Loss of Common Sense = Loss of our Republic

The Death of American Citizenship

9/26/2019 - Victor Davis Hanson Townhall.com

The American founders institutionalized the best of a long Western tradition of representative government with the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. These contracts outlined the rare privileges and responsibilities of new American citizens.

Yet the concept of citizenship is being assaulted on the premodern side by the legal blending of mere residency with citizenship.

Estimates of the number of undocumented American residents range from 11 million to more than 20 million. The undocumented are becoming legally indistinguishable from citizens and enjoy exemption from federal immigration law in some 500 sanctuary jurisdictions. An illegal resident of California will pay substantially less tuition at a California public university than a U.S. citizen of another state.

Multiculturalism has reduced the idea of e pluribus unum to a regressive tribalism. Americans often seem to owe their first allegiance to those who look like they do. Citizens cannot even agree over once-hallowed and shared national holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.

It is eerie how such current American retribalization resembles the collapse of Rome, as Goths, Huns and Vandals all squabbled among one another for what was left of 1,200 years of Roman citizenship -- eager to destroy what they could neither create nor emulate.

Citizenship has always been protected by the middle classes -- on the idea that they are more independent and self-reliant than the poor, but can stand up to the influence and power of the elite.

Yet until recently, we had seen a decade of stagnant wages and entire regions ossified by outsourcing, offshoring and unfair global trade. Historically, with the demise of the middle class so follows the end of constitutional government.

But citizenship also faces a quite different and even greater postmodern threat.

Many of our coastal elites see nothing much exceptional in America, past and present. They prefer the culture and values of the European Union without worrying that the EU's progressive utopian promises have been wrecked by open borders, economically stultifying regulations, and unapologetic and anti-democratic efforts to curb free expression and local autonomy.

Often, such "citizen of the world" mentalities fuel shame over the origins and traditions of America. Transnational organizations and accords on climate, criminal justice and human rights are seen as superior to their American counterparts. A new progressive iconoclasm seeks to destroy statues, rename streets and buildings, and wipe away art that does not reflect more global values.

Does voting -- the bedrock right of the democratic citizen -- matter that much anymore? In California, tens of thousands of votes were "harvested" by paid campaign operatives. There was also abuse in state agencies in sending out voter registration forms to those who were not legally entitled to vote.

Lone activist federal judges frequently overturn legislation and referenda they find contrary to their own political take on legal theory -- without worry that the votes of millions are canceled in a nanosecond.

Meanwhile, the proverbial "swamp" of the bureaucratic, administrative and regulatory state is so vast and unaccountable that a few clerks can harass entrepreneurs, issue edicts with the force of legislation that ruins lives, or indict, regulate or audit a targeted individual into legal bankruptcy.

In recent years, we have seen a cake maker, a video maker, and a national security adviser so hounded by federal bureaucrats that they either were nearly bankrupted, ended up in jail or were reduced to penury through legal costs.

We still have a Bill of Rights, but many of our constitutional protections are being rendered impotent. If a rural family cannot find ammunition at the local Walmart or gun store due to organized boycotts and threats to such establishments, then the constitutional right to bear arms is not always exercisable in a practical sense.

Brett Kavanaugh was nominated, audited and confirmed by the Senate as a Supreme Court justice. But if The New York Times and cable news can relentlessly charge without proof that nearly 40 years ago he was a teenage sexual pervert, then a distinguished judge can be rendered impotent without legal impeachment.

If a student cannot safely express opposition to abortion on demand, question the global warming narrative, or object to safe spaces, trigger warnings and race-based theme houses on campuses, does it matter that there is in theory still a First Amendment?

We are unwinding at both ends. Tribalism, the erosion of the middle class and de facto open borders are turning Americans into mere residents of a particular North American region between Mexico and Canada.

Yet even more dangerously, thanks to the fiats of unelected bureaucrats and officials, along with the social media lynch mobs who boycott, harass and shame us, our constitutional rights are now increasingly optional. They mostly hinge on whether we are judged worthy by an unelected, politically correct and morally righteous elite.

In theory, American citizenship remains the same; in reality, it is disappearing fast.

