Mexican Drug Gang Turns In Members It Blames for Americans’ Deaths

Don't travel to Mexico. You're likely to be killed.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Gulf Cartel faction left five men tied up in downtown Matamoros with a sign apologizing to victims and their families."

Also, "Americans Kidnapped, Killed in Mexico Were Victims of Violent Border City: Matamoros is the birthplace of the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico’s oldest and most powerful criminal organizations."

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Brings Back Mexico's Nationalization of the Economy

This never ends well for Mexico, and especially not for U.S. taxpayers, who always get stuck with the bill when the U.S. government rushes in to bail out our southern neighbor every time its economy crashes. 

At the Wall Sweet Journal, "Mexico Takes Aim at Private Companies, Threatening Decades of Economic Growth":

Populist president seeks to reclaim state control over oil-and-gas, electricity sectors; ‘It’s a closing off of Mexico’.

MONTERREY, Mexico—For the past 20 years, a 1,100-megawatt power plant owned by Spain’s Iberdrola SA outside Mexico’s industrial capital has kept the lights on for scores of companies such as brewing giant Heineken NV, despite winter freezes, a hurricane and the occasional brush fire.

But since January, half the gas-fired plant has been forcibly shut down by Mexico’s government, which argues that private energy companies have plundered Mexico like Spanish conquistadors of old. The electricity shutdown forced dozens of firms in Monterrey to return to the inefficient and more costly state-run utility for their power.

In September, a fuel-import terminal owned by global investment firm KKR & Co. was closed at gunpoint by Mexico’s energy regulator, months after it closed two other such terminals owned by U.S. companies. Last year, the government took over operating control of the biggest oil find in recent Mexican history, stripping it from a U.S. company that made the discovery. It is also trying to revoke the operating license of Latin America’s largest wind farm, majority owned by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp., an example of how the government’s policies are hobbling Mexico’s transition to renewable energy.

Going after private companies might seem like something from the playbook of Socialist Venezuela rather than Mexico, which in recent decades has transformed itself into one of the world’s most globalized nations, signing free-trade deals with more than 40 countries and using manufacturing exports to become the U.S.’s second largest trading partner. Along the way, it lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty.

But Mexico’s populist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in 2018, is shifting the country to a 1970s industrial policy focused on the domestic market, natural resources such as oil and greater state intervention, from backing state-run energy giants to using the army for major public-works projects.

“It’s a closing off of Mexico,” says Gabriela Siller, an economist at Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey.

The change is especially stark in Mexico’s crucial energy sector, where the government has launched a broad effort to stop new private investment and restore the dominant position of former government monopolies in both oil and gas and electricity—effectively reversing a 2013 constitutional overhaul that opened both markets to private firms.

The moves will cost Mexico billions of dollars in forgone investment; raise domestic energy prices; limit the growth of oil and electricity output; and damage the competitiveness of Mexican companies and hundreds of multinationals that operate here, according to the U.S. government, private companies and economists. It also risks prompting more migration by job-seeking Mexicans to the U.S.

The president says, without offering evidence, that past governments were paid off by multinationals to allow them to enter the market and destroy the state oil giant Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, and the state-run utility, Federal Electricity Commission, or CFE, leaving Mexico’s energy security at risk and consumers at the mercy of profiteers. He also argues that Mexico’s turn to an open economy left too many poor people behind.

“They had a plan to close all the CFE plants and leave everything to the private sector, to such a degree that half our country’s electricity is now made by private companies,” the president said at a news conference.

The CFE has a monopoly on residential power, which it subsidizes heavily. But it lost hundreds of industrial clients over the past decade as firms opted for cheaper electricity provided by private firms. The CFE usually doesn’t subsidize electricity for large corporate clients, and its prices can be up to 30% to 50% higher than those of private power producers. Some privately produced renewable energy is a third of the price of the CFE’s power, according to Mexico’s renewable energy association.

In many ways, the decommissioned electricity plant outside Monterrey is a metaphor for Mexico’s stalled economy and a glimpse of the country’s potential economic future.

From 2019 through 2021, the first full three years of Mr. López Obrador’s presidency, Mexico’s economy shrank an average of 1.14% a year, according to government data. While the U.S. regained its prepandemic level of economic output by mid-2020, Mexico is among the few countries in the hemisphere, along with the leftist dictatorship of Venezuela, that hasn’t yet recovered, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund.

The Mexican economy is now lagging that of the U.S. and Canada in a sustained way for the first time since shortly after the mid-1990s, when all three countries banded together in a free-trade deal then called the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

Next year, Indonesia is set to overtake Mexico as the world’s 15th-biggest economy, according to IMF estimates.

At the same time, migration from Mexico has accelerated to the U.S. for the first time since the early 2000s. In fiscal year 2021, U.S. apprehensions of Mexican migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border more than doubled over the previous year to almost 655,600. That figure is set to rise in 2022, U.S. government data show.

