Lying all Along the Line
By James Moore
There is not much more satisfying than watching detestable politicians and liars when they slip into panic mode and realize their scam is falling to pieces. The past week has seen as much angst in the Republican Party as there was apparent joy in the Democrat’s convention hall in Chicago. Donald Trump, desperate for any kind of attention, scurried down to Arizona to the border wall, beating on an issue that no longer works. Standing in the 100 degree heat in the desert, his hair singed by the sun and his makeup gone pasty and uneven, the former president looked a bit like a gob of lint from a clothes dryer. Nobody wears a suit in the summer in Arizona; especially when their makeup is at risk of running with sweat. There was not much media present and the cable networks cutaway from his ramblings about insane asylums being emptied to send crazed patients to the US border.
Trump often looked constipated or maybe he was grimacing at the memories of how he had been diminished to a punch line by speakers in Chicago. He was cuddling up next to his favorite issue, snuggled there with his lies about how he had built 400 miles of wall on the border. He did not, of course, only about 80, and 33 of that was reinforcements to existing barriers. There were already 650 plus miles of various types of barrier already in place from previous administrations. Given the fact that the US-Mexico border is 1951 miles in length, there is a gap totaling 1300 miles that even an immigrant as simple-minded as Trump might be able to slip through undetected.
Immigration and the border are not the big political broad axe the GOP used to swing. The number of undocumented crossers has dropped dramatically in recent months. Reductions are considered a consequence of President Biden’s executive order in June, suspending all claims of asylum for anyone who has entered the country illegally. Border Patrol data showed encounters with migrants were down 50 percent in the six weeks after the order was issued, which put the seven-day average of unlawful crossings at 1900 daily, the lowest since January of 2021. The July figure of 56,400 apprehensions was the least in four years, and it was almost certainly language in the executive order that deterred immigrants, and not an artificial barrier. Unlawful entry eliminates the possibility of applying for political asylum, a fact that acts as a significant deterrent.
The reduction in migrants directly coincides with the president’s executive order even though the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is trying to take credit for the significant change. The Republican seems to think building segments of a wall and putting up razor wire has stopped the overwhelming numbers. His argument falls apart when the stats show a dramatic transformation throughout the entire American Southwest, not just along the Texas-Mexico frontier. Abbott, who has used taxpayer money by the billions to build wall, erect razor wire barriers, and to bus about 120,000 migrants to northern cities, has not rolled a bus since the one that left El Paso on June 27th only half full with 50 people.
What he has managed to accomplish, however, is the ruination of the main community green space in Eagle Pass along the Rio Grande. Abbott has turned it into a militarized man camp with almost no access for local residents. Across the street, there looms a military base that taxpayers are building with their billions and Abbott’s authorization. Texas Guard soldiers stationed there do not have too many distractions these days other than video games because the razor wire and flotation barriers in the river have chased immigrants to new crossing points. There were similar outcomes in the 80s when the DEA and Border Patrol enhanced drug interdictions on the southwestern border. The American Southeast, especially Florida, became the new route for cocaine transit and delivery, and the drug trade boomed as law enforcement made slow adjustments to the new dynamics.
“Hey kids, let’s go to the park for a picnic today. Oh, wait, never mind.”
The border is Trump’s last straw as an issue and it is slipping through the grip of his tiny hands. Unfortunately, reporters rarely are able to ask him questions about how he put a knife in the heart of a $20 billion dollar border bill in the last session of Congress. Republicans were integral to writing the measure, which increased technology and personnel dramatically, and was considered the most comprehensive new law on border protection of the past half century. Trump ordered Republicans in the house to refuse to vote on it and told the House Speaker not to bring it to the floor, even though the general consensus on both sides of the political aisle was that there was near unanimous support for passage. Solving the immigration problem, however, created a new political problem for the man who would be an American dictator. How could he accuse the Democrats and the Biden Administration of failure if the bill passed? His party’s officeholders bent the knee to the most ideologically deranged and selfish human to ever walk upright on American soil.
Trump critiques of border operations are as diaphanous and fragile as his intellect. Abbott and the GOP presidential nominee try using the anecdotal approach to sell their fear-mongering strategies even though the statistics bely their claims. Multiple studies, even from the conservative Cato Institute and the American Immigration Council, buttressed by academic research and statistics, have discovered that immigrants, both legal and illegal, tend to have lower crime rates than native-born citizens. In fact, a study by the Cato Institute in 2018 found that illegal immigrants in the U.S. had a 50% lower criminal conviction rate than native-born Americans. Nonetheless, there are sometimes horrific crimes committed by immigrants, just as they are any other demographic cohort.