Immigration & Debt = National Suicide

Two Ticking Time Bombs That Began Under Reagan And Are Only Getting Worse

9/23/2019 - Scott Morefield Townhall.com

I grew up during the Reagan years, and I remember them well. To me, the war and social upheavals of the 60s were history I’d never experienced and the country had thankfully moved past, and I was too young to remember the Carter malaise. So, the sense of national unity, patriotism, and optimism under the Gipper seemed like the norm, not an eight-year aberration, for a child of the 80s like myself. In hindsight, President Reagan was exactly what the country needed at the time. His inspiring speeches, calming demeanor, and even strident anti-communism were the perfect tonic for a previously fractured country. Obviously, he had his political enemies, but at least they were relatively congenial about it, and the partisan divisions didn’t seem quite as partisan, nor as personal, as they seem now.

Bush Senior’s 1988 victory was more than just a continuance of Reagan’s term, it was also a validation of his policies. The aristocratic, genteel Bush was no Ronald Reagan, but he was the next best thing. To someone who spent every year of grade school and high school with a Republican in office, it seemed like we would never lose. So, as you can imagine, Bill Clinton’s stunning 1992 victory over Bush not only denied him a second term, it absolutely broke the heart of a politically passionate college student who never really knew what it was like to lose to a Democrat, much less a socialist-loving, draft-dodging liberal. (In that sense, I do have a small slice of sympathy for how liberal millennials felt losing to Trump after eight years of Obama.)

Fast forward through eight years of Clinton, eight years of the younger Bush, and eight years of Obama, all the way to the election of 2016. Since 1992, no election result has rocked me to my core, in either direction, like 2016. As down as I was that year, the reverse and more defined my demeanor that November night 24 years later. If anyone could turn the map and win the Rust Belt, I knew Trump could. But whether ANYONE could was a question until that fateful night. When the talking heads first announced Wisconsin to Trump, I remember feeling like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. The die was cast and it was just a matter of time until either Pennsylvania or Michigan came along. When they did, our country had a fighting chance after all.

The past three years, of course, haven’t gone exactly as we conservatives would have liked, but all in all, it’s hard to dispute that Trump is governing as a conservative and is making decisions, especially in the realm of judicial nominations, that put us in a more solid place going forward than we otherwise would have been. The economy is booming. Unemployment is low, and opportunities abound for those willing to work hard.

Still, even with our victories, an unsettled feeling looms, a dark cloud hovering over what seems like should be a bright future. In truth, two ticking time bombs that could very well bring our country to ruin began in earnest under Ronald Reagan, continued under every previous president, and have only gotten worse under Trump, despite what I firmly believe are his best intentions. 

National Debt

When Reagan assumed office in 1981, the less than $1 trillion national debt was 32 percent of GDP. When he left, it had almost tripled and was approaching 50 percent of an ever-growing GDP. Critics who were concerned then couldn’t possibly have imagined the debt being $24 trillion and well over 100 percent of GDP, but that’s where we are, and it’s not sustainable. 

“Already interest on the federal debt – $324 billion – exceeds annual spending on transportation, international affairs, employment, training, and social services,” David Wessel of the Hutchins Center explains. “And since more than 40 percent of the federal debt is held by foreigners, particularly China and Japan, a lot of those interest payments go abroad. This, too, will erode the growth of U.S. living standards over time.”

“The longer we wait to put the federal budget on a sustainable course, the bigger and more abrupt the changes in government benefits and taxes will have to be,” he continued. “Changes are inevitable; the sooner we start, the more gradual and gentle they can be.”

Except politicians these days, including Trump, don’t have the political will or often even the desire to make any changes that would point this ship in the right direction deficit-wise, and they aren’t likely to ever have it unless they are absolutely forced to do so by a severe economic crash.

Immigration

Nobody imagined then that the amnesty deal under Reagan would result in tons of amnesty and virtually zero border control, but it’s only gotten worse since then. Like it or not, demography equals destiny. It … just … does. Fill the country with socialist-loving immigrants who think their countries of origin would be totally wonderful if only their former countries could afford to give them all the free stuff they’re about to score in the United States, and pretty soon they’re helping to ensure their new country is just as hellish as the old one. It happens inside the country too as. For example, Californians move to Texas to escape that state’s crappy policies and high standard of living only to vote to implement those things in places like Austin. 

Sadly, such immigration from both inside and outside the country is boosting Democrats’ hopes to win Texas in 2020 for the first time since Jimmy Carter pulled it off in 1976. The demographic changes are happening in other places as well, obviously, as Democrats continue their push for a “permanent Democratic majority” under the pretense of actually caring for the plight of immigrants. When Texas goes blue, the nation goes permanently blue as well, and when that happens it won’t be long before you can kiss your freedoms, and America, goodbye.