Mexico’s average electricity prices for companies are already about 40% higher than the U.S., according to Mexican business chamber Concamin, putting the country at a disadvantage for manufacturing. But economists say Mr. López Obrador’s policies will make matters far worse.

Since Mr. López Obrador took power, the government has halted new auctions for oil-and-gas exploration by private firms, new mining concessions and new investments for private electricity generation, including solar and wind farms that can produce electricity at roughly a third the CFE’s average cost, according to figures from Mexico’s energy regulator.

Last year, the government passed a law forcing the national electric grid to give priority to electricity produced by the CFE, even though its power is more costly and polluting than that of private firms. The laws retroactively affected an estimated $22 billion in investment by firms such as Iberdrola. Energy regulators have also tied up oil-and-gas firms from Shell to BP to prevent them from opening up new filling stations to compete with state oil giant Pemex, the companies said.

The law forcing the grid to use the CFE’s electricity first could raise Mexico’s electricity costs by up to 52%, or some $5.5 billion a year, and boost CO2 emissions by up to 73 million tons a year, a 65% jump from current emissions, according to a recent study by the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That would prevent Mexico from meeting its carbon reduction goals under the Paris Climate Agreements, say environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council. Mexico’s Environment Ministry declined to comment.

Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president from 2006 to 2012, tweeted last October, “What Mexicans need is more clean energy…and not more polluting and expensive energy from the CFE. The government’s changes seek to stop renewable energy from private firms and force us all to pay for old fossil-fuel energy.”

Thanks to more than 200 lawsuits against the new dispatch rules, a judge last year ordered the government to temporarily block their implementation. The government is appealing the order and has vowed to start implementing the changes despite it. Mexico has halted auctions for new renewable-energy investments. Three such auctions between 2015 and 2017 were so successful they doubled the country’s renewable energy capacity to 15 gigawatts, according to the wind industry association. During the 2017 auction, Mexico set a then-world record low price for wind power per megawatt hour and close to a record in solar, making both forms of energy produced here far cheaper than electricity made by fossil fuels and among the cheapest sources of energy in the world.

With no more private investment in wind or solar farms, the country’s renewable energy capacity will stall. Mexico’s state utility is currently building five natural-gas fired power plants and doesn’t plan on opening its first solar farm until 2027. It has no plans for wind farms.

“If Mexico can’t create a legal framework to promote renewable energy, then General Motors isn’t going to get rid of its zero carbon plans. Unfortunately, we just won’t consider Mexico as an investment choice,” Francisco Garza, the president of GM in Mexico, recently told a meeting of financial executives.

Foreign direct investment during Mr. López Obrador’s first three years averaged $31.4 billion a year versus $35.7 billion a year during his predecessor’s six-year term, according to central bank figures. Meanwhile, for the first time since NAFTA came into effect, Mexico saw a net outflow of investment in publicly traded stocks and bonds for two consecutive years.

The government’s policies are causing the country to miss out on a historic chance to attract more U.S. companies that are trying to diversify their supply chains away from China and face growing labor shortages at home, economists say.

“The Mexican government needs to do some soul searching about why investment has been so weak,” said Alberto Ramos, chief economist for Latin America at Goldman Sachs. “It’s not just the pandemic. I think it’s the overall business environment, and it’s a pity because there are great opportunities Mexico could be taken advantage of.”

KKR said it planned to sue the Mexican government for $667 million in damages linked to the takeover of its fuel terminal. Houston-based Talos Energy said it would pursue international arbitration over the government’s decision to seize operating control of its Zama field, which shares oil with a neighboring field under Pemex’s control.

Mexico’s government said it is in talks with Talos, KKR and other U.S. firms to resolve the issues.

The three closed fuel terminals all supply gasoline to private oil companies that are competing with state oil firm Pemex to sell gasoline, part of the 2013 overhaul in Mexico that ended Pemex’s monopoly...

Paul Gillingham, Unrevolutionary Mexico

See Paul Gillingham, Unrevolutionary Mexico: The Birth of a Strange Dictatorship.

GRAPHIC: At Least 17 Dead in Soccer Melee at Mexico's Querétaro Estadio Corregidora Stadium (PHOTOS)

This tweet is particular gruesome. It's a foaming mob, kicking people to death, stripping off their clothes. Here, "The riot at the Querétaro vs Atlas game spilled outside of the stadium. Reprehensible scene."

Oh! Lord have mercy!

At London's Daily Mail, "Mexican football league suspended after match turns into BLOODBATH: 'Up to 17' fans killed and 'at least 26' injured after fights break out in stands as supporters beat up rivals and strip them NAKED":

At least 17 were killed and 26 people were brutally injured in a football match in Mexico yesterday, according to local reports.

The game between Queretaro and Atlas was suspended when fights broke out.

Unconfirmed reports of deaths emerged amid footage of fans bloodied and unresponsive.

Security opened the gates so women and children could escape to the pitch.

The Liga MX - Mexico's elite football division - announced the suspension of all remaining matches this weekend.

