Illegal Immigration is Lawlessness and Will Destroy Our Republic

It's an Invasion!...of Moronic Arguments

8/7/2019 - Ann Coulter Townhall.com

BREAKING NEWS: MASS SHOOTING IN DAYTON, OHIO, LAST SATURDAY NIGHT. (This may not be news to you, but I watch MSNBC, so I didn't find out about the Dayton massacre until yesterday.)

There were two horrifying mass shootings recently, but our media are fixated on only one -- the one in El Paso, Texas -- because the shooter, Patrick Crusius, issued a "manifesto" that contained some of the same arguments made by Trump about illegal immigration.

Crusius began: "This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion."

Wait a second! Didn't Trump use the word "invasion" to describe our wide-open border? Why, that makes him a co-conspirator in the white supremacist's slaughter!

Of course, if we believe the part of Crusius' manifesto that talks about an "invasion," I don't know why we're required to disbelieve the part where he says his ideas have nothing to do with Trump -- or the part where he denies being a "white supremacist."

But those are the rules. A white supremacist, who committed mass murder in El Paso, made arguments that "echoed" those made by President Trump -- and pay no attention to the avowed socialist and Elizabeth Warren-supporter who committed a mass shooting in Dayton later that day.

The hunt is on to find anyone who has ever used the I-word about illegal immigration.

(How about the "British Invasion"? Do we owe the Rolling Stones reparations now, too? Evidently a perfectly good word, appropriate in a million other contexts, suddenly becomes "racist" if applied to Hispanics.)

According to the Trump hysterics, if a terrorist cites X as the reason for his attack, then: 1) that constitutes definitive proof that X is false; and 2) anyone who agrees with X is providing "material support" to terrorists.

So, I guess I'd be in trouble if I were to say, "The El Paso shooting was an awakening, a moment of reckoning with politicians' broken immigration promises and the avenging hatreds it arouses."

That's a paraphrase of what Michael Ignatieff wrote in 2003 in The New York Times magazine about the American Empire provoking the 9/11 terrorists.

Or how about this:

"It is not only Patrick Crusius who feels this anger and resentment. Throughout the country there is widespread bitterness against our politicians, even among the pragmatic and well-educated, who may sincerely deplore the recent atrocity ... but who still resent the way the government has refused to secure our border."

That's a paraphrase of what author Karen Armstrong wrote in 2001 in The Guardian about the 9/11 terrorists' resentment of American power.

They weren't making unreasonable points, but clearly no one held back for fear of "echoing" the beliefs of terrorists who had just murdered 3,000 Americans.

To the contrary, in the words of leftist professor Todd Gitlin in 2002, his fellow liberals felt the 9/11 attack was a "damnable yet understandable payback ... rooted in America's own crimes of commission and omission ... reaping what empire had sown. After all, was not America essentially the oil-greedy, Islam-disrespecting oppressor of Iraq, Sudan, Palestine? Were not the ghosts of the Shah's Iran, of Vietnam, and of the Cold War Afghan jihad rattling their bones?"

Liberals did not feel it incumbent on them to hate America any less just because the 9/11 terrorists hated it, too. Why should immigration patriots reconsider their views one iota because Crusius agreed with them? So do a lot of voters -- not too many, just enough to put Trump in the White House.

In November 2009, Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood military base while shouting "Allah Akbar!" killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. He did so primarily because he was angry about America's war in Iraq.

Had Obama created a "toxic" environment with his campaign pledge to pull all our troops out of Iraq? Was that policy proved wrong because Hasan agreed with it? I don't recall anyone saying, Well, now we've got to stay in Iraq FOREVER because a terrorist didn't want us to!

(And, by the way, contrary to the nonsense repeated every six minutes on TV about white killers being called "mentally ill" while poor, put-upon Muslim killers get called "terrorists," for months and months, The New York Times and President Obama assured us that Hasan was mentally ill, not a terrorist.)

