Rule of Law - Interest of American Workers Must Prevail

Rescind DACA the Right Way

7/15/2020 - Bob Beauprez Townhall.com

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Trump administration cannot move forward with its previous plan to end DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. Chief Justice John Roberts called the administration's attempted 2017 rescission of the program "arbitrary and capricious" in his 5-4 majority opinion.

But the only thing "arbitrary and capricious" is the ruling itself. DACA was illegal from its inception -- something the Court even implied, yet refused to take into account. Instead, the Court chose to focus on whether the administration had properly justified the attempted rollback, as supposedly required by the Administrative Procedure Act.

The majority's reasoning is beyond shoddy. As Justice Clarence Thomas correctly noted in his dissent, blocking the rollback of an illegal program on a technicality is nothing more than "an effort to avoid a politically controversial but legally correct decision."  

Thankfully, all nine justices agreed that the administration has the authority to roll back the program, provided it explains its reasoning. And President Trump has already promised to do so. This time, let's hope his administration dots its I's and crosses its t's.

In 2012, President Obama created DACA via an executive memorandum. It prevents the deportation of nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors. It also grants these individuals -- most of whom are now adults -- work permits and government benefits.  

In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned on ending DACA. And in September 2017, he issued his own executive order rolling back the program, after his attorney general concluded it was illegal.

Numerous legal scholars have reached that same conclusion. Consider the analysis of one former Harvard Law Review editor and constitutional law professor who concluded that the idea that a president "can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not the case," he noted.

That former professor, of course, was none other than Barack Obama himself, speaking in 2011. The president can't "just bypass Congress and change the law . . . That's not how a democracy works," Obama explained on a separate occasion.

Yet just a year after making those remarks, Obama caved to pressure from Democratic activists and rammed through the DACA program. He justified the flip-flop by claiming he wasn't permanently suspending deportations -- he was merely directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prioritize the removal of adult illegal aliens who deliberately broke our laws. Presidents do have the authority to tweak ICE's priorities, but they can't give out hundreds of thousands of work permits to people who, by law, are not eligible to receive them.

Indeed, Chief Justice Roberts noted that DACA isn't a mere question of executive discretion -- as Obama claimed -- since the "benefits attendant to deferred action provide further confirmation that DACA is more than simply a non-enforcement policy." He even strongly implies that DACA's work permits are unlawful since only Congress can grant legal status and work eligibility.  

Nevertheless, he blocked the rollback on the grounds that the administration explained its rationale for suspending work privileges, but didn't adequately explain its decision to reverse Obama's policy on deferred deportations.

Taken to its logical conclusion, Robert's opinion would prevent any administration from reversing its predecessor's policies -- even if they're illegal -- unless it provides a rationale in excruciating detail. The majority opinion is nothing more than legal gobbledygook. Unfortunately, at least for now, it leaves in place a program that continues to harm American citizens.

Thankfully, the president has pledged to try again. That's the only way to follow through on the promise he made in 2016 -- to always put American workers first. At a time when 21 million Americans are searching for work and another 10 million part-time employees are looking for full-time jobs, there's no justification for an amnesty that offers lifetime work permits to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens while the American people -- in this case, particularly minorities and legal immigrants -- are left standing in the unemployment line.

Yes, our immigration system is broken. Congress is woefully delinquent in fixing it. Until they do, the rule of law and the interests of American workers must prevail. Many DACA recipients have sympathetic stories. But letting them stay and work -- without even discussing related policies such as mandatory nationwide E-Verify -- would be terrible policy. It would do nothing to secure the border, prevent illegal hiring, or end chain migration. And it would only encourage future amnesties.

Americans can't afford to continue with an immigration system that was designed to benefit employers looking for lower-wage workers. One in four U.S. workers has filed for unemployment benefits since the pandemic began. Millions more have seen their hours cuts. And there's little end in sight -- the Federal Reserve estimates the unemployment rate will remain above 9 percent until at least 2021.  

