Open Borders Leads to National Suicide

How Compassionate Is the Democrats' Open-Borders Policy?

12/28/2018 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com

People are having fun lampooning Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's selective exploitation of Scripture to support the Democrats' advocacy of open borders, but let's not allow this mirth to distract us from larger questions.

The incoming congresswoman tweeted: "Joy to the World! Merry Christmas everyone -- here's to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people. (Including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)"

Let's put aside that Ocasio-Cortez is conflating the Nativity story described in Luke's Gospel, in which Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census, with Matthew's description of the couple's fleeing to Egypt to protect Jesus from King Herod's decree to murder every boy age 2 or younger in Bethlehem. The latter example also fails because there was no illegal border crossing into Egypt, as it, too, was part of the Roman Empire and, in any event, because Mary and Joseph were following God's command for them to flee to protect Jesus; a divine order trumps all man-made laws. Let's also defer until a later time the bizarre scolding about refugee babies from one whose party virtually supports abortion on demand.

Ocasio-Cortez's biblical illiteracy is irrelevant. The point is that she is carrying on an unfortunate practice of cherry-picking Scripture for political gain. She's simply trying to show that conservatives have no compassion for "foreigners" or the lost and that they are egregious hypocrites and frauds for holding themselves out as Christians while declining to model Jesus' love.

In a less imperfect world, I wouldn't have to bother refuting this, but Democrats have done a masterful job permeating our culture with these slanders, and far too many people actually believe them -- just as they believe their equally wicked mantra that we are hateful racists, sexists and homophobes.

It's wicked because they know it's not true. But the Democratic Party's main recruiting strategy is to show that Democrats care about people and that Republicans don't. In a world where supposedly good intentions are the yardstick, results don't matter.

Though I am convinced that the average conservative has as much compassion or more than the average liberal, I realize I'm not going to convince anyone of that just by asserting it.

What might be more helpful would be to examine how compassionate and prudent the Democrats' policies on immigration and related issues are in practice.

Underlying Ocasio-Cortez's tweet on refugees is her implied charge that Republicans don't care about refugees, foreigners or other vulnerable people -- that we would deny asylum to those truly fleeing their countries to escape harm and we sadistically desire to separate children from their parents.

These are all malicious lies. Republicans don't want to repeal asylum laws, but they do want the laws to be applied in an orderly fashion to ensure that we help those truly in need. When Democrats support open borders, sanctuary cities, across-the-board amnesty and a catch-and-release policy, they are incentivizing border anarchy, human trafficking and lawlessness. They are endangering American citizens and discriminating against immigrants who played by the rules.

The question we ought to insist on discussing is whether Democrats even believe in the concept of nation-states anymore -- and specifically American sovereignty -- as opposed to deferring to some enlightened global entity. Do they even remotely embrace the American idea anymore? Socialism and top-down authoritarianism were hardly contemplated by the Framers. I might tell Ocasio-Cortez that the Apostle Paul said, "From one man (God) made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands."

It is axiomatic that a nation cannot exist without borders and border enforcement. This is especially true of America because its uniqueness is in its founding ideas, which are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Our patriotic ancestors knew that our freedom tradition depends on adherence to the Constitution and on a citizenry dedicated to ordered liberty -- understanding that freedom is meaningless and ephemeral unless undergirded by the rule of law. They believed that the government's first duty is to protect its citizens from domestic and foreign threats. They disagreed on whether and to what extent we should export our democratic principles but never on whether we should preserve them for ourselves.

Conservatives fervently believe in ethnic diversity. America is undeniably -- and gloriously -- an amalgam of countless ethnicities. But we also believe in the assimilation of all ethnicities into a common culture committed to the Constitution and rule of law -- as opposed to a Balkanized society of competing groups that are suspicious and hostile toward one another.

This is why the legal path to citizenship and its attendant naturalization process have involved the applicants' pledge of loyalty to this great nation of which they want to become a part.

Democrats need to explain whether they still believe in the American system itself and in America's sovereignty -- in its right and duty to enforce its immigration laws, as well as the orderly, controlled system of immigration those laws establish. Let them explain how eviscerating these laws would be in the best interest of America and its citizens in any respect, how flooding our borders with people we can't support or assimilate would help either those immigrants or existing American citizens.

If we care about preserving America as the freest, most prosperous and most benevolent nation in the world, then we cannot continue to ignore border security and thwart the rule of law. How compassionate would the world be without America?

Trump Wall - Border Security, Democrats Wall - Politics

Will The War For The Wall Be Won?

12/23/2018 - Derek Hunter Townhall.com

It’s on, the government is shut down.  At least it was as of this writing, by the time it’s published someone may have caved or we could have devolved into a “purge” situation. In 2018, anything is possible. As we struggle to survive hours or days without a small percentage of a small percentage of federal workforce who are out enjoying the (eventual) paid time off, keep in mind that you won’t remember this when it’s over. But you’ll survive.

I’m a survivor, and so are you. We all are survivors of government shutdowns. Since 1976 there have been 20 shutdowns, full or partial, of the federal government. And I bet you don’t remember any of them. You survived, like you will survive this one, no matter how panicked the media coverage becomes, no matter how crazed Democrats become.

This time, however, the battle isn’t over something you’ll never see, like the spending battles in the past that were over numbers. This time it’s something physical, a wall.

