The Pendulum Will Swing

Some of it was, Johnson used unspent funds for other parts. Nearly every president since has used the same method to fund various things.

This math checks out.

Hmm, I’m off by a factor of five somewhere. “midnight math” I guess.

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The number of crossings is down. The number of illegals crossing who are claiming asylum is up dramatically.

These are also primarily Central Americans so they can’t simply be turned around at the border.

Between the caravans and the UAM/Families rushing across claiming asylum the entire system has been overwhelmed. From 2016-2017 the number of those claiming asylum across the southern border increased 67% and it’s up several hundred percent since 2013.

The vast majority of Opiates entering the country do so across our southern border along with large amounts of meth, coke, and MJ. To claim otherwise is simply dishonest.

Enough Fentynyl was interdicted in the last two weeks in a single Near Nogales, Az bust to kill half a million people.

Concentrate drug interdiction on the ports, the cartels move to land crossings, air, or whatever strategy they can. They are very inventive.

Secure the open areas of the border with effective barriers and that frees up resources for all other interdiction efforts.

Barriers are a “force multiplier” they greatly improve the effectiveness of the people manning the border which is why they have worked so well for centuries.

Never math after 9:00pm. Certainly never after the witching hour. :slight_smile:

The vast majority of Opiates entering the country do so through legal points of entry. To claim otherwise is simply dishonest.

Those resources are already freed up because drugs aren’t being smuggled in through the open areas. Building a $20 billion fence isn’t going to help

And yet these highly inventive smugglers aren’t going to realize they can simply hand off any contraband through the slats to someone on the other side?

What, specifically, did Johnson use unspent funds to fund? Of course, Johnson was president before the National Emergencies Act which was passed in 1976 , after Johnson’s time in office…

Over half the opiates entering the US come through the southern border and the cartels use every means I described above to do so.

When you put more pressure on one of the routes they shift much of the traffic to the others. That’s according to the FBI, DEA, and BP. If you have a better source cite it.

The whole point is that if we secure the land routes away from the ports it frees up a tremendous amount of manpower to concentrate on the others.

It’s a very simple equation.

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Over 80% of the fentanyl arrives via mail from China…

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/12/09/china-deadliest-export-fentanyl-editorials-debates/2229428002/

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A POTUS doesn’t need to declare an emergency to redirect unspent funds.

See “Budget Stabilization Funds”.

I’m not inclined to see how Johnson or anyone else divvied them up when they used them, do your own research.

But no where near in equal measure. It makes no sense to concentrate large sums of money to prevent the least common means drug smuggling, which is walking through vast stretches of desert to cross the border.

That’s never been the point until now as a post-hoc justification when the initial argument failed dramatically.

There’s a compete lack of plausibility of this argument when it means spending billions of dollars to save money. It’s self contradictory.

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Except for that pesky Anti-Deficiency Act…

My mistake, the Misappropriation Act (31 USC, Section 1301)

Fentanyl is one Opiod.

https://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2016/mar/14/rob-portman/most-heroin-us-comes-over-mexican-border/

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2019/01/31/254-pound-fentanyl-seizure-sets-record-nogales-arizona-border-crossing/2731969002/

There’s not a whole lot the BP can do about the US mail, that’s up to the Postal Inspector’s office and DEA to deal with.

The Trump Administration is also dealing with it diplomatically directly with the Chinese gov’t.

There is no “misappropriation” unless the money was specifically targeted to a specif use. If programs are cancelled, contracts under budget those funds are freed up.

Why get nit-picky now?

You constantly misuse trafficking statistics obtained from port of entries to justify building a wall, which is nonsensical.

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Yeah, I’m thinking it falls into the other synthetic opioids category…

That’s not how it works at all but nice try…

And it is the one that is central to the rise in deaths the last 4 years…