Some Red State/Blue State Indicia

Whats easier? Going through customs and multiple layers of law enforcement OR smuggling over a border that isn't policed. Going to a safehouse owned by the Cartels. Putting them on trucks and dispersing to the various lower level drug dealers (also cartels) in various cities.

Surely you can't be this dense.
 
All the illegal fentanyl is coming through the legal ports?! Oh man they must be revealing their ports of entry upon seizure !
 
Tapate50 said:
All the illegal fentanyl is coming through the legal ports?! Oh man they must be revealing their ports of entry upon seizure !
Click to expand...

Its actually helpful to the cartels if some of their drugs get seized.

You want the country to feel like its being policed while you bring in the heavy amounts in the backdoor.
 
nsacpi said:
Less than 1% of containers at ports of entry are inspected.
Click to expand...

Cartels are shipping their drugs from Mexico to our ports?

OK buddy - Surely it can't be a massively long border that is effetively not policed.


https://www.freightwaves.com/news/c...ects about 3,, theft, smuggling and terrorism.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) physically inspects about 3% of containers arriving by ocean vessel, 24% arriving by truck and 90% arriving by rail. Screening is a more practical way of managing the trade-off between promoting trade flows and reducing the risks of damage, theft, smuggling and terrorism.
 
It is less than 1%. They may look into 3% of containers but will then sample packages within the container.
 
nsacpi said:
Lots of **** gets smuggled through ports. I know someone who brought in live fish.
Click to expand...

Of course smuggling happens at ports - Its just silly to suggest its easier to do then going across an unanned border when you have an endless supply of foot soldiers to do it and police along the way.
 
thethe said:
Of course smuggling happens at ports - Its just silly to suggest its easier to do then going across an unanned border when you have an endless supply of foot soldiers to do it and police along the way.
Click to expand...

There are other addictive drugs where the geographic distribution of addiction is consistent with most of it coming across the border. Fentanyl is different.
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/14/democratic-convention-illinois-struggles/

Formerly the Land of Lincoln, now the Land of Blue State Governance Blues, Illinois is as follows:

Its population has declined for 10 consecutive years. It is one of only three states (Mississippi, West Virginia) to lose population 2010-2020. And another 230,000 (more than twice Peoria’s population) since then. Since 2000, more than 1.5 million have fled, costing an estimated $3.6 billion in income tax revenue in 2022 alone, a year the net loss of 87,000 residents subtracted $9.8 billion in adjusted gross income. In the past six years, $47.5 billion AGI has left. A net loser of households in every age and income bracket, Illinois leads the nation in net losses of households making $200,000 or more.

Fewer Illinoisans are employed than when Democrat J.B. Pritzker became governor in 2019. The state’s 5 percent unemployment rate is the nation’s third-worst; its Black unemployment rate is second-worst. Since 2010, manufacturing jobs have increased an average of 21 percent in the six nearby states; in Illinois, 1 percent. Last year, 75 percent of its cities shrank. Illinois, which had had 24 congressional seats in 1970, has 17 today and probably will lose two after the 2030 Census.

Under billionaire Pritzker, who sends his children to private schools (his family foundation has given $8.3 million to the Massachusetts boarding school he attended), Illinois this year became the first state ever to retreat from school choice (18 have created or expanded choice programs since 2023), killing, to please teachers unions, a small tax-credit scholarship program that served mostly poor and minority pupils.

The indispensable Illinois Policy Institute, a think tank, documents that although Illinois spends almost $24,000 per pupil (up 97 percent since 2007), only 35 percent of pupils read at grade level (1.2 million do not), only 27 percent are proficient in math (1.4 million are not). In Decatur, 7 percent can read at grade level; in Peoria, 15 percent. In 67 schools, no child recently tested proficient in math; in 37, none were proficient in reading. Yet officials celebrate the state’s high (87.6 percent) graduation rate. The online publication Wirepoints reports that school administrators (18 superintendents made more than $300,000 in 2022) have increased 70 percent since 1998 while enrollments have declined about 100,000. No wonder Illinois ranks 40th among the states in social mobility measured by the likelihood of earning more than the previous generation.

The state has more local government units — not counting school districts — than any state: 1,000 more than neighbors Indiana, Kentucky and Iowa combined. Last year, more than 140,000 government workers and retirees in Illinois received more than $100,000 in salaries or pensions.

Illinois, one of 17 states whose inflation-adjusted household income decreased in 2022, has the nation’s second highest property taxes, ranks last nationally in home value appreciation since 2000, has the highest state and local taxes on U.S. median income households, the second highest gas taxes and corporate income tax rate and recently enacted $1.1 billion in tax increases. Yet its unfunded state pensions liability has, according to the state, grown under Pritzker from $137 billion to $142 billion.



—————

But other than all that…
 
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/california-single-use-plastic-bag-ban-legislature-32431bd1?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

California is known for its ban-first-ask-questions-later approach to problems, and in 2014 it was the first state to pass a comprehensive ban on single-use plastic bags. Whoops, plastic in the garbage went up, not down. Naturally, California politicians now think this justifies another new ban on carryout bags that will further inconvenience citizens.

Specifically, the weight of plastic bag waste per capita increased after the original ban was passed. Even a study called “Plastic Bag Bans Work,” done by environmental and public interest groups, features a table showing that the amount of plastic bags thrown away per 1,000 people in California rose from 4.08 tons in 2014 to 5.89 tons in 2021. The report blames this on a “loophole” in the law.

When the ban on thin, single-use plastic bags went into effect, shoppers were left with a choice between paper bags or heavier, multiuse plastic bags. But many people apparently didn’t reuse these thicker plastic bags as often as politicians imagined that they would, leading to the overall increase in plastic garbage. As a fix, the state Assembly and Senate are moving now to crack down on these carryout bags, which have been permitted for the past 10 years.



—————

LOL
 
GVIbX0AXgAAflCv
 
My works bring me to SF this week, sadly

Just closed out a tab and was charged a 5% "health fee"

LOL that their citizens put up with this is insane
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top