Just two years ago, a gung-ho Bernie Sanders supporter, James Hodgkinson, drove to the nation's capital and gunned down Republicans on a Virginia baseball field, leaving House Majority Whip Stephen Scalise in critical condition, requiring multiple surgeries. Several others were also injured in the hellfire of bullets.

Hodgkinson was inspired to commit attempted mass murder by his passionate desire for universal health care and his hatred of Republicans (especially Trump). These toxic beliefs were regularly reinforced by his favorite TV programs, "The Rachel Maddow Show," "Real Time With Bill Maher" and "Democracy Now!"

You want "material support"? All those shows are still on the air! And the hosts still hate Trump! Indeed, every single Democratic presidential candidate is promoting an agenda that could have been lifted directly from Hodgkinson's Facebook page, from government-run health care to hiking taxes on "the rich."

Does this mean universal health care is, ipso facto, a hateful, terroristic idea because of Hodgkinson's support of it?

A few months before shooting up a GOP baseball game, Hodgkinson wrote on his Facebook page: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co."

Based on the new El Paso standard for branding beliefs "hateful," "toxic" and "material support" for terrorism, every Democratic presidential candidate should be on a terrorist watch list right now.

Government Spending - Another National Tragedy

U.S. Government Facing Insolvency if Nothing Changes

8/31/2019 - Beau Rothschild Townhall.com

Our government is facing some serious problems with spending with no solution in sight.

If nothing is done to change our nation’s spending trajectory, we may be facing a serious financial crisis the likes of which our generation has never experienced.  When I worked in the House of Representatives, the Republicans pushed hard to cut discretionary spending and reform entitlement programs, yet now we hear little to no talk about real cuts to spending programs.

Republicans have gone silent on the issue of debt.  Both parties recently held hands to get rid of automatic cuts to spending that impacted domestic and defense spending programs. While the left pushes for trillions in a so-called “New Green Deal,” Republicans are pushing for programs like the trillion-dollar F-35 fighter jet that end up costing the taxpayer more than they are worth.  Both parties have a spending problem and no solution is even being discussed.

The numbers are scary. 

A May of 2019 report by The Heritage Foundation made it clear that spending, not a lack of tax revenues, is the big problem. “The national debt increased by nearly $9 trillion during the eight years that President Barack Obama was in office. Through the first two years of the Trump Administration, the debt increased by $2 trillion, a comparable rate.  The long-run debt problem is not driven by a lack of revenue. CBO data indicate that over the next 10 years, revenues will be above the 50-year average.”  Our national debt is at approximately $22.5 trillion and we are staring down $1 trillion in annual deficits for as long as he eye can see.

With $23.5 trillion on the books and more to come, there needs to be a plan to reform all federal spending programs.  Heritage cited the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that found “by fiscal year (FY) 2029, nominal federal spending will rise by almost $3 trillion compared to 2018, outpacing above-average revenues by 4.4 percent of GDP. That gap is projected to widen to 9.5 percent of GDP within 30 years.”  These numbers can’t be sustained.  Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute wrote in National Review on July 22, 2019, that the most recent budget deal will lead to even more spending and he concluded: “The budget deal would essentially repeal the final two years of the 2011 Budget Control Act and raise the baseline for future discretionary spending by nearly $2 trillion over the decade.”  Entitlements and discretionary spending are too high, yet there is no plan to slow the growth of any government program.

On the mandatory side, there needs to be ideas that get away from Medicare-for-All ideas that will add tens of trillions in new debt and toward reforms that will slow the growth of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Former Speaker of the House and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budgets pushed hard on the theme of reform.  Chris Edwards of the CATO Institute wrote back in 2012 that the elements of reform included “repeal the 2010 health care law and reform Medicare by transitioning to a consumer-choice model” that would result in annual savings “in 2022 by $258 billion.” Ryan’s plan for “the block-granting of Medicaid and other entitlement programs such as food stamps” would have resulted in savings of “$313 billion annually by 2022.” All these reforms would have put the U.S. on a pathway to balance, yet the Republican Party has completely abandoned any willingness to make any cuts.