 More here, "VERY STRONG IMAGES FROM QUERÉTARO CORREGIDORA STADIUM. The bars fought brutally, there are wounded and unofficially dead. NO TO VIOLENCE IN STADIUMS, IN SPORTS, IN FOOTBALL," here, "Picture captured of man in the total choas that broke out at the Liga MX soccer match between Atlas and Querétaro."

See also, "Soccer Match Gets Suspended As Gruesome Riot Ends With 17 Fans Dead & Counting (VIDEO + PICS)."

At Least 13 Dead as SUV Crammed With 25 Illegal Aliens T-Boned by Peterbilt Big-Rig Near Mexican Border (VIDEO)

Well, Tucker had former Trump adviser Stephen Miller on last night, and Miller explained that human traffickers cut the seats out of vehicles, like this Ford SUV, to be able to cram 25 migrants inside, most likely stacked one on top of another, like ready-made corpes.

Most media reports aren't including that kind of detail in their reporting, and of course, most media reports, again, have avoided mentioning the Biden administration's reversal of the Trump administration's tough border policies as one of the main reasons for this utter disaster. 

It's a waste of precious human life, and frankly, Democrats do not care.

At the Los Angeles Times, "At least 13 killed in crash of SUV carrying more than 2 dozen near U.S.-Mexico border":

A collision between a big rig and an SUV carrying more than two dozen people near the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday morning killed at least 13 and injured several others, authorities said.

About 6 a.m., the 2011 Peterbilt tractor-trailer was traveling north on Route 115 near El Centro when, for reasons that remained unclear, a Ford Expedition entered an intersection directly in front of the truck, according to a California Highway Patrol report. The truck plowed into the left side of the SUV.

The burgundy 1997 Ford, designed to hold no more than eight people, was carrying 25, said Arturo Platero, a spokesman for the CHP’s El Centro office. All but the driver’s and front passenger’s seats had been removed from the SUV.

Twelve people died at the scene, including the Expedition’s driver, whom the authorities identified only as a 28-year-old resident of Mexicali, Mexico. A 13th person died after being transferred to El Centro Regional Medical Center, Platero said. The truck driver, a 68-year-old resident of El Centro, suffered serious injuries and was taken to a hospital in Palm Springs, according to the CHP report.

An almost equal number of men and women were killed in the crash, said Omar Watson, chief of the CHP’s Border Division.

El Centro Regional Medical Center authorities reported earlier Tuesday that the SUV was carrying 28 people and 14 died at the scene, but CHP officials revised those numbers.

The SUV’s occupants, who ranged in age from 15 to 53, were all either injured or killed, Watson said. Authorities were still working Tuesday afternoon to identify all of the deceased victims and notify their families, he said. At least 10 of the dead were Mexican nationals, according to Roberto Velasco Álvarez, who heads the North America Department for the Mexican Foreign Ministry.

Four people were airlifted by helicopter to the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs. Two others hurt in the crash were in intensive care, including one in critical condition, said Todd Burke, a spokesman for the hospital.

Three people were transported to Pioneers Memorial Healthcare District in Brawley, about 20 miles away. One was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, according to Karina Lopez, a hospital spokeswoman. The other two — a woman and teenage boy — were then airlifted to Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego.

Six others are being treated at El Centro Regional, Platero said.

Watson described the crash scene as “chaotic.” Officers found people who had been ejected onto the pavement and others wandering around the site, he said. Some had been ejected, some were pulled from the wreckage, and some “walking wounded” got out on their own, he said. First responders had to cut the sole passenger seat out of the vehicle to reach some of the wounded.

Later in the afternoon, someone placed small, colorful crosses around the crash site. Inscriptions scrawled on two of them read “Justicia migrantes” and “No mas muerte.”

“It’s a very sad situation,” Watson said. “That vehicle is not meant for that many people. It’s unfortunate that number of people were put into that vehicle because there’s not enough safety restraints to safely keep those people within the vehicle.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said special agents from Homeland Security Investigations responded to the scene of the crash and had opened a human smuggling investigation.

Dr. Shavonne Borchardt at El Centro Regional Medical Center said injuries ranged from fractures to life-threatening head and chest injuries. The hospital is transferring patients to other treatment centers as soon as they are stable, she said.

“Our staff has done a tremendous job getting everything ready for these patients and being able to handle them and get them transferred out to the appropriate places as soon as possible, or if we can take care of them here, they’re being well taken care of as well,” Borchardt said...

 

The End of the World Trade Organization?

Who cares, really?

The conflict between economic regionalism and global economic openness, embodied in the post-WWII multilateral trade regime, has been a longtime topic in international relations theory.

The Trump administration is accelerating the shift to regionalism.

Not to mention Brexit, which should go through on January 31st, thanks to the Conservative triumph in the general election.

All is not lost, as bilateral trade agreements will take the place of wider multilateral pacts.

