Another Example of Republican Political Surrender

Freedom of Assembly Under Fire

7/31/2019 - Michelle Malkin Townhall.com

Do law-abiding American citizens still have the right to gather peacefully to discuss their ideas without fear of government censorship and retribution?

In my adopted hometown of Colorado Springs, the answer is "No" if you believe in strict border control or question whether the U.S. can survive as a nation-state. The answer is "No" if you wish to meet with others to express concern about the unsustainability of current U.S. immigration policy. The answer is "No" if you dare to speak unvarnished truths about the deleterious security and economic impacts of illegal immigrants, Third World and sharia-promoting Muslim refugees, temporary guest workers, chain migration beneficiaries, diversity visa lottery winners, and legions of unassimilated and unvetted visitors and other visa holders from around the world.

In spring 2017, award-winning journalist and former Hoover Institution media fellow Peter Brimelow and his educational nonprofit VDARE reserved the Cheyenne Mountain Resort for a conference on immigration and sovereignty issues. A local far-left gadfly who bragged about wearing her "pink pussy hat while driving (her) Prius" launched an online petition condemning Brimelow's organization as a "hate group." The petition threatened both the resort and the mayor, bellowing that "the residents of Colorado Springs will not support businesses that profit from hate groups and will not re-elect politicians hospitable to those hate groups!"

What exactly is "hateful" about VDARE's work? You can visit VDARE.com and read their wide variety of news and opinions yourself. My syndicated column, published in the Colorado Springs Gazette and hundreds of other mainstream newspapers over the past 25 years, is also published by VDARE. So is Ann Coulter's and Pat Buchanan's. VDARE hosts a vital and honest discussion of an "America First" immigration policy, long considered third rail by the establishments in both parties before President Donald Trump embraced it and won the White House. Of course, I don't agree with everything published on the site; neither do I agree with everything published on every op-ed page that has published my column. VDARE has never advocated violence or any illegal activity. The group counts foreign nationals, immigrants and members of racial and ethnic minorities among its strongest supporters, donors and contributors.

In mid-August 2017, obviously spooked by the violent outcome in Charlottesville, Virginia, where "alt right" protesters and violence-provoking antifa agitators clashed as local police refused to intervene as a result of a disastrous stand-down order, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers issued a chilling statement regarding the planned VDARE conference. While paying lip service to "freedom of speech," Suthers rather unsubtly used his executive authority as the city's top elected official to pressure local businesses against engaging with VDARE, its speakers and its supporters.

"I would encourage local businesses to be attentive to the types of events they accept and the groups that they invite to our great city," Suthers warned. "The City of Colorado Springs will not provide any support or resources to this event, and does not condone hate speech in any fashion."

This is the kind of feckless virtue-signaling you expect from Democratic mayors attacking Chick-fil-A over its founders' commitment to traditional values. Here's what's truly pathetic: All it took for GOP Mayor Suthers to fold was one ambitious Democratic pot-stirrer and a few thousand crisis-exploiting petitioners on the internet (who knows how many of them were actually from Colorado Springs) echoing the talking points of the Southern Poverty Law Center smear machine -- which has made a fortune calling everyone from Ben Carson to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Brigitte Gabriel to Jeanine Pirro to VDARE to yours truly to Trump an agent of "hate." (Never mind that the unhinged SPLC has paid out millions in defamation settlements, faces an onslaught of new lawsuits, and is crumbling internally amid employee accusations of sexual harassment and racial discrimination.)

Immediately after the mayor's ominous decree, the Cheyenne Mountain Resort canceled VDARE's contract. The liberal heckler's veto won. The Republican mayor, a purported constitutional conservative, blithely threw the First Amendment under the bus.

VDARE is fighting back against what Brimelow calls the "Totalitarian Left" (and its surrender-ist GOP enablers). Colorado conservative lawyer Randy Corporon, who represents the group in its civil rights lawsuit against the city, told me: "Mayor John Suthers' statement made clear that Colorado Springs would not provide police protection to VDARE's lawful gathering in a private facility because of his disagreement with the participants' views. His statement led Cheyenne Mountain Resort to cancel VDARE's long-contracted event in spite of significant lost profit and cash damages paid to VDARE by the resort. Meanwhile, violent, disruptive protest groups like antifa receive police protections as they threaten, injure and maim."

"I accepted this case," Corporon said, "in order to expose the hypocrisy and in an effort to determine whether these precious First Amendment rights now only apply to groups and ideas favored by government."