Abbott blamed the recent murder of a 12-year-old Houston girl on Vice President Harris by claiming she had failed at her job as Border Czar, a title she has never held. Jocelyn Nungaray was strangled to death in Houston in June by two Venezuelan men who were in the country illegally. Abbott criticized Harris for not even mentioning the girl’s name during an early campaign stop in the city. The hollow man’s insult was striking in its hypocrisy for anyone who has followed his failures in the aftermath of mass shootings in Texas and the loss of life associated with his Operation Lone Star on the border. Not one name of a student or teacher massacred at Uvalde has ever issued from his mouth nor has he spoken of the citizens that have died as the result of his elevated border enforcement and high-speed pursuit of subjects.
The most recent report from Human Rights Watch, which is almost a year old, indicated that 74 people were killed and at least another 189 were injured in the first 29-months of Operation Lone Star, tragedies caused by dangerous police chases of suspected immigrant smugglers. One of those was a seven-year-old girl who had gone out to get ice cream with her grandmother and was standing at the wrong place at the wrong time when a police vehicle caused a suspect’s car to skid out of control. Abbott never mentioned her name because he does not know it and never bothered to learn of the death. He has publicly praised some of the 11 soldiers who died in his political border stunt but has kept his measured political distance from mass shootings in Texas. At no time has he ever spoken the name of anyone killed in the El Paso, Uvalde, or Sutherland Springs gun slaughters, or any of the other tragic shootings in Texas.
The conservative Right just might be running out of useful lies.
This article was originally published on Texas to the world.
James Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. His newest book will be released mid- 2023. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.
He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).
His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.
Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
16 comments
Login here Register here-
andyfiftysix -
wam -
Cenrelink customer -
John C -
John C -
Consume Less -
GL -
Clakka -
Canguro -
Max Gross -
GL -
Herbert Rude -
Terence Mills -
GL -
John C -
GL
Return to home pagethe problem with politicians is the inability to look past their own wealth and with it power.
If it was impossible to make a lot of money being a politician, we would get a better standard of representation.
Shit, they get paid too much as it is. What we have are overfed monkeys.
The US is a classic case of money talks and ideals walk. Trump has broken the back of Republicans……..they let him just walk in and take over.
He has built up a cult like following that is impossible to avoid. Nothing is crazy enough that the cult members wont forgive.
Fear of being disendorsed has made them all tow the line. Endorsement is how you “get in on the mafia” to make your stash.
Hopefully the era of billionaires being all powerful is slowly being closed down.
The texas governor has self fondness and a name with which Australians are very familiar..
The tactics of not answering questions seems to be successful. Wonder if kamala could prepare a list of and release them one at a time whenever a journalist asks her a question?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Senator Katy Gallagher and CEO of ACOSS Cassandra Goldie,
None of you ever acknowledged or took action in relations to 2 illegal debt schemes administered by Services Australia.
Scheme #1 . Services Australia never conducted a formal review I applied for 2 years ago. They forced me into significant debts without any legal document allowing them to do so. An objection letter is not a formal review decision.
Scheme # 2. Family Assistance Office automatically issue debt notices for 100% rent assistance payments, if a parent was not eligible for 15% FTB-dependent rent supplement.
Anthony Albanese, Katy Gallagher and Cassandra Goldie, can you at least comment this information?
[..the most ideologically deranged and selfish human to ever walk upright on American soil.]
I know this statement is directed at the loathsome tangerine fanny fondling felon himself but just about any of the current Geriatric Obnoxious Pensioners club (GOP) fit the bill just as accurately.
@centrelink customer
Perhaps your comments would be relevent and worth reading on a different story that is about your complaints but it has nothing to do with the continuing lies of the orange conman or Seppoland’s political circus in any way.
Saw the play Julia last night. Very good by the way and made me think about what’s happening in America. Here’s to Kamala putting an end to the Orange Conman !!
A weak, cowardly, blustering fat orange nutcase. He’s not going to face Kamala AND the horrible fake news who aren’t Rupert or other RRWNJ sycophantic meedja. He’s scared witless of Harris.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/donald-trump-hints-he-might-not-join-debate-with-kamala-harris-20240827-p5k5j9.html
The land of the free, except for the GOP (sorta)
My take from afar:
For all their chest beating, since their manifest economic problems brought on since their post WWII incursions into other countries, especially Vietnam, both sides of US politics have proven incapable of dealing with their economic realities, and with hubris and mythological national glory, failed to rein in and redirect funds away from the wasteful and divisive military industrial complex into new industries benefiting the whole population.