In any case, at the Los Angeles Times, "House passage of USMCA marks major shift away from free-trade policies":

WASHINGTON —  The House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly passed the new North American trade deal, voting in unusually bipartisan fashion just a day after impeaching President Trump strictly on party lines. 

Approval of the trade bill, which now goes to the Senate for almost certain ratification, did far more than help Trump notch a major achievement: It marked a significant change in U.S. economic strategy toward the rest of the world.

For much of the last 70 years, throughout the Cold War and down to more recent times, Washington used America’s vast wealth and economic power to build friendships and alliances that bolstered national security.

That strategy included a fundamental commitment to free trade — opening the large U.S. market to products from all over the world. For the most part, American companies and their workers had to compete against foreign businesses and labor with little or no protection from the federal government.

As Trump has long complained, that free-trade policy cost millions of American jobs. But leaders of both parties and economic experts considered it worth the price because it boosted American growth, generating many new jobs, and opened new opportunities for many U.S. companies to profit in a global economy. At the same time, it helped cement U.S. leadership in the world.

“In the post-World War II era, we were so much more powerful and so much richer than everybody else that we could improve the living standards at home and still give away the store on trade,” said Clyde Prestowitz, a former top trade negotiator in President Reagan’s administration.

“And we’re now culminated at a moment in which the cost of our old policy is really hard to bear, and so we’re de facto changing our policy,” he said.

The march toward free global markets with lower tariffs and other barriers always had exceptions. Beginning in the 1970s, U.S. companies began to complain about unfair competition: dumping of textiles and steel by foreign producers subsidized by their governments, for instance, or the sale of below-cost television sets, electronics and other consumer goods.

Reagan and his successors responded to these complaints with demands for import quotas and other measures. But overall, the United States remained committed to a broad strategy of free trade — relying on market forces and competition to determine outcomes.

While Republican business leaders complained about specific instances of what they saw as unfair tactics, such as currency manipulation and intellectual property theft, they largely remained committed to the overall free-trade strategy.

Democrats, responding to their union supporters, complained that American workers were paying a heavy price for a system that primarily benefited corporations and upper-income Americans.

The original North American Free Trade Agreement, which passed the House in 1993 by a margin of only 34 votes, highlighted the political unease about trade.

The agreement, however, fit squarely into that strategy of using trade in part for geopolitical reasons. It aimed to make Mexico more prosperous and hence make the United States more secure at a time when radical, leftist regimes seemed to be on the rise in Latin America. Economically, many saw it as a bulwark against rising competition from a unified Europe and Asian tiger economies.

NAFTA tore down tariffs and shaped North America into a powerful economic bloc — three-way trade in goods now reaches $1.3 trillion — but it was in many ways outdated in a global economy driven much more by technology and data.

Trump long attacked NAFTA, calling it one of the worst trade agreements ever and promising to renegotiate it. As president, he has attacked the whole system of free trade, undermining the World Trade Organization, which the U.S. helped create in the 1990s, and starting trade wars not only with China but with longtime U.S. allies such as Europe, Canada and Mexico.

He has enjoyed quiet but significant Democratic support on the issue. Witness the large bipartisan majority for the new version of NAFTA.

Renamed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the measure won approval by the Democratic-majority House 385-41, a remarkable show of unity at a time of deep partisan acrimony.

Not that there wasn’t the usual jostling and one-upmanship which have characterized relations between congressional Democrats and Trump.

“Of course we’ll take credit for it, because what he proposed did not fill the bill of what he described,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said shortly before the vote, referring to Democrats’ successful pressure on the administration to amend the trade deal to strengthen enforcement of labor and environmental protections.

Earlier Wednesday night, at a rally in Battle Creek, Mich., Trump insisted that Pelosi and other Democrats had no choice but to pass USMCA.

“She had a lot of pressure, especially from manufacturing areas, farm areas, a lot of pressure to sign it.... I had a lot of union labor vote for me, tremendous amount of labor,” he said...

More.

Troubling New Era in Mexico

At World Policy Review, "It’s a New and Troubling Era in Mexico Under AMLO":

The concern for many is less AMLO’s ability to follow through with his promises than his disregard for the very real progress Mexico has made in recent decades. https://t.co/wI9SQdCl5e

— WorldPoliticsReview (@WPReview) November 27, 2019

MEXICO CITY—Some welcomed the return of the left to the height of political power in Mexico nearly a year ago as a promising new chapter in the country’s history. Yet 12 months into Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s presidency, drug violence and attacks on freedom of speech have spiraled and the economy has stagnated, adding to the sense that Mexico is floundering. While all these challenges existed before AMLO—as he is better known in Mexico—took office, the bigger concern now is the way his government is seeking to address them.

There is no mistaking that this is a new era for Mexican politics. Gone are the globally minded, centrist administrations that swapped power in the years following Mexico’s transition from one-party rule to free elections in the 1990s. In their place is a self-styled champion of the people whose inward-looking economic vision harkens back to the country’s statist past. AMLO openly dismisses a role for experts and civil society in policymaking, calling them “neoliberal nostalgics,” while lacing his public rhetoric with an almost religious call of devotion to his presidency—all with the passionate approval of his unwavering political base.