The most recent budget deal allowed for hikes in domestic spending by $320 billion over the next two years. Congress has shown a propensity to waste money on “Green Energy” programs like during the first few months of the Obama Administration’s when they funded 5 companies that went belly up, according to CNN, and the companies were A123, Beacon Power, Ener1, Fisker Automotive, and Solyndra. For Republicans, it is the F-35 fighter jet that has proven to be a money pit for the taxpayer. According to Reuters on April 10, 2019, in a story titled “The F-35 - stealthy, numerous and expensive,” the program has been “plagued by a lengthy development and a lifetime cost of more than $1 trillion, it has only recently begun flying operationally.” Despite the problems, Congress is asking for more F-35s than the Trump Administration even requested in the National Defense Authorization Act, about 12 more fighter jets than the Pentagon requested. It is tough to restrain spending when Congress pushes so hard to boost favored discretionary spending programs.

Maybe politicians are incapable of reform and need to be subject to a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. Sadly, it might take insolvency for any reforms to be put in place. Restraint is needed and if things don’t change, our nation is staring at insolvency and our next generations of Americans will have a future with a lower standard of living that we enjoy today.

Despotic Progressivism - Conditioning Populace - Global Governance

The Deep State Is Real, And Much Bigger Than You Know

5/20/2018 - Derek Hunter 

I used to be a doubter who would cringe, just a little, at any mention of “the deep state.” I admit it, it all seemed a little far-fetched to me that there was this cabal of careerists conspiring from within the government to harm President Donald Trump when I first heard it. I never doubted there were individuals doing it, but a wide net of conspirators seemed like something out of a bad movie more than anything that could actually happen in the United States. I was wrong, very wrong, the deep state is real. But there is much more than just this small group of powerful people working toward a common goal, there is an entire infrastructure created by the left not only to destroy Trump, but to indoctrinate unsuspecting Americans into their agenda.

As the curtain is pulled back on the Obama administration’s unprecedented efforts to spy on the Trump campaign, there is a good possibility many of the perpetrators could face criminal charges, or at least should. But it’s important to understand that liberals didn’t just create this out of the blue in 2016, it’s the culmination of everything they’ve worked toward for decades. 

The infrastructure they used to spy on the Trump campaign was something inherently governmental, simply planting a mole in the campaign couldn’t tap phones or access emails. But the ability to cover up that fact requires a level of media complicity that takes time to create. 

Getting the desired message out is only part of the battle, it has to be believed by a significant percentage of the public for it to really matter. Conditioning the public to be receptive to that message, without questioning how it came about or why they should care required subtle indoctrination over a lifetime. 

As it stands, liberals have that infrastructure in place, they had that support system ready to go. And, not to get all Scooby-Doo on you, they would’ve gotten away with it were it not for the existence of conservative media. 

The Rush Limbaughs, Matt Drudges, Sean Hannitys and Tucker Carlsons, Townhalls, Daily Callers, Free Beacons, and Washington Examiners of the world questioning the official story, even when it seemed crazy to do so, is helping to expose what was done in the case of the Trump campaign. But there’s so much more that needs to be exposed, like how this could happen and why so many people were eager to believe it in the first place.

That the media is in the tank for liberals is as shocking as the sun rising in the east, how they find a receptive audience is the real problem. An educated and skeptical public wouldn’t have so many people who so easily swallow the liberal’s hook, let alone the line and sinker. 

But liberals have conditioned people to accept what they’re told through a corrupt public education system that offers political spin as fact and focus the idea liberal thought as “tolerant.” 

Through so-called experts, elevated by simply putting them on TV and giving them impressive sounding titles like “analyst” or “strategist,” the public can be led to believe just about anything. After all, to be an “expert” on TV means you have expertise, right? Not even close.

And lurking, always there, is Hollywood, churning out “message movies” and “documentaries” that would make Leni Riefenstahl blush over their blatant propaganda value. Take a look at the documentary offerings on Netflix and you’ll see stories about how climate change is going to kill us all, our food is poisoned, businesses and private property are evil, only surpassed by Republicans corruption and the granddaddy of them all – how Donald Trump is history’s greatest monster. 

