White House officials say that the Trump Administration is preparing to discuss next steps in the process of seizing large amounts of privately-owned land on the US southern border, which President Trump intends to use to build his border wall.
Jared Kushner is taking the reins of this process, and will be talking through different options with the Pentagon and Justice Department. Officials say that letters have been drawn up claiming officials have the right to enter the land to appraise and survey it.
This would normally be where the government agrees to prices for the land with the owners, though the administration seems keen to skip much, potentially all of this part, and are expected to ask the courts to just skip any legal protection afforded to landowners.
Since President Trump declared the wall an “emergency” as a way to get money to pay for it, the plan seems to be arguing that they can also declare an emergency for the sake of seizing the land first, and worrying about what the owners get later.
Please proceed!
Texans are going to just LOVE this plan.
Further proof that “Conservatism” has always been a fraud by the rich to get richer.
There is nothing “conservative” about the gop anymore. “Radical militants” is more like it.
Laughable. Conservatism means to preserve normal values that are under attack by the cultural Marxists you vote for. Please try to understand terminology before you mouth off. And you pretend the GOP would be against immigration, while most of the current politicians have been molded by the socialist media owners and support mass immigration. It is almost only Trump who is, mildly, against immigration, and has to fight the corrupt party that is on the Left’s side. But please pretend that it’s the EVIL RACIST PARTY since that’s the only worldview you can handle. Gotta have that evil enemy! Oh, and they’re controlled by Russia, right? LOL
Want some dressing with that word salad ? I recommend the russian for that particular mixture.
It’s not only Marxists who want to transform the US. Plenty of businesses enjoy the cheap labour. They also pay so much in healthcare costs now that it has become a major business cost for the US.
Trump seems to just want high value immigrants who’ll pay more in taxes, boost the economy. He also wants to be reelected.
How about some Cheese with that Whine?
America has needed an Evil Enemy ever since the end of WWII. That’s why we got radical, Islamofascist Jihadism after the collapse of the USSR. Got to feed that military-industrial complex/surveillance-secrecy-security-safety panopticon.
And if You think anybody who is responding to Your blather is a “cultural Marxist” voter, You obviously would not know a cultural Marxist if one bit You on Your backside.
“America has needed an Evil Enemy”
Yes, it is much easier to commit mass murder against innocent people if you consider at least some foreigners to be subhuman, much as Carpenter E seems to view Latinos, and possibly Arabs or just brown people in general.
I find it amusing that he refers to the advocates of a purely free market as “left wing socialists” and “cultural Marxists.” The irony is deafening.
If it was just irony, it would be faintly amusing. The fact is that Corporal Carpenter honestly and sincerely believes that, as do a whole bunch of other Trumpatistas. And that ~ to anybody who is concerned about the future of this nation ~ should be very disturbing.
“And that ~ to anybody who is concerned about the future of this nation ~ should be very disturbing.”
And it is quite disturbing to me. I attempt, however, to stay as light hearted as I possibly can under the circumstances, and sometimes a little levity is just what the doctor ordered.
I have been posting here for many years and don’t recall seeing you here before. Are you new, or have I just not been very observant? I always welcome new allies in the fight against tyranny. In any event, glad to see you aboard.
i’ve been around here now and then. i spend more time at FEE and Mises, and harassing folks at Common Dreams and Briefbarf.
To get a feel for where i stand on the “fight against tyranny,” check out the Comments to the current FEE lead article “Entitlement Liabilities Are a Graver Threat to the Next Generation of Americans Than Climate Change” [https://fee.org/articles/entitlement-liabilities-are-a-graver-threat-to-the-next-generation-of-americans-than-climate-change/]
I looked at that article and your responses. I have already found some disagreements I have with you, in particular:
1. You apparently essentially equate a tax break with a subsidy. In my opinion, they are not the same thing. A tax break is a relief from involuntary taxation, and does not have to be “paid for” in any manner.
2. Climate change is definitely real, but global warming might actually be beneficial overall, and your painting of it as a guaranteed terrible cataclysm I think is inaccurate. You mention droughts, but severe droughts were occurring 45 years ago as well. I do not believe their frequency has increased in any measurable manner. For instance, the Sahara has been expanding for many years, even during the period 1940-1975, when the Earth’s average temperature actually decreased by 0.5 degrees C. Also, what is your solution? I would think if CO2 emissions really were the main cause of global warming, the obvious solution would be more liberty, such as legalizing industrial hemp. Certainly giving the federal government the legal authority to control the climate seems extremely short sighted to me (not that you are proposing that, that’s why I asked the question).