“There is much about AMLO that is reminiscent of the populists that came through the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the latter half of the 20th century,” says Alberto Fernandez, a political analyst and columnist for the magazine Letras Libres in Mexico City, referring to Mexico’s former ruling party, the PRI. “But he’s also more individualistic than they were—he expects the public to believe in his personal moral vision rather than in the democratic institutions Mexico has been trying to build over the past two decades.”

Amid widespread dissatisfaction among voters heading into last year’s presidential election, AMLO won a landslide victory, vowing to reduce inequality, fight corruption and put an end to years of deadly drug violence. Like many Latin American populists, he put neoliberalism and corrupt, privileged elites at the center of his critique of the policy path Mexico has followed over the past two decades. He promised nothing less than the country’s “fourth transformation”—a brash reference to the seminal events in Mexican history, from its independence from Spain in 1810, to the War of Reform that led to separation of church and state in the mid-19th century, to the revolution of 1910 that ended decades of dictatorship and established a constitutional republic.

Yet his actual policy positions were always vague. Corruption would be “eradicated,” AMLO insisted, but he has left the previous administration’s plans for an independent anticorruption commission in limbo. Next year, he will slash the budgets for the attorney general’s office, the National Electoral Institute and the Supreme Court, institutions that, while flawed, have been key building blocks in Mexico’s democracy. The drug cartels would be fought with “hugs, not bullets,” AMLO declared, yet they continue to wreak havoc, with the recent massacre of a Mormon family of nine, including six children, in the state of Sonora drawing international headlines. With nearly 26,000 homicides documented by federal authorities as of October, 2019 looks likely to end as Mexico’s most violent year in recent memory.

In March, AMLO announced that the era of neoliberalism, the great scourge of the Latin American left, was over. Yet his budgeting plans have been far from progressive. He has drastically reduced spending on health and education, among other areas, in favor of costly infrastructure projects, including a new international airport and what many economists view as a dubious attempt to revive Mexico’s debt-ridden and unproductive state energy giant, Pemex. A number of international organizations have subsequently downgraded their forecasts for Mexico’s growth this year to as low as 0.2 percent amid a decline in oil output and slumping construction and service sectors—its worst year since the global financial crisis.

“There are three major issues with AMLO’s diagnosis of the economic challenges Mexico faces,” says Macario Schettino, an economist at the Technological Institute of Monterrey in Mexico City. “The idea of regaining energy sovereignty is misplaced and has paralyzed the country’s landmark energy reform of 2013. Secondly, redirecting public funds to Pemex and poorly designed direct cash transfer programs has seen government ministries lose up to 30 percent of their budgets. Thirdly, the business community is losing confidence, and we are seeing a significant reduction in private investment.”

AMLO has attempted to compensate for the economic slump and spiraling crime rates with token gestures to his base: frequent popular referendums on everything from infrastructure projects to indigenous rights bills, the reduction of salaries for bureaucrats, and the controversial offer of political asylum to ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales. With a current approval rating at 58 percent, he clearly maintains a close bond to many of his supporters, a phenomenon Fernandez attributes to dissatisfaction with prior governments, notably the scandal-ridden term of AMLO’s predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto.

Pena Nieto and his party, the PRI, successfully pushed through a series of long-hoped-for institutional reforms early in his presidency, yet they ended up flailing because of political foot-dragging and poor implementation. His administration then became mired in a series of corruption and human rights scandals, which at least partly contributed to the desire for change that led AMLO to power.

“For many citizens, Pena Nieto’s term really destroyed any notion that the current political system was working for them,” Fernandez says. “AMLO came along with a very simplistic diagnosis of what was wrong with the country, and it appealed to many.”

Two decades after the formal end of one-party rule, Mexico’s democracy remains fragile, hamstrung by the weak rule of law. Slow but steady progress was being made in the form of increasingly competitive elections, newly independent institutions and a growing role for civil society in public policymaking. Perhaps the most concerning element of AMLO’s presidency so far is his disregard for these gains—and for democratic institutions as a whole.

AMLO says he plans to hold a popular referendum in 2022 to determine if he should continue as president through 2024, the official end of his term under the constitution. Yet his budget cuts to the National Electoral Institute, known as the INE, could also strip the body, which was founded in 1996, of its independence. The INE is responsible for both organizing and financing elections at all three levels of government, along with setting campaign funding limits and allocating public resources to political parties...

Keep reading.

Mexico Releases El Chapo's Son After Deadly Cartel Gunfight (VIDEO)

A great piece at Instapundit, "CLAIRE BERLINSKI PRESENTS: On Mexican State Collapse: a Guest Post by El Anti-Pozolero."

