Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Category: Politics

Border App Turned Off

Excellent

A stunned migrant woman wailed in anguish at the southern border after President Trump shuttered an app that made it easier for migrants to cross into the US.

 

Margelis Tinoco, a Colombian woman awaiting entry to the US, was overcome with emotion after the president axed the CBP One app moments after he was sworn-in.

 

She had been hoping to cross into El Paso from the neighboring Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez when the app suddenly went dark, leaving her stuck.

 

[…]

 

Every outstanding appointment on the app was effectively canceled when Trump took office, causing panic among those wanting to get into the U.S.

 

CBP One was used by the Biden administration to help expedite migrants entry into the US and was used by an estimated one million people since being created.

 

The app could be used to create appointments for asylum seekers – and was also popular among tourists by helping them speed their way through airport customs.

Harden your hearts. The media is going to show every crying woman and child. This is necessary and would not be nearly as painful had the Biden Administration not allowed millions of illegals into our nation.

Biden Crime Family Pardoned by… Biden

What a wretched man.

In the final minutes of his presidency, Joe Biden pre-emptively pardoned several family members, including his brothers James, Francis and Frank Biden, and sister Valerie Biden Owens.

 

Biden said the pardons were intended to shield his family from politically motivated attacks and should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment of any wrongdoing.

I would like to see someone challenge preemptive and blanket pardons. It doesn’t seem Constitutional to pardon people for unnamed crimes for which they have not been charged.

Foreign Leaders Attend Swearing In Ceremony

TBH, I’m surprised that this has never happened before.

For the first time in U.S. history, a president-elect will welcome foreign leaders for one of the most American political traditions — the peaceful transfer of power.

 

President-elect Donald Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping and conservative world leaders such as Argentine President Javier Milei and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni to the inauguration. Xi sent his vice president as his representative.

 

No heads of state have previously made an official visit to the U.S. for the inauguration. Some of them, such as Milei and Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña, were special guests Saturday night at the Hispanic Inaugural Ball, where several of Trump’s nominees for key Cabinet positions made appearances. That included U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, chosen to lead the State Department, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tapped to head the Health and Human Services Department.

TikTok is Down

Just a public service announcement. TikTok is down. lol

A new US law banning TikTok has come into effect, hours after the popular app stopped working across the country.

 

Late on Saturday a message appearing on the TikTok for US users said a law banning TikTok had been enacted, meaning “you can’t use TikTok for now”.

 

The video-sharing app was banned over concerns about its links to the Chinese government. It was given until 19 January to be sold to an approved US buyer to avert the ban.

 

President Joe Biden had said he would leave the issue to his successor, Donald Trump. The president-elect has said he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a ban once he takes office on Monday.

China is a hostile nation that is infiltrating us on every front. TikTok is merely a visible one. The pandemic made me more pessimistic about my fellow American’s ability to process and respond to threats in a rational way. The reaction to the TikTok ban reinforces my pessimism.

Biden Declares the Constitution Amended

On the law, this is a complete farce. The law, the Constitution, and all legal precedence is clear. The deadline to ratify the Equal right Amendment expired over forty years ago. This is not a grey area of the law. It is black and white. Clear? Crystal. The fact that Biden declared it means nothing.

What is disturbing here is how many purported weighty institutions and people are going along with Biden’s delusion. From Georgetown University to sitting politicians to traditional media outlets, allegedly serious and smart people are utterly beclowning themselves by pretending that Biden’s words are law. Every one of them is an affront to the Rule of Law and our Constitutional government and should never be trusted again. I mean… really… Biden is senile, but what excuse do these people have?

While the president’s statement is sure to be welcomed by advocates. senior administration officials could not say what, if anything, Biden will do beyond making the statement itself.

Because Biden’s statement is just a statement and not an order, proclamation or other presidential action, it carries absolutely zero legal force.

In order for the ERA to be actually considered part of the constitution, the Archivist of the United States would have to publish it officially as the 28th Amendment. A senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity said the president was not directing the archivist to publish the amendment.

[…]

Instead, the official repeatedly told reporters that it’s Biden’s view that the amendment has been ratified since 2020, when Virginia’s state legislature became the 38th to approve it.