It reminds me of the old saying, “You can’t buy that kind of publicity.” But you can, or at least you can manufacture it.

The deep state is real, but it does not exist in a vacuum. In my new book, “Outrage, INC: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood,” I explain how not just government, but nearly every aspect of public life has been corrupted, in ways both obvious and subtle, to serve the liberal agenda. 

None of this is by accident, and it didn’t start on November 8, 2016, it just sprang into action. Nearly every aspect of life, to one degree or another, has been or is ready to be weaponized against anyone who dares to stand up to the liberal agenda. And none have stood up to it in a more threatening way than Donald Trump.

But the clock is ticking, the fuse is burning down low. As this aspect of the deep state starts to crumble, it’s important to remember it’s just one small piece of a much larger puzzle. There are other, bigger and equally dangerous parts in need of exposure and destruction. Learn about them all before it’s too late so we can destroy the whole deep state and the machine that feeds it, once and for all.

Worldwide Clashes, Confrontations & Quarrels - Time For a History Review

When, If Ever, Can We Lay This Burden Down?

8/20/2019 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

Friday, President Donald Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S. withdrawal from America's longest war.

U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has cost 2,400 American lives.

Following the meeting, Trump tweeted, "Many on the opposite sides of this 19 year war, and us, are looking to make a deal -- if possible!"

Some, however, want no deal; they are fighting for absolute power.

Saturday, a wedding in Kabul with a thousand guests was hit by a suicide bomber who, igniting his vest, massacred 63 people and wounded 200 in one of the greatest atrocities of the war. ISIS claimed responsibility.

Monday, 10 bombs exploded in restaurants and public squares in the eastern city of Jalalabad, wounding 66.

Trump is pressing Khalilzad to negotiate drawdowns of U.S. troop levels from the present 14,000, and to bring about a near-term end to U.S. involvement in a war that began after we overthrew the old Taliban regime for giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.

Is it too soon to ask: What have we gained from our longest war? Was all the blood and treasure invested worth it? And what does the future hold?

If the Taliban could not be defeated by an Afghan army, built up by the U.S. for a decade and backed by 100,000 U.S. troops in 2010-2011, then are the Taliban likely to give up the struggle when the U.S. is drawing down the last 14,000 troops and heading home?

The Taliban control more of the country than they have at any time since being overthrown in 2001. And time now seems to be on their side.

Why have they persevered, and prevailed in parts of the country?

Motivated by a fanatic faith, tribalism and nationalism, they have shown a willingness to die for a cause that seems more compelling to them than what the U.S.-backed Afghan government has on offer.

They also have the guerrillas' advantage of being able to attack at times and places of their own choosing, without the government's burden of having to defend towns and cities.

Will these Taliban, who have lost many battles but not the war, retire from the field and abide by democratic elections once the Americans go home? Why should they?

The probability: When the Americans depart, the war breaks out anew, and the Taliban ultimately prevail.

And Afghanistan is but one of the clashes and conflicts in which America is engaged.

Severe U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have failed to bring down the Nicholas Maduro regime in Caracas but have contributed to the immiseration of that people, 10% of whom have left the country. Trump now says he is considering a quarantine or blockade to force Maduro out.

Eight years after we helped to overthrow Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya is still mired in civil war, with its capital, Tripoli, under siege.

Yemen, among the world's humanitarian disasters, has seen the UAE break with its Saudi interventionist allies, and secessionists split off southern Yemen from the Houthi-dominated north. Yet, still, Congress has been unable to force the Trump administration to end all support of the Saudi war.

Two thousand U.S. troops remain in Syria. The northern unit is deployed between our Syrian Kurd allies and the Turkish army. In the south, they are positioned to prevent Iran and Iranian-backed militias from creating a secure land bridge from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut.

In our confrontation with Iran, we have few allies.

The Brits released the Iranian tanker they seized at Gibraltar, which had been carrying oil to Syria. But when the Americans sought to prevent its departure, a Gibraltar court ruled against the United States.

