The New Coffee Room

Gustavo Petro, the socialist president of Colombia, made the mistake of posing for his international audience of left-wing admirers (he is the first socialist to lead modern Colombia, and he’s an ex-guerilla to boot) by publicly refusing to accept the repatriation of Colombian illegals immigrants who were in the United States. The rubber met the road earlier today when he turned away two inbound flights from the U.S. filled with aliens, preventing them from landing, to prove that Trump “can’t treat Colombian migrants as criminals.”

Trump responded in a sober and measured fashion minutes later, announcing (1) a 25 percent tariff on all Colombian goods, to be raised to 50 percent after a week; (2) a complete travel ban and visa revocation of all Colombian government officials in the United States (tantamount to diplomatic expulsion from the country); (3) sanctions on anyone and everyone in the Colombian government, as well as “family members and supporters”; (4) enhanced border inspections for anything and everything Colombian, whether goods or people; (5) international banking sanctions.

This is justly characterizable as “the nuclear option” in the diplomatic realm. Rather than preside over the immediate economic ruin of his nation, Gustavo Petro responded minutes later by apologizing and offering his own presidential airplane to help out if necessary. (That is justly characterizable as “kissing the ring.”)

My reaction to this is simple: good. This is precisely what the people who elected Trump were expecting to see from him — I wasn’t one of those people, but you better believe I will defend the proper use of American power. The idea of any regime having the temerity to refuse to take back its citizens who are abroad illegally is not one that America (or Trump’s administration) can afford to countenance, and while all the usual suspects were rending their garments about it online, I for once found myself pleased to see Trump wield the Big Stick of international diplomacy like a mace, if only pour encourager les autres. In any event, during that short half hour, it was hilarious to read Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s weeping about coffee bean prices as Ana Navarro predicted the cancellation of Valentine’s Day because of a potential shortage of (Colombian-imported) roses — frankly, it’s impressive that these two managed to embarrass themselves within such a narrow window of time. (They were quick on the draw, if nothing else!)

George K

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster_lift

vTheir overall rate of accidents is estimated as 30 times higher than conventional elevators. A representative of the Union of Technical Inspection Associations stated that Germany saw an average of one death per year due to paternosters prior to 2002, at which point many of them were made inaccessible to the general public.[13]

Because the accident risk is much greater than for conventional elevators, the construction of new paternosters is no longer allowed in many countries. In 2012, an 81-year-old man was killed when he fell into the shaft of a paternoster in the Dutch city of The Hague.[14] Elderly people, disabled people and children are most vulnerable.