“He’s using his power of the presidency to make it clear that he believes and he agrees with leading constitutional scholars and the American Bar Association, not that it should be but that it is the 28th amendment of the constitution,” said the official.

Yet Biden’s newfound view on the ERA contradicts his administration’s legal work over the last four years. During numerous legal cases in which the federal government participated, not a single Department of Justice attorney ever argued that the amendment’s prohibition against sex discrimination should be recognized as part of the constitution.

The official could not explain the discrepancy between Biden’s claim that Virginia’s 2020 ratification put the amendment in force and the administration’s inaction during his term. They also said the president’s statement was influenced by the ABA’s recent opinion on the ERA as well as opinions of “leading constitutional scholars” who have said the amendment “has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution.

Mass Deportations to Begin Forthwith

Excellent. The People voted for change and reversing Biden’s traitorous dissolution of our national borders is Job #1.

Trump said his administration is planning on executing mass deportations on undocumented immigrants “very quickly” after he takes office, reiterating his desire to “get the criminals out of our country.”

“It’ll begin very early, very quickly,” he told NBC News. “I can’t say which cities because things are evolving.”

 

“We have to get the criminals out of our country,” he added.

 

Trump has long previewed plans for mass deportations of immigrants. CNN previously reported the incoming Trump administration will focus at first on deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal backgrounds in major metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Denver and Washington, DC.

Joe Biden’s Farewell Address

I watched so you won’t have to. I have regrets about that decision. Just a few thoughts…

When I watched this several hours after it happened, there were only 138,000 views on YouTube. America has tuned him out.

Superficially, his delivery was as expected – halting, uneven, and poor. The content was also as expected – lies, arrogance, and condescension. It was full of the same old disproven and wrong tropes that have littered his comments for years. I really think he believes his own BS. It did strike me that the speech itself – the wording, tone, rhythm, etc. – was… not good. His speech writers are just not good at their jobs.

On his message, it was… whatever. He attempted to offer purported wisdom and advice from a man who has been in DC for 50 years, but it’s clear that his lifelong proximity to power has made him too distant and insulated to speak to the common man. The world that he thinks exists is not real and the problems he prioritizes are not the same as ours. His fears are not our fears. His wins were not our wins. He is, and has always been, a creature of the fetid Washington swamp and our country is worse for him having “served.”

I am glad to be done with this awful man and awful president. The damage he has wrought on our nation will take generations to undo.

 

Biden Packs Up Documents. Classified Ones? Who Knows?

Given the history of the Biden Crime Family, I’m worried about what he’s taking and how much he will sell them for.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Joe Biden packed up and left office, he took with him thousands of papers from his decades in public service — including some classified documents that should have gone to the National Archives for safekeeping.

 

That move spawned a federal investigation into whether Biden had knowingly broken the law and a damaging Justice Department report that referred to Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” igniting public concerns over his mental acuity that eventually led Biden to drop out of the race.

 

The discovery also watered down the significance of the criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump, who had been accused of purposefully hoarding top secret documents at his Florida estate — and it helped fuel Trump’s claims of unfair political persecution.

 

The moving trucks are at the White House again, and Biden’s staff is loading documents and items for storage as he prepares to depart next week. The administration has promised a new, more secure protocol to review and separate out classified information. But with just a week left to go, there’s no word yet on recommendations from a federal task force formed at Biden’s behest to develop best practices for transitions.

MN Dems Boycott as GOP Elects First Black Woman Speaker

If you’re not following the shenanigans in the Minnesota legislature, you’re missing out. It’s a hoot.

The short version is that the GOP holds a temporary majority in the House after one of the Democrats was found to be ineligible because he didn’t live in the district. It’s a Democratic district, so it will likely lead to a tie in the House once a special election can be held. But for the time being, the Republicans have a majority and are trying to start the session.

The Democrats are refusing to even enter the building. The had an illegal fake swearing in ceremony at the library and they did not show up to the first day of work. Then this happened.

The unprecedented start of the legislative session went on with the usual pomp and formality of years prior. As if the Democratic half of the chamber weren’t empty, and the rules on how to proceed not the source of vehement dispute.

