The Right Side of the News

WV Raleigh County Deputy Director of Emergency Management wins Martin Luther King memorial trophy, 2018, It's OK If You're A Republican division:

Another scenario that I find to be more likely is that she thought that they were asking her about her son, not her grandson. Remember that her son, President Obama's father, was also named Barack Obama. The translator's correction was to point out which Barack Obama that guy was asking her about, that the question was about her grandson, not her son.

It is difficult to find details of the Texas border with Mexico, which is demarcated along its entire length by the Rio Grande. A river is a physical barrier, no wall required, but a river that dries up is not. So does the Rio Grande dry up?Yes, the Rio Grande does dry up, but Internet articles say it only dries up in New Mexico during the hottest months. But El Paso along the Rio Grande in far western Texas butts right up against New Mexico and borders the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez. Does the Rio Grande dry up in El Paso? Yes, it does. Unfortunately I can't embed this video, but just watch the first 20 seconds of this video from KLTV to see how the Rio Grande completely dries up in this western region of Texas: Climate change drying up Rio Grande, experts say.Here's a great view of how little remains of the Rio Grande during the hotter parts of the year in and near El Paso. This image is from the New York Times article In a Warming West, the Rio Grande Is Drying Up: Obviously a wall or fence is needed here, because the river is too diminished, even absent in places, to serve as a barrier. The same concerns about providing access to the river for both people and wildlife remain.But further south and east the Rio Grande is much more substantial and serves as a barrier all by itself, no wall needed.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

It already has a fence. BBC Fact Checking Trump

Yes, I originally tried to include a Google Maps satellite view of fencing within the El Paso city limits, but Google Maps embedding doesn't work accurately anymore, so after pushing on it hard for a while I gave up and went and did something else. When I resumed my post I forgot to mention the fencing inside the city. But as you can see in the image I provided, outside El Paso there's no fencing.But the larger point is that those against Trump's wall are not saying walls are never needed. I hope Pelosi only means she's against Trump's ambiguous and constantly changing wall when she says things like, "There will be no wall." Obviously places with no natural barriers (such as rivers or geography) need artificial barriers, and most people understand that. What those opposing Trump's wall are against is 240 miles of wall just blindly plunked down along a stretch of Rio Grande that doesn't need it. They're only against building a wall that has no justification other than that it was a Trump campaign promise. They're not against border security.And being against Trump's wall is not synonymous with open borders. Few are for open borders, or for illegal immigration, for that matter, despite those being the constant accusation of Republicans. The increasing vehemence of their lies about Democrats exposes their desperation.And being against Trump's wall does not make one a leftist, Faith's constant anthem against anyone who opposes Trump. If Trump morphs his 240 miles of wall into appropriate barriers northwest of El Paso and any similar open regions, then I'll support Trump's proposal, and I'll condemn any Democrats who play politics with such a proposal.I'm sure Trump has advisors that would tell him where and what type of barriers are actually needed, but since Trump is smarter and knows more than anyone else (ask him, he'll tell you), he wouldn't listen.--Percy

An additional data point for this whole border debate: my wife and I visited Mexico back in December. We’re both pretty dang Anglo looking, I guess, so there is that factor - but we went into Mexico without seeing an official of any kind at the (official) crossing. We came back three days later at a different (still official) crossing in a pickup truck with a covered bed with a box of very nice Mata Ortiz pottery inside. We showed our passports to the nice man at the border, told him we had some pottery, and were waved on in less than a minute.I could have had my pots packed full of Fentanyl, or I could have had three smallish ISIS terrists hiding under the bed cover. There was one agent in the booth, and no one else obvious. What appears to me to be needed to “secure the border” is to spend some of that wall money on, say, hiring some more people to man those crossings, and paying them enough to sit in a little shack twenty miles south of Columbus, New Mexico and also live out there in the 105-degree summers. There may be a bit of wall out there, but a couple of hundred miles of Chihuahuan Desert makes a pretty good barrier already.