Democrats will never, ever allow a wall to be built. They can’t. And President Trump has to build the wall, at least some of it, or he’ll have an even more difficult time getting reelected. That’s the point of everything happening in Washington right now.

The seeds for this fight were planted way back in 1988, the moment then Vice President George H.W. Bush first said, “Read my lips, no new taxes.” That promise, once he won, was in the crosshairs of Democrats in Congress. They knew that if they could get him to break it, it would demoralize a large enough portion of his base that they could win in 1992. While it wasn’t the deciding factor in Bush’s loss, it was a factor. How could you trust someone who made a pledge to you and didn’t keep it?

That’s why Democrats are now opposing a measly $5 billion to build some portions of a wall on the southern border. They feign outrage over the idea of spending the money, but the federal government spends more than $12 billion every single day, and Democrats are pushing to blow trillions on socialized medicine, so spending money is not something with which they have a problem. What they can’t afford is for Donald Trump to fulfill even a couple of hundred strategically placed miles of his signature campaign promise.

That is exactly why Trump has to stick to his guns here.

Republicans are just over a week away from losing control of the House of Representatives. There is nothing on the planet that will get Nancy Pelosi to authorize a penny for border security. Democrats say they’re in favor of border security, they just don’t specify what that means. They do, however, specify what it does not mean, and that is a wall.

Personally, I applaud President Trump’s last-minute “line in the sand” drawing. After last week’s showdown in the Oval Office with Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the White House indicated they’d be willing to kick the can, again. While I applaud the current stance, I don’t know how much I trust it.

The President had to be reminded, to put it politely, that without doing everything possible to secure funding for a wall he would lose a lot support. Actually, I kind of had a hand in getting us to this point. I interviewed my friend Ann Coulter for my podcast on Wednesday where she said she wouldn’t vote for him in 2020 without a wall. She told me that without it, “Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever.”

The interview went viral, was picked up and reported by all the cable networks and nearly every print outlet within a few hours. Soon after, others became more vocal in their criticism of the President and the White House flipped back to a hard line on the wall and we ended up here. So, you’re welcome, America.

While it’s tempting to look at this stance as a victory, it is not. It’s nice, it’s a good thing, but victory is funding for the wall. Make no mistake, anything short of that is a loss. Politicians don’t get credit for saying the right things, they get credit for doing the right things. Republicans in Congress could have made this push at any point in the last 2 years, the did not. The President could have insisted on it at any point in those 2 years, he did not. It’s as important to be skeptical of people who don’t do something they insist they want to as it is of people who suddenly don’t want what they used to say they did.

Nearly every Republicans and more than a few Democrats have been on record, at some point in recent history, supporting a wall. It shouldn’t be this hard, it shouldn’t be a war. But it is. And we’ll soon find out if the country wins, or we lose. Stay tuned…

Please subscribe to Derek’s daily podcast (it’s free!) to keep up to date on everything in the news and pick up a copy of his book, Outrage, INC., to discover how modern liberalism came to power and how to protect yourself and your loved ones from it. It makes a great Christmas gift

Border Security IS National Security!

People Over Politics: Secure The Border Now

12/19/2018 - Jake Hoffman Townhall.com 

“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”

“Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple.   Until the American people are convinced that we will stop future flows of illegal immigration, we will make no progress on dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants who are here now and on rationalizing our system of legal immigration. …People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who entered the U.S. legally.”

Based on the recent media bluster attacking Republicans for supporting effective border security measures, you probably think that the above quotes are from Republicans like President Trump or conservative stalwarts like Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Ted Cruz or Mike Lee.

If you guessed someone like one of the aforementioned Republicans you would be wrong, and wildly wrong at that.  The above quotations are attributable to none other than Democrats Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer, respectively.

That’s right, Obama and Schumer made those statements and, in fact, they made many more statements in that same vein over the last 10 to 15 years. 

Moreover, nearly all national Democrats currently on the political scene have made similar comments repeatedly throughout their political careers.  Yet today, Democrats have embraced a radical and dangerous agenda centered on unfettered, open border policy that will necessarily decimate our national sovereignty in coming years.

Make no mistake; however, border security is national security.  Every day we leave our borders open we allow drugs, crime, and human trafficking to flow freely into our country, leading to the further deterioration of our cities and rule of law.

Consider that this year alone, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deported more than 256,000 illegal aliens, including approximately 6,000 suspected or known gang members.

Also consider that according to senior Border Patrol officials, between 70 and 75 percent of the “migrant caravan” that we’ve all heard about for months on end are classified as single adult men.  That’s right, only a small minority of the caravan is composed of women and children.  Furthermore, the caravanners have refused multiple asylum and resettlement offers throughout their journey, leading many to believe that these are not refugees at all, but rather invaders seeking to exploit the loopholes in U.S. immigration law.

As Chuck Schumer said, “illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple.”   We cannot, must not, allow the willful degradation of our nation’s borders and in the process, our sovereignty.   

As much as modern Democrats and the leftist media don’t like to admit it, building a “big beautiful wall with a big beautiful door,” as Trump so perfectly puts it, is in fact, the most pragmatic and effective way to nearly eliminate the illegal alien crisis plaguing America’s southern border.