“1. You apparently essentially equate a tax break with a subsidy. In my opinion, they are not the same thing. A tax break is a relief from involuntary taxation, and does not have to be ‘paid for’ in any manner.”
A tax break does indeed have to be paid for either by other current taxpayers [if the budget is not going to run a deficit], or by future taxpayers when the bills come due [like our $23 trillion and growing by $1 trillion/year national, sovereign debt.
Ie: Every dollar that somebody doesn’t have to pay because of a tax break has to be paid by some other tax payer if the expense that that tax-breaked dollar was going to pay for is going to be covered by revenue.
And if that current expense isn’t paid for by revenue, then it will have to be paid [along with interest] by some future taxpayer. You continued:
“2. Climate change is definitely real, but global warming might actually be beneficial overall, and your painting of it as a guaranteed terrible cataclysm I think is inaccurate. You mention droughts, but severe droughts were occurring 45 years ago as well…. ”
Well, i am not painting it as a “guaranteed terrible cataclysm,” but the US Army sure as hell seems to think it is: at least as far as the national security and, indeed, future survivability of this nation is concerned.
And that global warming will be beneficial for some folks, there is no doubt. It’s been a boon to those chaps transporting refugees from North Africa over to Europe. And lots of people are chomping at the bit to extract everything they can ~ oil, gas, fish, enhanced military hegemony ~ from an ice-free Arctic Ocean. And folks in Canada are eagerly anticipating extended growing seasons, especially when Agriculture in the US tanks because of droughts, water scarcity, alien insect infestations, and other such effects of GW.
But on the other hand, there are those who won’t benefit quite so much. Like those American Southern and Midwestern Farmers; like those whose current lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles will be destroyed by an ice-free Arctic; like folks like Corporal Bonespurs and his heirs when the estate at Mar-a-Lago is flooded out, along with, as the Army put, “tens, if not hundreds of millions of people to be displaced by sea level rise.”
Yep; definitely beneficial. “Carbon Dioxide is good for Trees” inform a senior Trumpatistian science advisor to the White House, as does his head of the EPA. Helps make up for all the trees we’re going to clear cut once we open up all the National Forests to making America’s timber industry great again; just like we are the coal industry. And making America the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century. You continued:
“Also, what is your solution? I would think if CO2 emissions really were the main cause of global warming, the obvious solution would be more liberty, such as legalizing industrial hemp. Certainly giving the federal government the legal authority to control the climate seems extremely short sighted to me (not that you are proposing that, that’s why I asked the question).”
First of all, how would the legalization of industrial hemp have any effect on CO2 [and methane, while we’re at it] emissions?
And “more liberty” for who to do what?
Why should the owners and operators, for example, of coal-burning power plants be able to dump the residue of the production of their product into the atmosphere, and be able to do it without cost to themselves? Particularly regardless of the harm it causes to ~ or the problems it causes for ~ anybody else downwind?
An example of a solution would be that every paper and pulp mill ~ that scoops up river water and then passes out polluted, contaminated refuse downstream ~ should be required to take its water in downstream of where it is doing its dumping, and assume the cost of that so-called “externality” on its own books, instead of passing it on to someone closer to the ocean.
The same could be said for those farmers and their industrial agricultural runoff, and those cities with their sewer, sanitation, and other urban refuse.
My solution ~ as i indicated in those comments over at FEE ~ is, first of all, to send copies of Implications of Climate Change for the U.S. Army to the following people, and challenge them to read, react, and respond to it, and, if they can and dare try, to refute, rebut, and rebuke it:
President Trump, his Chief of Staff, the National Security Council, and, particularly, the Director of National Intelligence; the Secretaries of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Energy, Transportation, Agriculture, and Commerce; every US Senator and US Representative; every announced, possible or potential candidate for any federal, state, or local office in 2020; thru the National Guard Bureau, the Governors of each State; the Vice President; and, especially, every Climate Change Denying individual, institution, and organization on the Planet, especially within the military-industrial complex and/or the petro-financial web.
Before anything is going to happen as regards Climate Change, it has to be recognized, acknowledged, and accepted that, as the Army put it [and You did Yourself], that: Climate Change Is Real; that it is already happening and is already causing serious problems all over the Planet, including right here in the US; that it and its effects will only get worse; and that it constitutes, again, a very real existential threat to the national security and very survivability of this nation, if not indeed of all developed and developing nation states, their economies, polities, civil societies, and cultures.