American workers need all the help they can get. President Trump can overcome this setback with a new-and-improved plan to end DACA.

Bob Beauprez is a former United States Representative, representing Colorado's 7th congressional district from 2003-2007.

Next 4 Months - Extremely Critical - Wake Up America!

The Fragility of the Woke

7/9/2020 - Victor Davis Hanson Townhall.com

A TikTok video that recently went viral on social media showed a recent Harvard graduate threatening to stab anyone who said "all lives matter." In her melodrama, she tried to sound intimidating with her histrionics.

She won a huge audience as she intended. But her video also came to the attention of the company that was going to give her an internship later this summer, Deloitte, which decided it didn't want to add an intern who threatened to kill strangers who said something she didn't like.

She fought back tears while complaining how unfair the world had been to her. Her initial TikTok post had earned cruel pushback from the social media jungle she had courted. Deloitte, she sobbed, was mean and hurtful. And she wanted the world to share her pain.

The Harvard grad instantly became an unwitting poster girl for the current protest movement and the violence that has accompanied it. What turns off millions of Americans about the statue toppling, the looting, the threats and the screaming in the faces of police is the schizophrenic behavior of so many of the would-be revolutionaries.

On one hand, those toppling statues or canceling their own careers on the internet pose as vicious Maoists -- the hard-core shock troops of the revolution. Their brand is vile profanity, taunts to police, firebombs and spray paint.

In homage to Italy's blackshirts of the past, they wear black hoodies, don makeshift helmets and strap on ad hoc protective padding -- part lacrosse attire, part cinematic Road Warrior costume.

The televised stereotype of the antifa activist is a physically unimpressive but violent-talking revolutionary. He seems to strut in laid-back, blue-city Minneapolis but wisely avoids the suburbs and small towns of the nation's red states. He spits at police when standing beside fellow agitators but would never do that when alone confronting an autoworker or welder.

When police march against the antifa crowd and their appendages in order to clear the streets, they often scream like preteens, objecting to mean officers who dare to cross them.

When arrested, the trash talkers are usually terrified of being jailed or of having an arrest on their records.

What is going on?

Black Lives Matter, antifa and their large numbers of imitators and loosely organized wannabes are mostly made up of middle-class youth, often either students or graduates. They deem themselves the brains of the rioting, the most woke of the demonstrators, the most sophisticated of the iconoclasts. In truth, they are also the most paranoid about being charged or being hurt.

What explains the passive-aggressive nature of these protesters and rioters?

Many no doubt are indebted, with large, unpaid student loans. Few seem in a hurry to get up at 6 a.m. each day to go to work to service loans that would take years to pay in full.

While some of those arrested are professionals, many are not. Few seem to be earning the sort of incomes that would allow them to marry, have children, pay off student loan debt, buy a home and purchase a new car.

Historically, the tips of the spears of cultural revolutions are accustomed to comfort. But they grow angry when they realize that they will never become securely comfortable.

In today's high-priced American cities, especially on the globalized coasts, it's increasingly difficult for recent college graduates to find a job that will allow for upward mobility.

The protestors are especially cognizant that their 20s are nothing like what they believe to have been the salad days of their parents and grandparents -- who did not incur much debt, bought affordable homes, had families and were able to save money.

Earlier generations went to college mainly to become educated and develop marketable skills. They weren't very interested in ethnic and gender "studies" courses, ranting professors and woke administrators. For the students of the 1960s who were, protesting was a side dish to a good investment in an affordable college degree that would pay off later.

But when such pathways are blocked, beware.

The woke but godless, the arrogant but ignorant, the violent but physically unimpressive, the degreed but poorly educated, the broke but acquisitive, the ambitious but stalled -- these are history's ingredients of riot and revolution.

2020 General Election - Battle Lines Are Formed - Decisions Are Critical

A Culture War Battle Trump Can Win

7/7/2020 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

Speaking at Mount Rushmore on Friday, and from the White House lawn on Saturday, July 4, Donald Trump recast the presidential race.

He seized upon an issue that can turn his fortunes around, and the wounded howls of the media testify to the power of his message.

Standing beneath the mammoth carved images of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, Trump declared: "Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities."

These mobs are made up of Marxists, criminals, and anarchists. Their cause is a cultural revolution. "Their goal is not a better America. Their goal is the end of America."

After reciting the achievements of his four predecessors, Trump added: "No movement that seeks to dismantle these treasured American legacies can possibly have a love of America at its heart."

Then he put it right into the basement hideaway of Joe Biden: "No person who remains quiet at the destruction of this resplendent heritage can possibly lead us to a better future."

Trump is calling out Biden's silence in the face of an onslaught against our heroes and history as manifest political cowardice that makes Biden a moral accomplice of the mobs.

One day, Basement Boy is going to have to speak out.

Where was Biden when Trump was standing up for America on Independence Day?

As his Party tweeted that Trump's trip to Mount Rushmore was aimed at "glorifying white supremacy," Biden was wailing about the need "to rip the roots of systemic racism" out of America.

Does that sound like Harry Truman or JFK?

So the lines are drawn for 2020.

On one side are those who believe America is a good country, the greatest the world has ever seen, and that the men who created this miracle should be respected, revered, and remembered.

That is not the view of the left wing of the Democratic Party.

For even as the fireworks were exploding on the Mall, a Baltimore mob was tearing down, smashing up, and dumping into the Inner Harbor a landmark statue of Christopher Columbus.

That statue stood next to the Baltimore neighborhood of Little Italy and had been dedicated in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan.

Do the haters of Columbus think that destroying Columbus' statues across America will not anger and alienate Americans of Italian descent who revere the explorer? Does Biden think Italian-Americans will reward a candidate and party that will not renounce the mob that did this?

As the left wing of the Democratic Party embraces the "defund the police" movement, how long will it hold onto voters who are today watching murder rates climb to new records?

During Independence Day weekend in Chicago, 80 people were shot, and 17 of them killed.

In New York City, the number of shooting victims has risen this year by 50%. In June, there were 250 shootings, an increase of 150 over June 2019. Mayor Bill de Blasio's response: cutting $1 billion from the NYPD budget.

Over July 4, an armed Black militia arrived at the reopening of the Stone Mountain monument in Georgia, which features huge carved images of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They want its destruction.

Trump is charged with "dividing the nation."

But it is not Trump trashing cops or providing cover for "protests" marked by looting and arson. Nor is it Trump tearing down memorials and monuments to the great Americans of the past.

Where the Democratic Party has been a portrait in indecisiveness, Trump has been clear. He stands with the cops who have gone through a hellish six weeks. He stands against defacing statues and destroying monuments. He has denounced the rioting, looting and arson that have accompanied protests the media never cease to describe as "peaceful."

It is not Trump who is dividing America. He has pledged to resist the rampages with all the weapons in his presidential arsenal.

There are four months until November's election, 18 weeks until America decides: Do we want to continue an era of protests that revert to rioting, looting and arson? Do we want to see police departments further constricted and trashed as neo-fascist?

Do we wish to see statues of presidents from Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Grant to Teddy Roosevelt trashed by mobs that hate America, hate her heroes, and hate her history?

Trump's stand for tradition and against mob rule is the only stand the president can take. And it is a necessary stand. For this culture war is going to last long after this presidency. And it is going to determine what kind of country we shall become.

Will it be the great and glorious republic of the past or the social and cultural Marxist hellhole that is the promise of the mobs?

Trump just played the patriotism card -- the correct card to play -- and it may just work for his reelection.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

We MUST Save Our Republic - Prepare, Commit, Act!

We Must Decide Whether We Want to Save America

7/3/2020 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com

America is in crisis. Her destiny is on the line, and she will survive only if we still love her.

A battle rages in the streets, in academia, in the culture, and in the hearts and minds of the American people over whether America was and remains a good and great nation.

I have always believed that America is the greatest and most benevolent nation in history, that its Constitution is, in the words of former British Prime Minister William Gladstone, "The most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."

That's primarily because the Constitution was crafted to maximize man's liberty -- not just by paying flowery lip service to the concept on hallowed parchment but by containing concrete limitations on government to ensure its realization.

Over time, anti-libertarian forces have chipped away at the document's integrity and its guaranteed freedoms. Today, those destructive forces are ascendant and emboldened.

Years ago, I was invited to give talks on the Constitution. On one such occasion, a female African American law student, after hearing my glowing endorsement of the document, asked how she could be expected to revere a government charter that condoned slavery.

I admit to providing an inadequate answer for my good-faith questioner, but I have given much thought to this important and increasingly relevant question since.

The immorality of slavery is undebatable, but the constitutional provisions dealing with it are more complex and deserve more than a short column. For now, let me say that the American people's better angels fought a devastating Civil War largely over the issue and worked, especially in the last half-century, to ensure equal opportunity for all people under law.

Going forward, we must decide whether we want to heal or persist in endless conflict and racial acrimony. We can't legislatively purge evil from men's hearts -- but we can and must pray to the God of all creation and of all precious human beings to expunge racial conflict and distrust from our souls, and to heal this land. I believe we've made enormous strides on racism, and let's not allow the naysayers to take that away from us.

Some continually call for a national conversation on race. Others maintain we've been having that conversation for decades. We have, in a sense, but it has been more a shouting match than a dialogue and has been riddled with sinister partisan motives rather than harmonious longings.

If we're going to converse, let's allow all views to be aired instead of censoring certain opinions with false charges of bigotry.

At the center of this discussion should be the question of whether we believe now -- not in 1776 or 1791 -- that the American dream applies to all Americans. We will waste our time unless we still believe that America is exceptional and has the greatest system of government ever devised by man. 

Do we still embrace the American dream?

That is, could we all agree that America's federalist structure, its scheme of checks and balances, its separation of powers, its express guarantees of God-given rights are far superior to any other conceivable government system including all strains of socialism, Marxism, totalitarianism and monarchy?

Should we foster a spirit of forgiveness among all Americans and all races, or do we seek to incite conflict for political gain? Do we support policies that improve the lives of all people including minorities, or would we prefer to remain mired in hate and bitterness? Will we encourage colorblindness and loving one another as God's creatures in a truly integrated society, or yield to those who would revert to color consciousness and segregation? Will we repudiate or honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy?

We can debate whether the framers built obsolescence for slavery in the Constitution or whether the Civil War and civil rights laws were enough to atone for this brutal institution, but shouldn't we get about the business of living in harmony and striving to ensure the American dream is available for all?

Do we want to advance an agenda that treats all people equally and is better suited to lift everyone up, or would we rather be perpetually angry and paralyzed by guilt?

We must shed the poisonous notion that the stain of slavery permanently taints our system of government, which still offers the last best hope for all Americans to be free, to pursue happiness and to succeed. We must fervently resist societal pressure to tear down all remnants of our history, because eliminating the bad will also eliminate the good -- and increase the likelihood of repeating the bad.

Don't believe for a second that the anarchists who have hijacked peaceful protests are conflicted on this issue. They want to tear down the entire system, which they say cannot be fixed.

Understand that if you buy into that lie, you are joining forces with those who will uproot all that is good and sabotage the system in exchange for the inevitable unfolding of totalitarianism in which only a very limited few will be free and thrive. History amply demonstrates the corruptive folly of the road we are traveling.

Conservatives must confront the pernicious narrative that America is evil and patriots who are intent on preserving it are racist. Precisely the opposite is true. We want the best for all people, and if we lack the moral courage to fight for our principles, America as founded will disappear. Only if we save this nation will the people for whom the destructive forces claim to be fighting prosper.

I pray God will heal and unite us, and that we will work together to preserve and reinvigorate this still-wonderful nation.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is "Guilty by Reason of Insanity: Why the Democrats Must Not Win." Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com.