The truth is that walls work, which is precisely the reason that Barack Obama, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Dianne Feinstein all have walls protecting their homes* valued at a combined more than $57 million.

I recently toured the vast expanses of unsecured southern border with a high ranking Border Patrol official who shared that, when surveyed, 95% of Border Patrol agents supported building the border wall.  Yes, you read that correctly… 95 percent of boots on the ground border agents support the wall.

Despite the proven effectiveness of walls, Democrats will surely say I’m just fearmongering and hyperbolizing the situation. Well, let’s look at the facts. 

In my home state of Arizona, an illegal alien is twice as likely to commit a crime compared to a natural born citizen. Each year 90% of all heroin and fentanyl and more than 10,000 child sex slaves are trafficked across our southern border.

There are more than 50,000 illegal aliens in America’s federal prison system and illegal immigration as a whole financially burdens our nation to the tune of more than 100 billion dollars annually.

The $25 billion cost to build the wall is bargain-basement pricing when we have the perspective granted by comparing it to the $100 billion annual price tag of allowing the problem to persist.

So the question we must ask ourselves as a nation is, why.  Why are Democrats fighting tooth and nail to open our borders to unchecked mass migration when their own words have previously made the argument against such action?

The answer is sadly both simple and disheartening.  Above all else, Democrats care about the accumulation and centralization of power.  In order to accumulate the amount of power they desire, they must create a permanent underclass of government-reliant lemmings who will blindly vote Democrat for generations to come.

Simply stated, Democrats view illegal aliens as their silver bullet to ensure they maintain their death grip on the levers of power in our nation for generations, even centuries, to come.

Sensible Americans must join with President Trump and demand that Congressional Republicans like Speaker Paul Ryan, House Minority Leader-elect Kevin McCarthy, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell do their job by securing our southern border immediately.  We must band together to tell Congress to work through Christmas and pull all-nighters if necessary, but their only priority between now and December 31^st should be to put people over politics and secure our nation by securing our borders—build the wall now.

For in the words of Barack Obama, “we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”

*The wall is either located around the home or community.

Jake Hoffman is a conservative political commentator and the founder, president and CEO of Rally Forge, one of the nation’s top conservative digital communications and media strategy firms.

Democrats -- Hypocrites All!

Pelosi and Schumer Show Their Colors

12/14/2018 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com

Contrary to liberal media reporting, the Oval Office meeting with President Trump, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was a win for Trump, both in substance and in tone.

The meeting gave people an opportunity to see who fears transparency, who's misrepresenting his/her position and who is being the aggressor in the border debate, and it's not Donald Trump.

Instead of listening to the media's version, watch the video. President Trump set the tone of the meeting, and it was decidedly cordial, saying it was a great honor to have Pelosi and Schumer there and acknowledging that they've worked very hard on various bipartisan initiatives, such as criminal justice reform and the farm bill.

Trump then turned to "the wall," saying Republicans support it and he would like to avoid a government shutdown over the issue while acknowledging that it is a very difficult issue because Republicans and Democrats are "on very opposite sides."

When Trump surrendered the floor to Pelosi, she immediately invoked the subject of a government shutdown, saying the American people recognize that we must keep the government open -- as if that, and not border security, were the overriding issue -- and warning, "You should not have a Trump shutdown."

Notice the blatantly calculating way she spun this as a "Trump shutdown" rather than a possible impasse that could lead to a government shutdown. Also note: Pelosi drew first blood, and it was deliberate.

After a minor skirmish over whether Trump should initiate a bill in the House that would be sure to fail in the Senate, Pelosi, playing to the camera, said, "We're here to have a conversation in a prayerful way, so I don't think we should have a debate in front of the press." Pelosi knows that a House bill could not survive a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, yet she continued to press Trump to offer a bill.

Schumer began his remarks by insulting Trump, saying The Washington Post gave him "a whole lot of Pinocchios" on the wall and stressing that Democrats have "a disagreement ... not on border security but on the wall." He chided Trump for calling for a shutdown 20 times, ignoring that Trump had specifically said in this meeting that he does not want that.

Then a frustrated Pelosi said they needed to call a halt to the discussion because they had come in to the meeting in good faith to discuss with Trump how they could keep the government open. Again, Trump was not the one talking about a shutdown; he was talking about the wall and border security, the former being indispensable to the latter. Like Pelosi, Schumer said they should "debate in private," while Pelosi was insultingly mumbling, "We have taken this conversation to a place that is devoid, frankly, of fact." In other words, "You're lying, President Trump, because you won't agree to our partisan version of reality."

Schumer insisted that border security is possible without a wall and that experts say a wall would be wasteful -- implying, with a straight face, that the Democratic leadership can get exercised over the expenditure of government money. Pelosi lamented again that they were having the debate in public after having come in to the meeting in good faith, and Trump rightly noted, "It's not bad, Nancy. It's called transparency." So it was Nancy's "good-faith" expectation that Trump would just sit back and take their insults and not discuss the issue that could lead to the dreaded shutdown?

Pelosi responded, "It's not transparency when we're not stipulating to a set of facts." Are you kidding me? Unless you agree with Democrats on the facts, the discussion can't be transparent? This is the same logic by which leftists ban expression of opinions that don't agree with theirs. I hope people are paying attention.

