Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, May 2, 2010

It's not the border stupid

Commentary By Ron Beasley



The East Block countries built fences and walls separated with mine fields and decorated with guard towers to keep people in.  Thousands who wanted to get out still did.  I know, I interviewed them for three years.  The same applies to the US - Mexican border but that doesn't stop the political demagogues.



Sen. Alexander: Border security must precede path to citizenship for immigrants

President Barack Obama should force on securing the border before
bringing up immigration reform, a top Republican said Sunday.


Senate
Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) said that border
security would have to precede any conversations on comprehensive
immigration reform, for which an outline of legislation was released by
Senate Democrats this week.

"When the border's secure, then we
can deal with people illegally here, and how they become citizens or
not," Alexander said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Senator Alexander is wrong but so are the Democrats.  We need to address why people come across the border. 


  • The first one is NAFTA.  It is not a coincidence that NAFTA resulted in a dramatic increase in illegal border crossings.  Thousands of small Mexican farmers were put out of business because of NAFTA and too few jobs were created to absorb them. 

  • The second is the failed War on Drugs.  Like the prohibition of alcohol before it the War On Drugs has not reduced drug use but has created vicious crime organizations.  


These problems can only be addressed on this side of the border.  Only the US can fix this problem but building more fences and enacting draconian laws won't.



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