Proper Action Soon OR All Is Lost

Bigger Threat: Russian Social Media or Mexican Drug Cartels?

1/30/2019 - Terry Jeffrey Townhall.com

Which is a greater threat to the United States? A shipment of heroin smuggled across the Mexican border that ends up in your hometown? Or a series of Facebook posts made by a Russian operative in St. Petersburg that show up on your Facebook feed?

Had you listened to the discussion in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday, you might have been tempted to conclude that the greater threat comes from Russia's use of social media to manipulate what you think about American politicians and political issues.

The committee was holding its annual Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community hearing.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, R.-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D.-Va., asked questions about communications on social media.

They were deeply concerned.

"Is it the IC's assessment that this country's adversaries continue to use U.S. social media platforms as a vehicle for weaponizing disinformation and spreading foreign influence in the United States?" Burr asked FBI Director Christopher Wray.

"Yes, that is certainly the FBI's assessment," Wray said. "Not only have the Russians continued to do it in 2018 but we've seen an indication that they're continuing to adapt their model, and that other countries are taking a very interested eye in that approach."

Burr asked Gen. Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency, to answer the same question.

"It is certainly NSA's assessment as well, Mr. Chairman," said Nakasone.

Warner delivered a soliloquy on "this emerging challenge around social media."

"(W)hether it's Russians or other foreign entities that try to masquerade as Americans. They build large followings, create fake accounts," he said

"How," he asked, "do we work with our social media partners to put Americans on alert about the volume of foreign-based activity, bots and others who are masquerading as Americans going forward so they are not able to further manipulate not just our election process but actually to build social divisions?"

Sen. Kamala Harris, D.-Calif., demanded of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats: "Do we have a written strategy for how we're going to counter the influence operations that target social media in the United States?"

Coats had to admit the intelligence community does not have this written strategy.

Yet there was little mention of the threat posed by drugs smuggled across our southern border.

Sen. Marco Rubio did note that cocaine smuggled through Venezuela "is destined to come into our streets" and that Venezuela "doesn't just tolerate drug trafficking. They give it the protection of government, and many high-level officials are active participants in narcotrafficking."

And in his opening statement, Coats briefly mentioned the situation in Mexico.

"We assess that Mexico, under new leadership, will pursue cooperation with the United States as it tries to reduce violence and address socioeconomic issues," Coats said. "But authorities still do not have the capability to fully address the production, flow and trafficking of the drug cartels."

This point is explained more fully in the intelligence community's written threat assessment.

"Global transnational criminal organizations and networks will threaten US interests and allies by trafficking drugs, exerting malign influence in weak states, threatening critical infrastructure, orchestrating human trafficking, and undermining legitimate economic activity," the assessment says.

"The foreign drug threat will pose continued risks to US public health and safety and will present a range of threats to US national security interests in the coming year," it says.

"Violent Mexican traffickers, such as members of the Sinaloa Cartel and New Generation Jalisco Cartel, remain key to the movement of illicit drugs to the United States, including heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and cannabis from Mexico, as well as cocaine from Columbia," it says. "Chinese synthetic drug suppliers dominate US-bound movements of so-called designer drugs, including synthetic marijuana, and probably ship the majority of US fentanyl, when adjusted for purity."

"Approximately 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017, a record high and a 10-percent increase from 2016, although the rate of growth probably slowed in early 2018, based on Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data," it says.

"Mexican criminals use bribery, intimidation, and violence to protect their drug trafficking, kidnapping-for-ransom, fuel-theft, gunrunning, extortion, and alien-smuggling enterprises," says the threat assessment.

"Gangs based in Central America, such as MS-13, continue to direct some criminal activities beyond the region, including in the United States," it says.

Yes, our government should work to stop foreign governments from hacking into U.S. computer systems and stealing data, or tampering with vote-counting systems.

But how many Americans died last year from reading a Russian Facebook post or tweet?

The top national security issue facing the federal government today has nothing to do with deceptive political speech on social media. It has everything to do with our southern border.

Build the wall.

Outstanding Report About Deep State Corruption

Red Handed: All the Collusion was in the Deep State

1/21/2019 - Sidney Powell Townhall.com

Washington, D.C. is plagued by political weaponization of government, law enforcement, and media, the likes of which America has never seen — all coordinated and perpetrated by the Democrats and their Deep State allies.

According to The New York Times, the FBI secretly investigated President Trump based on concocted claims that he was working with the Russians against American interests.

They officially launched the “investigation” — which they had long been running unofficially — after the President rightly and justifiably fired James Comey. As a pathetic excuse, the disgraced and fired former FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe and Agent Peter Strzok focused on isolated and innocuous statements made by Donald Trump regarding Russia during and after the 2016 campaign.

No one at the bureau could have genuinely thought President Trump was a Russian intelligence asset working on behalf of the Kremlin. The FBI, including Director Comey himself, knew that not a whit of the “Steele Dossier” was verified before or after they took it to a court four separate times to get the most intrusive of all warrants against American citizens. 

Comey publicly stated that there was still no evidence when the matter was handed off to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. All evidence to date points to the FBI leadership playing a hideous political game to stop Mr. Trump from becoming President, and when that failed, to undermine his presidency because of their aversion to his policies.

Let’s begin with the obvious — if President Trump’s foreign policy views warranted an FBI investigation, then why didn’t the bureau probe the pro-Russia stances of former American leaders such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?

Many forget that President Obama once told his Russian counterpart at the time, Vladimir Putin lackey Dmitry Medvedev, that he would have “more flexibility” after his re-election in 2012 — an ominous indication that Obama was cutting secret deals with the Russian government behind the scenes. Remarkably, he then stood by and did nothing as Putin invaded Ukraine.

Likewise, Hillary Clinton was never investigated for her disastrous “Russia reset” in the early years of the Obama administration and received no meaningful scrutiny for the sale of Uranium One to Russia despite receiving $145 million in donations from some of the people involved in that transaction through the Clinton Foundation.

Astute historical observers may even remember that President Bill Clinton helped Russian President Boris Yeltsin win a domestic power struggle and break a military coup. Just imagine how the Democrats and the media would react if President Trump authorized a similar operation to keep Putin in power. 

Then there’s Senator Dianne Feinstein, a member of the “Gang of Eight” and a member of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, who employed a Chinese spy for 20 years. Did the FBI treat her as a Chinese asset? No, they went directly to her and briefed her on the problem. They allowed her to let her spy quietly retire, and it was all but completely swept under the rug — regardless of what may have been extraordinary damage done to our intelligence community. 

The Democrats have long argued that there is something unusual about President Trump’s foreign policy, and that his pro-Russia remarks should concern Americans. Yet, some of the most prominent U.S. political scientists in the field of international relations, including Stephen F. Cohen and John Mearsheimer, have long supported a pro-Russia foreign policy, arguing that it is necessary to offset China’s rise.

While there is no reason to believe that President Trump colluded with Russia, there are plenty of reasons to question the ethics and actions of the FBI under President Obama. One need only look to James Comey’s memo from the day of his meeting in the Oval Office with President Obama before he was dispatched to brief President-Elect Trump on only the “salacious” aspects of the Steele Dossier. That purposely set the hook needed for Clapper or Brennan to leak it all to the media for its explosion into the press. Comey said he executed it exactly as he had planned.

Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Joseph diGenova and former chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Victoria Toensing, for instance, argue that the FBI went astray when it used the unsubstantiated dossier funded by Clinton’s campaign as a justification to wiretap one of Donald Trump’s campaign advisors.

The FBI has become increasingly politicized over the last 20 years. According to the decision of the FISA court, Director Comey gave illegal access to raw NSA data to three private contractors as early as 2015. That led to unprecedented unmaskings and likely contributed to the crafting of the Steele Dossier. Although the names of the private contractors are redacted, there are reasons to think one may be Fusion GPS — the Clinton/DNC funded group that promoted if not co-created the Steele Dossier.

“The rotting of the FBI hierarchy escalated when then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and then-agent Peter Strzok, enabled by former Director James Comey and the Obama-era Justice Department, utilized an ‘unsubstantiated’ dossier created by former British spy, Christopher Steele, and financed by the Clinton campaign, to request a FISA warrant to wiretap Trump campaign advisor Carter Page,” Toensing and diGenova maintain.

Washington, D.C. really is a cesspool of collusion — but it’s not imaginary collusion with Russia that threatens our democracy; it’s the collusion among unelected bureaucrats to overturn the people’s choice to elect Donald Trump as President.

Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor and veteran of 500 federal appeals, is the author of “LICENSED TO LIE: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.” She is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research.

Democrat Hypocricy = Power!

Politics of Immigration

1/16/2019 - Walter E. Williams Townhall.com

Here are a couple of easy immigration questions -- answerable with a simple "yes" or "no" -- we might ask any American of any political stripe: Does everyone in the world have a right to live in the U.S.? Do the American people have a right, through their elected representatives, to decide who has the right to immigrate to their country and under what conditions? I believe that most Americans, even today's open-borders people, would answer "no" to the first question and "yes" to the second.

There's nothing new about this vision. Americans have held this view throughout our history, during times when immigration laws were very restrictive and when they were more relaxed. Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News Channel's "Tucker Carlson Tonight," gives us an interesting history lesson about immigration at Prager University (http://tinyurl.com/ydylykfk). It was prompted by his watching a group of protesters who were denouncing President Donald Trump's immigration policies. They were waving Mexican flags and shouting, "¡Sí, se puede!" ("Yes, we can!")

Unbeknownst to the protesters, the expression "Sí, se puede" was a saying of Cesar Chavez's. When Chavez, the founder of the United Farm Workers union, used the expression "Yes, we can," he meant something entirely different: "Yes, we can" seal the borders. He hated illegal immigration. Chavez explained, "As long as we have a poor country bordering California, it's going to be very difficult to win strikes." Why? Farmers are willing to hire low-wage immigrants here illegally. Chavez had allies in his protest against the hiring of undocumented workers and lax enforcement of immigration laws. Included in one of his protest marches were Democratic Sen. Walter Mondale and a longtime Martin Luther King Jr. aide, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy.

Peaceful protest wasn't Chavez's only tool. He sent union members into the desert to assault Mexicans who were trying to sneak in to the country. They beat the Mexicans with chains and whips made of barbed wire. Undocumented immigrants who worked during strikes had their houses firebombed and their cars burned. By the way, Chavez remains a leftist hero. President Barack Obama declared his birthday a commemorative federal holiday, an official day off in several states. A number of buildings and student centers on college campuses and dozens of public schools bear the name Cesar Chavez.

Democrats have long taken stances against both legal and illegal immigration. In 1975, California Gov. Jerry Brown opposed Vietnamese immigration, saying that the state had enough poor people. He added, "There is something a little strange about saying 'Let's bring in 500,000 more people' when we can't take care of the 1 million (Californians) out of work."

In his 1995 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton said: "All Americans ... are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers." On a 1994 edition of CBS' "Face the Nation," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., declared: "Border control is a federal responsibility. We simply don't enforce our borders adequately. In my state, you have about 2,000 people a day, illegally, who cross the border. Now, this adds up to about 2 million people who compete for housing, who compete for classroom space." She added: "In 1988, there were about 3,000 people on Medicaid. There're well over 300,000 (people on Medicaid) today who are illegal aliens. That presents obvious problems."

Tucker Carlson has a four-part explanation for the Democratic Party's changing position on illegal immigration. He says, "One: According to a recent study from Yale, there are at least 22 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. Two: Democrats plan to give all of them citizenship. Read the Democrats' 2016 party platform. Three: Studies show the overwhelming majority of first-time immigrant voters vote Democrat. Four: The biggest landslide in American presidential history was only 17 million votes. Do the math. The payoff for Democrats: permanent electoral majority for the foreseeable future. In a word: power."

Dysfunctional Immigration Policies -- Total National Downfall!

Republicans Should Not Give in on Border Security

1/13/2019 - Bruce Bialosky Townhall.com

California welcomed a new governor this week – Gavin Newsom.  Newsom has set as priorities that anyone in the state would be provided health care at no cost and that the state will remain a sanctuary state.  Is there any wonder that the caravans from Central America that were supposedly coming here for humanitarian reasons diverted the path of the caravan from going to Texas and added over 500 miles to their trek to arrive at the border of California?  

Another year has gone by and yet there has been zero progress on confronting our dysfunctional immigration policies.  Our government in Washington remains stalemated while Democrats refuse to provide funding for border security where people wish to illegally enter our country.  We need solutions.

I thought about this while we were going through our annual Christmas day trek for Chinese food.  After being told it was an hour wait, I exited the restaurant to find out the top on my son’s car was not properly closing.  I ended up driving the car to our local gas station that does our repairs.

Unfortunately, the next day neither our Jewish maven nor his friend who does electrical repairs could figure it out.  One friend suggested another Jewish mechanic, but our gas station maven recommended three Mexican brothers who have an upholstery shop.  Sure enough, my new Mexican-American friends had it fixed in less than four hours.  

Being in Southern California, we have a lot of Mexican-Americans and many others from Central America plus people from all corners of the world.  My experience is they are wonderful people with a great sense of humor.   Certainly they really are interested in supporting themselves and their families.  And we are interested they enter the country legally.  

There are a lot of charges and countercharges thrown around and our president has used inflammatory language at times.  The bottom line is no matter the rhetoric, he wants people to enter legally and he does not care where they come from – South of the border or Eastern Europe; Africa or Asia.  The charges of racism are just as inflammatory as any statement Trump has made.   It is an old, tired canard that any Republican is racist because they want immigrants to enter the country legally.   

In fact, you really have to look at people who insist on allowing people who come across our southern border without legal justification as the racists.  They are the ones insisting on people from a certain origin to be able to flood across the border to the detriment of people from Asia, Africa and Europe who are trying to come here legally.  If anyone is racist, it is these people.  

What continues to be a difference between the parties is that Republicans want legal immigrants.  The Democrats recently referred to illegal immigrants as “undocumented workers.”  Now they just refer to them as the “immigrant community.”  They refuse to even differentiate between people who came here through legal processes and those who came here through illegal means.   That was why The Left was so perplexed on how to respond when an illegal immigrant recently killed a legal non-white immigrant who was a police officer.  They could not find the means to even comment and certainly they were not wildly defending the family of the dead officer.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York recently exemplified the matter in a complete manner.  He pardoned 22 people and commuted the sentences of another seven.  He started his news release by stating “With President Trump and the Federal Government waging a war on our border against immigrant communities …”  That in itself is nonsensical because immigrant communities are not trying to get into our country illegally – individuals are.  

Reading the biographies as written by the governor’s office of the people he pardoned, you would think he was the pope naming saints.  First, they start by saying they were minor crimes.   Well, yes; they were minor because they were plea-bargained to lesser offenses.  Some were drug dealers, which means they were dealing cocaine or heroin because the ones dealing marijuana were identified as such to lessen the perception of their crimes.  

Perhaps some of these people were worthy of being pardoned and have led a fine, law-abiding life since their release from prison.  Some were even senior citizens.  But sugar-coating what they did is demeaning.  It was not stated any of them had been unjustly charged.

Not one was identified as being here legally.  A couple came here legally because the Governor trumpeted that, but were not identified as being here legally now.  As for the others, their status—past and present—was not stated. Yet, they are just members of our immigrant community.  

Recently, Speaker Pelosi suggested it was better to settle the budget deal and then negotiate on immigration.  She must think Republicans are really stupid.  Senator Schumer suggested the same thing in his speech rebutting the president on this past Tuesday.  They know the press will move on to their next attack on Trump and never hold the Dems accountable for not negotiating.  

Speaker Pelosi further validated this in the meeting with President Trump when she made clear she was not going to provide any more money for border security.   Democrats argue that only a third of the people coming here illegally come across our Southern border as if a third is not a significant amount.  But Pelosi did not say, by the way, we want to increase immigration control at seaports and airports.  We want to provide money for visa control.  She has stated none of that.

Republicans know that something Dems care about more than even illegal immigrants is federal employees who vote for Democrats in droves and feed the Dems’ campaign coffers.  Pelosi knows where her bread is buttered and she also knows that she will never come to the table on immigration without a gun to her head. 

Better yet, she should define these experts that she and Senator Schumer keep referring to that are saying they have alternatives to the border wall.   No one believes the wall by itself is the solution or that it will run along our entire Southern border, but continuing to mouth ridiculous statements that walls don’t work defies the logic of the most basic-thinking person.  It appears the other solutions for border security by these so-called experts are just statements in the wind because you know they would be out there with charts and graphs showing the other solutions.  Yet the press negligently never pushes for a definition of the alternatives.  

Republicans on more than one occasion have agreed to a legalization of illegal immigrants with assurances that proper controls will be put in place at a further time.  President Bush proposed comprehensive immigration reform with border security measures, but did not set that as the first priority.  It is good someone is drawing the line.  Any wavering Republicans should realize elections are so far away that maybe five people will vote based on this budget shutdown.   It has no political relevance.

What has political relevance is moving along border security for our country.  Then visa control. Then a proper system to assure only people here legally are hired by employers – e-verify.  Then straightening out the court system for immigration to properly handle legal immigration on a timely basis.  Then we can deal with the DACA people and the rest of the people here illegally.   

Now there is a plan.  

Lawlessness Leads to More Lawlessness

Enabling Criminal Aliens

1/7/2019 - Sheriff David Clarke (Ret.) Townhall.com

The murder of Newman California Police Corporal Ronil Singh allegedly by an illegal alien with a criminal past is the latest high-profile killing of an American citizen that contains nearly every element in our illegal immigration discourse.

Singh, 33, legally immigrated to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and then became one of Newman’s finest citizens serving as a police officer for twelve years. Singh’s legal entry into the U.S. added value to our country. Sadly, this husband and father of a 5-month-old son was allegedly murdered by an illegal criminal alien gang member on Christmas Eve.

This tragedy was preventable. 

Singh’s suspected murderer had “prior criminal activity that should have been reported to ICE,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson had said. “Law enforcement was prohibited because of sanctuary laws and that led to the encounter with (Cpl.) Singh… the outcome could have been different if law enforcement wasn’t restricted or had their hands tied because of political interference.”

California is a state that provides a safe harbor for people illegally in the country. California boasts its status as a sanctuary state in violation of federal law and the supremacy clause in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. California cities have passed laws prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with law enforcement officers from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with the apprehension of illegal immigrants even after they have committed a crime. Many of these illegal criminals continue on to murder, rape and rob U.S. citizens post-release from a local jail under the catch-and-release policies before notifying ICE officials.

Currently, the threshold for immediate deportation proceedings is set too low. Catch-and-release instead of being detained pending an immigration hearing is like unleashing a dangerous animal into a public space. Eventually, we’ll be dealing with an avoidable catastrophe.

Typically the definition to detain involves only crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. That’s about it. Serious drug dealing or gun possessions are not considered crimes of violence under this strict definition. Neither does burglary or the severe crime of driving under the influence of alcohol. As we have seen over and over through the cost of American lives, many additional crimes pose equally great risks to our communities should these illegal criminal aliens be released without detaining for ICE.

Burglary is a felony and as far as I am concerned a crime of violence. It’s not merely a property crime that results in minor victimization. It involves forced entry. It is a category Part I crime by FBI statistics. Part I crimes are serious felonies. Anybody whose home has been broken into suffers a traumatic mental experience. I have seen it when investigating burglaries. People who once felt safe in their homes lose that sense of security after their home is burglarized. Their kids have nightmares; adults sleep with one eye open and every little noise in the house startles them. It takes a long time to heal. Burglary costs Americans an estimated 4 billion in property loss every year, but this does not include the psychological damage. The fact that many states allow residents to use deadly force to stop intruders means that a burglary could end violently for the intruder. It will if it happens at my home and I am there.

Another offense that is marginalized by sympathetic lawmakers is driving under the influence. It is not merely a traffic offense. Tens of thousands of people are killed and maimed by impaired drivers every year. I have arrived on the scene of crashes involving impaired drivers. Seeing lifeless and mutilated bodies is not pretty. This is why most states take it so seriously that a first offense is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Many make a second and third offense a felony. It’s worth mentioning that the illegal alien who allegedly murdered Cpl. Singh had two prior arrests for DUI and was being stopped by Cpl. Singh for suspected driving under the influence again.

A recent Pew Research study on crimes committed by illegal aliens indicates it’s time to take this seriously. The study shows that the bulk of those arrested in 2016 and 2017 had prior criminal convictions. It indicates that in 2017 illegal immigrants with past criminal convictions accounted for 74% of all arrests made by ICE which is a 30% increase from the year before. The study points out that those with no previous conviction increased by 146% compared to a 12% increase of those with a past criminal conviction. They have demonstrated a propensity to victimize. This conviction rate includes nearly 60,000 arrested for drunk driving and approximately 58,000 arrested for dangerous drug dealing (opioids). The other classification of convictions are as follows:

Assaults: 48,454

Larceny: 20,356

General Crimes: 17,325

Obstructing Police: 14,616

Burglary: 12,836

These numbers are not insignificant. Nobody takes the time to point out to the criminal alien apologists that the cost associated with these crimes include police and court costs, incarceration costs, property loss and damage, medical costs, psychological trauma, lost work time and increased insurance rates adding up to billions of dollars. Therefore, the policy on when to deport and for what reasons also needs to reflect these costs to the American people. The time to deport is before they go on to serious offenses, not after. 

Redefining what constitutes deporting a criminal alien is needed. By changing the definition from what is considered a ‘violent act’ to a ‘serious act’ would be more inclusive of the dangerous crimes I have highlighted in this article. Our laws need to reflect the protection of the American people not sympathy for criminal aliens.

Is it not asking too much for people in the country illegally to obey all of our laws, not just a select few? Neither you nor I would be granted this courtesy if we were even lawfully in a foreign country with a valid passport and committed a misdemeanor crime not involving violence. Deportation would be certain and swift with no release pending a deportation hearing.

It is time for U.S. policy to change. The American people should not have to accept such great risks when they don’t have to. They should not have to stand by idly before a criminal illegal alien victimizes another American citizen.

It is bad enough that our criminal justice system is soft on crime when it comes to people legally in the country but when that same leniency is granted to criminal aliens it’s a problem, and it’s time to recalculate our generosity.

The position of most politicians in Washington D.C., except for a few Democrats who are sympathetic to all illegal migrants, is that concerning deportations we should deal with the criminal aliens first. An overwhelming majority of Americans agree. Nobody wants to be victimized by a criminal, nonetheless, ones who should have been deported.

When we water down the standard for what is criminal behavior, we are heading toward a very dark place. Crime is crime. Period. This should be the standard for automatic deportation for criminal aliens.

Once we get the criminal illegals out, a wall is required to prevent these thugs from running back in and continuing to victimize Americans like Cpl. Singh who hours before his death stopped home to visit his family on Christmas Eve, kissing his wife and child for the last time. The picture of him with his family taken just hours before his death should serve as a grave reminder to all who want to hug a criminal illegal alien that at any moment they can lash out and kill an American, and that it could have been avoided if Congress had its priorities straight and put politics aside to do what’s right.

A Flake Substitute -- Too Bad -- So Sad!

President Trump Isn't the Enemy, Mr. Romney

1/4/2019 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com

Two days before he was sworn in as Utah's junior U.S. senator, Mitt Romney published an op-ed in The Washington Post, publicly broadcasting, once again, his disapproval of President Donald Trump. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Something seems to compel those in the never-Trump crowd not only to perpetually obsess over Trump but also to constantly remind us of their profound distaste for him -- lest it escape our top-of-mind awareness.

A few things popped out at me when I read Romney's piece -- apart from his flagrant hypocrisy in reigniting his public relations campaign against Trump after abandoning it when seeking to be Trump's secretary of state.

Why did Romney believe he needed to write this now -- as his first volley -- instead of first expressing his intention of trying to work with Trump to move his agenda forward in what promises to be a very tumultuous time, with militant, partisan Democrats about to assume control of the House?

Why would Romney choose to publish his piece in the overtly liberal Washington Post? Are political liberals and the mainstream media his constituency now? It would be one thing for a newly minted GOP senator to take on Democrats in that publication, but it's quite another for him to harshly criticize his party's president in a paper that exclusively speaks for the opposition party -- a party that will doubtlessly leverage this op-ed against the president and in favor of the Democrats' policy agenda, which Romney has been telling us for years he abhors.

Does Romney mean to undermine and demonize GOP border enforcement hawks and other Republicans at this critical time when he piously proclaims that he "will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions"? Exactly what statements or actions is he calling racist and anti-immigrant? I ask because I've heard some never-Trumpers outright denounce border enforcement supporters as nativists and racists not because any statements they've made could remotely be construed as anti-immigrant and racist but because they callously and wrongly presume or pretend to presume that their fierce opposition to illegal immigration and their desire to encourage assimilation and preserve national sovereignty, the rule of law and an orderly immigration process are somehow racist. This is below the belt, destructive and, yes, quite divisive, Mr. Romney -- with your own party, no less.

What other statements or actions of President Trump does Romney consider divisive? Is he equally agitated over the Democrats' unapologetic divisiveness, or is his angst reserved only for Trump and his Republican supporters? Stated another way, if Romney was so eager to write an op-ed before he'd even set foot in the Senate, why didn't he use it to call out Democrats for telegraphing their intent to use their newfound control of the House to unleash partisan hell on President Trump? Or is making nice with these self-pronounced partisan militants and their media cheerleaders more important to Romney than fighting their toxic agenda?

What Trump actions does Romney believe are "destructive to democratic institutions"? I, for one, am tired of hearing this Democratic trope that Trump is threatening our democratic institutions when he has done nothing of the sort and has been appointing constitutionalist judges who are dedicated to shoring up our democratic institutions and, unlike President Obama, has refrained from issuing lawless executive orders to advance his agenda. Why, Mr. Romney, do you want to legitimize this false charge against President Trump? We Republicans faithfully supported you in your 2012 presidential bid and wouldn't have considered undercutting you like this.

Why, Mr. Romney, do you feel it is necessary to announce that you "will support policies that (you) believe are in the best interest of the country and (your state), and oppose those that are not"? How many Democrats would send a public message to the country that by gosh, they will not support their president if he's doing things they believe are not in the country's best interest? Can't some things just be left unsaid, or is it necessary in every other paragraph to remind Americans that Trump embarrasses you and you'll only grudgingly support him -- and then, only when you have to?

Why couldn't you have kept your powder dry rather than virtue-signal to leftists who'll never love you any more than they did Sen. John McCain? Are you so consumed with distaste for Trump that you are blind to the Democrats' far worse partisanship and divisiveness? Are you really unaware of the Democrats' stated intentions to wage political war against Trump for the next two years or until they run him out of office? Do you not see that enabling the Democrats in this way could help to advance their nightmarish agenda? Which will you oppose more, Trump's bad manners or the Democrats' socialist, culturally nihilistic agenda? Which is less in the nation's interest?

It is not President Trump who threatens the nation's interest, Mr. Romney, but the Democratic Party, which you have just gone out of your way to assist -- whether you realize it or not.

Borders -- Security, National Identity & Sense of Belonging

Borders Are Compassionate 

1/1/2019 - Carl Jackson Townhall.com

It might sound smart to say that America is a nation of immigrants. But nothing could be further from the truth. There’s no such thing as a nation of immigrants. A nation is defined by its geographical borders, it’s citizens and their customs. Borders give us a sense of belonging – a place we can call home. Borders also provide a sense of security and a national identity.

Stop and think about it. Would you call Russia a nation of immigrants? What about China? Kenya? India? Mexico? Canada? Switzerland? Taiwan? Iran? Poland? Just like all of these nations, America is a country made up of borders, citizens and its’ traditions. What sets America apart from other countries around the globe, is a fundamental belief in our motto, E Pluribus Unum – out of many one. We aren’t homogenous. In America many of our neighbors look differently, sound differently, act differently, even worship different Gods. But we’re united in our belief that all men are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We aren’t just bound by blood or the common traits that typically define a nation; our politicians don’t get to determine our destiny. We’re bound by ideals that are bigger than any government.

Think about what makes traveling so exciting. We don’t travel around the globe or even across the country in hopes of visiting a place that reminds us of home. To the contrary. We want to see something different. We want to experience something different. We want to try different food. I couldn’t think of anything that would make this world a more boring place to exist than everyone thinking, looking, sounding, acting, cooking and doing the same things. Yet, that’s what’s at stake if we capitulate to leftists who want open borders. 

Furthermore, no matter where we travel, by the end of the vacation, we always arrive at the same conclusion: there’s no place like home. America is home to its citizens. It is not home to just anyone who wants to call it home. In the same way, our traveling destinations are not our homes.

Beyond belonging, borders provide us a sense of security. When a child dies in the custody of our border patrol agents it’s a huge headline. Why? Yes, it’s a big story. But it’s a big story because those stories aren’t normative in the U.S. And those stories aren’t normative within our border because of all of the blessings of liberty Americans take for granted on a daily basis. In America our soldiers protect the freedoms of our citizens from dictators. But many soldiers around the world protect their dictators from their citizens. 

Borders also provide us a national identity and all of the benefits that comes with. Consider our 1^st Amendment for example. In that amendment alone, we’re granted the freedom of religion, speech, press, the right to assemble and the right to redress or remove the cause of any grievance perpetuated by our government. That one amendment is the envy of the world. We shouldn’t take it lightly. Neither should we be ashamed to call ourselves Americans. Because our government has recognized the power and the importance of the individual, even our adversaries must think twice before they allow harm to come to one of our citizens that may be in their homeland. We’re so blessed.

Borders mean we get to choose who comes into our country in the same way we get to choose who crosses the threshold of our home. We wouldn’t allow just any stranger in our home. That doesn’t mean we hate the stranger. What we want is the time to get to know that stranger so that he becomes a friend. The moment we get to know that person, we’re willing to open our hearts, our home and even our wallets in some cases, to help our fellow citizen. 

Borders are no different than your front door. We open and shut them all the time to let in and out those we love. We lock them to keep out anyone that has bad intentions, and we welcome those that are willing to knock and introduce themselves. 

Borders aren’t partisan. They’re necessary to protect those we love.