Republicans should not Rejoice

The Republicans are planning for rapid and broad reformation of the country now that in a week they can close the border, have a massive deportation of criminal aliens and return America to Americans. With control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, as well as a friendly Supreme Court, they plan to pass sweeping legislation outlawing Sanctuary Cities/Counties/States and, in partnership with local law enforcement, empty jails of illegal aliens. They will begin with the 1.4 million illegal aliens whose asylum claims have already been adjudicated and who have deportation orders. The Wall will be repaired and completed, Federal spending will plunge as DOGE identifies where two trillion dollars can be eliminated from the federal budget. Peace and Prosperity will reign throughout the land, and America will enter a new golden age

The sad truth is that 2024 was a great time to lose an election. The damage done to our country by the Biden Administration is incalculable and continuing. Whoever won would be faced with a series of awful and monumental tasks. Simply finding the bits and pieces that desperately need killing off is an epic undertaking. Matt Taibbi noted in a recent post that Congress had publicized its intention to dismantle the infamous Global Engagement Center. The State Department changed the name and transferred all employees and money to the new organization. Finding and rooting out the multiple parts of the censorship state will be a long, slogging affair.

Many parts of the government have been weaponized against the American people; The world seems stuck in an Arlo Guthrie song. Places we know were weaponized include the State Department, the Defense Department, the DoJ, the FBI, the DHS, various contractors, the White House, NPR, and a host of others. This is why we have a constitution written to protect the people from their government.

The promised massive deportation will take far longer than the incoming regime’s four-year term. Let’s begin with the 1.4 million people with deportation orders. Do you know where they are? Neither do I. Nor does anyone else; there are no records of location.

Priority for deportation has been made crystal clear: first, jailed prisoners with conviction(s) for violent felonies. The Governors of California and Illinois, as well as the Mayors of Boston and Chicago, have all taken steps to prevent the Federal Government from removing these violent felons. Why a political leader would want to keep violent felons in their jurisdictions, with no right to be in the U.S., is a mystery; it certainly does not benefit these leaders’ constituents. It does, though, provide a warning of how sticky this wicket will be.

Trump was asked about deporting illegal aliens married to U.S. citizens; he responded that in order to keep the family together he would deport the entire family. There are genuine problems with this approach. Immigration law is clear: it is illegal to deport a native-born citizen, and deportation of a naturalized citizen is allowed only when the citizen has committed fraud in the immigration process.

Other countries taking advantage of us has several problems. Our pharmaceutical industry is plagued by high costs to develop drugs, test them for efficacy and safety, then locate a place to manufacture them. The patent-holder can send the patent to a country with much lower manufacturing cost, such as India, but monitoring production at both the licensed plant and seeking unlicensed facilities means that little money is saved. Several of our allies simply declare our drugs critical to national defense and appropriate our patent. Canada is a leading proponent of simply appropriating our patents.

We have a list of technologies whose export is limited to some countries. As you can imagine, in some unfriendly states that serves as a shopping list. There are instances where gaming systems’ encryption of direct messaging places them on the restricted list. Guidance systems for what are hobbyist drones may be restricted. It will require technical specialists with knowledge of emerging technologies to examine thousands of lines of code to decide what can be safely sent abroad.

The search for $2 trillion in savings is futile. The 2024 Federal expenditures totaled $6.752 trillion; revenue a mere $4.919 trillion. Of the $6.752 trillion, 73% is classified as mandatory. These are expenditures that Congress has placed on autopilot: if an individual qualifies for the social welfare benefit, he/she receives the amount automatically. These include three major categories: Medicare, interest on the debt, and social security. They consumed all but $1.6 trillion of the expenditures. Social Security is often referred to as the Third Rail of politics. In electrically-powered railways, the third rail is electrified, and touching it brings instant death. The same happens to a politician who touches (reduces) social security and the rest of the mandatory categories. We cannot refuse to pay interest on the debt. The last time a U.S. State borrowed money in international markets and could not repay it was Maryland in about 1810. It was barred from international markets until 1952.

Currently, annual interest on our sovereign debt totals about $880 billion. When added to mandatory social welfare programs, that leaves a total of $1.6 trillion for cutting. Cutting $2 trillion out of $1.6 trillion only works in theoretical mathematics and Bidenomics.

Trump has talked of annexing Greenland by fiat and without consulting the island’s owner, Denmark. I strongly suspect that he will settle for long-term arrangements that allow for U.S. military bases and mutual development of natural resources. Panama will likeely satisfy Trump with lowering tolls for U.S. transits and getting rid of the Chinese. Trump has already achieved what he wanted with Canada – Trudeau’s resignation. I don’t see a problem in this area. Certainly not after his CIA director apprises him of our unique arrangement with Denmark for QpQ intelligence sharing. We have as strong an intelligence reason for cooperation with Denmark as we have with Britain.

The war with China has already been lost. Our country is riddled with Chinese students, each of which must agree to return to China and divulge all information obtained to Chinese officials. This is not merely schoolbooks and syllabuses. It is everything from common daily observations on up. This is enforced by Chinese police stations scattered among major cities. Additionally, somewhere around 15-20,000 young men of military age entered California during the open border period. Less than a week following their entry, they were observed taking target practice in the California desert. IMO, the best we can hope for is a delaying action. We already are a vassal state, shipping raw materials to China and buying manufactured products from the country,

I have not written in a while. Before Christmas I had all the teeth in my upper jaw extracted. A few days later I fell and broke my elbow (humerus and ulna). Getting old is not for the faint of heart.