 

Secretary of State Steve Simon, as the statutorily mandated presiding officer, shook House GOP leader Lisa Demuth’s hand on his way to the rostrum at the front of the ornate chamber. He gaveled three times to start the session. A chaplain said a prayer calling for unity. The members said the Pledge of Allegiance. Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, called the roll, pausing on each Democrat’s name to allow for silence to note their absence. And the members present took the oath of office.

 

Then, Simon called the roll again and, as he informed Republican leaders in the days leading up to the session, declared that 67 members were not enough to fulfill a quorum. He said the House may not conduct any further business, declared the body adjourned with a bang of the gavel, and took a seat to the left of the rostrum.

 

Democrats’ boycott had worked, at least for the moment. They prevented Republicans from using their temporary, 1-seat advantage — sure to end after a Jan. 28 special election in a heavily DFL district — to elect a GOP speaker of the House.

 

The problem became evident moments later: Who would enforce Simon’s ruling?

 

Republican Rep. Harry Niska, ready on the microphone, quickly moved to overturn Simon’s ruling — interjecting as Simon closed the session. Niska called the oldest member present  — Rep. Paul Anderson — to serve as presiding officer.

 

After learning how to turn on the microphone from the rostrum, Anderson took the role again and declared a quorum present.

 

House Republicans then nominated and voted unanimously for Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, to serve as House speaker, to applause.

The Minnesota Republicans have elected the first black woman to every serve as Speaker of the House in that state and the Democrats were hiding and boycotting the vote. That speaks volumes.

Michelle Obama to Skip Inauguration

Classy, as always.

Former first lady Michelle Obama will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, her office confirmed to ABC News.

 

“Former President Barack Obama is confirmed to attend the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies. Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration,” the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama said in a statement.

 

This is the second presidential event in two weeks that the former first lady will have missed. She was noticeably absent from former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday, Jan. 9, at Washington National Cathedral, where she would have been assigned to sit next to Trump.

Read the Weiss Report

I encourage you to go read the Weiss Report regarding the investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden in full. The media is fixating on hoe Weiss claps back at President Biden for slandering the investigators and prosecutors. You get gems like this:

The Constitution provides the President 8 with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United 9 States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President 10 the authority to rewrite history.

But what really sticks out is the sleazy, illegal lifestyle Hunter was leading while spending millions of dollars. Where did these millions come from? Hunter didn’t hold down an actual job. He wasn’t running an enterprise. His lifestyle didn’t allow any time to conduct legitimate business. How was he able to obtain and spend millions of dollars without owning anything or working?

It’s clear as day. He was selling policy and access while kicking up a percentage to the Big Guy. This criminal enterprise makes Gotti look like a lightweight. Not to mention the fact that he did all of this while refusing to pay millions of dollars in taxes. When Joe Biden rails against millionaires not paying their fair share (whatever that means), he’s talking about his own son, and, probably, himself.

The Bidens might be the most corrupt family to ever reach the height of political power in America.

Greenland PM Ready to Work with U.S. for Security

This could be a mutually fruitful partnership.

Greenland wants to work more closely with the US on defence and exploring its mining resources, its prime minister said on Monday.

 

Mute Egede said his government was looking for ways to work with President-elect Donald Trump, who has in recent weeks shown renewed interest in taking control of the territory – without ruling out using military or economic force to do so.

 

Also on Monday, Denmark’s foreign minister said it was ready to work with Greenland to “continue talks” with Trump “to ensure legitimate American interests” in the Arctic.

 

Greenland, a largely autonomous Danish territory, lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe, making it strategically important for the US.

Greenland for the Greenlanders

Like many, I suspect that Trump’s end goal with Greenland is not so much to make it an American territory, but to spur independence and move it into the American sphere of influence. This would allow America to have more influence and security with this land than sits athwart vital shipping lanes and imbued with tremendous natural resources. Judging by the comments of many of the Greenlanders, it’s time.

The Greenland question is a delicate one for Denmark, whose prime minister officially apologised only recently for spearheading a 1950s social experiment which saw Inuit children removed from their families to be re-educated as “model Danes”.

 

Last week, Greenland’s leader said the territory should free itself from “the shackles of colonialism.”

