August 2022 – Page 99

Labor Action Hits London Tube As UK Transportation Network Grinds To Halt

Londoners face new travel chaos on Friday as a strike by rail workers paralyzes the British capital’s transit network.

Another industrial action is slated for Saturday, expected to bring even more disruptions through the weekend.

Transportation workers are striking over pay increases to offset out-of-control energy prices and soaring food inflation — misery among households is the worst it has been in decades.

AP News reported London Underground workers are striking across the metro area, leaving a majority of Tube lines suspended with limited operations.

Around 10,000 Rail, Maritime, and Transport union (RMT) workers are taking part in the industrial action on Friday — over pay issues not keeping up with inflation.

Transportation disruptions are expected in southwest London and parts of Surrey on Friday. Then on Saturday, bus drivers who are members of Unite will stage a strike of their own, affecting sixty-three routes — creating even more travel pains.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch apologized to commuters for the strike but said it was necessary to defend the union’s members:

“We’re very sorry that people are inconvenienced. I mean, we’re inconveniencing people that are in the same boat as us. We’re ordinary men and women that want to do our jobs and provide a service, but when you’re being cut to pieces by an employer, and by the Government, you’ve got to make a stand.

“So we’re making that stand on behalf of our members, but many other workers in Britain are suffering some very similar things and you’re going to see a wave of this type of action. We can’t stand by and watch our conditions be chopped up. Otherwise, it’ll just be a race to the bottom for all British workers.

“If we’re not showing them that we’re being serious, they will just chop up members terms and conditions and their pensions. If we’re not invited to negotiations, what other means can we have to influence those negotiations?

“So we’ve got to show them that we’re deadly serious about the future of the services across all of Transport for London (TfL), but also across our members’ conditions, because we don’t know what they’re discussing.

“It’s like being locked out of a process that we should rightly be at the table, and that’s not acceptable to any of the unions, or London Underground or TfL. And it’s got to be resolved.”

Meanwhile, Liz Truss, a right-wing politician of the Conservative Party, who is currently a favorite to become Britain’s next prime minister, tweeted, “As Prime Minister, I will not let our country be held to ransom by militant trade unionists.”

As Prime Minister, I will not let our country be held to ransom by militant trade unionists.

💬 @Daily_Express: https://t.co/hGjPNPZLqH pic.twitter.com/AhzPtfbk0b

— Liz for Leader (@trussliz) August 19, 2022

Many Londoners complained about “selfish” unions inflicting pain on others trying to get to work or travel across the city.

The industrial action comes amid a souring macroeconomic backdrop that sent inflation to a four-decade high last month to 10.1%. Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in August as household misery worsened.

Another strike could develop this winter, though much different than transportation union workers walking off the job. Tens of thousands are joining a movement not to pay their energy bills starting on October 1.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/19/2022 – 12:32

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Government Goons Murder Internet-Famous Walrus

Since mid-July, the internet has grown to love Freya the 1,300-pound walrus, who went viral after clips surfaced of her sunbathing on small boats, sinking them in the process.

However, on Sunday, the Norwegian government announced that it had killed her. The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries argued that Freya needed to be euthanized due to the risks she posed to the crowds that gathered to watch and take photos of her. The agency also cited vague animal welfare concerns. “The walrus is not getting enough rest and the professionals we are in dialogue with believe she is stressed,” Nadia Jdaini, a senior communications adviser for the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, said in a statement to NBC News.

However, that assertion was later contradicted by Rune Aae, a biologist who had been following Freya’s movements throughout Northern Europe. According to NBC news, Aae told them that “Freya had not shown signs of stress…but instead seemed curious about people. He criticized authorities for not blocking off the areas where the walrus spent the most time, or trying to move her, despite fears that she could drown if an attempt to tranquilize her failed.”

According to The New York Times, Freya had been sighted along the coasts of Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Denmark in previous years. Before she was euthanized, Norwegian crowds had started to flock to see Freya, sometimes getting extremely close to the 1,300-pound walrus. Government officials also claim to have informed police of incidents where people attempted to swim up to the walrus.

However, despite their concerns, officials had originally claimed that euthanasia was “out of the question.” That message abruptly changed, with government officials deciding to quickly kill Freya on Sunday. Following public outcry, officials at the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries defended their decision.

