Random News and Notes 28 October
If you are the praying type offer up a couple for the people in Jamaica. Hurricane Melissa is about to make landfall as a Category 5 hurricane. Sustained winds are topping 180 mph and the eye has a pressure of 892mb at last check. The National Hurricane Center is predicting more than 30 inches of rain as the storm moves over the island.
Storm surge is expected to top 9 feet on the southern coast. Mudslides are expected due to the immense amount of rain fall.
Jamaica is f*cked.
Staying in the region, today marks the 63rd anniversary of the end of the Cuban Missile crisis.
As part of his Asia trip, President Trump stopped by Fleet Activities Yokosuka in Japan to chat with the sailors. He gave a speech aboard the USS George Washington.
With him was the newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The two signed a trade deal later in the day. Takaichi also donated some 250 cherry trees for use in the White House refresh.
There was a big shakeup at ICE overnight. As many as 12 regional directors were removed. It seems that there is disappointment with the speed of deportations and enforcement actions at the highest levels of the administration.
The post is a long one, so rather than quote the whole thing, I am going to excerpt a couple of highlights. If you want to read the whole thing, click through.
. . . Corey Lewandowski, and a handful of the ICE Chiefs will likely be replaced by Border Patrol & CBP officials, some of whom will be hand-picked by aggressive & controversial Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino. I’m told some of the ICE leadership removed from their positions include the ICE Field Office Directors in:
– Los Angeles
– Phoenix
– Philadelphia
– Denver
– El Paso
– San Diego
– Seattle/Portland
– New Orleans
. . . I’m told there is significant friction within different wings of DHS and the administration, with Border Czar Tom Homan & ICE Director Todd Lyons preferring to prioritize targeting criminal aliens & the “worst of the worst” or those with deportation orders, while DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski, and BP Commander Bovino prefer to use aggressive tactics to arrest anyone in the US illegally, including but not limited to criminals, to ramp up deportation numbers and achieve President Trump’s promises of mass deportations. I am hearing from both sides of this friction. . .
I understand the friction. Hell, I expected it. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the policies and procedures of a given agency are, when POTUS says jump, you ask how high or you resign.
That said, I have some issues with the way the Border Patrol has been carrying out their end of the immigration raids. There have been numerous, well documented issues of the BP arresting citizens and holding them for days, often incommunicado, despite seeing their citizenship/residency documents. As Ben Franklin said: “It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer”.