Instead, they took the lowest possible path of tweaking paranoia, othering, and exceptionalism creating a siege of olde worlde gunslinger warriors, and terrified generations of migrants from war-torn Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and the criminal gangs and drug barons that fed off them. They completely failed to recuperate their war injured and properly harness and aid the industriousness of their people.
The final rot seemed to start with the feckless Ronnie Reagan, who after setting in motion the de-nuking of Russia and USA, lost nerve and simple-mindedly enfranchised the busybody fringe evangelists, and the already-wealthy via ‘trickle-down’ economic mythology. And it blighted the whole world.
Since the chaos of ‘going off the gold’, WWII and its aftermath, with all in the USA captured by glory, the MIC and global expansionism, the two main parties found some difficulty differentiating themselves. The Democrats apparently became happy to languish with the ‘new elite’ and branded ‘socialism’, whilst the Republicans ultimately switched to conservative populist, increasingly so after the advent of the Tea Party. After Clinton and Obama, the GOP became beholden to populism and extremely tribal politics, leading to the confused disaster that is Donald Trump, and the political wreckage that is the GOP of today.
After the lessons to the Democrats by Bernie Sanders and the turn-arounds emplaced by Biden, there is some hope now that the Democrats under Harris can turn government around to a better functioning of determined equity for all, but it will take more that one term to turn the US ship of militarist protectionist hegemon around. And hopefully drag the populace away from sensationalist celebrity populism and xenophobia to meaningful political dialogue as an integrated global participant.
Regardless of anything, the GOP has to stand up for the people, and Trump just has to go.
On a side note, and just to take a poke at American politics in all its glorious hypocrisy, wasn’t Nancy Regan latterly outed, in ~2021, as the all-time contender for being Hollywood’s ‘Throat Goat‘… known as the one who would most willingly take to bended knees with open-mouth in avaricious pursuit of acting roles? That she played the role as Reagan’s wife as the epitome of purity, cleanliness, sanctimony – who can forget her admonition to the Americans to ‘Just Say No’ when offered something druggy (but booze is OK, hey) – and who can forget or forgive she & her husband’s deliberate ignorance in the face of the burgeoning AIDS epidemic and the exponential rise in deaths among the gay community?
It’s not a characteristic that’s unique to Americans, but they do seem to have a majority hold when it comes to hypocrisy and how it plays out in the public sphere.
Wake me up when somebody builds a “great big wall” around Mar-a-Lago
Of course they’re disputing the claim. The Dumpster would never ever do anything dishonest or underhanded.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4847466-trump-campaign-foo-fighters/
@John C re ‘@centrelink customer: Perhaps your comments would be relevent and worth reading on a different story that is about your complaints but it has nothing to do with the continuing lies of the orange conman or Seppoland’s political circus in any way.’
Like sleeping in your car, sometimes there is nowhere else to go.
As to relevance…anyone?
I see that the Trump campaign have been criticised for using the Arlington National military cemetery for political posturing and for rebuffing and pushing aside a cemetery employee who asked them to refrain from using the cemetery for political purposes – it’s unlawful !
Remember when Trump walked from the Whitehouse to St. John’s Church in Lafayette Park for a photo opportunity holding up a bible.
At that time people engaged in a nonviolent protest were pushed aside when U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops used tear gas and started pushing them away for no apparent reason.
Then the photo opportunity took place with Trump handed a bible to hold up in front of the Episcopal church.
It seems that the Republicans under Trump just cannot help themselves when it comes to public decency.
The orange maniac is a pyschic(otic?) publicity vampire, he can’t function without any publicity to feed his already bloated ego.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/30/trump-pennsylvania-rally-arlington-cemetery-photo-op
Um, er, geeze!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/30/trump-blames-bacon-prices-wind-energy-wisconsin-rally
@Rude. You live up to your name. Though Clueless might be a better one for you.
Obviously my statement about relevance, or lack of in this story, is accurate since everyone has ignored your sarcasm.
If writing a complaint about centrelink on an article that has nothing whatsoever to do it or Australia is something you want to judge, criticise and compare with homelessness then you have shown just what an ignorant jbigot you really are.
I saw the following photo and the first thing I thought of was, “Oh, look, it’s Kim Jong Elon.”
https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Musk_081424-_Getty_Samuel-Corum.png?w=320&h=180&crop=1