Just as the mood was beginning to soften, Schumer again turned to Trump and accused him of wanting to shut the government down, and again Trump denied it. It was only after repeated haranguing that Trump indicated he was tired of playing semantic games and said that if they want to put the shutdown on him, fine, he would be willing to shut down the government if he could not get the wall.

How can anyone believe that the Democrats support border security -- wall or no wall -- when they have repeatedly broken their promises to work with Republicans on it, when they demonize all opponents of illegal immigration and amnesty as racists, when they oppose all reasonable measures to guard the border, and when many of them actually advocate the elimination of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

After the meeting, Pelosi and Schumer continued vilifying Trump, with Schumer describing Trump's behavior in the meeting as a "temper tantrum" and Pelosi telling colleagues, "It goes to show you: You get into a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you. ... It's like a manhood thing for him -- as if manhood could ever be associated with him."

It's undeniable that Pelosi and Schumer initiated the aggressive exchanges, that they personally insulted Trump and were rude and condescending to him, that they openly objected to transparency, and that they misrepresented their own position on border security.

Say what you want about Trump, but he very honestly said that he was determined to get a border wall, that he preferred to have this discussion in front of the entire world and that he would be willing for the government to shut down over it. Pelosi and Schumer are just as willing to shut down the government over it but unwilling to be honest about it.

I applaud President Trump for bringing this issue front and center and exposing the fraudulent and reckless position of the Democratic leadership on border security.

U. S. A. Crumbling From Within!

America’s Trojan Horses Are Sacking Us From Within

12/10/2018 - Will Alexander Townhall.com

The kidnapping of Helen of Sparta by Paris of Troy sparked a 10-year clash of fruitless battles between Troy and Mycenaean Greece in 12th century BC. The deadlock ended quickly after the Greek hero Odysseus had a brilliant idea: “Let’s give Troy a gift.”

Pretending to quit the war, the Greek armies rolled a giant wooden horse outside the gates of Troy, then sailed to the island of Tenedos nearby. One unarmed Greek stayed behind to persuade Trojans that the horse was a gift.

It worked.

Disarmed by the gift, Trojans pulled the wooden horse inside the city walls and closed the gates.

Odysseus’ Greek warriors crawled from the hollow belly of the horse while Trojans slept, then opened the gates to the returning Greek armies and sacked Troy from within.  

Troy’s demise came in the garb of a gift.

Much like the ancient story from Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” America is being tricked by many ill-advised and odd Trojan Horses that leave us stupefied as we watch the country’s load-bearing institutions crumble from within.  

Today, liberals, Leftists and the biased media justify all sorts of bad behavior under the cloak of the Constitution.  “Freedom of the press," “freedom of speech” and the “right to peaceful protest” are used as Trojan Horses to disarm political opponents while they punch them like crazy below the belt.  

Take CNN’s John Acosta at that press briefing last month.  He began, not with a question, but a rhetorical challenge then refused to quit talking and hand over the mic.  It was shocking!  

Fox’s Chris Wallace, son of a legendary tough reporter, said: “I thought [his] behavior was shameful.  Jim Acosta, I thought, embarrassed himself today.”   

But rather than being embarrassed, CNN rolled out a Trojan Horse.

“This president’s ongoing attacks of the press have gone too far,” CNN wrote.  “They are not only dangerous, they are disturbingly un-American.  While President Trump has made it clear he does not respect a free press, he has a sworn obligation to protect it.  A free press is vital to democracy, and we stand behind Jim Acosta ...”

True, the president is obligated to protect a free press, but he’s not obligated to protect bias, inaccuracies and hysteria.  It’s false reporting he hates, not “the free press.” He’s been saying that for decades.    

“When people say something false, I attack those people,” Trump said in a 1990 CNN interview. “The news gets away with murder… It’s very tough in terms of libel laws because the media is so protected…they can write virtually anything.  But the difference with me – at least they pay some price, and I think more people should have that attitude.  I think you’d find more accurate reporting.”

CNN confuses a free press with the business of news which, today, is basically show business.  The right to a free press doesn’t belong to the news business, per se; it belongs to the American people.  The press holds a sacred trust, similar to officeholders.  They are the Fourth Branch of Government – the “Fourth Estate.”  

But with virtually no accountability, Americans trust the press to place limits on itself.  Some do. When they don’t, we love it when someone stands up to them.  Not doing so would be “disturbingly un-American.”

CNN’s “attacks of the free press” argument is a Trojan Horse – big, loud and hollow.   

The most deceptive Trojan Horse trots around as compassion. By twisting the meaning of equality, fairness and justice, liberals shame politicians into overspending on social programs, ignoring federal laws, and giving special rights to “victim” groups.  

The migrant caravan is the latest victim group.

Carrying the Honduran flag, thousands of migrants stormed the Mexican border headed for America, taunting Trump along the way.  They used women and children as human shields, attacked U.S. Border Patrol, and admitted they’re just looking for a better life.

The “caravan” turned out to be a Trojan Horse – unarmed intruders disguised as asylum seekers.

