But it’s difficult to label a man as evil if nothing in his history supports such a conclusion, so dummycrats-Democrats and their Leftmedia cohorts must manufacture a smear with the hope that it will taint a good man’s reputation enough to promote their own agenda.
               A classic example of this smear campaign was demonstrated at Kavanaugh’s first day of hearings on Tuesday. After being delayed by several leftist protesters, the hearing was interrupted numerous times by protesters randomly shouting statements against Kavanaugh and Trump. As we previously noted, it was a circus. So, within this obviously hostile environment, a designed moment was staged to rattle Kavanaugh. As the hearing broke for lunch, a man suddenly jumped up to shake Kavanaugh’s hand, but Kavanaugh, clearly unfamiliar with who the individual was, did not return the shake in part because he was turned around by security and escorted out.
               The scene was captured by a press photographer (just as intended), and it went viral on social media. The stunt man wrote, “Just walked up to Judge Kavanaugh as morning session ended. Put my hand to introduce myself as [Parkland victim] Jaime Guttenberg’s dad. He pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away. I guess he did not want to deal with the reality of gun violence.” So Kavanaugh is really not a nice guy, you see, and he doesn’t care about “gun violence.”
               Once again there is much more to the story that reveals both motive and who was behind this whole smear. Fred Guttenberg, the father of a victim of the Parkland attack, was invited to the hearing by none other than Demo gun-grabber extraordinaire Dianne Fein-stein. After the hearing, she bragged, “I invited Fred Guttenberg to sit in the audience at today’s hearing because the Supreme Court affects the lives of real people. He knows firsthand how Brett Kavanaugh’s extreme views on guns could lead to more massacres. Thank you Fred, for honoring your daughter.”
               And Guttenberg himself was no mere gullible pawn of the dummycrats-Democrats. On Monday, Guttenberg wrote, “I will be at Kavanaugh hearings and I hope to play a role in ensuring that this man does not become the next Supreme Court Justice.” Play a role, indeed. This whole event was a classic dummycrats-Democrat setup, orchestrated to smear Kavanaugh.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/58091?mailing_id=3721&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3721&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             On the trade front, President Trump has been busy indeed. Through a variety of negotiating tactics, including threats of retaliatory tariffs, Trump has brought America’s global trading partners back to the table and forced many to submit to fairer trade deals.
               In June 2016, Barack scumbag/liar-nObama mocked Trump at a town hall forum for claiming he would create millions of jobs and bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. scumbag/liar-nObama smugly declared, “Some of those jobs of the past are just not gonna come back! When somebody says … that he’s going to bring all these jobs back, well, how exactly are you going to do that? What are you going to do? There’s no answer to it. … He just says, ‘I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, how? How exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer.”
               As it turns out, slashing taxes, eliminating regulations, and demanding fair trade results not only in millions of new jobs, but  the most manufacturing jobs created in a quarter century. Additionally, Trump has renegotiated NAFTA with Mexico in order to help American companies compete on equal footing. Canada, Germany, and other nations are next on the list.
               However, one area that has flown under the radar but should be acted on immediately is the abuse of a little-known United Nations agreement called the Universal Postal Union (UPU), which regulates how much countries can charge consumers for delivery mail originating in foreign countries. In essence, this agreement forces developed countries to subsidize the shipping costs of companies in developing nations.
               The problem is that China, with the world’s second-largest economy, is included in that list of “transition” nations, and therefore the American taxpayer is subsidizing shipping costs for Chinese companies that are competing directly with American companies, including Chinese companies making counterfeit versions of American goods.
               Of course, if the American consumer gets a defective  Chinese product and wants to return, the consumer must pay the full cost of shipping the product back. With the return shipping cost often more than the costs of the actual goods, in practice,  Chinese companies get away with selling defective products. The counterfeit-goods trade is a staggering $1.7 trillion dollars annually, larger than the illegal drug trade, so this is a huge and growing problem.
               To put this in perspective, under the UPU, in many cases it costs American companies more to ship domestically than it costs  Chinese companies like e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, which sells three times more than Amazon, to ship to the U.S. And since the U.S. Postal Service must ship Chinese goods at below cost, American taxpayers and consumers end up covering the losses.
               As American small businessman Jayme Smaldone, owner of Mighty Mugs, explains, American consumers are increasingly expecting free shipping for online purchases. That forces his business to either absorb the cost of shipping or lose sales to Chinesecompanies that get free or deeply subsidized shipping costs due to the UPU. If he absorbs the shipping costs, then that means lower profits, which means layoffs of his employees, fewer jobs for truckers who transport his goods, an inability to invest in R&D or expanding manufacturing, etc.
               China has an enormous economic advantage as it is, paying workers a fraction of the wages that American companies pay their workers, leading to significantly lower labor costs for Chinese companies. Additionally, China has virtually no regulations on its manufacturers, while American manufacturers must bear the costs associated with tens of thousands of pages of federal regulations, at a cost of roughly $2 trillion a year. Advantage: China.
               President Trump has been working tirelessly to force an  end to unfair and inequitable trade practices with America’s trading partners, including efforts to reduce or eliminate tariffs. Regarding the UPU, he has issued a memorandum to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and the DHS Secretary, Postmaster General, and Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, calling on them to press for “a system of fair and nondiscriminatory rates for goods that promotes unrestricted and undistorted competition.” Unfair and discriminatory is an understatement for a policy that costs American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
               President Trump is right to seek an end to this egregiously unfair trade practice that costs American consumers money and American workers their jobs. If necessary, he should withdraw from the agreement and have the USPS negotiate bilateral deals with the postal services of our trade partners.

