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Poll Shows Biden Unpopular among Voters as Immigration, Inflation Worsen

March 4, 2024/in Budget and Finance, Economy, Elections, Hot Topics, Immigration, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

A sprawling new survey is revealing that voters are getting sick of the Biden administration, and Trump’s popularity is holding strong. According to the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, President Joe Biden’s approval rating is floundering, underwater at 45% (23% strongly approve, 22% somewhat approve), with his disapproval rate (39% strongly disapprove, 15% somewhat disapprove) remaining fairly steady since January of 2022. Nearly half of voters (48%) said that Biden is getting worse as a leader, while 27% (mostly Democrats) said he’s improving and 25% said he’s pretty much the same.

Furthermore, voters are disappointed with Biden’s performance on key issues. The 81-year-old president’s approval rating is low regarding his management of immigration (35%), inflation (39%), the economy (43%), rising crime rates (41%), and others. The only area where voters said Biden has done a good job was in responding to COVID-19. When asked what Biden’s biggest achievement has been as president, more voters (30%) said he hasn’t had a big achievement than voters (28%) who agreed that lowering the cost of prescription drugs is the biggest feather in Biden’s cap.

The Biden administration’s biggest failure is, according to voters, its border policy. Forty-four percent of voters (including about a third of Democrats and nearly half of Independents) believe Biden’s biggest failure was overseeing “an open borders policy and a historic flood of immigrants.” Runners-up for the title of “biggest failure” include weak leadership, “rampant inflation,” “a shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan,” and a failure to tackle surging crime rates.

Immigration, inflation, and the economy are the top issues that voters are concerned about heading into the next presidential election. Thirty-six percent of voters expressed concern over immigration, 33% over inflation and price increases, and 24% over the economy and jobs. Inflation was rated the most important issue to voters personally with 42% of voters responding that they have been personally impacted by rising prices, up four percentage points just since January. Immigration and crime were next, at 18% and 11% respectively. Additionally, 54% of voters said their personal financial situations were suffering under Biden and upwards of 70% said they fear that inflation is “here to stay.”

On immigration, 63% of voters said that the border crisis is worsening (including 42% of Democrats and 65% of Independents) and a staggering 71% said that the U.S. needs tougher laws against illegal immigration (including 56% of Democrats and 76% of Independents). A majority of voters also believe the federal government already has the power and authority it needs to fix the illegal immigration crisis and that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is simply not enforcing existing border control laws. Sixty-two percent of voters (including nearly half of Democrats) support impeaching Mayorkas “under the charge that he is willfully not enforcing immigration laws and securing the border…”

Also according to the survey, Biden would lose against former President Donald Trump if the election were held today. Forty-eight percent of voters said that they would pick Trump over Biden, with 9% saying they weren’t sure. When that 9% were asked which way they lean, Trump would beat Biden 53% to 47%. Significantly, Trump would earn 52% of the Independent vote and even 13% of the Democratic vote.

When third-party players are introduced, Trump still comes out on top, with former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking a substantial portion of the vote (nearly 10%) that would otherwise go to Biden. Trump also garnered nearly 80% support among GOP voters for the Republican presidential nomination, with former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley earning a paltry 14%. Biden would also beat Haley (41% to 39%, 19% undecided) if the two were to go head-to-head.

Even if Trump were to be convicted of the numerous indictments leveled against him by leftist prosecutors and Biden’s Justice Department, voters would still likely go for him over Biden. A whopping 54% of voters said they’d vote for Trump even if he were convicted of inciting the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Only 46% said they’d back Biden, which is actually down from 52% just a month ago. Fifty-two percent of voters said they would still vote for Trump if he were convicted of election interference charges in Georgia, but voters were split on whether to vote for him if convicted of allegedly mishandling classified presidential documents, with 50% backing Trump and 50% backing Biden.

A clear majority of voters (58%) also believe that the prosecutions against Trump are politically motivated. Even a surprising 42% of Democrats said they think that the Biden administration is “using the legal system in biased ways to take out a political opponent.” Voters were split when asked if Trump poses a “threat to democracy,” with 50% saying he doesn’t and 50% saying he does, which is down from 52% a month ago.