But the rock-throwing didn’t stop CNN’s Chris Cuomo from trying to disarm us with compassion.  He went south of the border to a squalid migrant camp filled with wrinkled tents sunken in by recent rains.  Unkempt little boys took turns going down a dirty sliding board surrounded by mud and puddles.  A little girl, wearing a religious necklace, pulled along a dirty toy wagon carrying a tiny Bible.  Mothers stooped in front of mud-soaked tents amid piles of trash and the stench of portable toilets as they watched their kids play in an area back-dropped by the U.S. border.  

“Look at how close they are,” Cuomo said, pointing to the border fence.  “That’s how close they are to realizing their dream.  But more and more, that fence is representing exactly what – you know, to be frank – the president hopes it does: A barrier that says you’re not getting in.  That you’re not wanted.  That you should go away.”

Using legal immigration to justify illegal immigration, biased media seldom show the awful consequences of unprincipled compassion. Tijuana is buckling under the weight of those consequences.

 “In Tijuana, we’re worried,” delegate Genaro Lopez Moreno said recently. “Somebody popped the bubble of their [migrants’) American dream and they’re staying here.”

“Staying here” meant Tijuana is spending $40,000 a day on 6,200 migrants.  

“… If these people came here legally,” Moreno said, “there would be no problem.  But these guys didn’t cross legally into Mexico.  They tore down our border and jumped and started this caravan.”

Like Tijuana and Troy, the gates of America’s time-honored institutions have been breached by an army of “bad hombres” burrowed inside all sorts of Trojan Horses.

Antifa anarchists, extreme “me-too” feminists, ill-willed politicians, Socialists, race hustlers (black and white), climate change cults, left-leaning media, celebrities and educators – all make up regiments of rag-tag fighters who hide inside the language of the Constitution and Compassion to – intended or not – sack America from within.

We’re at war, folks.   It’s not a violent war – and it should never be – but we’re at war.

Boiling at the root of all the noise is an ideological war that’s been brewing for decades. It’s a clash of two opposite, irreconcilable wills imposing themselves on America. The winner is not predetermined.  The side that loses the will to win, will lose the war – no matter how right the cause.

It’s past time we see America’s Trojan Horses for what they are, and fight like crazy.

Credible Fear - Authentic Asylum Claim

Michael Reagan, Worthy Asylum Seekers – Or Not

12/8/2018 - Michael Reagan Townhall.com

Earlier this week I was at an event that honored Malala Yousafzai.

Malala, in case you don't recall, is the brave young school girl from a village in Pakistan who was nearly killed in 2012 by the Taliban.

She was just 15 when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for publicly speaking out for the right of all girls to receive a free, safe and quality education.

Malala, who became world famous while she lay in a coma for 10 days in a British hospital, was lucky to be given asylum in Britain with her family.

She went on to create the Malala Fund, which she says is dedicated to giving every girl in the world "an opportunity to achieve a future she chooses."

In 2014 she became the youngest person to win a Nobel Peace Prize and now, at the ripe old age of 21, she's studying philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford.

When I texted my son Cameron to tell him I was at the event honoring Malala, he pointed out that she was a perfect example of why the United States and countries like Britain offer asylum to refugees.

Unlike the 6,000 migrants from Honduras that are now in Tijuana trying to crash their way into the United States, Malala and her family were in serious danger.

They met the international definition of a refugee perfectly - "a person with well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group, who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence."

Those 6,000 Central American refugees, as my son also pointed out, are not just trying to take advantage of our generous immigration system and hours of sympathetic liberal media coverage.

By cutting in line, and by clogging up an already backed up application process, they are making it so that the people that truly deserve asylum - worthy refugees like Malala and her family - might not be able to get it.

Realistically, despite Rachel Maddow's tears, most of the migrants from Honduras or Guatemala rushing our southern border are never going to meet the qualifications for asylum, a bureaucratic legal process that takes a long, long time.

Only about 40 percent of applicants from around the world in any given year qualify for asylum, according to the National Immigration Forum's web site.

As of July there were more than 700,000 pending asylum cases in our overwhelmed immigration courts and the average wait time for a hearing was 721 days.

During 2017, when there was a big jump in asylum applications from Central America and the total cases filed hit 200,000, only about 30,000 individuals were approved.

As Tucker Carlson pointed out last week, to argue, as the left and liberal media do, that those Honduran migrants in Tijuana automatically deserve to be let into the U.S. because of the poverty and violent crime in their native land is patently absurd.

If poor living conditions and rampant violence are the basis for asylum in America, Carlson said, then the whole country of Honduras should get it.

I don't know if most people know it, but more than half of the individuals who were granted asylum in the United States in 2016 - 20,500 souls - came from two places:

China (22 percent) and the Central American countries of El Salvador (10.5 percent), Guatemala (9.5 percent), Honduras (7.4 percent) and Mexico (4.5 percent).

Most of them - 44 percent - ended up living in California, which helps to explain why one of the richest states in the Union is now the home for about 7.4 million people who live in poverty, more than any other state.

California - Venesuela of the U.S.A.

Bad News From California

12/1/2018 - Michael Reagan Townhall.com

Once again California is at the top of the national news every day.

The apocalyptic images of massive wildfires and destroyed towns like Paradise are gone.

Now the whole country is watching scenes of tear gas being used against the thousands of illegal immigrants from Central America who are trying to force their way into the United States near San Diego.

I hope the people complaining about how Donald Trump is handling this invasion of our southern border are paying attention to the news.

They might learn something most of us Californians already know.