U.S.-Mexico Border Barrier Proves Walls Work

The U.S. Border Patrol beefed up San Diego's border enforcement in the early 1990s, to rousing success. But now, as evidenced by this L.A. Times piece, you'd think it was all a failure. The story laments the "humanitarian" impact of actually reducing the flood of illegal aliens. (San Diego locals were stoked though, having gotten their neighborhoods back and not living in constant fear of crime and violence on their streets.)

Bottom line: Walls work and leftists don't like it.

Operation Gatekeeper at 25: Look back at the turning point that transformed the border https://t.co/ezRgFVsHby

— L.A. Times: L.A. Now (@LANow) September 30, 2019

Supreme Courts Clears Pentagon Border Wall Funding (VIDEO)

At LAT, "Supreme Court rules for Trump in border wall funding dispute."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Attacks Trump's Comments as 'Racist'

This is the big news this afternoon, more politics of "racism." At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "House Condemns Trump's Attack on Four Congresswomen as Racist."

And at NBC News, at Memeorandum, "House divided: Vote temporarily halted after Pelosi calls Trump comments ‘racist’ on the floor."

President Trump Stands By 'Go Back' Comments

This was the big story yesterday, at the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Trump Tells Freshman Congresswomen to ‘Go Back’ to the Countries They Came From."

Great. I love it!

At the Los Angeles Times, "As Trump doubles down on racist comments, House to vote on condemning them":

You’re right, Mr. President - you don’t have a racist bone in your body.

You have a racist mind in your head, and a racist heart in your chest.

That’s why you violate the rights of children and tell the Congresswoman who represents your home borough, to “go back to my country.” https://t.co/adlCUO7r0v

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 16, 2019

Donald Trump is lashing out at me, @AOC, @RashidaTlaib, & @AyannaPressley because he wants to divide our country. We will not allow his latest attacks distract us from working to ensure a brighter future for all. https://t.co/wQhSPwgipk

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) July 16, 2019

Reporting from Washington —  President Trump delivered some of the most incendiary comments of his presidency on Monday, signaling that he intends to build his reelection bid as much around divisive racial and cultural issues as on low unemployment and economic growth.
The rhetoric sparked unusual pushback from several Republicans, and led to a dramatic clash in which four first-year House Democrats — all women of color — denounced Trump’s language as “xenophobic,” “bigoted” and unworthy of a sitting president.

Earlier, Trump had vilified the four elected members of Congress as “people who hate our country.”

“They hate it, I think, with a passion,” he told reporters.

The House is planning to condemn Trump’s comments as “racist” in a resolution to be voted upon as soon as Tuesday. The four-page resolution praises immigrants and condemns Trump’s comments, which have “legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”

Trump was asked Monday if he was concerned that white nationalists had found common cause with him after he had urged progressive Democrats to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

“It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me,” Trump said. “And all I’m saying is if they want to leave, they can leave.”

Trump questioned the patriotism of the four lawmakers — all U.S. citizens and three born in the United States — at an event intended to highlight American-made products.

His rhetoric trampled over the economic populism his aides had sought to convey with the visual display of motorcycles and military equipment, providing new evidence that Trump’s “America First” agenda is as much about identity politics as it is about trade.

Trump views his efforts to fan racial and ethnic tensions as a political positive for his reelection campaign, even as others worry about the long-term damage to a country that has long struggled to reconcile its commitment to pluralism with its historical racism.

Overall, Trump’s taunts to the four — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — served to unify Democrats just as they were facing one of their most serious fractures since taking control of the House in the 2018 election.

Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Tlaib in Detroit. Omar was born in Somalia and came to the United States in 1997 as a refugee, later becoming a U.S. citizen.

But it also elevated the four progressives in the public eye, potentially causing more problems for Democratic leadership.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has been at odds with the four over the direction of the House majority, including a recent border spending bill. For weeks, progressives viewed Pelosi as pandering to more politically vulnerable moderates in the caucus.

But the four focused only on Trump Monday in a 20-minute news conference at the Capitol.

“This is the agenda of white nationalists,” said Omar, who accused Trump of tweeting to distract Americans from his policies. “We can continue to enable this president and report on the bile of garbage that comes out of his mouth or hold him accountable for his crimes.”

The president can’t defend his policies, “so what he does is attack us personally and that is what this is all about,” Ocasio-Cortez agreed. “He can’t look a child in the face and look all Americans in the face to justify why this country is throwing [them] in cages,” referring to migrant detention camps on the Southwest border.

“Despite the occupant of the White House’s attempt to marginalize us and silence us, please know we are more than four people,” Pressley said. “We ran on a mandate to represent those … left behind.”

Elected Republican officials were largely silent on Sunday, but several condemned Trump’s language on Monday, collectively forming some of the most significant pushback the president has seen from fellow Republicans.

“I am confident that every Member of Congress is a committed American,” tweeted Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio). Trump’s tweets “were racist and he should apologize. We must work as a country to rise above hate, not enable it.”

Some of the president’s sometime-critics — including Republicans Rep. Will Hurd of Texas and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — spoke out.