 

By doing so he tapped into growing nationalist sentiment, fuelled by interest among Greenland’s younger generations in the indigenous culture and history of the Inuit.

 

Most commentators now expect a successful independence referendum in the near future. While for many it would be seen as a victory, it could also usher in a new set of problems, as 60% of Greenland’s economy is dependent on Denmark.

 

An independent Greenland “would need to make choices,” said Karsten Honge. The Green Left MP now fears his preferred option of a new Commonwealth-style pact “based on equality and democracy” is unlikely to come about.

 

[…]

 

Opposition MP Jarlov argues that while there is no point in forcing Greenland to be part of Denmark, “it is very close to being an independent country already”.

 

Its capital Nuuk is self-governed, but relies on Copenhagen for management of currency, foreign relations and defence – as well as substantial subsidies.

 

“Greenland today has more independence than Denmark has from the EU,” Jarlov added. “So I hope they think things through.”

 

As Mette Frederiksen has the awkward task of responding firmly while not offending Greenland or the US, the staunchest rebuttal to Trump’s comments so far has come from outside Denmark.

New Federal Rule to Hide Debt from Lenders to Falsify Credit Scores

This is yet another feel-good idea that will have negative consequences. The entire point of a credit score is to help lenders gauge the amount of risk a person has and the person’s ability to pay off a new debt. Medical debt is still debt that a person must pay. By hiding the medical debt, it is giving the lenders the false impression that the borrower has a greater ability to pay than they actually do. The result is that lenders will lend money to more people who can’t actually afford it. When they can’t pay it back, both the lender and the borrower will be the worse for it. This is harmful policy.

Live within your means and pay cash. Then you don’t have to worry about your credit score.

In a major change that could affect millions of Americans’ credit scores, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday finalized a rule to remove medical debt from consumer credit reports.

The rule would erase an estimated $49 billion in unpaid medical bills from the credit reports of roughly 15 million Americans, the CFPB said.

 

That could help boost those borrowers’ credit scores by an average of 20 points, helping them qualify for mortgages and other loans.

Look to California Fires for Why Evers’ Mob Rule Proposal Should be DOA

As we pray for those impacted by the fires in L.A., we also know that many of those who are losing their homes and possessions do not have fire insurance. One of the main reasons is that insurers have been prohibited from charging premiums that reflect the risk. Many of these people live in an area that has a historically high risk for fire and the increased urbanization and poor fire management policies has increased that risk. Despite this, insurers can’t increase premiums enough to make insuring those people viable. Why?

Proposition 103, approved by California voters in 1988, requires the “prior approval” of the state’s insurance regulator before insurance companies can implement property and casualty rates, including homeowner’s insurance.

 

“California has a consumer-friendly approach with Proposition 103, and the insurance industry hates it,” said Kenneth Klein, a California Western School of Law professor and expert on natural disasters.

 

Added Klein, “The insurance industry has been battling that proposition for a long time.”

 

Under Proposition 103 and other California insurance regulations, property and casualty insurance companies cannot take all the losses associated with one event, such as this year’s wildfires, and then simply put them onto next year’s rates. The state requires a longer-term trend, not a one- or two-year disaster impact.

California’s prop 103 did a few things to cap insurance premiums. It restricted insurers from passing on the cost of individual events by requiring them to only factor in the historical trend. It also prohibited insurers from creating risk models for the future. They were only allowed to look at historical data. Well, what happens when insurance customers are looking at future weather patters, the effect of urbanization, and policy choices that increase risk? Doesn’t matter. The insurers can’t use that data to set rates.

If insurers are looking at real actuarial data that calculates a risk and the premiums necessary to insure that risk, but they are not allowed to use that data or charge those premiums, what is the rational decision? They stopped insuring people, of course. Since Prop 103 was passed, numerous insurers have left California completely and many more dropped customers if the insurers couldn’t charge a rate that made insuring them worth it.

It’s gotten so bad, that California actually changed the rules at the beginning of this year to try to alleviate it.

The regulations that take effect Jan. 2 arose out of a broad agreement Lara reached with the industry that gave insurers regulatory concessions, including the use of the computer models, in exchange for a commitment by large insurers such as State Farm, Farmers and Allstate to write policies in neighborhoods prone to wildfires equivalent to 85% of their statewide market share. That would mean, for example, an insurer with a 10% share of the state’s homeowners insurance market would have to cover 8.5% of the homes in riskier neighborhoods as identified by the department. No such requirement currently exists.

It’s a cockamamy scheme cooked up by bureaucrats that probably won’t work in getting a significant number of additional people insured, but the story is that even in California, they realized that they have made it economically inviable for insurers to provide homeowners insurance and they are trying to do something about it.

All this to point out that here in Wisconsin, Governor Tony Evers is proposing that Wisconsin adopt direct ballot measures like California. Prop 103, which is leaving thousands of Californians uninsured and homeless, was one of these direct ballot measures. It was an idiotic policy that passed on an emotional wave of ignorance and hate of insurance companies stirred up by activists.

No, we don’t want this here in Wisconsin.

Trump Announces Foreign Investment for Data Centers

Gonna need more power.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a $20 billion foreign investment to build new data centers across the United States.

 

Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani, a Trump associate and founder of the property development company DAMAC Properties, is pledging “at least” that amount, the president-elect said at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.

“They may go double, or even somewhat more than double, that amount of money,” Trump said of Sajwani’s company.

 

The “first phase” of the plan will take place in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana, Trump said.

 

Sajwani suggested that the Republican’s election spurred him to commit to the investment.

Two Murderers Rejects Biden’s Commutations

Leave it to Biden to eff up a commutation.

Two prisoners who are among the 37 federal inmates whose death sentences were commuted last month by President Joe Biden — a move that spares them from the death chamber — have taken an unusual stance: They’re refusing to sign paperwork accepting his clemency action.

 

Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, both inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, filed emergency motions in federal court in the state’s southern district on Dec. 30 seeking an injunction to block having their death sentences commuted to life in prison without parole.

 

The men believe that having their sentences commuted would put them at a legal disadvantage as they seek to appeal their cases based on claims of innocence.

Meta Drops Fact Checkers

Good. Late, but good.

New YorkCNN — 

In a number of sweeping changes that will significantly alter the way that posts, videos and other content are moderated online, Meta will adjust its content review policies on Facebook and Instagram, getting rid of fact checkers and replacing them with user-generated “community notes,” similar to Elon Musk’s X, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday.

The changes come just before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office. Trump and other Republicans have lambasted Zuckerberg and Meta for what they view as censorship of right-wing voices.

“Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the new policy Tuesday. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

Evers Proposes Mob Rule

If you want to see why this is a bad idea, you need not look any further than California. A Republic with representative government is the least bad form of government. Straight democracy is mob rule. Thank goodness this proposal is DOA.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to let voters repeal and create state laws without legislative involvement met opposition on Monday from Republican leaders of the Legislature, who signaled that the idea is likely to be rejected for a second time.

 

[…]

 

Evers said on Friday that the state budget he plans to unveil next month will include a mandate that legislators take up a constitutional amendment allowing voters to petition for ballot proposals to repeal state statutes and create new ones. Evers made a similar proposal in 2022 for voters to repeal the state’s 1849 abortion ban, but Republicans killed the plan.

DOJ Tyrants Upset with Trump

Good. This has been a witch hunt and massive misallocation of resources. I hope Trump every DOJ official who participated in seeking out and prosecuting any but the handful of malcontents who deserved it.

CNN — 

President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t been sworn in yet, but his looming return has already upended hundreds of pending prosecutions against his supporters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and has disrupted the ongoing effort to arrest more rioters.

The historic effort by Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents to investigate the deadly Trump-inspired storming of the Capitol has led to more than 1,570 arrests in nearly all 50 states, making it the largest criminal probe in American history. New arrests are slowly still trickling in, four years later, including recent cases against a member of the Proud Boys and a rioter who tried to stab police with a flagpole.

But the political reality has already tanked morale inside the Justice Department division that handles these cases — and is hampering efforts to secure guilty pleas in about 300 pending cases, as defendants balk at negotiations, according to a federal law enforcement official involved in the sprawling investigation.

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