Unlike most Americans, many of us have been to the U.S.-Mexican border.

We've seen what happens when the sun goes down. We've seen the invasion of illegals that comes across into the U.S. - every single night.

We don't like it and we understand very well how much it has cost our state.

The national liberal media are, as usual, irresponsibly unfair and unbalanced in their coverage of events at the border.

They can't stop showing video footage of tear gas being used to turn back the immigrants as they rush the California border.

In their never-ending effort to make Trump and conservatives look as mean and rotten as possible, the electronic media have made it seem like tear gas is some new and terrible weapon.

It's not.

Tear gas is the weapon border patrol agents use when they're trying to stop a rushing mob of illegal immigrants.

Critics of President Trump's policy and the media should be applauding the border patrol's use of non-lethal weapons like tear gas and pepper spray, not decrying it.

They should also point out that he's following the lead of previous presidents like Barack Obama, who now pretends to be appalled by Trump even though tear gas was deployed at the same border crossing during his administration.

Though you'd never hear it if from the liberal media, many of California's Latinos, who now make up 39 percent of its population, are also unhappy with the invasion of illegal immigrants.

But few Latinos who support Trump's immigration policy will dare to say so because they fear a backlash in their own community.

The Latino laborers and gardeners who work for rich white liberals also are afraid to say anything positive about Trump for fear of losing their jobs.

They keep mum - and the liberal media ignore them.

When the media reporters do their immigration stories for TV, they interview liberals and Democrats to show how compassionate they are toward the poor illegals.

They also interview conservatives and Republicans to show how they aren't compassionate.

Somehow they never manage to find those everyday Latino workers - many of them here legally - who are worried about losing their jobs to new immigrants.

The only Latino I remember being interviewed about the serious problems caused by the arrival of thousands of Honduran migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing was the mayor of Tijuana.

He told the immigrants of the caravan the hard truth no one in California could say without being branded a racist, "We don't want you here in Tijuana. Get the hell out."

It's too late to save California with a tougher immigration policy or a higher border wall.

Decades of liberal Democrats have already wrecked the Golden State with their high taxes, bad regulations, transit boondoggles and over-generous social programs for citizens and non-citizens alike.

Now we have a newly elected Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom, who is for open borders and things like universal "free" health care.

With a super majority in both houses in Sacramento, Newsom will be able to do anything he wants and the state's surviving Republicans won't be able to prevent California from becoming the Venezuela of North America - with open borders.

Favorite Trump Quote: "We'll See What Happens"

Border Patrol Chief: No Migrant Was Able to Scale New Border Wall

11/28/2018 - Leah Barkoukis Townhall.com

Migrants stormed the United States’ southern border over the weekend but one place none of them were able to cross was the new border wall, Rodney Scott, chief of the San Diego Border Patrol sector, told Fox News on Monday.

Scott explained that the area the migrants breached was in a scrap-metal border wall near San Diego.

"We've identified those (holes) for Congress," Scott said. "And long-term, I'm hoping that Congress steps up to the plate and fixes those to shut off the draw.

"But in the meantime, I'd like to point out that not a single migrant climbed over the new border wall. We have about eight miles of border wall completed here in San Diego -- unfortunately, that's not complete. So the military came over in the last several weeks to help us fortify different areas, but it's those weak areas where we have not upgraded the infrastructure that the migrants were able to breach."

When it's finished, the new section of border wall near San Diego will replace about 14 miles of an 8- to 10-foot-high scrap metal wall with an 18- to 30-foot bollard-style wall topped off with an "anti-climbing plate," CBP announced earlier this year.

The San Diego Sector wall construction is one of Border Patrol’s top priority projects, CBP said, given that the San Ysidro port of entry is one of the busiest border crossings in the world, for both legal and illegal traffic. (CNS News)

Scott's comments about the wall's efficacy comes as debate over its funding heats up. 

While President Trump has called for a minimum of $5 billion, Democrats are adamant that no more than $1.6 billion will be spent on it. 

When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked Tuesday how he could get Democrats to agree to give the amount Trump desires, he responded, "Well, we're---we're talking about it. 

"We're trying to get the president the money he would like for the wall. That's part of the year-end funding discussion, which is ongoing, not only among the appropriators, but with the administration as well," he continued. 

"And we're hoping -- that's one of the many things we've got to wrap up here at the end of the year."

Merit Based Immigration is a Worthy Cause

Trump’s Merit Based Immigration Can Focus on Investment in America, Creating Jobs and Higher Wages for Americans Rather Than Stealing Them Away

11/24/2018 - Peter Ferrara Townhall.com

President Trump wants to reform immigration to be based on merit, rather than lotteries, anchor babies, and chains of poor, unskilled, uneducated relatives, all with their hands out asking for public assistance from American taxpayers. Merit means immigration based on what the immigrant can bring to, rather than take from, America.

President John F. Kennedy, the last great Democrat, articulated the policy well in his 1961 Inaugural address, when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Trump’s vision is to apply this principle to those who are seeking to emigrate to America. 

There is one immigration provision that already follows Trump’s merit-based immigration vision, the EB-5 visa program. That provision of current law provides 10,000 visas a year to foreign investors who are willing to invest half a million in state designated distressed areas creating at least 10 new jobs for American workers, or $1 million creating jobs anywhere in America.