When asked if Trump will impact the nation “for the better,” 56% of respondents said yes, while 44% said he’s “a danger to democracy and will hopelessly divide the country if elected.” Nearly 60% of respondents also agreed with the statement, “I miss Donald Trump’s policies on the economy, immigration and crime,” and 62% agreed that Democrats “are trying to unfairly scare the voters over Donald Trump by labeling him as a dictator.”

When asked, nearly 60% of respondents said that they think Trump did a good job as president — that includes a majority in every age range polled, a majority among urban, suburban, and rural voters, 53% of independents, and even 29% of Democrats. Trump was also rated among the political figures with the highest net favorability, while Biden, his son Hunter, and other Democrats like Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), and others received some of the lowest scores.

This comes as numerous other polls show Trump leading Biden in November and concern over illegal immigration skyrocketing.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

To learn more please visit: BIDENOMICS IS BAD ECONOMICS

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EXCLUSIVE: ‘Shot Between The Eyes’ — Border Patrol Chiefs Testify On Cartel Violence Against Border-Crossers

December 11, 2023/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Elections, Immigration, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

Several Border Patrol sector chiefs testified to Congress in recent months that migrants who cross the southern border without the help of human smugglers are often retaliated against by the cartels in Mexico, according to a transcript of closed-door testimony exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Border Patrol chief of the Laredo sector, Joel Martinez, for example, testified in June to the House Homeland Security Committee that in one instance, migrants who chose to not use the cartels were shot in between the eyes and had half their head blown off. Border Patrol agents along the southern border have seen a record increase in recent years, recording more than 2.2 million encounters of migrants crossing illegally in fiscal year 2022 and more than 2 million in fiscal year 2023, according to federal data.

“For starters, if you go down the river without their permission—every section of river has a boss that owns that particular part of the river. If you go down there without their permission, they can either beat you or hit you with, like, a paddle, and they’ve been known to shoot people, you name it. That’s how they—they rule through intimidation, so that’s a very common practice,” Martinez testified.

“The other day, we had two people wash up to our shores, and they had no identification on them, but we’re thinking they were migrants that went down there without permission. One of them had his head halfway blown off, and the other one was shot between the eyes,” Martinez added.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have blamed the Biden administration and its Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the sharp rise in illegal crossings. Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene reintroduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas for a third time at the end of November, citing the crisis at the southern border.

House Homeland Committee Chairman Mark Green has been investigating Mayorkas because he’s allegedly been derelict of his duty in handling the southern border.

“Thanks to Secretary Mayorkas’ policies, criminal cartels now exercise unprecedented control of the Southwest border. They have taken advantage of his refusal to enforce the immigration laws passed by Congress, strategically overwhelming Border Patrol agents with illegal crossings in one area so they can push record numbers of people and deadly drugs across in another,” Green said in a statement to the DCNF.

“It’s no wonder that the former chief of the Border Patrol told Congress earlier this year that the cartels ‘control the border today’ because of illegal immigration ‘to a level that they’ve never had.’ And let’s not lose sight of the fact that the consequences have been disastrous not just for American citizens suffering from fentanyl poisonings and families shattered by illegal alien crime—the migrants themselves are suffering and dying in record numbers,” Green said.

The cartels control the traffic crossing the southern border into the U.S., making it extremely difficult to traverse the area without soliciting their help, the chiefs testified. Crossing without them often comes with a cost.

“The organizations that own those lanes get paid for every thing and person that crosses in that area. So they are afforded a payment for everything that goes through, and they don’t want to lose that payment. And so we have run into individuals who have been robbed or beaten when they’ve tried to make it through without contacting one of the people in charge of that area,” Chief Patrol Agent for the San Diego Sector Aaron Heitke testified to the committee on May 9.

Chief Patrol Agent for the El Centro Sector Gregory Bovino testified on July 12 that while it’s “uncommon,” crossing without the help of cartels would result in “consequences” for migrants.

“The transnational criminal organizations would apply a consequence to an individual that tried to cross without going through them,” Chief Patrol Agent for the El Paso Sector Anthony “Scott” Good testified on June 29.