“I am firm that this was the right call. We have great regard for animal welfare, but human life and safety must take precedence,” Frank Bakke-Jensen, the director general of fisheries in Norway, said on Sunday. Others disagree. “I’m surprised by the speed of the decision” to kill her, Fredrik Myhre, a marine biologist for the World Wide Fund for Nature in Norway told The New York Times. “They should have been more patient.”

This case is just the latest instance of Norwegian government authorities deciding to kill big, inconvenient animals. The government has faced backlash in recent years for mass killings of critically endangered wolves, supposedly because they threaten livestock even though fewer than 100 wolves are thought to live in the country.

Further, as noted by NBC News, some have pointed out the hastiness of the government’s decision to kill Freya. Yes, the walrus was found at a populated beach outside Oslo. However, in Norway, children were set to return to school the day after the government killed her. Further, cold weather and torrential rain were predicted to hit the country shortly. Both factors would have massively thinned the crowds of admirers raised as justification for her euthanasia.

Government bureaucrats, it seems, tend to ruin anything they touch, including internet-famous walruses. Freya captured hearts and delighted onlookers—all without injuring anyone. Granted, she did cause property damage, though Norwegian officials did not cite that as a justification for killing her. It seems that the main reason for Freya’s death was that people liked her too much.

“She hasn’t done anything to anyone,” Oslo resident Trine Tandberg told The New York Times. “That’s what’s making so many of us really, really angry about this whole thing.”

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Government Goons Murder Internet-Famous Walrus

Since mid-July, the internet has grown to love Freya the 1,300-pound walrus, who went viral after clips surfaced of her sunbathing on small boats, sinking them in the process.

“She hasn’t done anything to anyone,” Oslo resident Trine Tandberg told The New York Times. “That’s what’s making so many of us really, really angry about this whole thing.”

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After FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Raid, Conservatives Finally Call for Police Reform

Trump police back the blue FBI raid mar-a-lago cops

Shortly before the 2016 election, Mike Pence tweeted that “@realDonaldTrump and I commend the FBI for reopening an investigation into (Hillary) Clinton’s personal server because no one is above the law.” And who can forget the GOP crowds chanting “lock her up” in regard to Clinton—a sentiment Trump supported?

I had no problem with the email investigation provided a judge had authorized it and it conformed to legal standards. Truly, no one—not even a potential or actual president—should be above the law. However, the “lock her up” mantra, which pro-Trump crowds directed at other Democrats including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, gave me the creeps.

In banana republics, the new despot tries to lock up the old strongman and rounds up his vanquished supporters. Even accounting for emotions that politicians drum up at rallies, that line was appalling. Americans should never cheer the idea of turning federal law enforcement—whatever its many current flaws and abuses—into a version of the Praetorian Guard.

Last week’s big news is the FBI had executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, as it conducts an investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified documents. The former president and his minions have been all over the media describing the investigation as a political witch-hunt—a concept that, apparently, they no longer find to be entertaining.

“My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” the former president said in a statement. Some of his most-agitated supporters are openly calling for civil war. They are blasting the FBI’s “tyranny.” Suddenly, people who seemed eager to sic federal agents on their political opponents are aghast that the FBI would conduct an investigation of one of their own.

Some conservative rhetoric would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. One popular podcaster, Steven Crowder, warned liberals: “(Y)ou think they’re not gonna come for you?” He didn’t seem concerned about turning the U.S. into a third-world hellhole: “I don’t care if we become Nicaragua at this point. You’ve already rung the bell, you can’t un-ring it.”

But the strangest response, from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) was to “defund the FBI.” The anti-Trump conservative website, The Bulwark, collected assorted tweets and statements from prominent Republican members of Congress and commentators who had savaged leftists for their “defund the police” rhetoric during anti-police-abuse protests—but who now are echoing Greene’s ideas.

“Man Shot in Downtown Memphis Just Off Beale Street. This is What Happens When You Elect ‘Defund the Police’ Democrats,” tweeted conservative columnist Todd Starnes in June. This week he had a somewhat different hot take: “The FBI has been weaponized. Defund and Dismantle.”

Fox News’ Dan Bognino called for widespread firings and accountability at the bureau: “I don’t buy this rank and file crap either. Throw it right in the garbage. I don’t buy it one bit. I was a Secret Service agent, and I was the rank-and-file. Me. And you know what? I saw something I didn’t like, and I left.” At this point, I should start cheering. Conservatives finally are echoing points that my fellow criminal-justice reformers have long made.