Instead of letting waves of unskilled, uneducated poor foreigners in to compete with domestic American workers, driving their wages down, the EB-5 visa program would let in waves of investment capital to hire domestic American workers, bidding their wages up. That follows perfectly Trump’s vision to Make America Great Again.

But on his way out the door, anti-business President Obama tried to sabotage the EB-5 visa program, proposing regulations in January 2017 to increase the minimum required investment for the visas. Even immigrants with a million dollars to invest in America couldn’t qualify for entry into the United States. True to form, Obama preferred entry for unskilled, uneducated, immigrants without much to contribute to America.

That is the fundamental problem of the socialist Democrats today, who don’t understand how to create jobs and rising wages, unlike President Kennedy who created a jobs and wages boom in the 1960s. Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) wrote a letter to the incoming Trump Administration opposing these midnight Obama regulations, seeking deference to Congress on the issue.

But now the Trump bureaucracy is inexplicably moving ahead with the Obama anti-business regulations, as the bureaucrats fail to understand President Trump’s merit-based immigration. Under the new proposed rules, the investment thresholds for EB-5 visas would be raised to $1.35 million for distressed areas, and $1.8 million for any investment creating jobs in America. Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, Chief of the Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has indicated that the Trump Administration wants to get this Obama era regulation done this year.

The power grabbing federal bureaucrats at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Homeland Security also propose to seize from the states the authority to designate which areas would be labelled as distressed, as if federal bureaucrats would know better than state and local officials which areas in their states are distressed and most in need of new capital investment.

Lawyers, venture capitalists and real estate developers think this new regulation would kill the EB-5 investment program. Bureaucrats and Democrats do not understand how Trump’s policies of tax cuts and deregulation worked so well to restore booming economic growth to America, after years of Obama’s secular stagnation and “new normal” of no growth. This is why Trump needs to be reelected in 2020, because only he understands how it is done.

American Action Forum (AAF) reports that through these EB-5 immigrants, $20 billion has been invested in the U.S. since 2008, over $5 billion in 2017 alone. These investments have created 174,000 jobs, 16 jobs per each EB-5 immigrant investor.  

Rather than restricting EB-5, President Trump should expand it, for more jobs, capital investment, and higher wages. AAF estimates that increasing investor visas to 20,000 a year would increase U.S. GDP by $11 billion annually. Ending the Visa lottery program would free up 50,000 visas a year that could be devoted to the EB-5 investor program, increasing capital investment, jobs, and higher wages for American workers. Even more could come from ending chain migration.

These reforms would contribute mightily to changing immigration to the U.S. to a merits-based concept, focused on allowing immigrants to America who could contribute the most to America. 

Sword of Radicalism - Democrat Downfall

Let the Democrats Keep Showing Their Hand

11/16/2018 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com

The Democratic Party's emerging radical bloc is alarming, but the leftist group's youthful intemperance could backfire and re-energize Republicans' 2020 electoral prospects.

Even before all the hanging chads and miraculously divined ballots have been examined in Florida, newly elected leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already engaging in activism in the halls of Congress. On Tuesday morning, the future representative from New York joined a protest organized by the Sunrise Movement outside the offices of Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to demand immediate action on climate change -- as if the dinosaur wing of the Democratic Party weren't sufficiently extremist on environmental issues.

Ocasio-Cortez, who validates the maxim "youth is wasted on the young," is part of the Justice Democrats, which promoted leftist challengers during the 2018 Democratic primary cycle. The Sunrise Movement is demanding House support of a "Green New Deal," which contemplates forming a committee to write policies aimed at creating jobs by moving the nation off fossil fuels -- as counterintuitive as that may strike you.

Waleed Shahid, the Justice Democrats' communications director, insists that the Democratic Party's leadership must get serious about the climate and the economy. "Anything less is tantamount to denying the reality of climate change," said Shahid. "The hopeful part is that we're ushering in a new generation of leaders into the Democratic Party who understand the urgency and will help build a movement to create the political will for bold action." Yes, they must get moving before any more of Al Gore's hysterical doomsday predictions fail.

The adage "with age comes wisdom" is biblically based and objectively observable -- except, perhaps, in the case of Pelosi and her old-guard Democrats. They have invited all types of radicals into their coalition, so they can hardly complain when the fruit of their poisonous tree begins to blossom. Accordingly, Pelosi pretended to support this presumptuous upstart's mini-rebellion.

"We are inspired by the energy and activism of the many young activists and advocates leading the way on the climate crisis, which threatens the health, economic security and futures of all our communities," said Pelosi. "I have recommended to my House Democratic colleagues that we reinstate a select committee to address the climate crisis. ... We welcome the presence of these activists, and we strongly urge the Capitol Police to allow them to continue to organize and participate in our democracy."

Her groveling wasn't enough to pacify the implacable Justice Democrats, who tweeted: "Our response: Not good enough. Pelosi is reinstating a 2007 committee tasked with investigating the harms of climate change. We don't need more investigation. We need specific plans matching the urgency and scale mandated by the UN's IPCC report on catastrophic climate change."

The good thing about cliches is that, usually based on human experience, they're often true. So, the current plight of the Pelosi Democrats is that they have made their bed and now have to lie in it. For the next two years, they're going to be lying in the same bed as the rebels -- a bed that has two left sides.