So did Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who called Trump’s comments “destructive, demeaning, and disunifying” in a tweet. He added, “People can disagree over politics and policy, but telling American citizens to go back to where they came from is over the line.”

But unexpected critics arose, too.

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) said Trump “was wrong to suggest that four left-wing congresswomen should go back to where they came from. Three of the four were born in America and the citizenship of all four is as valid as mine.”

Some Republicans supported Trump, however, suggesting that his mark on GOP politics would probably continue even after he leaves office.

“There’s no question that the members of Congress that @realDonaldTrump called out have absolutely said anti-American and anti-Semitic things. I’ll pay for their tickets out of this country if they just tell me where they’d rather be,” tweeted Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-La.)...

President Trump to Deny Asylum to Illegals at Mexican Border

Good.

At LAT, "Trump moves to eliminate nearly all asylum claims at U.S. southern border":

ICYMI: For months, CBP leadership has spoken about the current border security & humanitarian crisis at the border. They’ve testified before Congress. They’ve been interviewed by the press. Months later, the influx of illegal crossings continues to overwhelm CBP resources. pic.twitter.com/9hA3noSRMJ

— CBP (@CBP) July 12, 2019

This veggie tale didn't have a happy ending for some attempted smugglers: #CBP officers at the Otay Mesa port of entry discover more than 3,300lbs of marijuana mixed in with a cargo load of broccoli following a K9 alert. Details: https://t.co/GL1qkkM1Ab pic.twitter.com/WbqsTwJRaQ

— CBP (@CBP) July 12, 2019

Reporting from Washington —  The Trump administration moved Monday to effectively end asylum for any migrant who arrives at the U.S.-Mexico border, an enormous shift in U.S. immigration policy that could block hundreds of thousands of people from seeking protection in the U.S. — and is certain to draw legal challenges.
The new rule, published in the Federal Register and set to take effect Tuesday, would bar asylum claims for nearly all migrants from any country. It would do so by prohibiting claims from anyone who has passed through another country en route to the U.S., which essentially would cover anyone other than Mexican residents.

Only in rare cases, such as when a migrant applies for asylum elsewhere and is denied, would a person be eligible to apply for protection in the U.S.

The rule would, in effect, nearly wipe out U.S. asylum law, which establishes a legal right to claim protection for anyone who arrives at the U.S. border and can make a case that they face torture or persecution at home. The law applies regardless of how a migrant reaches the border.

The law currently provides a major exception in cases in which the U.S. has negotiated a “safe third country” agreement with another government. Under those agreements, such as the one the U.S. has with Canada, migrants must apply in the first safe country they reach.

The new proposal would short-circuit that, effectively requiring migrants to apply in any country they land in, whether the U.S. formally considers that country safe or not.

The new rule was issued by the Justice and Homeland Security departments, which administer the asylum system, and it was written to take effect immediately when it’s formally published on Tuesday. It would apply only to those arriving to the U.S., not migrants already in the country.

The sweeping change drew an immediate threat of a legal fight.

“This rule is inconsistent with both domestic and international law, and we intend to sue immediately to block it,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s national Immigrants’ Rights Project, said.

“If allowed to stand, it would effectively end asylum at the southern border and could not be more inconsistent with our country’s commitment to protecting those in danger.”

The rule would most directly affect Central American families and unaccompanied minors, who account for most of a recent surge in migrants arriving at the border. But it applies to any nationality, including the large numbers of Haitians, Cubans and Africans who transit South and Central America and Mexico in order to claim asylum at the border.

“With limited exceptions, an alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States across the southern border after failing to apply for protection in a third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which the alien transited en route to the United States is ineligible for asylum,” the rule states.

The rule would place a major burden on Mexico, which has already been inundated with a record number of asylum requests. Mexico’s Commission for Aid to Migrants projects that it will receive 80,000 asylum requests this year, up from 29,648 last year and 2,137 five years ago.

Last month, Mexico agreed to ramp up its immigration enforcement, and in exchange, Trump agreed to hold off on imposing tariffs on Mexican imports for 45 days. Many in Mexico reacted angrily on Monday, saying Trump had reneged on that agreement and had unilaterally imposed a policy that would hurt Mexico.

At a news conference, Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Mexico disagrees with the new rule, but said he did not see it as a violation of the June immigration deal because Mexico does not have a safe third country agreement with the U.S.

“Our country has made it very clear that we will not enter into any phase of negotiation on a safe third party agreement without the express authority of [the Mexican] Congress,” he said.

Ebrard avoided answering a question about what will happen to migrants currently waiting in Mexico for their chance to apply for asylum in the U.S. Those migrants who have already been screened by U.S. officials and are waiting in Mexico until their court hearings under the administration’s Remain in Mexico plan will be able to complete the asylum process in the U.S., he said.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said the rule was necessary despite a recent $4.6-billion bill to address humanitarian challenges at the border, and would deter migrants crossing through Mexico “on a dangerous journey.”

