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, using an unusual parliamentary maneuver from the minority that rarely succeeds. It passed 424-0.
The “motion to recommit” is rarely successful. Typically, it is a last-ditch effort by the minority party to make an amendment to another bill. In this case, Republicans offered an amendment to a House resolution against the U.S. supporting Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.
The amendment declares that “[I]t is in the national security interest of the United States to combat anti-Semitism around the world.” Democrats, embarrassed by ongoing criticism of the antisemitic rhetoric of several members, including first-term Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), felt no choice but to agree.
Rare thing happening in the House right now: Looks like Dems are going to approve GOP motion to recommit, normally a last gasp procedural move by minority to alter a bill, either by amending it or sending it back to cmte.
The full text of the amendment adds that “all attempts to delegitimize and deny Israel’s right to exist must be denounced and rejected,” which contrasts directly with the views of first-term Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
Moreover, the amendment opposes boycotts of Israel: “It is in the national security interest of the United States to oppose restrictive trade practices or boycotts fostered or imposed by any foreign country against other countries friendly to the United States or against any United States person.” That is an indirect rebuke of Omar’s policies: she supports the anti-Israel “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement, despite opposing it in the election.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had promised action against antisemitism in the House this week. In a statement after the vote, he said:
In a defining moment for the U.S. House of Representatives and the country as a whole, Republicans and Democrats voted as one today to condemn anti-Semitism around the world, to denounce all attempts to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist, and to oppose efforts to impose boycotts on Israel. Amid the troubling rise of anti-Semitism, including attacks on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, it is our duty as a nation to stand firmly against intolerance and division. This overwhelmingly positive and cohesive vote shows there is no place for anti-Semitism in any form, anytime, anywhere.
Neither Tlaib nor Omar opposed the amendment explicitly; Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) were the only two members to vote “present.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
I don’t know, man. I like the idea on a gut level, but once we start playing the “let’s seize this money and apply it to that project” game progressives are going to want to play too. Should we use El Chapo’s ill-gotten $14 billion to secure America’s Mexican border?
Or should we use it to build, like, nine miles of high-speed rail?
I assume that getting our hands on his money will prove much easier said than done — this isn’t sitting in a checking account somewhere — but Cruz knows a good populist gimmick when he sees one. If this is even remotely feasible, let’s do it.
“Congress has a clear mandate from the American people: secure the border and build the wall,” Sen. Cruz said. “Ensuring the safety and security of Texans is one of my top priorities. Indeed, I have long called for building a wall as a necessary step in defending our border. Fourteen billion dollars will go a long way to secure our southern border, and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and individuals. By leveraging any criminally forfeited assets of El Chapo and other murderous drug lords, we can offset the cost of securing our border and make meaningful progress toward delivering on the promises made to the American people.”
Currently the U.S. Government is seeking the criminal forfeiture of more than $14 billion in drug proceeds and illicit profits from El Chapo, the former leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel who was extradited to the U.S. to face criminal prosecution for numerous alleged drug-related crimes, including conspiracy to commit murder and money laundering.
Ted Cruz 2013 would have offered a bill calling for Chapo’s mini-windfall to be applied towards paying down the national debt, not funding a new obligation. Ah well. Times change, I guess. Besides, how much would $14 billion buy us in a debt context? Four hours of federal spending, maybe?
Trump said he found the idea “interesting,” which feels like damning-with-faint-praise under the circumstances. If any politician in America should be excited at the visceral poetic justice of having Mexico’s most notorious cartel leader pay for anti-illegal infrastructure on the southern border, it should be Trump. Maybe he’s pissed that he didn’t think of it first.
He’d better think of something because President Coulter is getting restless again:
You mean: "Only in the Republican Party .." Democrats need $1.3 billion and end up giving themselves $25 billion (of your money).
The Freedom Caucus is also calling on Trump to rethink signing the new compromise bill, offering a new resolution to extend the current government funding bill by a week to avoid a new shutdown while the two sides continue to negotiate. Negotiate what, though? Nothing will change in a week to make the bill markedly more appealing to House conservatives. Trump might as well sign or veto what’s in front of him and then roll the dice on whatever executive action he’s planning. Further delay is pointless.
Via the Free Beacon, here’s Dem Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi using the same word Trump did to describe Cruz’s proposal. McConnell should put the bill on the floor for a vote, if only to force Democrats to explain why they oppose the idea of punishing a drug lord by making him pick up the tab for America’s border security. (And they will oppose it, of course.) “Pure spite” is the truth but it’s not an answer they can give. Presumably they’ll cough up something about how, if they support Cruz’s bill, they’re basically agreeing in principle that the wall should be built with only the funding mechanism left to debate. Exit question via Philip Klein: Has the Green New Deal’s rollout given Trump extra leeway to disappoint the right on the wall? The more antagonistic Republicans feel towards Democrats at a given moment, the greater room Trump has to cuck out on populist priorities. What are you gonna do, vote Cory Booker next year if POTUS tells you he’ll need a second term to build the wall? Do you really want to risk having a Democratic president sign the GND into law?