Unfortunately, Suthers' discriminatory crusade against immigration hawks is being subsidized by Colorado Springs taxpayers left in the dark about the threat their own mayor poses to the essential freedom of assembly. Who needs antifa with free speech-squelching tyrants bullying patriots from inside the halls of power?

Michelle Malkin's email address is writemalkin@gmail.com.

United We Stand - Divided We Fall!

America: An Us vs. Them Country

7/23/2019 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

"Send her back! Send her back!"

The 13 seconds of that chant at the rally in North Carolina, in response to Donald Trump's recital of the outrages of Somali-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, will not soon be forgotten, or forgiven.

This phrase will have a long shelf life. T-shirts emblazoned with "Send Her Back!" and Old Glory are already on sale on eBay.

Look for the chant at future Trump rallies, as his followers now realize that the chant drives the elites straight up the wall.

That 13-second chant and Trump's earlier tweet to the four radical congresswomen of "the Squad" to "go back" to where they came from is being taken as the smoking gun that convicts Trump as an irredeemable racist whose "base" is poisoned by the same hate.

Writes The New York Times' Charles Blow in a column that uses "racist" or "racism" more than 30 times: Americans who do not concede that Trump is a racist -- are themselves racists: "Make no mistake. Denying racism or refusing to call it out is also racist."

But what is racism?

Is it not a manifest dislike or hatred of people of color because of their color? Trump was not denouncing the ethnicity or race of Ilhan Omar in his rally speech. He was reciting and denouncing what Omar said, just as Nancy Pelosi was denouncing what Omar and the Squad were saying and doing when she mocked their posturing and green agenda.

Clearly, Americans disagree on what racism is. Writes Blow:

"A USA Today/Ipsos poll published on July 17 found that more than twice as many Americans believe that people who call others racists do so 'in bad faith' compared with those who do not believe it."

Republicans and conservatives believe "racist" is a term the left employs to stigmatize, smear and silence adversaries. As one wag put it, a racist is a conservative who is winning an argument with a liberal.

In the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton famously said of Trump's populist base, "You could put half of them into what I call the basket of deplorables ... racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic."

More than that, "Some ... are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America." To Hillary, Trump supporters were not part of the good America, the enlightened America.

Her defamation of Trump's followers meshes with the media's depiction of the folks laughing, hooting and chanting in North Carolina.

Trump supporters know what the media think of them, which is why in Middle America the media have a crisis of credibility and moral authority. Trump's true believers do not believe them, trust them, like them or respect them. And the feeling is obviously mutual.

While raw and rough, how does the 13-second chant, "Send her back!" compare in viciousness to the chant of 1960s students on Ivy League and other campuses: "Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh! The NLF is going to win!" This was chanted at demonstrations when the NLF, the Viet Cong, was killing hundreds of American soldiers every week.

How does 13 seconds of "Send her back!" compare with the chant of the mob that shut down midtown Manhattan in December 2014: "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want it? Now!"

This past week revealed anew what we Americans think of each other, which portends trouble ahead for the republic.

For a democracy to endure, there has to be an assumption that the loser in an election holds a promissory note that new elections are only a few years off. And if the losers can persuade a majority to support them, they can reassume positions of authority and realize their agenda.

Trump's 40-45 percent of the nation is not only being constantly castigated and demonized by the establishment media but it is also being told that, in the not far distant future, it will be demographically swamped by the rising numbers of new migrants pouring into the country.

Your time is about up, it hears.

And most of the Democratic candidates have admitted that, if elected, the border wall will never be built, breaking into the country will cease to be a crime, ICE will be abolished, sanctuary cities will be expanded, illegal immigrants will be eligible for free health care and, for millions of people hiding here illegally, amnesty and a path to citizenship will be granted.

America, they are saying, will be so unalterably changed in a few years, your kind will never realize political power again, and your America will vanish in a different America where the Squad and like-minded leftists set the agenda.

Will the deplorables, who number in the scores of millions, accept a future where they and their children and children's children are to submit to permanent rule by people who visibly detest them and see them as racists, sexists and fascists?

Will Middle America go gentle into that good night?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.

A National Devastating Tragedy Continues Unabated!

What Now, For Those Who Denied A 'Crisis' At The Border?

6/26/2019 - Byron York Townhall.com

Congress is debating emergency humanitarian aid to care for migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border. The need is obvious. With virtually no barrier to stop them, thousands of migrants are crossing illegally into the United States every day. More than a million will come this year. U.S. law prevents border officials from quickly returning them. While they are being processed, some of the migrants, including children, are being kept temporarily in terrible conditions. American officials have an obligation to take care of them before those with no valid claim to be in the United States are returned to their home countries.

