The trend toward U-shaped confrontation zones continues.
Chicago Boyz Waiting Room Series: 23
The very bad Continuing Resolution and how we got here.
We now have a a terrible non-compromise Continuing Resolution on border security. The Appropriations committee reported out HR31, the Continuing Resolution.
The Homeland Security division of this bill upholds Democratic values and funds smart and effective border security including construction and screening technology at ports of entry, where most drugs illegally enter the country.
The $1.375 billion it provides for border barriers is 76% less than the President demanded for a concrete wall, and critical protections are put in place for environmentally sensitive areas.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, yet every Democrat and nearly every Republican who served on the conference committee to write this bill has signed it in support.
Boilerplate. The real story is what was inserted in conference.
Well, This is a Cheerful Thought
…not.
Twitter’s Takeover of Politics is Just Getting Started.
Summary at Tyler Cowen’s blog:
But what does this new, more intense celebrity culture mean for actual outcomes? The more power and influence that individual communicators wield over public opinion, the harder it will be for a sitting president to get things done. (The best option, see above, will be to make your case and engage your adversaries on social media.) The harder it will be for an aspirant party to put forward a coherent, predictable and actionable political program.
Finally, the issues that are easier to express on social media will become the more important ones. Technocratic dreams will fade, and fiery rhetoric and identity politics will rule the day. And if you think this is the political world we’re already living in, rest assured: It’s just barely gotten started.
See also my post freedom, the village, and social media.
What about Mexico’s border wall with the US?
If you go to where Mexico meets the US at the Pacific Ocean you will see a curious thing. There appear to be two fences. One appears to be on each side of the border.
This arrangement is normal and benign. Both countries have their own security needs.
But there’s a journalistic scandal staring at you right in the face. The US media conversation covers the US fence often enough. I can’t seem to find any coverage of the Mexican border fence. Why is it there? How much coverage does it have? How much does it cost to maintain it?
The idea of Mexico paying for its own fence along our common border simply doesn’t enter into the US conversation about borders and relations with Mexico. Omitting it does make for simplified narratives, but mostly that’s in the service of laziness. We could do better, but we don’t.
Minstrelsy
Watching this weeks’ major media meltdown regarding Governor Northam and a college buddy having dressed in blackface and as a KKK member for I presume some kind of masquerade party is as entertaining as it is baffling. I was in elementary and middle school during the high points of the civil rights/desegregation campaign by the time I was an adult, half a dozen years ahead of Governor Northam civil rights for citizens of whatever color was a done deal. It was all, we thought, done and dusted. Membership in the Klan was an unsavory, disreputable thing. I ought to mention that I grew up in blue-collar California, and if there had ever been a substantial KKK presence there, it managed to escape my notice and the notice of my parents. Things must have been way different in the south-eastern US in the 1980s, I guess.