Good Question Pat! Anything Can Happen.

Today France, Tomorrow the USA?

12/24/2019 - Pat Buchanan

As that rail and subway strike continued to paralyze travel in Paris and across France into the third week, President Emmanuel Macron made a Christmas appeal to his dissatisfied countrymen:

"Strike action is justifiable and protected by the constitution, but I think there are moments in a nation's life when it is good to observe a truce out of respect for families and family life."

Macron's appeal has gone largely unheeded.

"The public be damned!" seems to be the attitude of many of the workers who are tying up transit to protest Macron's plan to reform a pension system that consumes 14% of GDP.

Macron wants to raise to 64 the age of eligibility for full retirement benefits. Not terribly high. And to set an example, he is surrendering his lifetime pension that is to begin when he becomes an ex-president.

Yet, it is worth looking more closely at France because she appears to be at a place where the rest of Europe and America are headed.

In France, the government collects 46% of the GDP in taxes and spends 56% of GDP, the highest figures in the Western world.

And Paris appears to be bumping up against the limits of what democratic voters will tolerate in higher taxes, or reductions in benefits, from the postwar welfare states the West has created.

A year ago, when Macron sought to raise fuel taxes to cut carbon emissions, the "yellow vests" came out in protests that degenerated into rioting, looting, arson, desecration of monuments and attacks on police. Paris capitulated and canceled the tax.

How do we compare?

The U.S. national debt is now larger than the GDP. Only in 1946, the year after World War II, was U.S. debt a larger share of GDP than today.

In 2019, the U.S. ran a deficit just shy of $1 trillion, and the U.S. government projects trillion-dollar deficits through the decade, which begins next week. And we will be running these deficits not to stimulate an economy in recession, as President Obama did, but to pile them on top of an economy at full employment. In short, we are beginning to run historic deficits in a time of prosperity. Whatever the economic theory behind this, it bears no resemblance to the limited government-balanced budget philosophy of the party of Ronald Reagan.

The questions the U.S. will inevitably face are the ones France faces: At what point does government consumption of the national wealth become too great a burden for the private sector to bear? At what point must cuts be made in government spending that will be seen by the people, as they are seen in France today, as intolerable?

While a Republican Congress ran surpluses in the 1990s, when defense spending fell following our Cold War victory, Dwight Eisenhower was the last Republican president to run surpluses.

Opposition to new or higher taxes appears to be the one piece of ground today on which Republicans will not yield. But if so, where are the cuts going to come from that will be virtually mandated if U.S. debt is not to grow beyond any sustainable level?

America's long-term problem:

Deficits are projected to run regularly in the coming decade at nearly 5% of GDP while economic growth has fallen back to 2%. With taxes off the table, where, when and how do we cut spending? Or does each new administration kick the can down the road?

The five principal items in the federal budget are these:

Social Security, which consumes 25% of that budget. Yet, Social Security outlays will reach the point this year where payroll taxes no longer cover them. The "trust fund" will have to be raided. 

Translation: The feds will have to borrow money to cover the Social Security deficit.

Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and other health programs account for another fourth of the budget. All will need more money to stay solvent.

Defense, which used to take 9% of GDP in JFK's time and 6% in Ronald Reagan's buildup, is now down to 3.2% of GDP.

Yet, while defense's share of GDP is among the smallest since before World War II, U.S. commitments are as great as they were during the Cold War. We are now defending 28 NATO nations, containing Russia, and maintaining strategic parity. We have commitments in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and the global war on terror. We defend South Korea and Japan from a nuclear-armed North Korea and China.

Yet another major item in the budget is interest on the debt.

And as that U.S. debt surges with all the new deficits this decade, and interest rates inevitably begin to rise, interest on the debt will rise both in real terms and as a share of the budget.

Again, is France the future of the West?

Democrat Hypocricy = Destruction of Our Republic

Pelosi's Democrats Unite and Catalyze the GOP

12/20/2019 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com

Nothing has done more to unite Republicans -- from GOP congressmen in Washington, D.C., to malodorous Walmart patrons in rural America -- than the Democrats' quixotic, vendetta-fueled crusade against President Donald Trump.