Iran presents no clear or present danger to U.S. vital interests, but the Saudis and Israelis see Iran as a mortal enemy, and want the U.S. military rid them of the menace.

Hong Kong protesters wave American flags and seek U.S. support of their demands for greater autonomy and freedom in their clash with their Beijing-backed authorities. The Taiwanese want us to support them and sell them the weapons to maintain their independence. The Philippines wants us to take their side in the dispute with China over tiny islets in the South China Sea.

We are still committed to go to war to defend South Korea. And the North has lately test-fired a series of ballistic missiles, none of which could hit the USA, but all of which could hit South Korea.

Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes and confrontations with almost too many nations to count.

In how many of these are U.S. vital interests imperiled? And in how many are we facing potential wars on behalf of other nations, while they hold our coat and egg us on?

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

Illegal Immigration -- America's Frankenstein

Illegal Immigration: A Lawless Frankenstein in the ‘Land of Is’

7/5/2018 - Will Alexander

When the first bud sprouted that made light of illegal immigration a few decades ago, it was hard to be alarmed because such sentiments strayed so far from basic common sense.  “The law is the law,” we thought.  Simple. 

Democrats thought so, too:

Chuck Schumer: “Illegal immigration is wrong; plain and simple.” (2009)

Hillary Clinton: “… I am adamantly against illegal immigration.” (2003)

Harry Reid: “If making it easy to be an illegal alien is not enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship …” (1993)

Dianne Feinstein:  “Mexico must do its share because the day when America could be the welfare system for Mexico is gone.  We simply can’t afford it.” (1993)

Bill Clinton: “… we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace... We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws.” (1995)

Back then, illegal meant illegal.

Today, the little bud has grown legs, and it walks around the country like a stitched-up Frankenstein knocking over centuries-old legal structures.  

It has a foul mouth, too:  “Abolish ICE!! Keep @#*& families together! Impeach @#*& Trump!”  

And why do we tolerate this stiff-legged patchwork of organized lawlessness?  Three reasons: Some are afraid of it because it’s grown so large, and it’s not going away without a fight.  Others find it useful for their own agendas. And many believe that the easiest way out is to tame it into something respectable.   

America’s Frankenstein is not a person, but a dangerously misguided idea: That we can openly defy explicit federal law for decades without letting loose a world of other institutional monsters. We’ve seen much of the mayhem being played out on TV already, all of it in support of openly defying explicit federal law.   

But ladies and gentlemen, pay no attention to the scary faces on the big screen that tell you that illegal is other than what it really is.  Today’s media operates in a “Land of Is” where those who hide behind the curtains of ulterior motives pull at the levers of twisted language to confuse Americans on what the real meaning of is, is. 

In the Land of Is, tough border enforcement is “terrorism”; a young criminal is a “justice-involved youth”; terrorism is a “man-caused disaster”; a tax cut is a “giveaway to the rich”; big government spending is an “investment”; a tax penalty is a “shared responsibility payment”; a conservative is “far right”; gradual socialism is “progress”; and an illegal alien is an “undocumented immigrant.”

But in real life, illegal is still illegal.  

No matter how compassionate you may be about your sick grandmother, you will go to jail if you rob a bank to get money for medical care.  If she’s an accomplice, she’ll go to jail, too.  

No matter how loudly your starving children cry for food and shelter, if you break into someone’s home to steal food and take over the house, you’ll go to jail – without your children.  

This is how we deal with “good” lawbreakers in desperate situations in real life. And it’s the only way we’ll solve this stubborn Frankenstein problem for good.  The problem will never be solved by renaming it Frankie, clothing it in patriotism, and splattering its face with cheap rhetorical cologne.

Today, we’re sitting on an institutional powder keg when organized mobs, illegals, lawmakers, activist journalists, and a hodgepodge of Trump-haters openly, loudly and consistently defy explicit federal law with no fear of repercussions.  