I believe Trump means well, and I think his reelection could put things off for several years if he’s able to somehow secure the border and curb spending to some degree. One thing is for certain: a Democrat in office would have absolutely sped this train to its ultimate derailing much faster. 

However, regardless of when it happens, a debt crisis will bring this country to its knees financially in ways none of us have ever experienced, only serving to exacerbate existing societal fractures the current rolling economy has managed to keep under wraps thus far. Immigration will eventually turn the country blue, ultimately meaning socialism, totalitarianism, freedom suppression, massive societal unrest and an unavoidable economic crash.

Either way or both, all of us should prepare for rocky times ahead.

Those That Propose Destabilization, Disruption & Destruction Are Enemies of Freedom & Liberty

Facebook Incites Violent War on ICE

9/18/2019 - Michelle Malkin Townhall.com

Abolish ICE thugs in Colorado want to see the homes and families of immigration enforcement officials set aflame.

Denver communists want alien detention facility employees dead, swinging from nooses with broken necks.

Both groups are brazenly using Facebook to spread their inflammatory and violent messages. So, where is Silicon Valley -- whose top companies partner with the Southern Poverty Law Center smear machine to de-platform conservatives, pro-lifers and Donald Trump supporters -- to stop the open borders left's escalating hate?

On Thursday, Sept. 19, Abolish ICE Denver and the Denver Communists are organizing a protest outside the house of Johnny Choate, the warden of the immigrant detention facility in Aurora, Colorado. Choate works for GEO Group, which operates the center. Instead of laying blame at the feet of global profiteers who induce illegal immigrants to risk their families' lives to trespass our borders, anti-ICE agitators are targeting homeland security employees and contractors who simply enforce federal immigration and detention laws passed by Congress.

The Denver Communists group shared a poster on Facebook with Choate's face superimposed over a generic neighborhood map with private residential homes. "CONFRONT LA MIGRA WHERE THEY LIVE," the radicals urged members. The graphic describes Choate as "warden of Aurora's notorious ICE concentration camp." That's the same inflammatory and defamatory language popularized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and used by antifa militant Willem Van Spronsen, who attempted to firebomb the Tacoma ICE facility, also run by GEO Group, in July.

The protest announcement also includes the phrase, "Chinga La Migra!" It's the slogan of Mijente, a Latino activist group leading the Abolish ICE movement. Translation: "F--- the Border Patrol."

A commenter edited a distorted image of Choate's face surrounded by flames, suggesting arson. His post was liked by three other fans/followers/members of the Denver Communists' Facebook Group.

Another commenter leveled his own explicit thread on the Facebook page targeting Choate and his family in his home:

"Reenact human rights abuses, get hanged by the neck until dead. Simple."

As I report in my book "Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction?" this virulent hatred for ICE and the Border Patrol traces its ideological lineage back to the cop-bashing domestic terrorism of the 1970s that festered in academia and resulted in bloodshed across the country at the hands of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground. Today's Abolish ICE extremists harbor the same seething "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" contempt for immigration enforcement as the "progressive" cop-haters of the 1970s and their George Soros-subsidized heirs in the Bush-era A.N.S.W.E.R. and amnesty coalitions, Code Pink, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movement.

The underlying mission back then was the same as now: Destabilization, disruption and destruction of civil order.

David Booth, who lives in Choate's neighborhood, refuses to sit by while these bullies invade his community.

"I was shocked and surprised when I found out there was going to be an 'ICE protest' in my neighborhood," he told me Tuesday. Booth discovered that Abolish ICE Denver used Facebook to spread information on how they will be "going door to door in the neighborhood to let people know that a 'monster' lives among us."

Booth condemned the witch hunt headed his community's way: "This policy of intimidation that we see the left continue to use is not OK. ... I would like to see the neighborhood rise up and support this man and his family."

I reached out to Facebook for a response to these public safety concerns, but received no answer by my deadline. For Coloradans, violent threats to law enforcement officials' neighborhoods are especially disturbing given the chilling 2013 assassination of the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections outside his home in Monument.