And no government can “control the climate.” Only recently have they learned how to even moderately consistently and accurately forecast the Weather [altho they are working on controlling it, it seems].
But, governments COULD control what their citizens and their economic extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal structures, systems, and processes are taking out of and putting into the ground, water, and air of this Planet.
And they could do that by reminding everybody that there is indeed no such thing as a Free Lunch, and that if they are going to use the Planet as their personal, private, and especially corporate dumping ground, that they are going to have to pay for that privilege.
If they are going to dump their effluent in the river, they have to take their water in from downstream of where they dump it, etc.
“A tax break does indeed have to be paid for either by other current taxpayers [if the budget is not going to run a deficit], or by future taxpayers when the bills come due”
You left out the third option — the state doesn’t spend the money that it doesn’t take in because of the “tax break.” Take in a dollar less, spend a dollar less.
I was about to say it’s not written in stone that government spending can never, ever, ever go down — but the government probably HAS spent money writing it in stone somewhere. That doesn’t make it true though.
I strongly support general “tax breaks” for everyone — in other words, general “tax cuts.” The problem with “targeted” tax policies isn’t that the poverty-stricken state gets less money, it’s that they’re used to skew things in favor of politically connected players.
Heh. Well put. But when was the last time Option 3 was even out in the waiting room, let alone actually on the table?
And “‘targeted’: tax policies” that skew things in favor of politically-connected players doesn’t just happen in “poverty-stricken states.”
In fact, it happens even more in those states that are not poverty stricken because of those tax policies that favor the politically connected there.
I agree — tax policies favoring the politically connected are a feature of prosperous states as well as poverty-stricken states.
The state is the executive committee of the ruling class and always serves that class, not some mythical “the people.” “The people” are sheep to be sheared.
And that is the way it has always been ever since somebody came up with the bright idea that governments should do more than establish and maintain a rule of law that protects Human Rights, and get into the business of meeting Human Needs and satisfying Human Wants.
It was at that point in the evolution of homo PolitEconomus that all the problems started. Especially since the folks that came up with this idea also figured out how to tie religion into the whole mix.
Let me share something with You, and solicit Your feedback:
Answering the Three Most Important Questions: A Prospectus
Executive Summary: This is a statement on the Three Most Important Questions confronting America and The World Today: What they are; Why they are the most important Questions; a proposed way to go about exploring those Questions; and a request for assistance in finding their Answers.
…….
My nominees for The Three Most Important Questions Confronting America and The World Today [or 3MIQ] are:
1. What is the difference between a “Human Right,” on the one hand, and a “Human Need” and “Human Want,” on the other?
2. Given that difference, what is the proper function of Government as regards the meeting of Human Needs, the satisfaction of Human Wants, and the protection of Human Rights?
3. So What and Now What?
i believe these to be the Three Most Important Questions because:
1. Confusion over, of, and about the difference between Human Rights, Needs, and Wants has always been and now is the primary, core, root cause of much, if not most Human Suffering in this Nation and on this Planet.
2. Confusion over, of, and about the proper function of Government ~ as regards the meeting of Human Needs, the satisfaction of Human Wants, and the protection of Human Rights ~ has always been and now is the primary explanation for the How and Why of that Suffering, locally, nationally, and globally. Ie:
a. Human Needs are not met.
b. Human Wants are not satisfied.
c. Human Rights are not observed, preserved, and protected.
3. Unless and until that difference is understood, acknowledged, accepted, and acted upon ~ and Governments assume their proper functions as regards Needs, Wants, and Rights ~ Human Needs will continue to not be met, Human Wants will continue to not be satisfied, and Human Rights will continue to be ignored, suppressed, and obliterated.
To answer these Three Questions, the following Preliminary Questions must first be answered:
0. IS there a core, fundamental difference between Human Needs and Wants, on the one hand, and Human Rights, on the other?
1. If there is: How and Why are they different, and What are those specific differences? [Note: If it can be established that there IS no difference, then this conversation ends here.]
2. Because, then, Human Needs and Wants are different from Human Rights, then How and Why is there such confusion about that difference?
3. What are the results of that confusion? What are the problems whose root cause source are indeed and in deed that confusion of Human Needs and Wants with Human Rights?