The untold billions we’ve spent over the years has amounted to putting lipstick on a pig.   We’ve drenched the airwaves with decades of media coverage.  Elected leaders, who swore to uphold the law, have broken countless promises to citizens who break their backs to pay their taxes, only to have them lavished on the unnecessary burdens of illegal immigration.  And we’ve had to listen to billions of empty words with the most soaring patriotic rhetoric about the virtues of immigration, which have absolutely nothing to do with illegal immigration.  After all of this, the pig is still a pig, and it stinks to high heaven.

Abraham Lincoln, in 1837, gave a speech in Illinois after he was struck with horror over the widespread lawlessness infecting the country at the time.  He called it mob law, or mobocracy.  In that speech, he had a warning and a remedy.  

The warning: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?  I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; … If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. … I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country, … (where) the lawless in spirit is encouraged to become lawless in practice … Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores … depend on it, this government cannot last.”

The remedy: “How shall we fortify against it? The answer is simple.  Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. … bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force …  they should be religiously observed.” 

Lincoln had another warning in that speech. “Good men” – those who work hard, love tranquility, are quick to obey the laws, and would die to defend their country – would not remain silent under the burdens of lawlessness forever. 

“…seeing their property destroyed, their families insulted, and their lives endangered … and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better, (they) become tired of and disgusted with a government that offers them no protection, and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose.”

Today, all that good men and women are asking the people they elected to do, when it comes to illegal immigration, is to honor their oath:  Make good laws and enforce them.  Forget the politics, and let the critics fuss over the optics. 

Ben Has It Right! And It's Getting Worse Daily!

Why Can't We Unify in the Face of Evil?

8/7/2019- Ben Shapiro Townhall.com

This should be easy.

We're all on the same side. When a white supremacist terrorist shoots up a Walmart filled with innocents in El Paso, we should all be on the same side. We should be mourning together; we should be fighting together.

Instead, we're fighting one another.

We're fighting one another for one simple reason: Too many on the political left have become accustomed to castigating the character of those who disagree with the left on policy. Favor tougher border controls? This puts you on the side of the white supremacist terrorist. Believe in Second Amendment rights? You're a vicious, violent cretin covering for those who commit acts of evil. Cite Western civilization as a source of our common values, believe that police forces across the United States are not systemically racist, favor smaller government intervention in the social sphere -- in short, disagree with the program of the American left? Most of all, consider voting for Trump? You're an accessory to murder.

Now, there are many on the political left who are too smart for this sort of specious reasoning and character assassination. But not everyone. Charles Blow of The New York Times, for example, writes in a column this week that "terrorists" and "policymakers" are the two "sides of white nationalism." Blow clarifies: "White nationalist terrorists -- young and rash -- and white nationalist policymakers -- older and more methodical -- live on parallel planes, both aiming in the same direction, both with the same goal: To maintain and ensure white dominance and white supremacy." Who, pray tell, are these evil white nationalist policymakers? Those who favor "border walls, anti-immigrant laws, voter suppression and packing the courts." Never mind that many advocates of border security also advocate for broader legal immigration. Never mind that nobody actually favors voter suppression. To Blow, an R next to your name signifies merely a less militant Nazism than your neighborhood Hitler Youth.

David Leonhardt of The New York Times similarly argued this week that "American conservatism has a violence problem." While admitting that conservative America "is mostly filled with honorable people who deplore violence and bear no responsibility for right-wing hate killings" and that "liberal America also has violent and deranged people," Leonhardt lays the blame for an increase in political violence at the feet of "mainstream conservative politicians," who are somehow connected to "right-wing extremists."

There's something in the water at The New York Times, obviously. Jamelle Bouie, another voice on The Times opinion page, suggested a "connection between white nationalism" and my personal "ideological project." Never mind that I've been perhaps the loudest voice on the right decrying white nationalism for years; that I firmly fight for particular Western civilized values and small-government conservatism that foreclose and despise racism; that I've incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in security costs for my trouble; that I require 24/7 security to protect me from white nationalist blowback; and that just weeks ago, the FBI arrested a white nationalist threatening to murder me. Obviously, all conservatives are the same -- and all are complicit in the mission of white supremacy.