Chief Patrol Agent for the Tucson Sector John Modlin testified on July 26 that agents in the area have come across migrants who have been “beaten” for trying to cross the southern border without paying the cartels.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Mike Lawler’s New Bill Would Impose Attempted Murder Charges On Fentanyl Traffickers

July 26, 2023/in Courts & Law, Elections, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York will introduce a bill to make fentanyl trafficking an offense of attempted murder under federal law, according to a copy of the bill obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Concern about the proliferation of fentanyl, a highly lethal synthetic opioid that is widely used across the United States, has prompted bipartisan calls in Congress to crack down on fentanyl trafficking, much of which occurs across the U.S. border with Mexico. Lawler’s bill, known as the Fentanyl Kills Act, would enable federal prosecutors to charge drug traffickers who “produce, manufacture, distribute, sell, or knowingly finance or transport” with attempted murder charges, according to the bill’s text.

“Any individual who has [been] found to [have] trafficked fentanyl shall be deemed to have attempted to perpetrate murder,” the bill reads.

Text of the Fentanyl Kills Act by Daily Caller News Foundation on Scribd

Lawler’s co-sponsors for the bill are Republican Reps. David Valadao of California and Jim Baird of Indiana.

The bill goes on to define “trafficked fentanyl” expansively — including any efforts to manufacture fentanyl outside the United States that is intended for transportation to the United States. It also expands the penalty of attempted murder charges to the manufacturing of precursor chemicals that are used to produce fentanyl.

“The fentanyl crisis that is gripping our country and local communities is a serious problem, and requires serious consequences for those who peddle this dangerous drug,” said Lawler in a statement to the DCNF. “The Fentanyl Kills Act takes drug traffickers head-on, imposing serious penalties for these criminals who know exactly what they are doing.”

Fentanyl is the most lethal drug in the United States and is responsible for approximately two-thirds of all 107,081 overdose deaths nationwide in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is “100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

A fatal dose of fentanyl may be as little as 2 milligrams, per the DEA. Drug dealers who sell other drugs often mix fentanyl with their products to increase their potency and fuel drug addictions by customers.

Because of its lethality, several groups have mounted efforts to make fentanyl trafficking an offense of homicide, such as Drug-Induced Homicide, a California-based organization that campaigns for “Alexandra’s Law” to enable repeat fentanyl offenders to be charged with homicide.

Left-wing groups have often opposed strengthening criminal penalties on drug traffickers and argued that such measures will disproportionately hurt racial minorities.

“Seventy-five percent of those sentenced in fentanyl cases are people of color, which means Black and brown communities are going to lose the most,” an ACLU representative wrote after Congress passed a bill to make fentanyl a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

Lawler’s bill would require Democratic votes to pass the Senate.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

The Democrats Hate ICE Because They Hate Americans

December 9, 2019/in Commentary, Culture War, Elections, Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics, Regulation/by Dr. Rich Swier

On February 15, 2019, President Donald J. Trump declared a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States (Proclamation 9844), citing the National Emergencies Act, and ordered the diversion of billions of dollars of funds that had been appropriated to the U.S. Department of Defense for military construction. This construction is ongoing. Watch this video titled DOD lists where it will build new border wall:

According to Wikipedia:

A national emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to perform actions not normally permitted. The 1976 National Emergencies Act implemented various legal requirements regarding emergencies declared by the President of the United States.

Proclamation 9844 states in part:

The current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency. The southern border is a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics. The problem of large-scale unlawful migration through the southern border is long-standing, and despite the executive branch’s exercise of existing statutory authorities, the situation has worsened in certain respects in recent years.

President Trump took this action because Democrats in Congress have:

Failed to recognize that there is a crisis on the Southern border and
Failed to fund the border wall during the normal budgetary process.

The building of a border wall was a campaign promise made by candidate Trump and remains a major goal of the Trump administration.

On December 9th, 2019 the Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus sent out an email titled “Sign on to cut funding for border detentions.” The email states:

Earleir [sic] this year, The White House declared a phony “national emergency” at the border in an attempt to get funding for his wall.

Then months later, they requested $4.5 BILLION from Congress to fund ICE, expand family detention, and lock up more vulnerable migrants.

Now, they’re trying to get an ADDITIONAL $1.4 billion to double down on their cruel immigration policies!

This is a DISASTER. But thankfully, Progressives around the country are already proposing needed cuts to The White House’s ICE budget.

Are you with us? Please, sign on today to tell Congress to CUT funding for ICE:

The Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus

What is the Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus and who are its members?

According to their website:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) consists of one United States Senator and seventy eight members of the United States House of Representatives, and is the largest caucus within the House Democratic Caucus. Established in 1991, the CPC reflects the diversity and strength of the American people and seeks to give voice to the needs and aspirations of all Americans and to build a more just and humane society.