Police agencies absolutely need reform. Police unions protect bad actors. District attorneys rarely prosecute those officers even for egregious conduct. Fired cops simply get jobs at other agencies. The “thin blue line” mentality prods officers to follow orders rather than hold misbehaving colleagues accountable—as evidenced by the failure of Derek Chauvin’s three colleagues to intervene during George Floyd’s death.

Instead of walking away when their agencies carry out unconstitutional raids or abuse the power of asset forfeiture to confiscate property, police typically go along without complaint. But instead of proposing serious reforms, some progressives trotted out their “defund the police” mantra, which allowed conservatives to easily depict them as advocates for lawlessness.

It was one of the dumbest political mantras I’ve ever heard, but it was based very loosely on a sound idea. Why shouldn’t Americans use the public purse strings to force police departments to improve their operations? When government agencies abuse our constitutional rights, they will do so even more zealously if we give them more money. Ditto for federal police agencies.

Now, suddenly, the Right seems to believe progressives were right—it only took the FBI to target their beloved ex-president to open their eyes. It remains to be seen whether the raid on Trump’s estate is an abuse of power, but the FBI has a history of misusing authority. (So does the IRS, which is poised to receive a huge cash infusion.)

Frankly, it’s hard to believe conservatives who wanted to lock up their political opponents and opposed police-accountability measures are acting out of principle rather than partisanship. Their opponents on the Left are no better, but perhaps this could be a teachable moment for everyone.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

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A Case That Pits Gun Rights Activism Against Federalism

President George W. Bush signs the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed into law the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a statute designed to protect gun makers, dealers, distributors, and importers from being sued “for the harm caused by the misuse of firearms by third parties, including criminals.”

“Our laws should punish criminals who use guns to commit crimes,” Bush declared, “not law-abiding manufacturers of lawful products.” The law’s passage was widely seen as a victory for the gun rights movement. But a new case out of Pennsylvania now asks whether the same law should be shot down for violating bedrock constitutional principles of federalism.

The case is Gustafson v. Springfield, Inc. It centers on the tragic death of a 13-year-old boy who was accidentally shot and killed by his friend. The friend falsely believed that the semiautomatic handgun he was holding was unloaded because the magazine had been removed. In fact, one round was still chambered.

The dead boy’s family sued the gunmaker in state court. But the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County said the lawsuit was barred by the terms of the PLCAA, which preempts state tort law in this area. In a decision issued last week, however, a majority of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania not only reversed that ruling but also held that the PLCAA itself is unconstitutional.

“I recognize that state courts do not typically resolve claims involving the constitutionality of federal statutes,” wrote Judge Deborah Kunselman. “However, that is the issue presented by the facts of the case before us. The Gustafsons filed a product-liability lawsuit under Pennsylvania common law, which, but for a federal statute, would have proceeded through our state courts like every other civil action. When their claims were abruptly dismissed under PLCAA, the question of that federal law’s constitutionality fell squarely before us, and we must answer it.”

The court’s answer was that the PLCAA must fall. “Tort law is a decidedly state issue,” Kunselman argued. “If courts allow Congress to regulate tort litigation involving these products, it could eventually regulate all litigation. This is not permitted under the Constitution of the United States’ principles of federalism. As such,” she concluded, the PLCAA “violates the Tenth Amendment.”

Writing in dissent, Judge Judith Ference Olson charged the majority with missing the relevant constitutional provisions at play. “Congress had the express authority to enact PLCAA under its enumerated powers granted by the Commerce Clause to regulate interstate and foreign commerce,” Olson argued. “Thus, the only way PLCAA could violate the Tenth Amendment is if the Act commands state legislatures to enact a particular law or state executives to administer a federal law. PLCAA does neither.”

This is a case worth watching. For one thing, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania is not likely to have the last word on the matter. Eventually, this dispute will land in federal court. There is also the unusual political angle. As the case moves forward, gun control advocates—who would love to see firearms manufacturers face more product-liability lawsuits—will be embracing the sort of 10th Amendment arguments more commonly voiced by conservatives and libertarians. There’s something here for practically everyone to argue about.

The post A Case That Pits Gun Rights Activism Against Federalism appeared first on Reason.com.