“The truth is that it will not be enough without targeted changes to the legal framework of our immigration system,” McAleenan said in a statement Monday.

President Trump to Delay ICE Deportation Operations

I think this is a mistake, and so do a lot of conservatives.

At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Trump Says He'll Delay Deportation Operation Aimed at Undocumented Families."

This is infuriating. They have deportation orders. They should go. The asshole Democrats will never do anything to fix this. Why delay so they can posture and preen for 2 weeks, and in the end do nothing? #SecureTheBorder #BuildTheWallNow https://t.co/jzjjqucpG0

— Dianny 🇺🇸 (@DiannyRants) June 22, 2019

Far-Left Judd Legum Targets Tucker Carlson for Destruction (VIDEO)

Tucker Carlson's spot-on commentaries assailing open borders have been so effective that he must be stopped, so says radical leftist Judd Legum, a Soros lackey who was the former editor-in-chief at the Center for American Progress attack site "Think Progress."

On Twitter:

1. I'll be listing the advertisers on tonight's Tucker Carlson -- along with any other notable moments -- on this thread.

So far Pacific Life, Indeed, Smile Direct Club, and Bowflex have suspended their advertising.

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 18, 2018

Carlson's crime? He rightfully argued that the illegals of the migrant caravan will make America "dirtier." The migrants are soiling Tijuana, and sowing crime and anarchy in the streets of that city. Of course that will happen here if we throw open our borders to them. Judd Legum would never face the consequences of that anarchy in his own life's reality. Leftists never do, holed up in their elite beachfront mansions and (exclusive and unaffordable) progressive urban enclaves. This is all politics. Populist nationalism is winning and leftists must therefore resort to fascist tactics to destroy it.

Fight the left people. They're your enemies. Fight them.

Here's Tucker's segment from last night. He's very effective. When you're that good the left paints a target on your back:

Michelle Malkin on Tijuana Border Invasion (VIDEO)

Michelle's always excellent on the immigration issue.

She's got a seminal book from 2002, at Amazon, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists Criminals & Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores.

And on Judge Jeannine's the other night:

"Every Sovereign Nation has the right and prerogative to exercise their ability to make sure that they are able to say who is able to come into their country or not."- @michellemalkin pic.twitter.com/jQKM58c4Vc

— Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) November 25, 2018

Migrants in Tijuana Regret the Caravan

Heh, Trump's policies are working.

At the Daily Beast, "Migrants in Tijuana Regret the Caravan: ‘I’m Done With the United States’."

After being gassed by the U.S. and held in a camp by Mexico, hope is running out for some who left Honduras with dreams of a better life in America.

Hope is running out for some of the migrants who left Honduras with dreams of a better life in America https://t.co/2Jc22qvk42

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) November 28, 2018

You'd Think the Leftist Media Had an Agenda or Something?

At AoSHQ, "The Media Prints Only One Picture."

Yep.

Shameless. Absolutely shameless. (*Eye-roll.*)

So predictable...and utterly absurd. pic.twitter.com/6QMzfQPPOo

— Lisa Mei Crowley (@LisaMei62) November 26, 2018

President Trump Slams 'Migrant Caravan' Ahead of Midterm Elections (VIDEO)

I swear I can't believe leftists and Democrats made immigration an campaign issue before the elections?!!

This is President Trump's wheelhouse. The illegal alien invasion is going to infuriate the Republican base. I can't say about California, where we're practically a lost cause, but if you look at Texas or some states in the Midwest, it's not going to play over well.

And even in California's GOP-held House districts, not all of our diverse populations are for open borders. Again, my hunch is Dems are making a big mistake, and if it's truly Soros money that's financed leftists operatives in Honduras, I'll practically pop my eyeballs lol.

At Politico, "Trump has whipped up a frenzy on the migrant caravan. Here are the facts."

Donald Trump’s remarks in recent days about a caravan of Central American migrants heading toward the United States have stirred up a political frenzy — in the process distorting reality and ignoring basic factshttps://t.co/IPYP88KUb7

— POLITICO (@politico) October 23, 2018

Well see who's "ignoring basic facts" on election day. My money's on the White House.

Attack on America: 7,000-Strong 'Migrant Caravan' Heads to the U.S. Through Southern Mexico (VIDEO)

Kate Linthicum of the L.A. Times is a partisan advocate campaigning through her "journalism" for open borders and unlimited access for the so-called "refugees" of the illegal immigrant caravan.

And below, Newt Gringrich's recent op-ed at Fox News and a raw video of the recent migrant siege of the Mexico border, via Ruptly:

“All my life is there, waiting for me,” said a migrant who was deported a month ago from Phoenix. “I miss my Playstation. I miss Buffalo Wild Wings. I miss my car.”https://t.co/MdlDFLHuO9

— Kate Linthicum (@katelinthicum) October 22, 2018

.@newtgingrich: The caravan is an attack on America -- Stop the caravan now https://t.co/swtG7y3K1x

— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 20, 2018