Capitol Hill Democrats are reportedly torn about an emergency aid measure. On one hand, they want to care for the migrants. On the other hand, they fear approving aid would empower President Trump to carry out a plan to deport illegal immigrants whose cases have received full legal due process and who have been ordered deported. Such deportations used to be relatively uncontroversial but are now, apparently, unacceptable to some Democrats.

This moment might be a time for introspection for those who have consistently downplayed the urgency of the situation on the border. Earlier this year, with the number of illegal crossings rising; with the nature of the crossers changing -- more families and more children than in earlier years; with the testimony of border officials that they were unable to handle the situation -- with all that happening, many Democrats and their supporters in the media forcefully denied that there was a crisis on the southern border. Here are a few -- actually, more than a few -- examples:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the situation "a fake crisis at the border."

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer called it "a crisis that does not exist."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, "There is no crisis at the border."

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries said, "There is no crisis at the border."

House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Eliot Engel called the situation "a fake crisis at the border."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said, "There is no crisis at the border."

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said, "We don't have a border crisis."

Rep. Lloyd Doggett called the situation "a phony border crisis."

Rep. Earl Blumenauer called it "a fake crisis at the border."

Rep. Sanford Bishop called it "a crisis that does not exist."

Reps. Jesus Garcia, Jose Serrano, Suzanne Bonamici, Donald Beyer, Pramila Jayapal and Adriano Espaillat called it a "nonexistent border crisis."

Former congressman and current California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said, "There is no border crisis."

All are in public office and all have a say in determining policy. In the media, NeverTrump Republicans, former Republicans and other commentators have joined in.

Former Rep. Joe Scarborough, now with MSNBC, called the situation "an imaginary border crisis."

Former Bush White House official Nicolle Wallace, also with MSNBC, said, "There's not a crisis."

Former Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol called the situation "a fake crisis."

GOP strategist Rick Wilson said, "There is no crisis on the border."

Former conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes said, "There is no crisis at the border."

The Washington Post's Max Boot called the situation a "faux crisis."

The Post's Jennifer Rubin said, "There is no crisis at the southern border."

The Post's editorial board called it a "make-believe crisis."

And finally, lest anyone ignore the late-night Resistance, comedian Jimmy Kimmel called the situation "a fake border crisis."

Are 26 examples enough? There are plenty more, for those who care to look. The situation at the border is so terrible in part because those in power, and those cheering them on in the media, have steadfastly resisted common-sense measures to reduce the flow of illegal migrants -- the large majority of whom do not have a valid claim of asylum -- across the border. The resulting paralysis in border policy encourages more migrants to come, making the situation worse by the day. Perhaps some of those quoted above only want to deny the president a victory, no matter how sensible. Perhaps others are simply looking for a partisan advantage. Perhaps some sincerely believe in open, or virtually open, borders. It does not matter what their motives are. The crisis -- yes, crisis -- at the border worsens every day they do not act.  Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

Identity Politics -- Downfall of Democrat Party

Identity Politics and the Downfall of the Modern Left

7/12/2019 - Paul Curry Townhall.com

As anyone paying attention to American politics for the past 50 years can attest, the left has abided by one basic principle from which they never waver. Such is, when you can’t make a rational argument for or against something, make a racist or sexist one. Identity politics and perceived victimhood are the preferred weapons of the modern Democrat party and they wield them in defense of their positions more viciously than a mama grizzly protecting her cubs. 

It’s hard to forget Joe Biden’s famous 2012 shot at the Republican Romney/Ryan ticket to a mostly black audience, “They're Going To Put Y'all Back In Chains!” Since the Obama ticket was in a virtual toss-up with Romney at the time, it was time for Biden invoke slavery rather than stand on his ticket’s economic policy. This past 4^th of July celebration, a celebration of our national unity, saw Colin Kaepernick, the one-time NFL quarterback continue his assault on all things American that cost him his once truly mediocre career. After the public reaction to his hatred of this country (along with his QB rating and overdeveloped sense of self-worth) cost him his ability to publicly kneel for the anthem, Kaepernick determined the planned Nike “Betsy Ross Flag” shoe was just too racist to stand, or kneel, for. Yes, Betsy Ross, abolitionist, Quaker, and alleged designer of the flag, apparently, was a racist. Kaepernick couldn’t persuade with his kneeling argument, so he launched a racist attack on sneaker.

The current debate over the constitutionally mandated decennial U.S. Census has led to Democrats in Congress charging that the simple inclusion of the question, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” is fundamentally and inherently racist. That question has been asked in one form or another since 1820 save for 2010 under President Obama. Further, the very same question is asked annually by the American Community Survey, under, yes, the Census Bureau. Even the United Nations, in their Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, encourages asking the question. The “citizenship question” is necessary for the allocation of resources, fair allotment of Congressional seats, and to understand our immigration situation. 

Yet, since Congressional Democrats can’t refute these fundamental truths, they are compelled by both necessity and tradition to denounce the very question as racist. Nancy Pelosi recently, and absent any support, declared the question was part of President Trump’s effort to “make America white again.” Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, never one to sit out a fake race war, chimed in with, “It's about reducing the number of people of color being counted in the census. That's exactly what it's about.” No substantive arguments, again. No rational argument, so just a racist one. 

Amusingly enough, prominent Democrats have now turned their racist firing squad into a circular one. An assault typically reserved for Republicans and independents who might dare to disagree, has now become the attack of choice in the ongoing Democrat civil war. Last month’s Democratic Debates saw California Senator and identity politics warrior Kamala Harris attack frontrunner Joe Biden for his past associations with segregationists. She also attacked him for, believe it or not, having remarkably similar positions to herself on school busing. Substantive arguments be damned, let the racist missiles fly.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s very public, and rather entertaining, feud with Nancy Pelosi has seen the same deranged disintegration into racist attacks. AOC’s Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarti, in a since deleted tweet, denounced blue-dog moderate Democrats as, basically, segregationists, saying, “They certainly seem hell-bent to do black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s”. The Speaker reportedly fired back behind closed doors. That, coupled with Pelosi’s public dismissals of the extreme left of her party such as “that’s like five people” and, “They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”, has really got AOC’s racial fire raging.

Responding to Pelosi, AOC quickly declared, “But the persistent singling out ... it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful ... the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color”. Wait, what did anything Pelosi said of any of her even more left flank have to do with race or gender? Nothing, but it was the very first instinctive response from someone raised on identity politics.

The Democrat establishment relies on identity politics attacks for three simple reasons. They are accustomed to it, they believe that it works, and they have very little else with which to advance their agenda. It will also ultimately prove to be their downfall for three simple reasons. The American people are tired of it, it doesn’t work, and it is now destroying the left from the inside. This is a train wreck that one cannot look away from.

Democrat Progressivism = National Suicide

Progressives Are Leading America To Her Demise

7/1/2019 - Paul Curry Townhall.com

Several disputed quotes have been attributed to Nikita Khrushchev, the former authoritarian leader of the U.S.S.R. Perhaps the most famous is, “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.” As with all historical quotes, the veracity of Khrushchev’s should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, the sentiment is undeniably accurate. And now it seems that the Left is determined to see it through to fruition.

Domestic terrorism, by definition, are acts, dangerous to human life, in violation of State or Federal law, intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government, by intimidation or coercion. And this occurs on a near daily basis in this country in the name of Democrat Progressivism.

On Saturday, the notoriously violent, extreme leftist, organization known as Antifa, viciously attacked journalist Andy Ngo, in broad daylight on the streets of Portland. This is but one of many in the long list of such attacks by the, supposed, anti-fascist group, all to further their left-wing political agenda.

This past Tuesday, Eric Trump, son of President Trump, was verbally harassed before being spit on by an unhinged Chicago waitress in the Windy City. In February, Zachary Greenberg, a left-wing militant was caught on video assaulting Hayden Williams, a conservative activist, for doing nothing more than handing out flyers on a college campus in Berkeley. In fact, ever since Donald Trump’s announced his run for president and his subsequent election, countless acts of violence and intimidation have been thrust upon Americans for daring to support their conservative political beliefs.

Trump supporters have been violently attacked, his rallies plagued with coordinated violent attacks by leftist thugs, and innocent Americans publicly assaulted for attending such events. College campuses, once supposed havens for the open exchange of ideas, have seen riot after riot nearly every single time a conservative, such as Ben Shapiro or Ann Coulter, is invited to speak. Rather than attempt to debate or persuade, the new Progressive Left has resorted to nothing short of Nazi Brown Shirt tactics to stifle any and all opinions they disagree with. At Middlebury College in Vermont, a liberal professor was viciously assaulted for merely escorting a conservative commentator on campus. 