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The Tornado Cash Crackdown Is an Attack on Speech and Privacy

If a cryptocurrency like bitcoin were to become a commonly accepted medium of exchange—a global decentralized monetary system that no third party can stop or control—would the U.S. government attempt to make it illegal and prosecute the developers who contribute to its code base? Is software protected by the First Amendment? Will the government one day prosecute individuals who design 3D-printed guns and then make their plans downloadable on the internet? Last week brought cause for alarm that a federal crackdown on the decentralized, open-source software movement might be coming.

In the past, the U.S. government has pursued financial services companies like cryptocurrency exchanges, holding them criminally liable for mishandling other people’s money or for facilitating international payments without following Know Your Customer and other regulations.

But what happened on August 8 was different: The U.S. Treasury Department announced that its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was adding Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based tool for making cryptocurrency transactions anonymous, to the U.S. sanctions list. Dutch authorities arrested a suspected developer of Tornado Cash, accusing him of facilitating the laundering of billions in stolen funds.

What’s he guilty of? Writing code and making it free on the internet.

What triggered the U.S. crackdown on Tornado Cash was the allegation that North Korean hacking collective the Lazarus Group used Tornado Cash in an attempt to disguise a cryptocurrency payment worth about $455 million to North Korea’s missile program.

The Treasury Department’s action is reminiscent of the case against the software developer Phil Zimmerman, who developed and distributed software known as PGP in the early 1990s. PGP was the first widely accessible tool for sending messages over the internet with powerful encryption.

Zimmerman became the target of a three-year federal investigation on the grounds that his software was so powerful that making it possible for foreigners to download it online was the equivalent of distributing weapons to foreign countries without permission from the state department. The government ultimately dropped the investigation thanks in part to free speech activists who printed the entire PGP source code in a book published by MIT Press and sold it abroad to make the point that its creation was a form of writing protected by the First Amendment, just like any other book.

Zimmerman’s legal battle was part of what’s known as the crypto wars, which refers to the ongoing battle to keep powerful cryptography legal. The sanctioning of Tornado Cash is the latest chapter in that struggle. To better understand its implications, I reached out to attorney Jerry Brito, who’s the executive director of Coin Center, a nonprofit focused on policy issues and regulations facing bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“What’s been sanctioned here is not a person. There’s a sanction on a tool. And so the sanction really is on millions of Americans who otherwise might want to use that tool for completely lawful purposes,” says Brito.

Watch the full video above.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller; edited by Danielle Thompson. graphics by Isaac Reese, Jim Epstein, and Thompson.

Photo credits: Yichuan Cao/Sipa USA/Newscom; joan slatkin; CNP/AdMedia/Newscom; Liu Jie / Xinhua News Agency/Newscom

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EU NatGas Soars To Record High As Gazprom Announces New Halt To Flows

European natural gas prices closed at new record highs today… and that was before news of a new gas flow halt by Gazprom was announced.

The Russia gas producer said in a statement that it will halt gas flows via Nord Stream on Aug. 31 for 3 days as the single functioning gas turbine at Portovaya’s compressor station requires planned maintenance.

On a side-note, in a now-deleted tweet, Siemens Energy appeared to troll Gazprom over the ‘famous turbine’:

On an oil barrel equivalent basis, EU Nattie uis now trading at triple the US equivalent (which is also at its highest since 2008)

Upon work completion and absence of technical malfunctions of the turbine, gas flows will be restored to 33mcm/day.

As a reminder, flows are already at just 40% of capacity…

Finally, we note that this decision comes after news that Putin will attend the G-20 meeting (much to Washington’s chagrin)… flex much?

Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/19/2022 – 12:11

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Quiet-Quitting: Are You Doing Only What’s Necessary At Work And No More?

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Wondering why productivity is down? Think about the new phenomenon called quiet quitting…

A 17 second TikTok video on Quiet Quitting has amassed over 480,000 likes. I played it and thought “really?”

@zaidleppelin On quiet quitting #workreform ♬ original sound – ruby

Zoomers and the Extra Mile

The Wall Street Journal comments If Your Co-Workers Are ‘Quiet Quitting,’ Here’s What That Means

The phrase is generating millions of views on TikTok as some young professionals reject the idea of going above and beyond in their careers, labeling their lesser enthusiasm a form of “quitting.”

Of course, every generation enters the workforce and quickly realizes that having a job isn’t all fun and games.

The difference now is that this group has TikTok and hashtags to emote. And these 20-somethings joined the working world during the Covid-19 pandemic, with all of its dislocating effects, including blurred boundaries between work and life. Many workers say they feel they have power to push back in the current strong labor market. Recent data from Gallup shows employee engagement is declining.

Across generations, U.S. employee engagement is falling, according to survey data from Gallup, but Gen Z and younger millennials, born in 1989 and after, reported the lowest engagement of all during the first quarter at 31%.

Jim Harter, chief scientist for Gallup’s workplace and well-being research, said workers’ descriptions of “quiet quitting” align with a large group of survey respondents that he classifies as “not engaged”—those who will show up to work and do the minimum required but not much else. More than half of workers surveyed by Gallup who were born after 1989—54%—fall into this category.

Americans Are Breaking Up With Their Work Friends

Also consider Americans Are Breaking Up With Their Work Friends

In the months before he left his last job in 2020, Michael Trotter came to dread an end-of-day question from colleagues: Do you want to grab a drink?

“I don’t want to put in eight, nine, 10 hours and go out and have a beer—and talk about work for another four hours,” says Mr. Trotter, a 53-year-old database administrator in Cupertino, Calif.

In a recent survey of nearly 1,000 U.S. employees, relationships with co-workers tied with recognition as the least important factors in job satisfaction. (Compensation and work-life balance ranked as the most important of the 14 choices, according to online software marketplace Capterra, which conducted the survey.) Nearly two-thirds of those who had experienced high turnover at their companies said it had become less worthwhile for them to socialize and get to know colleagues.

What a Change

This is all so different than when I was in corporate America. All I wanted to talk about after work, was work.

If a project required weekend work, guess what?

I had not even heard the term “Quiet Quitting” until today.

Yet, in many ways it seems all so understandable. The average person making the average wage cannot afford the average house.

Marriage, kids, houses, who can afford them?

Is it strange then that priorities have shifted from getting ahead to free time?

With that attitude shift, comes declining productivity.

Real Output Per Hour Improves From Second Worst on Record to Simply Miserable

On August 9, I commented Real Output Per Hour Improves From Second Worst on Record to Simply Miserable

Perhaps productivity was really always overstated, not really capturing all the hours Boomers and Gen-Xers put in off the clock, unpaid.

Regardless, it rates to get worse as 20 million workers at retirement age will retire within a few years.

* * *

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Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/19/2022 – 12:10

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Putin Warns Macron “Large-Scale Catastrophe” Looms At Ukraine Nuclear Plant

French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a phone call Friday where the focus was ensuring the avoidance of disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. For weeks the site has emerged as the single most concerning hotspot in the conflict, given the possibility of nuclear accident.

Over the past week tit-for-tat accusations between Russian and Ukrainian forces have intensified amid warnings of “another Chernobyl” if the standoff doesn’t deescalate. Russia, which has about 500 of its troops occupying the nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, has blamed Ukrainian forces for repeat shelling of the sensitive facility.

Putin in Friday’s call warned Macron about the potential for “large-scale catastrophe” at the plant, blaming Kiev for the continued shelling and the deterioration of safe operations.

*The two leaders have talked dozens of times since the war began. AFP via Getty Images*

According to the call readout from the Kremlin side via Reuters:

Putin said shelling of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, which he blamed on Kyiv, created the risk of “large-scale catastrophe”. Both presidents agree on the need to send a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the plant.

According to the Kremlin, Putin told Macron about continuing obstacles to supplying Russian food and fertilizer products to world markets.

The day prior, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said he’s ready to lead an inspection team there, after an urgent call the inspect the complex was issued by Thursday’s trilateral meeting of President Zelensky, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Secretary-General António Guterres in Lviv, Ukraine.

Ukraine for its part has charged Russian forces with using the plant which supplies broad swathes of Europe with power as “nuclear blackmail”. But following the Macron call, Putin confirmed readiness to facilitate an urgent IAEA mission.

Zelensky has stated outright that anything that happens there will automatically be viewed as Moscow’s fault. He also in Saturday statements indicated his forces won’t stop attempting to liberate it from Russian troops:

“Every Russian soldier who either shoots at the plant, or shoots using the plant as cover, must understand that he becomes a special target for our intelligence agents, for our special services, for our army,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on Saturday night.

It’s clear that the plant has already been hit and partially damaged by shelling this month. Concern for potential contamination has raised such that international monitors have begun modeling various disaster scenarios:

In case a nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occurred on Aug 15-18, this is how the released airborne radioactive contaminants would probably get dispersed – Ukrainian hydrometeorological institute pic.twitter.com/1dQLcCtt1u

— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa) August 18, 2022

Bloomberg has given the latest damage update Friday as follows: “Already only two of six reactors at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant are operating, potentially leaving Ukraine’s electricity grid facing collapse this winter, with the crisis spilling into neighboring European Union energy markets.”

“Europe’s biggest atomic-energy station, Zaporizhzhia has in recent weeks been hit by shelling, with Ukraine and Russia blaming each other,” the report continues. “Explosions wrecked infrastructure and cables critical for cooling atomic reactions and transmitting power.”

The Kremlin has meanwhile alleged that Ukraine is planning a “false flag provocation” at Zaporizhzhia, even specifying something is being planned for Friday. There are unconfirmed reports being circulated that the Russian military even told local plant workers who are keeping it running to stay home Friday.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/19/2022 – 11:50

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Elon Musk Reacts To Border Crisis, Says Lacking Media Attention ‘Strange’

Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reacting to the recording-breaking number of illegal immigrants walking through the Southern border.

The world’s richest person was replying to reporting from Fox News’s Bill Melugin, who posted on Twitter drone footage of a group of hundreds of illegal immigrants crossing the Southern border at Eagle Pass, Texas, into the United States.

In his post, Melugin cited Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics showing border agents to have encountered 400,000 illegal immigrants so far in the Del Rio sector in Fiscal Year 2022 (since October 2021), a number that is already more than double the total number of encounters from Fiscal Year 2021. This number does not include “get-aways”—illegal crossers who evaded apprehension.

400k from one border crossing in less than a year?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2022

Strange that this receives very little attention in the media

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2022

“Strange that this receives very little attention in the media,” Musk wrote in response to Melugin on Aug. 14.

Musk, a self-portrayed political moderate and a design engineer by trade, has shared his perspective with his 100 million-plus following on a wide range of issues beyond cars and rockets.

The billionaire’s comments on the border crisis, for example, were the latest in his series of criticism of the current administration and the Democratic Party in general; others include his comments on the influence of labor unions on the Democratic party, the Spygate collusion scandal involving Clinton-affiliated Democrats, and the Biden White House’s alleged sidelining of Tesla’s role in the electric vehicle market.

The Bigger Picture

The backstory to the exchange between Musk and Melugin features an ever increasing surge in illegal immigration, overextended Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resources, and an administration that actively strives to undo Trump-era “America First” immigration policies.

Eagle Pass is only one of the regions along the Southwest border where hundreds of illegal immigrants pour into the United States. From the beginning of Fiscal Year 2022 on Oct. 1, 2021, to early August this year, border patrol agents apprehended 1.8 million illegal crossers. That’s more than the population of Phoenix, Arizona, the fifth-most populous city in the country, and about 40 percent higher than the total number of apprehensions in the previous fiscal year.

BORDER: Border Patrol agents organize hundreds of illegal immigrants who have streamed across the border from Mexico near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20. pic.twitter.com/ftZyyhfTc0

— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) May 21, 2022

The head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meanwhile, insists that the border is secure, while the Biden administration is kept busy by legal disputes with border states on key Trump migration policies.

One of the policies that the Biden administration began pulling back—following a Supreme Court decision that ruled in its favor—was the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required non-Mexican migrants seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico for processing.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration will continue to enforce the Trump-era immigration and public health policy known as Title 42, a policy instated as a COVID-19 countermeasure that allowed the United States to quickly expel migrants who unlawfully entered the United States and bypassed health screening in the process. A judge blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to lift Title 42 in May.

*A Border Patrol agent organizes a large group of illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)*

Another legal battle that will be consequential to border security will play out in the Supreme Court in the fourth quarter of this year, when the highest court will hear a case on whether Biden’s immigration enforcement guidelines constitute executive agency overreach. In July, the Supreme Court allowed a federal judge in Texas to block the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines that, according to the border states’ prosecutors, limit the ability of border agents to detain and deport illegal aliens.

“The Biden Admin’s border record is an absolute failure,” Chad Wolf, former Acting DHS Secretary under the Trump Administration, wrote on Twitter on Aug. 17, following reports of anonymous CBP sources saying that a record-setting 2 million illegal crossers were apprehended since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2022.

“I encourage Republicans next year to enact strong oversight in this area – specifically how DHS leadership executed an intentional plan to endanger migrants and American communities by refusing to enforce the law,” Wolf wrote.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/19/2022 – 11:35

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