[ … ]

Our Caucus members promote a strong, progressive agenda, what we call “The Progressive Promise–Fairness for All”. The Progressive Promise is rooted in four core principles that embody national priorities and are consistent with the values, needs and aspirations of all the American people, not just the powerful and the privileged. They reflect a fundamental belief in government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The four, core principles of the Progressive Promise:

1. Fighting for economic justice and security for all;
2. Protecting and preserving our civil rights and civil liberties;
3. Promoting global peace and security; and
4. Advancing environmental protection and energy independence

Members of the Democrat Congressional Caucus include Senator Bernie Sanders and all four members of The Squad, made up of Reps. Ilhan Omar (whip), Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It is the Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus that is driving the policies and politics of the Democrat Party.

Is there a National Emergency on our Southern Border?

The Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus, according to their email, truly believes that there is no “national emergency” on our Southern border. They call President Trump’s February 15, 2019 declaration “phony.” Yet the last two Presidents have used this Executive privilage under law to declare a national emergency.

Multiple presidents have declared national emergencies during their terms in office.

Former President Clinton issued 17 national emergency proclamations of which 6 are still current.

Former President George W. Bush declared 13 national emergencies including one after the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Former President Barack Obama declare 12 national emergencies during his presidency including one to respond to the “swine flu epidemic in 2009.” President Trump to date has issued 3 national emergency proclamation.

If swine flu is permissible why aren’t the illegal flow of aliens, including the diseases they bring with them, across our borders a crisis?

If 9/11 is permissible why are the terrorist activities of the drug cartels crossing our borders not a crisis?

If even a single American is killed by someone here illegally then why isn’t that a border crisis?

In a TownHall.com column titled Part III: Like in Europe, America’s Broken Asylum System Enables Terrorist Infiltration Over the U.S.-Mexico Border Todd Bensman writes:

New research establishes the extent to which violent Islamic jihadists infiltrated over land borders as a new method to clandestinely reach targets in Europe, a first in contemporary terrorism history. This series explores the implications of Europe’s experience for U.S. border security.

On September 30, 2017, a Somali immigrant who initially had himself smuggled over the Mexico-California border conducted a double vehicle ramming and stabbing attack, carrying an ISIS flag, that left a police officer and four others gravely injured in Edmonton, Alberta.

But Abdulahi Hasan Sharif arguably would never have been present in Canada for his melee had he not been able to claim one of America’s most indulgent and abused immigration benefits: political asylum. Simply asking a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the border for asylum sets in motion a process that guarantees most foreign strangers legal entry into the United States for as long as processing takes, which can amount to years.

Read more.

Conclusion

It is clear that the Democrats care more about illegal aliens than they do about protecting the American people.

RELATED ARTICLES:

An All-Out Immigration Moratorium, The Left’s Worst Nightmare

House To Vote On Amnesty Bill This Week

Part III: Like in Europe, America’s Broken Asylum System Enables Terrorist Infiltration Over the U.S.-Mexico Border

A New Terror Travel Tactic is Born

New Study Explains Why Islamic Terrorists Have Not Attacked Through America’s Southern Border

Beer Company Mocks Families Whose Loved Ones Were Killed by Illegals and Migrants

September 25, 2016/in Commentary, Elections, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

HEINEKEN USA has produced a TV commercial mocking families who have had loved ones killed by illegal aliens and refugees. Tecate Light, the fastest growing light beer in the U.S., will debut a controversial, disturbing and politically biased national television commercial called “The Wall” on Fox News, Univision and Telemundo during the first Presidential debate.

Felix Palau, Vice President Heineken Brand, Global Marketing, Americas.

“Tecate is using beer as the great unifier in developing a fun, lighthearted and clever commercial where friends from two bordering countries share a couple of Tecates over a wall,” said Felix Palau, Vice President, Tecate. “With this spot, Tecate is acknowledging an ongoing conversation, while raising a glass to beer’s uncanny ability to bring people together in a positive way.”

What is not shown in the commercial are drug cartel gang members, terrorists and human traffickers celebrating with a glass of Tecate.

There is nothing fun, light hearted, positive nor cleaver when it comes to national sovereignty and the security of Americans in the homeland. What unifies Americans is not beer. It is respecting America’s immigration laws and a love of American values.