Americans deserve better.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/58062?mailing_id=3718&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3718&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Two things stand out to us. The first is the more obvious: Pressley didn’t just duplicate the commie-Ocascio-Cortez upset by the numbers; she’s a socialist in the mold of commie-Bernie Sanders. Indeed, commie-Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Pressley and congratulated her “sister in service” for the win. The party as a whole is shifting significantly left.
               Second, this is about dummycrats-Democrat race-baiting. For years now, the party has promoted identity politics tied to the color of skin. Pressley, a 44-year-old black woman, was too attractive to a minority-majority district for a 66-year-old white guy to hang on. Todummycrats-Democrats, straight white guys are just the worst, and the only thing Capuano had going for him is that he isn’t a Southerner.
               “It’s not just good enough to see the dummycrats-  Democrats back in power. It matters who thosedummycrats- Democrats are,” Pressley told her own supporters. “While our president is a racist, misogynistic, truly empathy-bankrupt man, the conditions which have made [this district] one of the most unequal in America were cemented through policies long before he ever descended the escalator at Trump Tower.” The rest of the old white guys leading the dummycrats-Democrat Party best look over their shoulders.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/58063?mailing_id=3718&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3718&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Naturally, The Washington Post, where Woodward still serves as an associate editor, “obtained” an advance copy of the book. And even with the Senate hearings for Brett Kavanaugh yesterday, Woodward’s book occupied four of the top five slots in the Post’s “Politics” email this morning. Clearly, Jeff Bezos’s tabloid is heavily invested in taking down Trump — or at least exploiting the golden goose for ad revenue.
               Like Hollywood movie trailers, part of the book’s advance marketing is releasing salacious tidbits. From the Post’s account:
               A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump’s inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.
               Woodward describes “an administrative coup d'etat” and a “nervous breakdown” of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president’s desk so he couldn’t see or sign them.
               Again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trump’s national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.
               Woodward claims to have taped “hundreds of hours” of conversations with White House officials and staff, and that “there’s nothing in this book that doesn’t come from a firsthand source.” Perhaps he’s got some red meat, but White House officials dismiss it. Defense Secretary James Mattis called it “fiction.” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it’s “nothing more than fabricated stories.” Chief of Staff John Kelly reasserted his contention in May that “this story is total BS.” Trump himself wondered if Woodward “is a Dem operative.”
               Then again, Trump does thrive on chaos and the book’s anecdotes do jive with his public taunting of, well, everyone, so it’s hard to say. Yet some of Woodward’s anecdotes that purport to reveal that Trump is unhinged actually show that he’s a pretty good leader, listening to the counsel of his aides and setting course based on the best advice. Either way, White House officials and Woodward are both saying exactly what’s in their best self-interest.
               In any case, beyond the strategically marketed excerpt leaks, we won’t know more until Fear actually hits bookstores — on a release date, by the way, that reflects unbelievably poor taste because it’s on Tuesday, September 11th.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/58066?mailing_id=3718&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3718&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             In just under 12 minutes, Sasse outlined the constitutional roles of the three branches of government and followed that by explaining why the confirmation of judicial nominees has become so politicized — something the Founders never intended.  Sasse  diagnoses the root of the problem as the legislative branch having abdicated its constitutional power to career-minded, unelected bureaucrats within the executive branch agencies:
               The real reason, at the end of the day, that this institution punts most of its power to executive branch agencies is because it is a convenient way for legislators to be able to avoid taking responsibility for controversial and often unpopular decisions. If people want to get reelected over and over and over again, and that’s your highest goal — if your biggest long-term thought around here is about your own incumbency — then actually giving away your power is a pretty good strategy. … And so, at the end of the day, a lot of the power delegation that happens from this branch is because the Congress has decided to self-neuter.
               Sasse then eloquently noted how this abdication of power by Congress has ultimately undermined the voting power of every American citizen:
               The important thing isn’t whether Congress has lame jobs; the important thing is that when Congress neuters itself and gives power to an unaccountable fourth branch of government, it means the people are cut out of the process.
               So, ultimately when the Congress is neutered, when the administrative state grows, when there is this fourth branch of government, it makes it harder and harder for the concerns of citizens to be represented and articulated by people, that the people know they have power over. All the power, or almost all the power, right now happens offstage. And that leaves a lot of people wondering, “Who’s looking out for me?”
               He then concluded by boiling down the only truly legitimate thing senators need to consider for deciding on Kavanaugh:
               So the question we have before us today is not what did Brett Kavanaugh think 11 years ago on some policy matter. The question before us is whether or not he has the temperament and the character to take his policy views and political preferences and put them in a box marked “irrelevant” and set it aside every morning when he puts on the black robe. The question is, “Does he have the character and temperament to do that?” If you don’t think he does, vote no. But if you think he does, stop the charades. Because, at the end of the day, I think all of us know that Brett Kavanaugh understands that his job isn’t to rewrite laws as he wishes they were. He understands that he’s not being interviewed to be a super legislator. He understands that his job isn’t to seek popularity. His job is to be fair and dispassionate. It is not to exercise empathy. It is to follow written laws.
               Ultimately, Sasse accurately articulated what really matters. The rest of the antics in the Senate yesterday were just the sideshow.