These leftists cannot debate, so they attack to further their political agenda. There exists no room for debate. These are acts of domestic terrorism, by definition.

Unfortunately, these criminal acts are not shouted down by the leaders of the Left. They are rarely, if ever, even condemned. Rather, they are proudly and loudly encouraged. It’s hard to forget Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Water’s unhinged rant in support of these acts. She is one of the many Democratic members of Congress that openly blamed President Trump for the attack on Jussie Smollett, an attack that was clearly a hoax from its very announcement.

When Republican Trump won the election in 2016 there were nationwide riots carried out by leftists. Where were the conservative riots in 2012 and 2008 when Barack Obama won? When George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004 there were nationwide leftist riots. Where were the conservative riots in 1992 and 1996 when Democrat Bill Clinton won?

These are not acts of civil discourse. They are blatant attempts to destroy America from within. These are acts of domestic terrorism, by definition.

The recent round of Democratic debates showed candidates each vying to be the most antithetical to American idealism and freedoms. It was a parade of candidates denouncing our Second Amendment rights, decrying our national sovereignty through open borders, threatening our national security by longing for appeasement of terrorist nations, and most of all, advocating for taxation at a rate several thousand times greater than the English taxation that helped lead us to a war for our independence.

The past 50 years the Democrats-Progressive-Leftists, whatever they choose to be known as, had a rise in their hysteria and violence to the point of it being considered domestic terrorism. And such has placed us on a path of national instability. And it must stop.

The French historian and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” 

If the Left continues on its current trajectory of violent political domestic terrorism, we will lose the greatness de Tocqueville foresaw in us, and instead destroy ourselves from within, as Khrushchev allegedly predicted. 

Wisdom of Our Founders -- Unprecedented!

What Would Our Founding Fathers Think of America On Its 243rd Birthday?

7/4/2019 - Bill Wenger Townhall.com

On this our Constitutional Republic’s 243rd Birthday, let us consider what our Founding Fathers said about where the destructive and misguided progressives are leading us over the abyss of allowing our nation to fail.  

George Washington, the successful General-in-Chief who lead our Army to eventual but not pre-ordained victory over Britain, and our twice unanimously elected president said this about our freedom of speech that is being abused by the left:

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” 

If the progressives have their way, and they are gaining momentum on this issue, the Republic is doomed. Of our liberal infested universities, not only denying freedom of speech, but actively conspiring to limit the teaching of history and civics, the very basis of an informed voting electorate. I fought for four years in combat for our nation to facilitate and instill the rule of law in two nations, Iraq and Afghanistan. But back home, our “institutions of higher learning” actively work to create robots who support the destruction of our rule of law. Just look at what Hillary, the DNC, Obama and the cabal in Obama’s law enforcement and intelligence communities did in 2016.

This lawlessness is a crisis. Blue states ignore our immigration laws, with state governors, mayors and city councils actively violating federal law regarding criminal illegal aliens. Then they add salt to the wound by legislating millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to provide medical care for criminals while homeless veterans and law-abiding Americans do without care. Of this, the brilliant Thomas Paine wrote:

“But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain...let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Of our ever-growing reliance on ever-increasing and more costly federal and state governments, Paine wrote:

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote our Declaration of Independence, added this warning:

“An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced along general bodies of magistracy, as that on one could transcend their legal limits without being effectively checked and restrained by others.” – Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

The Founders strongly believed that American citizens’ right to keep and bear arms, “…shall not be infringed.” They would have been aghast at how the Second Amendment has been repeated and continuously violated. Look at where I live, California, where I must now get a background check to buy ammunition. Do criminals? Of course not. This undercuts our Founder’s vision of a free people:

“A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” – George Washington

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms…What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I ask, sir, what is the militia?  It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.” – George Mason, Virginia Convention to Ratify the U.S. Constitution, 1788

Benjamin Franklin, that sage so instrumental in our Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, and our Constitution, said it best:

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." –Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

The future of our Republic is in grave danger from the deranged ideas and initiatives, of the left. Too much of their insanity has found its way into our governance…just ask a New Yorker or Californian. On this great day, we should again consider the waring of Ben Franklin. As he left the final session of the Constitutional Convention in the fall of 1887, he was stopped and asked by a group of Philadelphia citizens:  “Dr. Franklin, what form of government have you given us?”   Franklin smiled and said:  “A Republic...if you can keep it!”  

Happy Fourth of July.