Trump's election was a seismic blow to the left, which has paralyzed it with hatred and reduced it to a gigantic mob of bloated self-importance and radical opposition.

Have you ever heard congressional Democrats pay such homage to the Constitution? A Martian visitor to the House Democratic impeachment speeches might conclude that he happened upon a cult of constitutional originalists -- that earthling James Madison's ghost had possessed every last one of them.

If I hear the words "threat to our democracy" one more time, I might just have to surrender out of sheer listener fatigue. You have to admire their energy.

But even if their phony case against Trump on Ukraine weren't so specious, an objective observer would be skeptical of their good faith, given their nonstop, three-year impeachment quest over things too trivial to be admitted out loud, and their ever-changing charges against Trump.

Despite all their professions of love for "our democracy," they are fair-weather supporters of our system and of the people's will, flouting the system whenever it serves their ends. They are authoritarian bullies who believe people with different views shouldn't even be entitled to speak in certain quarters, and certainly shouldn't be allowed to elect a president who will implement those views.

They must believe that when they feign undying allegiance to constitutional principles with which they've never flirted, much less asked to the prom, we will believe they mean it -- as opposed to recognizing they're implementing an Orwellian strategy to disenfranchise us while pretending to safeguard our system. They must think that if they keep hectoring us about how despicable Trump is, we'll finally be swayed to their position, even though their contempt for Trump reveals their similar disdain for his 63 million supporters.

Indeed, their arrogance and authoritarianism, and their contempt for flyover country and conservative America, were major factors in Trump's election. These are among the principal drivers of their endless refusal to accept the 2016 election results. And we still see right through them.

The Democratic impeachment cabal has been hyperventilating over a supposed constitutional crisis, but can you imagine what might happen if Democrats were to have control of both chambers of Congress with a Republican president? They might oust him before he has taken one presidential act. Their rationale could be that rational people couldn't possibly have elected such an unpresidential maniac; therefore, the election must be presumed invalid. If you think about it, that's really been their rationale for impeaching him all along, and it explains why they have never been too particular about any of their bogus bill of particulars against him.

Yes, everything is urgent to them when it comes to Trump. He is so bad -- such a threat to the republic -- that it is imperative they remove him yesterday, so critical that they have virtually ignored their proper legislative duties for two years. And yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now saying she won't submit the articles of impeachment to the Senate? These Democrats always assume that our memories expire in 24 hours.

Once again, their lies are too obvious to pass the laugh test. At the very time, Pelosi and her merry band of pseudo-guardians of the Constitution were yelling about urgency, they were planning their disgraceful stunt to withhold the articles from the Senate, which confirms there was never any urgency with the impeachment. The urgency was to further smear Trump and taint his legacy. The urgency was to distract the public's attention from the damning revelations of the inspector general's report. The urgency is the poor health of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

They pretend they are bargaining for fairness in the Senate, but they have no authority over the conduct of the Senate trial. And where were their concerns for fairness during their lawless show trial in the House?

Everyone understands this isn't about fairness in the Senate. It's about more unfairness from the House, where Democrats seek to preserve their official impeachment libel by denying Trump his right to vindication in the Senate. Only their side is entitled to due process, fairness and common decency. It wasn't enough that they ran roughshod over procedural norms in the House; they believe they can extend their long arm of wickedness into the Senate. But like all of their other ploys, this, too, will fall flat on its face.

We can only hope that Pelosi's charlatans persist and double down on their malfeasance, as their impeachment charade has exposed them as the political cutthroats they are, and severely damaged their credibility and, more importantly, their electability. I can't remember a time when Republicans have been so united and energized. At this rate, the Democrats will not only lose the presidency again but also lose both houses of Congress.

State Bread & Circus Distractions Continue Un-abated!

Out of the Shadows... and Into the Voting Booth?

12/18/2019 - Michelle Malkin Townhall.com

My teenage son is a law-abiding American citizen. To obtain his driver's permit this year, he brought his birth certificate, Social Security card, passport and verification that he completed an approved driver's school course. It took a half-dozen trips back and forth between various government agencies to clear all the paperwork hurdles.

Every American citizen who has navigated such bureaucratic hurdles at a local Department of Motor Vehicles should be outraged at the open borders spectacles in New Jersey and New York this week. With the impeachment charade absorbing all the national media's oxygen, however, you probably didn't see more than a 10-second blip of these alarming developments on TV. Newsflash: America first nationalism is not winning.

Hundreds of illegal immigrants and advocates took to the streets and marched on the statehouse in Trenton, New Jersey, demanding driver's licenses without having to produce any citizenship papers. Both the New Jersey Assembly and the Senate approved the measure on Monday while defiant, entitled protesters screamed "Si, se pudo!" (Yes, we can!) and "Licencias, ya!" (Licenses now!). Identity thieves, drug cartels and human traffickers are also cheering "Yes, we can!"

In New York, thousands of illegal immigrants similarly flooded DMVs statewide to take advantage of the new "Green Light" law, which allows them to obtain licenses by simply presenting foreign consular IDs. The Mexican matricula consular card, as I've long reported, is a notoriously fraud-prone document with little to no authentication procedures to verify identity. Meddling Mexican officials hand out matricula cards like Pez candy. They are intentionally designed as get-out-of-deportation cards and gateways to opening bank accounts in America.

Instead of a Social Security card, which American citizens have to present, illegal immigrants can just write up an affidavit stating that they don't have a Social Security card. If my son had presented such a letter at our Colorado DMV (which also issues driver's licenses to illegal immigrants), he would have been laughed out of the office.

So, where's ICE? Remember: New Jersey and New York are sanctuary jurisdictions that brazenly harbor and shelter illegal immigrants. The Green Light law explicitly bars ICE from having access to DMV records. As the Center for Immigration Studies points out, the legislation now creates a situation in which "a foreign nation, Canada, freely shares its DMV information with CBP and ICE," while "the state of New York will refuse to do so."

Pay close attention to this insanity. It's not just about rewarding law-breakers with driving privileges. Our country's election integrity is under siege by foreign influence. Mass migration, legal and illegal, is bringing in millions of potential new voters who support gun control, socialized medicine, expanded welfare, free speech restrictions and resistance to immigration enforcement. Do the political math:

Illegal immigrant driver's licenses + Motor Voter + Soros-funded naturalization and registration drives + anti-Trump resistance lawsuits against voter citizenship checks = recipe for systemic voter fraud, more amnesty, and a permanent Democratic ruling majority.

In New York alone, some 265,000 illegal immigrants are projected to obtain their driver's licenses over the next three years. Earlier this year, after citizens passed a referendum barring licenses for illegal immigrants in Oregon, state Democrats handed them over anyway. Fifteen states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico now confer driving privileges on illegal immigrants. Latino groups, the Mexican government, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Charles Koch-funded Libre Initiative all banded together to secure these "America last" legislative victories.

Next step: Out of the shadows... and into the voting booths? The special interests of "Open Borders, Inc." on the left and right all vehemently deny that illegal alien and noncitizen voter fraud happens. But it does. And it's not just illegal border jumpers but also visa overstayers and other immigration phonies. How quickly we forget:

Illegal alien Nuradin Abdi -- the suspected shopping mall bomb plotter from Somalia -- was registered to vote in the battleground state of Ohio through the DMV.

So was convicted al-Qaida agent Iyman Faris, who planned to sabotage the Brooklyn Bridge and had entered the country fraudulently from Pakistan on a student visa.

In the battleground state of Florida, indicted terror suspect Sami Al-Arian illegally cast his ballot in a Tampa referendum in 1994 while his citizenship application was pending.

And in New Jersey just two years ago, the Public Interest Legal Foundation revealed after a six-month review of New Jersey county voter registration files that thanks to the federal Motor Voter system, "616 admitted and officially recorded noncitizens in 11 counties engaged on some level with the NJ voter registration system;" "nine percent of aliens self-reporting their status also cast ballots prior;" and "75 percent of noncitizens were invited to register while receiving driver's licenses or in other government transactions like community college admissions or public schools."

Imagine if American citizens took to the streets and raised their voices to stop the spread of driver's licenses for people here illegally in numbers that matched the open borders hordes in New York and New Jersey. Instead, Beltway bread-and-circuses distractions dominate the airwaves while the sovereignty saboteurs drive American law and order off the cliff.

Michelle Malkin's email address is MichelleMalkinInvestigates@protonmail.com.

DECEPTION! of Sanctuary Cities

Blood on Open Borders Boston's Hands

12/11/2019 - Michelle Malkin Townhall.com

Here is a chilling case of sanctuary chickens coming home to roost.

Upon being convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping, home invasion and the brutal murders of two doctors on Tuesday, African criminal Bampumim Teixeira taunted the Massachusetts prosecutor who won the case and vowed to rape his wife. "You better hope I don't get out of jail," Teixeira threatened as he was dragged away in handcuffs by a quartet of court security officers. The killer appeared to greatly enjoy the media spectacle while striking fear into the hearts of innocents. He will be sentenced on Friday.

I am outraged on behalf of the victims' families and pray for the prosecutor's loved ones. But let's be clear: This homicidal beast is a beneficiary of liberal Bay State policies that coddle foreign evildoers and give them cover to wreak havoc in our homeland. The architects of open borders Boston have blood on their hands.

Teixeira was a repeat offender well-known to law enforcement and government officials before he snuck into the South Boston condo of Richard Field and Lina Bolano in 2017, bound and gagged them, slit their throats and stabbed them to death. A homeless vagrant from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, Teixeira had been convicted of two bank robberies and was released from prison just weeks before the massacre at Field and Bolano's condo. This thieving bum's lawyer secured a deal with the Suffolk County district attorney's office to sentence him to 364 days for the second heist and downgraded the second felony crime to larceny.

Why one day shy of a year? Why the reclassification of a felony to a misdemeanor?

The soft-on-alien-crime agreement allowed him to escape deportation, which any green card holder would normally face for committing crimes of moral turpitude or crimes that result in sentences of 365 days or more. Ultimately, he served only 9 months behind bars. This evilness is part of a nationwide move by far-left Democratic prosecutors, many subsidized and supported by open borders billionaire George Soros, to minimize "collateral immigration consequences of criminal convictions" and help immigrants evade "disproportionate collateral consequences, such as deportation. All in the name of "public safety" and celebrating diversity, of course.

For those outside of New England, let me tell you about the infamous public enemy, Suffolk County DA Rachael Rollins. In March, she ordered her employees to monitor and snitch on federal ICE officers hanging around any courthouse while trying to do their jobs. She is overseeing a radical "restorative justice" agenda to decrease arrests, detentions and prosecutions for both citizens and noncitizens. Our office, she announced, "will begin to factor into all charging and sentencing decisions the potential of immigration consequences."

Let me translate that for you: If foreign adults commit crimes that would separate them from their families and lead to imprisonment and deportation, DA Rollins will drop charges or shorten sentences in the name of social justice -- the law-abiding victims of these criminal immigrants be damned.

The anarchy-promoting DA grudgingly admitted to Boston talk show legend Howie Carr earlier this year that the Teixeira case was a "horrific situation." She said she would have "no problem" deporting convicted criminal immigrants, but only after they "shoot or rape or kill somebody." In other words: Always look the other way at immigration crimes until it's too late to save the lives of innocent people sacrificed at the altar of open borders.

As the people of Boston face a crucial vote by their city council this week on whether to make their sanctuary policies even more radical and welcoming for the world's homeless, jobless, drug dealers and gangbangers, I have questions:

Why shouldn't foreign law-breakers face "immigration consequences" for every single civil and criminal law they violate?

Why are Soros-bots across the country elevating the rights of criminal immigrants above law-abiding citizens?

Why aren't more Americans rising in revolt against open borders-sponsored politicians and prosecutors turning our neighborhoods into safe spaces for foreign outlaws?

Over the past three months, thousands have joined me at rallies to Stand with ICE and defend American First in so-called sanctuary cities from Boston to Aurora to Portland to Montgomery County, Maryland? What about the rest of you? What's your excuse?

Michelle Malkin 's email address is MichelleMalkinInvestigates@protonmail.com.