The Democrats have lived by the sword of radicalism, embracing every last crazy idea of the extreme left and incorporating it into their agenda, and may they electorally die by that sword in 2020.

Democrats used to tack to the center during general election season, knowing America has been a center-right nation. But since Obama's presidency, they've begun playing their left hand more openly. In the bluest of areas, they can afford to reveal their outright socialism, which explains Ocasio-Cortez's unapologetically socialist campaign message. In other venues, such as Arizona, their radicals have to feign centrism, which explains Kyrsten Sinema's chameleonic transformation to would-be centrist.

The developing schism in the Democratic Party is a positive sign for Republicans, who should greatly benefit from Democratic fissures, especially if they lead to the Democratic Party's moving even further to the left and exposing its radicalism.

Though the electoral demographics seem to be shifting leftward -- and though our public schools, universities and dominant media culture are indoctrinating more Americans every day -- it's unlikely the majority of the country will be comfortable with leftist extremism as soon as 2020.

But this is hardly something Republicans can rejoice over, because until they get their own act together, they won't be able to properly capitalize on intramural conflict among Democrats. But from my perspective, anything that awakens a complacent America to the existential dangers posed by the radical left, which increasingly controls the Democratic Party, represents cause for hope and optimism.

It's Back to Basics for Everyone - or All is Lost!

The War for the Soul of America

11/9/2018 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

The war in Washington will not end until the presidency of Donald Trump ends. Everyone seems to sense that now.

This is a fight to the finish.

A postelection truce that began with Trump congratulating House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- "I give her a great deal of credit for what she's done and what she's accomplished" -- was ancient history by nightfall.

With the forced resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his replacement by his chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, the long-anticipated confrontation with Robert Mueller appears at hand.

Sessions had recused himself from the oversight role of the special counsel's investigation into Russiagate. Whitaker has definitely not.

Before joining Justice, he said that the Mueller probe was overreaching, going places it had no authority to go, and that it could be leashed by a new attorney general and starved of funds until it passes away.

Whitaker was not chosen to be merely a place holder until a new AG is confirmed. He was picked so he can get the job done.

And about time.

For two years, Trump has been under a cloud of unproven allegations and suspicion that he and top campaign officials colluded with Vladimir Putin's Russia to thieve and publish the emails of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

It is past time for Mueller to prove these charges or concede he has a busted flush, wrap up his investigation and go home.

And now, in T.S. Eliot's words, Trump appears to have found "the strength to force the moment to its crisis."

His attitude toward Mueller's probe is taking on the aspect of Andrew Jackson's attitude toward Nicholas Biddle's Second Bank of the United States: It's "trying to kill me, but I will kill it."

Trump has been warned by congressional Democrats that if he in any way impedes the work of Mueller's office, he risks impeachment.

Well, let's find out.

If the House Judiciary Committee of incoming chairman Jerrold Nadler wishes to impeach Trump for forcing Mueller to fish or cut bait, Trump's allies should broaden the debate to the real motivation here of the defeated establishment: It detests the man the American people chose to lead their country and thus wants to use its political and cultural power to effect his removal.

Even before news of Sessions' departure hit Wednesday, Trump was subjected to an Antifa-style hassling by the White House press corps.

One reporter berated the president and refused to surrender the microphone. Others shouted support for his antics. A third demanded to know whether Trump's admission that he's a "nationalist" would give aid and comfort to "white nationalists."

By picking up the credentials of CNN's Jim Acosta and booting him out of the White House, Trump has set a good precedent.

Freedom of the press does not mean guaranteed immunity of the press from the same kind of abuse the press directs at the president.

John F. Kennedy was beloved by the media elite. Yet JFK canceled all White House subscriptions to the New York Herald Tribune and called the publisher of The New York Times to get him to pull reporter David Halberstam out of Vietnam for undermining U.S. morale in a war in which Green Berets were dying.

Some journalists have become Trump haters with press passes. And Trump is right to speak truth to mainstream media power and to accord to the chronically hostile press the same access to the White House to which Robert De Niro is entitled. Since the days of John Adams, the White House has been the president's house, not the press's house.

Pelosi appears the favorite to return as speaker of the House. But she may find her coming days in the post she loves to be less-than-happy times.

Some of her incoming committee chairs -- namely, Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Elijah Cummings -- seem less interested in legislative compromises than in rummaging through White House files for documents to damage the president, starting with his tax returns.

To a world watching with fascination this death struggle convulsing our capital, one wonders how attractive American democracy appears.

And just how much division can this democracy stand?

We know what the left thinks of Trump's "base."

Hillary Clinton told us. Half his supporters, she said, are a "basket of deplorables" who are "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic -- you name it." Lately, America's populist right has been called fascist and neo-Nazi.

How can the left "unite" with people like that? Why should the left not try to drive such "racists" out of power by any means necessary?

This is the thinking that bred Antifa.

As for those on the right -- as they watch the left disparage the old heroes, tear down their monuments, purge Christianity from their public schools -- they have come to conclude that their enemies are at root anti-Christian and anti-American.

How do we unify a nation where the opposing camps believe this?

What the Trump-establishment war is about is the soul of America, a war in which a compromise on principle can be seen as a betrayal.