4. How and Why would the elimination of that confusion solve many, if not most, if not virtually all of those problems resulting from that confusion?
5. What specific steps can be taken to eliminate that confusion?
6. As specifically regards MIQs 2 and 3, and preliminary Questions 3, 4, and 5, above:
How and Why does all this matter to America and the World in this, Year III of The Age of Trump?
Once those basic and base Questions are answered, then the following Follow-on Questions can be asked and begun to be answered:
1. Is Health Care a Human Right? Or is it a Human Need and Want?
2. Similarly, are Education, Employment, Housing, and Physical, Mental, and Emotional Security Human Rights? Or categories of Human Needs and Wants? What about healthfully breathable Air and drinkable/irrigationable Water?
3. And what about Abortion; the use of Recreational/Explorational Drugs; the possession of military grade-Weapons and Weapons Systems; one’s choice of Marital Partner and/or Sexual Proclivity; Membership in organizations; freedom from warrentless Mass Surveillance; freedom of Association and from involuntary Participation on Religious or Other grounds; freedom of “offensive,” “offending,” or otherwise-Incorrect Speech; freedom Of and From religion; and so forth? Are these Needs and Wants; or are they Rights?
Is not having to worry about getting blown away while in school, at work, out with friends, or at a place of worship a Human Right? Or is it a Human Need and Want?
4. And perhaps most importantly: What about TRUTH?
Is the Truth ~ about What our governments, corporations and financial institutions, religious and educational organizations, and media conglomerates are actually, really doing, and really, actually either hiding from us, or simply [and sometimes blatantly] lying to us about ~ is THAT Truth a Human Right; or merely a Need and Want?
Once those penultimate Questions have been asked and answered, then the ultimate, Real Questions can be addressed:
1. How are Human Needs best most met and Human Wants most best satisfied? What mechanisms of which kinds of economic, political, social, and cultural structures, systems, processes, procedures, and ultimate products most optimally and efficaciously accomplish that? And Why is that so?
2. How are Human Rights most and best observed, preserved, and protected? Again: What mechanisms of which kinds of cultural, social, political, and economic structures, systems, processes, procedures, and ultimate products most efficiently and effectively accomplish that? And Why is that so?
3. Which specific Human creations, efforts and activities, groupings, organizations, and institutions ~ over the course of the history of Homo sapiens ~ have contributed most to the meeting of those Needs and the satisfying of those Wants, on the one hand, and/or to the observation, preservation, and protection of those Rights, on the other?
4. Which specific Human creations, efforts and activities, groupings, organizations, and institutions ~ over the course of the history of Homo sapiens ~ have contributed most to the failure to meet those Needs and to satisfy those Wants, on the one hand, and/or to the dismissal, suppression, and obliteration of those Rights, on the other?
All of which then leads back to the last and most important of the Three Most Important Questions: So What and Now What?
Once it is determined, decided, and demonstrated:
1. What the difference is between Human Needs and Wants and Human Rights; and,
2. How and Why that difference has been, at best forgotten and at worst, resolutely ignored, and in either case, thus seriously confused; and,
3. What the results of that confusion have been and are as it impacts both first the meeting of those Needs and the satisfaction of those Wants, and then the observance, protection, and preservation of those Rights; and, finally,
4. What are the cultural, social, political, and economic structures, systems, processes, procedures, and ultimate products that not merely facilitate this confusion, but perpetrate, propagate, and perpetuate it; and the factors, forces, fields, and energies, and the methods, mechanisms, modalities, and memes that enable all this to happen; then…..
Once all that is determined, decided, and demonstrated, then comes the task of determining, deciding, and demonstrating what to Do about all this.
Then comes the task of determining whether or not confronting, combating, and conquering that Confusion can, could, and should be done.
And, ultimately, comes the task of demonstrating that if a critical mass of Conscious, Concerned, and Committed Citizens determine and decide that that Will in fact be done, then how do we go about doing that? How do we go about making that happen?
Amazingly disjointed.
“Conservatism” has just been a word for republicans to hide their progressivism behind for past half century….
Incredibly dumb post. Open borders like you leftists want would push down wages 40 percent. Purchasing power for workers has been stagnant for decades due to the flood of leftist invaders, while it hasn’t affected the increasing income of “the rich,” which has continued like workers’ increased income used to continue before the 1964 plan. Mass immigration lowers wages, but you pretend it’s stopping mass immigration that “makes the rich richer”. Talk about brainwashed. But otherwise you couldn’t be a leftist.