HEINEKEN, a Dutch brewing company, should understand that as it’s headquarters is in Holland, which has its own serious border security issues with Muslim migrants. Europe has experienced gang rapes by Muslims, violence, clashes with police and growing anti-Semitic rhetoric. The narrative HEINEKEN is promoting is a the position taken by left wing politicians such as Gregor Gysi and Hillary Clinton.

This ad in effect promotes Hillary Clinton’s open borders policy with the false notion that we can all get along over a glass of beer.

The Tecate ad reminds us of President Obama’s beer summit between African-American professor Henry Louis Gates and the white police officer Sgt. James Crowley who arrested him. How did that work out given the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland and Charlotte, North Carolina?

HEINEKEN has taken a globalist position in their advertisement.

The media company behind this ad believes its a great idea and that it will sell beer. This ad is a slap in the face of those who have lost loved ones to those here illegally and those who migrated here to commit slaughter, most recently in a mall in the state of Washington. According to CBS Seattle, “The man was described by witnesses to police as a young Hispanic man dressed in black. Surveillance video captured him entering the mall unarmed and then recorded him about 10 minutes later entering the Macy’s with a “hunting type” rifle in his hand, Mount Vernon Police Lt. Chris Cammock said.”

We are wondering if 20-year old Arcan Cetin, a Muslim immigrant from Turkey, drank a Tecate Light before slaughtering five innocents inside the Macy’s store at the Cascade Mall in Oak Harbor, Washington. Perhaps HEINEKEN will send a case of beer to the funerals of those slaughtered as a symbol of lighthearted unity with their message to not build a high enough wall or have an immigration system that keeps out terrorists and illegal aliens?

Perhaps HEINEKEN and Tecate Light shouldn’t make light of the burning issue of national security, which begins with border security. Looks like Trump supporters will be drinking Budweiser beer?

Some find the HEINEKEN USA commercial deplorable.

We also noted something unusual about the Tecate logo design. Do you notice the similarities?

RELATED VIDEO: “Deplorables Unite”

All over the world – the spread of the Trump revolution continues for a free people and sovereign nations free from the clutches of globalism and Islamic terrorism. If being nationalistic, patriotic, and free people who enjoy the riches of modern civilization is considered “deplorable” then count us in and consider us UNITED!

CPAC 2014: Trump was Out-in-Front [virtually alone] on Immigration Issue

August 11, 2015/in Elections, Immigration, Must Read, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Ann Corcoran

Yesterday Ann Coulter tweeted this little walk down memory lane about the premiere (supposedly) conservative conclave held in Washington, D.C. each year known as CPAC.

For the record, we have written often on CPAC, but will not attend primarily because CPAC ‘leaders’ including Grover Norquist have worked hard for many years to keep discussions on immigration to a minimum and have outright banned those who want to discuss the Islamist threat to America.

Go here for our archive of posts on Grover Norquist. BTW, while pushing his amnesty agenda, Norquist worked very closely with the office of Senator Marco Rubio in helping craft that now discredited ‘Gang of Eight’ amnesty bill, but I’m digressing.

Here is a piece (3/7/14) written by Jon Feere at the Center for Immigration Studies (tweeted by Ann Coulter yesterday) which chronicles how Trump was alone among a list of Republican leaders and Presidential wannabes in addressing immigration.

Trump was talking about our borders, our sovereignty and the future of the Republican Party long before he decided to jump into the Presidential race, and he must have been very unpopular (with the ‘leaders’ at CPAC) with this message!

From Feere at CIS (emphasis below is mine):

Nearly every speaker at the first day of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) avoided any discussion of immigration or amnesty, a sign that Republican politicians are starting to understand that conservative voters have very little interest in doubling legal immigration and amnestying illegal aliens.