Booth will stand publicly in defense of his community Thursday and says he has his neighbors' support. "I think most of us, if not all, believe this protest is inappropriate regardless of where we stand on the issue of immigration," said Booth. "Our neighbor is just doing his job, and has done nothing wrong, or illegal, in carrying out his duties."

Following Stand With ICE rallies in Aurora, Colorado, and Montgomery County, Maryland, that have drawn nearly 1,000 citizens over the past two weeks, Booth decided he could not sit on the sidelines. He is not alone, and we have only just begun. I will join Coloradans again on Saturday, Sept. 21, when another Abolish ICE group marches to the Aurora ICE facility where the American flag was torn down in July.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

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

Texas is Crucial! GOP Get to Work!

The Altered State of Texas

 9/16/2019 - Sheriff David Clarke, Ret. Townhall.com

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. This is the Democratic strategy to flip Texas on the electoral map from red to blue. And truth be told, they are getting close—too close. How did this happen? What are the GOP and Republican National Committee doing about this? 

The Democrats have had Texas in their sights for awhile. You saw their push in the 2018 midterm elections against incumbent Senator Ted Cruz. They came close to defeating Cruz with Beto O’Rouke— an ultra lefty open borders empty suit. A lot of outside money flooded into O’Rourke’s effort, but that is irrelevant as far as I am concerned. Cruz was outspent 3-1. His margin of victory was razor-thin at 50.9 % to 48.3% in what was at one time a solid red state.

A shift is happening in Texas that will cost our country dearly if conservative political leaders ignore it. Look at the voting map results in 2018, and you will find most of it is colored red. However, Texas has a dynamic similar to New York, California, and Illinois, with their three most populist areas (New York City, Los Angeles-San Francisco and Chicago), respectively, are solid blue. In Texas, we see Dallas and Tarrant counties are solid blue while Harris County (Houston) is trending from purple to blue and on its way to stable blue if the trend continues. This could be enough to tip the scales. 

Senator Ted Cruz recently sounded the alarm, calling Texas, “hotly contested” for the upcoming 2020 elections.  Although this did not happen overnight, it is now urgent. Democrats are like carpenter ants. They have one job, and it is to build the nest continually. Carpenter ants are impossible to get rid of once they arrive. Even if you get rid of one infestation, they move to a new nearby location and start the process of building the nest all over again.  Democrats are focusing on the population centers—the large cities. They are Democratic strongholds.

The Democrats have gained ground in Texas from shifting demographics like transplants that flee California’s high taxes and urban pathologies like homelessness, discarded drug needles and the feces-laden streets of San Francisco. These transplants whose liberal voting behavior resulted in the blight plaguing California, bring their liberal-minded baggage with them. It makes no sense. It's like changing four quarters for a dollar to gain wealth.   

Republicans currently hold the Texas Governor’s office and both chambers of the state legislature although the margin of GOP-held seats slipped in 2018. Texas currently has no state income tax. As more Democrats take seats in the Texas state legislature, it won’t be long before a Democratic-controlled state legislature increases spending and implements an income tax to pay for it. It’s the Democratic way.

Why should I or anybody outside of Texas give a damn? Because the consequences at the national level are more existential. Texas has 36 electoral votes. If President Trump or any GOP presidential candidate in the future wants to have a chance at winning the electoral map, they have to win Texas. We cannot allow Texas to become a swing state or, worse yet, a blue state.

Knowing Texas is slipping away, I ask the GOP, what is your plan to save the Lone Star state? There has to be one. Please tell us. Also, where is the sense of urgency from the RNC? I have it. Do they? Do they really because I don’t feel it. Don’t tell us that you “hope” to win Texas in 2020 because hope is not a plan. Having run in numerous elections in a county of nearly one million people I know from experience that you must stay on offense in politics. Hanging on is not an effective strategy for winning. To not believe that the shift from red to purple in Texas is real, is to be suspended in denial.  Senator John Cornyn ought to be scared right now. His seat matters for the GOP to maintain control of the U.S. Senate. 

Arrogance and complacency are two enemies of success. The GOP was thoroughly thrashed in the 2018 midterms. GOP officials told us they saw it coming—that they saw it coming and had no plan to head it off is political malpractice.

It is never too early to get energized about the 2020 election. Tuesday, November 3, 2020, will be here before we know it. I don’t want to be presiding over any postmortem the day after talking about how we lost the presidency, the Senate or God forbid, both. There are no guarantees in electoral politics. Just ask Hillary.