Nobody wants “open borders” wingnut.
It’s another Big Lie from the fever swamps of Wingnuttistan.
If Republican America *really* cared about illegal immigration, they would go after the companies that hire undocumented workers..
Never gonna happen.
Well, he would have to arrest himself, most of his donors and family then. Course, then pardon em….
“Course, then pardon em….”
As he is now pardoning war criminals. Dave, silly you, what’s wrong with that? *
* This was meant as sarcasm, and I in no way equate war crimes with “illegal” immigration, as the latter has no victims, while the former definitely does.
“Nobody wants ‘open borders'”
Au contraire.
“they would go after the companies that hire undocumented workers..”
Yeah! Real ID! Show me your papers! He who does not obey, shall not eat! /s
“Nobody wants ‘open borders'”
I do, as it is the only immigration policy consistent with liberty, peace, and the free market.
Well said. Completly wasted on our SuperPatriot Carpenter E; but well said, nonetheless.
This “emergency” reminds me of the “imminent” danger Anwar al Awlaki supposedly posed and how long it took from the time we said he was that imminent danger until we actually offed him. I believe it was 9 months. So the “emergency” fits right in to our redefining words to fit the narrative that is being shoved down our throats.
False, but thanks for trying. Anwar al-Awlaki was far away, while your fellow socialists are invading the U.S. in a flood, more than a million every year. But you want that since you know Americans are majority right-wing, so you will use any lie to promote the invasion. Your beloved socialist leaders are drooling over it in social media, saying they can’t wait for the hated Whites to become a minority, and saying “we must abolish the white race, not just ethnically but physically”. That’s the racial plan you support.
Actually I wasn’t really commenting on the border situation and was just making a point about how we indeed have changed the meaning of words to fit whatever narrative we are trying to push at any given time. Like Obama calling the war on Libya a “kinetic action”. But I guess you just couldn’t wait to call someone a socialist so good for you.
“while your fellow socialists”
Those who sieze property by State fiat (such as Trump) are the “socialists.” Those who support freedom of association, freedom of contract, freedom of travel and trade are the free marketeers. Your ideas are so muddled I don’t know where to begin dissecting them. You appear to worship State violence, and oppose the peaceful operation of the free market.
“those who seize property by fiat are the “socialists””….no, those who seize property are “property seizers” whether they are socialists, capitalists, colonists, slaves, real estate developers, banks, etc., or Ghengis Khan
“‘we must abolish the white race, not just ethnically but physically.'”
I do not see anyone here proposing to legally restrict who can procreate with whom. If anything, it would appear that you are the one advocating using State violence to legally restrict free association. Let me get this straight — using State violence to legally restrict freedom of travel and association is “freedom.”
There’s no such thing as “the white race.” A number of racial groupings fall — or, rather, fell — into the category “white,” which was invented to designate who could be held as property versus who couldn’t. In the United States, chattel slavery was eliminated in 1865, so there haven’t been any “white” people here for more than 150 years.
Whatever he does here will later be challenged in court, the next administration will tear it down. Trump is like the drunk college kid tenants you have have to clean up after they wreck the place.
Trump is so pro USA he obviously has to steal private land to protect Americans from their constitutional tyranny.
the math probably works. He is going to screw/piss off 1000 landowners and please his base of 10’s of millions. What the base don’t realize is that the man has no limits and eventually he will be screwing them as well.
“and eventually he will be screwing them as well.”
Exactly. You reap what you sow, and when Trump runs out of border property owners to mess over, he will move his sights on to you.
he already is. The DFs are just too dense or air-headed to recognize, realize, acknowledge, and accept that. How can they; given the Echo Chamber Views and News Silos they inhabit?
while I think a protection is needed on the borders (wall, etc) it is sure a problem to the ones who have had this land for generations espcially-folks fouhgt, suffered hardships and probably even died for it.
a lot of thought needs to be here for them-money or ‘something’…otherwise their land south of the wall is, in effect, “no man’s land”
Isn’t it interesting that not one Trumpatista supporting POTUS Maximus XLV‘s Great Wall of The Americas (South) had a single thing to say about what this article was really all about: the seizure of private property by the government. Interesting and not at all surprising.
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a bible,” with Corporal Bonespurs leading the parade and his Faithful Devoted gaggling along behind..