There can be no unity when one side of the political aisle firmly believes that the other side is motivated by unmitigated evil. No decent conversation about fixes can be had when you assume the person sitting across from you sympathizes with monsters who go to shoot up Hispanic Americans at a Walmart. If we can't at least assume that we're all on the same page in condemning white supremacist terror attacks and white supremacist ideology, we may as well pack this republic in. We're done.

Ben Shapiro, 35, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of "The Ben Shapiro Show" and editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com. He is the author of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller "The Right Side Of History." He lives with his wife and two children in Los Angeles. To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Politics - A War of Words - A Dirty Game

A War Of Words

8/8/2019 - Derek Hunter Townhall.com

People on the right and the left have been warning of a “new Civil War” for some time now. There may or may not be something brewing in the future, where liberals and conservatives simply cannot live together, but we aren’t there yet. There is, however, a war raging right now, and it threatens our ability not only to avoid something horrible, but communicate at all.

Progressives are actively working to control what people say by controlling what words are acceptable to use. If you can control the language, you can control the people. And controlling people is the ultimate goal of the left.

Select words, particularly if they’ve been used by President Trump, are deemed to be “unacceptable” or see their meaning perverted, redefined by the left to mean something nefarious to put them out of public use, no matter how accurate they are.

“Infested” and “invasion” are the latest two.

As someone who lived in the city of Baltimore for 13 years (most people you see on TV attacking the president live in Baltimore County, which is very different), when the president tweeted about how the district represented by Congressman Elijah Cummings was “rat and rodent infested,” I knew firsthand he was right. I’ve seen it, I lived it. Walking home at night, it was common to see giant rats galloping across the street.

But the truth has very little place in modern political discourse, especially in election season.

Most commentators ignored the “rat and rodent” part of the quote, focusing exclusively on “infested.” Why? Because these talking heads want to paint the president as a racist.

By taking the word by itself, the people who decry Project Veritas as “heavily editing” their videos (which every news organization does) and taking things out of context, took the word out of context to imply Trump was talking about poor black people. This shifted the conversation from the very real plight of poor black people to race. Democrats want the focus on the latter, it allows them to emotionally manipulate people, the former only highlights the failings of generational Democratic Party loyalty and control.

So the word “infested,” which is the perfect and accurate word to describe the situation with rodents in Baltimore, is now portrayed as a “dog whistle” to racists, some sort of secret code.

Now it’s “invasion.” The president called more than 100,000 illegal aliens marching across the southern border an “invasion” because, well, is there a better word? With more than 1.3 million illegal aliens expected to enter the country this year, almost 10 times more than the number of soldiers who stormed the beaches at Normandy in 1944, what word or phrase would accurately capture that other than invasion?

But Trump having said it months ago is now being used by dishonest progressive cable news bile-spewers as the inspiration for the terror attack in El Paso. Conveniently, these arbiters of truth ignore the part of the monster’s manifesto that sounds like a direct rip-off of their “green new deal” talking points because “journalism,” or something.

They’ve also moved away from caring about the Dayton shooting because the killer there was one of their own. I know it’s fashionable for conservatives to point out that “we don’t blame them for the actions of someone who shares their politics,” like that will somehow cause leftists to act like decent human beings. To hell with that. These are their rules, we damn sure need to make them live by them.

Morning Joe and CNN’s prime time lineup share the politics of the guy who murdered 9 and injured dozens more in Dayton last Saturday. By their own rules, they not only have blood on their hands, their whole sets are covered in it. Why not? There’s as much evidence of that as there is for Trump’s complicity in El Paso.

We can’t keep playing by their rules while not holding them to the same. Taking the high road just gives you a nice view as you lose. Ceding the language and the use of words to these people is doing just that. No thanks. Unless and until leftists act in good faith, which is something they haven’t done in so long they’ll have to relearn it, we should hold their feet to the flames too. It’ll likely burn everyone, but it’s probably the only way to put out the fire.

Derek is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses.