Totally unvetted immigration. We need immigration to keep American strong, but not this type.
Michael Shellenberger: "No matter your politics, these new numbers are shocking. Of the 7 million migrants that ICE released while their cases are being processed, 663,000 have criminal histories, 13,000 were convicted of homicide, 16,000 of sexual assault, and 1,845 face homicide charges."
Christopher Rufo asks these two questions regarding immigration. I agree with his positions. What follows is an excerpt. Full article here.
Yes, all men are born equal—that is, they are all born with the same human fundamentals—but this does not imply that all cultures, or civilizations, are equal. Culture is the product of tradition, not unmediated nature. Among the principles that cultures adopt and inculcate in their members, some are better, others are worse; some are compatible with America’s traditions, some are not. For American immigration policy, this means that the “who” matters.The question of “who” has historically involved considering migrants’ national origin. A more refined approach would include other characteristics, such as educational attainment, employment history, language skills, and cultural values. The United States, which has an interest in admitting immigrants capable of integration and economic productivity, is well within its rights to prefer, say, an English-speaking software developer from Venezuela over a violent, uneducated gang member from the same country.
On the same principle, we must acknowledge that immigrants from some cultures are more capable than others of assimilating to America. In much of the Muslim world, for example, majorities believe that honor killings are justified and that Sharia law ought to be enforced by the state. While many Muslim immigrants embrace Western values, some emphatically reject them, as demonstrated by the widespread pro-Hamas protests that have broken out in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre in Israel. Pluralism is valuable, but it has limits, and America ought to select newcomers who share its core values.
The next question is “how.” The answer is not to be found at our southern border today, which has become an anarchic, free-for-all zone. While there will always be some degree of undocumented migration—the United States is, after all, still the land of opportunity—the numbers we have seen in recent years are unprecedented. Americans have the right to insist on a rational, orderly process of immigration, with clearly defined standards and a carefully crafted selection process.
The final question is “how much.”
George Soros is buying 200 radio stations.Bill Gates had donated over $319 million to the mainstream media, including the BBC.
You have to realize something.
The media is propaganda.
If you dare to mention the past evils perpetrated by the CIA, most modern-day Democrats will call you names, including "conspiracy theorist." They don't want to consider whether the utterly bizarre informational ecosystem many of us see every day has anything to do with a government agency with a long and unbroken history of lies, violence and interfering with the democratic process in dozens of countries.
As though the CIA meddlings in the democratic process of dozens of countries haven't been documented. See here.
You know, Democrats used to be highly suspicious about the CIA . . . Democrats have admitted that the CIA has and uses coercive power against politicians. See this statement by Chuck Schumer. [Video has since been taken down by Youtube].
None of this should be controversial. I highly recommend David Talbot's expose on the CIA, the Devil’s Chessboard. And see here. And here.
The CIA does not operate on its own as a "rogue" agency. As Mike Benz has carefully discussed on numerous occasions (here is one), it is one aspect of the "Blob," an amalgam of agencies, cutouts and government actors who meddle in the democratic process in mysteriously coordinated ways, all of them taking orders from the State Department.
Today I finished watching and transcribing a 40 minute talk Mike gave at Hillsdale College: "The History of the Intelligence State." I offer the full transcription here and suggest that the next time you are accused of being a conspiracy theorist by a modern-day Democrat, that you tell them this sordid true story about what has long driven and enabled our country's foreign policy. That was in the good old days, however. For instance, during the time JFK was murdered (See JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglass (2010). We are now seeing the national security state turned inward, making a farce of our elections.
Here's an excerpt:
[NSC 10-2] sanctioned US intelligence to carry out a broad range of covert operations, including propaganda, economic warfare, demolition, subversion, sabotage, sponsored by George Kennan. He was the one who pushed for this right after he wrote the inauguration of organized political warfare.
But he would later say it was the greatest mistake he ever made because of the monster it created. Because what NSC 10-2 two did was it gave the intelligence community this burgeoning, newly created CIA and the we now have 17 intelligence agencies plus the ODNI. They transformed not just from spy organizations, but to lie organizations. What I mean by that is because of this phrase that is used in NSE, 10-2, I'm going to read it. All of these activities, which are normally illegal, can be carried out so long as they are planned and executed, so that any US government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons, and that if uncovered, the US government can plausibly deny any responsibility for them. I'm going to actually just show you the exact language here. This is again, 1948: All covert operations, all of these sabotage, demolition, controlling the media, they are now legal, as long as they are planned and executed, so that any US government responsibility is not evident to unauthorized persons.
So you are cast out of Eden effectively if you eat the apple of the fruit of the tree of knowledge you are not allowed to know. And they are not allowed to tell you. Their job is to lie to you. And if they do get caught, the US government can then lie above the agency level, above the CIA. The State Department gets to lie to the world because the CIA had these covert links, and they can say it was not an official sanctioned US government operation. Something went rogue. Someone wasn't authorized, someone took it into their own hands.
And I'm just going to read this analysis that I think is a useful summary. Plausible deniability encouraged the autonomy of this newly created CIA, which is created the year earlier or year earlier, and other covert action agencies in order to protect the visible authorities of the government. And we're going to come back to that as we discuss the power structure of all these different organizations. But I want to drive this point home immediately, which is that this was seen as a major growth opportunity because of how effective it was in the 1940s and the 1950s to be able to take over the world through diplomacy through duplicity. But the problem with diplomacy through duplicity, plausible deniability is the core doctrine that governs the interagency, which controls all of our major US, government operations on national security, foreign policy and international interests.
Because you lie to the outside world, you need to also lie to your own citizens to keep the outside from finding out. So while the lies may help you successfully acquire an empire. You now have to permanently maintain an empire of lies. Not just abroad, but at home.
Glenn Greenwald on System Update Sept 24, 2024, #340:
[I]n Brazil, that country's authoritarian Supreme Court justice ordered X banished from the entire country as a result of Musk's refusal to censor the long list of accounts that the judge ordered banned, a list that included members of Brazil's Congress who were democratically elected by the country's population, including some with the highest vote totals of anyone in the country. With the stroke of a pen, this judge ordered X and other platforms to censor those people. Yet, over the last week, X has begun taking all the required steps to regain entry in Brazil to once again be allowed to be in Brazil, including banning all of those accounts that the judge ordered banished, as well as pledging future obedience to all forthcoming judicial orders.[More . . . ]
All of this raises some valid questions about state sovereignty, just like the U.S. decision to ban or force the sale of TikTok does, but more so, it illustrates the rapidly escalating regime of censorship being imposed for real on online speech, expression, activism and journalism and the increasingly severe weapons being used by these states to ensure that that control continues to be consolidated in their hands.