The governor of New Mexico has ordered that the National Guard be pulled from its border, calling Trump's claims of a border crisis a "charade of border fear-mongering." Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham went on to say, "I reject the federal contention that there exists an overwhelming national security crisis at the southern border," adding that the area has "some of the safest communities in the country."The governor also said some troops will remain in southwestern New Mexico for a humanitarian mission because "large groups of families, women and children" have been observed "crossing over the border in the remote Antelope Wells area in recent months."The Republicans, and especially Trump except that he's incapable of compassion or empathy, should take a lesson from this. This is the way migrants presenting themselves at the border should be treated, with help and assistance and proper facilities. If the federal government won't act decently then the border states will have to.Migrants also need timely processing of their applications, but that's a solely federal issue. We need more legal staffing, including judges, on the southern border.The ultimate solution is to work with our Central American neighbors to solve the problems in their countries that are causing so many people to flee. In the meantime we have to remain a beacon of hope and freedom to all the peoples of the world and reflect the American values cited in Stacy Abrams speech last night, the only speech worth mentioning.Checking the New Mexico border with Mexico in Google Maps, the Antelope Wells area has a fence and a border patrol road alongside.--Percy

See House intelligence chair announces sweeping investigation into Trump's finances and Russia for details.What really caught my attention was where Republicans on the committee argued that Hillary Clinton's campaign should also be investigated for Russian collusion. It's hard to believe there are Republicans still pushing this ridiculous theory, so I'd thought it would be reasonable to ask what evidence exists of collusion for both campaigns and compare the lengths of the lists. If they're not too different in length then both campaigns should be investigated. Here's my attempt at a list, and I'll attempt to be very generous toward the Republicans. In order to keep the table brief I've left out most detail, refer to Message 689 for more information: By my count, evidence for Trump campaign collusion outnumbers evidence for Clinton campaign collusion by 20-1. It isn't even close, and the Steele dossier isn't even evidence of Russian collusion, so it's more like 20-0. And that's not even a complete list of Trump campaign misdeeds, I just ran out of time.So the Republicans on the Intelligence committee have no basis for a Clinton/Russian collusion investigation. It's just a baseless "Oh yeah? Well so did you."It makes perfect sense that the Trump campaign had a great deal of contact with Russians because Trump had done business with Russia in the past (the Miss Universe contest, for one), and because he'd been working with Russian officials trying to build a hotel in Moscow for like forever, and because he surrounds himself with lowlifes for whom collusion is just Tuesday.Clinton had no history of Russian contacts outside her official work as Secretary of State.Also, it should be obvious to everyone by now that Trump lies and misrepresents everything. He's even admitted making things up, such as when he met with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada. The media is doing America a grave injustice by reporting everything Trump says as if it might be true. Trump's history of lies is more than long enough for everything he says to be labeled false until he presents evidence of its truth.--Percy

I wouldn't call the Steele dossier evidence for her collusion. Her campaign took over sponsorship of a legal and normal opposition research program and continued it. No collusion involved.Of course in a courtroom it would not be "collusion", it would be "conspiracy" or something else. If the former the idea that it's incriminating becomes even sillier.

If Democrats behave honorably then the Republicans will pick up a governorship. Governor Ralph Northam should resign because of racist issues (Why Virginia Democrats are pushing Ralph Northam to resign), Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax should resign because of sexual assault issues (Details of alleged assault by Va. lieutenant governor deepen chaos around state’s top leaders), and Attorney General Mark Herring should resign because of racist issues (Va. attorney general says he dressed in blackface during college).Next in line of succession is Speaker of the House of Delegates Kirk Cox, a Republican.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Punctuation.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

So the entire edifice of human morality vs a temporary barely-significant political advantage.That's a tough one.This is politics in the human image so you have got to know we will do it wrong.

As a Virginian, it is pretty embarrassing when national pundits and comics are comparing my state to Florida for buffoonery.

These are words Trump has used in his State of the Union addresses that have never been used before in the history of all previous State of the Union addresses: Many of the words are innocent enough, but a significant number are laden with negative undertones: So much for uplifting and nonpartisanship.Source: The words Trump used in his State of the Union that had never been used before--Percy

In a series of quick questions Ocasio-Cortez breaks it down so that even a kindergartner, even a president, could understand it. You won't regret watching this one: --Percy

Here's what the National Guard Did to Nogales's downtown when Trump sent them to Arizona: The town is threatening to sue if the razor wire isn't removed.Is concertina wire so difficult to defeat? Down you just throw some heavy canvas or a rug over it? Can't you just buy a rolled up length of hallway carpet and throw it over the wall? If there are no border patrols, can't you just reach through the slats and cut the wire? Here's video of Hungarian families cutting through concertina wire, it just isn't that hard. I've positioned the video at the point where they approach the fence, you only need to watch a minute. When half a family has crossed through the hole in the fence the border patrol catches them but permits the rest of the family to cross so they can be together. The other families have to remain behind, waiting for another opportunity to cross. Their ultimate destination is Germany. Walls and fences are the oldest technology, folks, and they work, anyone can tell you. Yeah, right. Plus there are border guards who turn out to be actual human beings.--Percy