Of all speakers, which included Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and governors Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal, only one speaker spent any time on immigration policy: Donald Trump. He came out strong on sovereignty and garnered strong applause for noting “we’re either a country, or we’re not; we either have borders or we don’t.”Trump also noted that amnesty is a benefit for the Democratic Party, while calling out Rubio:

When you let the 11 million — which will grow to 30 million people — in, I don’t care who stands up, whether it’s Marco Rubio, and talks about letting everybody in, you won’t get one vote. Every one of those votes goes to the Democrats. You have to do what’s right; it’s not about the votes necessarily. But of those 11 million potential voters which will go to 30 million in a not too long future, you will not get any of those votes no matter what you do, no matter how nice you are, no matter how soft you are, no matter how many times you say ‘rip down the fence and let everybody in’ you’re not going to get the votes. So with immigration, you better be smart and you better be tough, and they’re taking your jobs, and you better be careful. You better be careful.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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The Nexus of Illegal Drugs and Illegal Immigration

July 23, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, Immigration, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Alan Caruba

All manner of reasons are being offered to explain the influx of thousands of illegal aliens, not the least of which is President Obama’s open invitation to Latin Americans to come here with the promise of becoming citizens at some point. By overloading the southern border, this has opened the doors to criminals and potential terrorists as well.

In March, the Huffington Post took note of the other far lesser known or discussed reason our southern border is so porous. “Americans Spent About A Trillion Dollars on Illegal Drugs in the Last Decade.” With that kind of money awaiting them, you can be sure that the drug cartels are going to make every effort to satisfy the market.

The article was about a Rand Corporation report by its Drug Policy Research Center as requested by the Office of National Drug Control Policy that tracked total expenditures, consumption, and number of users of marijuana, cocaine (including crack), heroin and methamphetamine. The decade tracked was 2000 to 2010.

Despite federal spending between $40 and $50 billion to fight the war on drugs, “American spending levels on illegal drugs stayed more or less the same.” RAND drew some of its data from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program, but it is no longer funded by the federal government which, one must assume, leaves it unable to know if the market for illegal drugs has expanded, shrunk or stayed the same.

Criminal illegals.

The news about the illegal immigration from Latin American nations has a side to it that has not received much news coverage. It has to do with the views of four-star Marine Corps General John Kelly who heads the U.S. Military’s Southern Command. In a July 8 essay in the Military Times, “Central America Drug War a Dire Threat to U.S. National Security”, Gen. Kelly noted how the drug cartels have overwhelmed the governments of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, rendering any opposition to them too great a threat.

“Due to the insatiable U.S. demand for drugs, particularly cocaine, heroin and now methamphetamines, all produced in Latin American and smuggled into the U.S.” said Gen. Kelly, they have been left “near broken societies” in which the rule of law has been destroyed. How bad is it? According to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., applications for asylum in neighboring countries—mostly Mexico and Costa Rica—are up 712%,

Cutting off aid to these countries as has been suggested by some will turn them into entities that are little more than names on a map and increase the distress of their law-abiding populations. Indeed, because so many of them have already come to the U.S., the children arriving here have families waiting for them. Seventy-three percent of the 47,017 minors apprehended at the border were from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. They will stay here to be processed by a system that has not deterred the estimated eleven million illegal aliens already living here.

For a larger view click on the map.

According to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, despite the illegal immigration crisis the U.S. has encountered, Gen. Kelly’s U.S. Southern Command is “only sourced (financed) at five percent of the capacity it needs.” Reducing the funding to the U.S. military has been a priority of the Obama agenda.

Allen West, a former Lt. Colonel and member of the House of Representatives, writing on his July 8 blog, said, “We know Obama has a penchant for turning generals who don’t toe his line and agenda points—like former CENTCOM Commander Marine Corps General Mattis—into civilians, I certainly hope we don’t see another truth-telling general, a commander, called on the carpet by Obama’s lapdog Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel—or worse, getting a call from the Capo di tutti Capi Valerie Jarrett.

The Center for Immigration Studies reports that “a significant majority of children coming across are not unaccompanied alien children according to the definition found in federal law.” As noted above they have family here in the U.S. Moreover, “there is little evidence to suggest that the recent arrivals are victims of trafficking which involves coercion.” Their families have paid smugglers to bring them to the U.S.”

While we read and hear references to those who smuggle immigrants to the U.S. border, known as “coyotes”, an Associated Press report noted a 2010 U.N. study that estimated this “service” generated $6.6. billion for the smugglers as the migrants pay anywhere from $4,000 to $10,000 each for the journey across thousands of miles “in the care of smuggling networks that in turn pay off government officials, gangs operating on trains and drug cartels controlling the routes north.”

The appetite for illegal drugs that has been a part of life in the U.S. for many citizens has contributed to the illegal alien flow from the Latin American nations whose governments have been undermined by the drug cartels. It’s a vicious circle that is not likely to be broken any time soon, if ever.