Here are Sasse’s comments in their entirety — well worth viewing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJK2JveCAbI

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/58064?mailing_id=3718&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3718&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

"Judges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men." —John Adams (1776)

by Mark Alexander

{ patriotpost.us } ~ Last week, the left-leaning (to put it kindly) American Bar Association awarded Brett Kavanaugh its highest endorsement, a unanimous "Well-Qualified" rating. According to ABA guidelines, "The rating of 'Well Qualified' is reserved for those found to merit the Committee's strongest affirmative endorsement."

This endorsement used to be the gold standard for dummycrats-Democrats considering Republican judicial appointments. So what's the holdup on Donald Trump's nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States?

Well, four reasons: 1) the election of Donald Trump; 2) the resulting epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome; 3) pandering and political theater,  dummycrats-Democrat Party style; and, finally, 4) a deep sense of remorse by dummycrats-Democrats that they killed the filibuster for judicial nominations in 2013 to clear the way for a slew of Barack scumbag/liar-nObama's far-left nominees.

dummycrats-Democrats have set about to make as much trouble for Trump as possible in their relentless effort to delegitimize his election. This hyper-partisan dialogue has devolved into very uncivil discourse even in the once-august Senate chamber, which has lately become a proving ground for leftist ideologues positioning themselves for a 2020 presidential run.

What became of Senate civility? Same four points outlined above.

Let's briefly review the context for the current Senate SCOTUS deliberations.

As you recall, after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) deferred scumbag/liar-nObama's nomination of Merrick Garland to SCOTUS, insisting, "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president."

McConnell deflected protests by declaring, "We're following the 'loose lips-Biden Rule.' loose lips-Biden was chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1992, in a presidential election year. He said the Senate should not act on filling a Supreme Court vacancy if it had occurred [in a presidential election year]. ... So, all we're doing ... is following a long-standing tradition of not filling vacancies on the Supreme Court in the middle of a presidential election year."

McConnell's bold action to delay Senate consideration of scumbag/liar-nObama's nominee until after the 2016 election was one of the most consequential moves by any Senate leader in decades. McConnell, who has oft been chastised as an "establishment Republican," deserves full credit for this gambit, which returned enormous dividends in support of a Supreme Court now controlled by a razor-thin 5-4 majority of those who respect our Constitution, rather than those who loathe it.

Justice Scalia was the Supreme Court's strongest voice for Rule of Law, the "original intent" of our Constitution as opposed to the Left's so-called living constitution. To that end, he wrote, "As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to 'do what the people want,' instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically."

Thus, after Trump's stunning defeat of scumbag/liar-nObama's leftist successor, liar-Hillary Clinton, his first SCOTUS nomination to fill the Scalia vacancy was Judge Neil Gorsuch, an originalist in the mold of Justice Scalia.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck scumbag/clown-Schumer (D-NY) pledged that dummycrats-Democrats would filibuster the Gorsuch nomination, and he laughably insisted, "The irresistible, immutable logic is, if the nominee doesn't get 60 [votes], you change the nominee, not the rules." But in 2013, when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) changed the rules for federal bench nominees to avoid filibuster, scumbag/clown-Schumer proclaimed, "We much prefer the risk of up or down votes and majority rule [on judicial nominees] than the risk of continued total obstruction. That's the bottom line no matter who's in power."

So McConnell did the unthinkable — he played by the same rules that scumbag/liar-nObama, dinky-Reid, and scum/clown-Schumer had in order to bypass a Republican filibuster.

Then came the dummycrats-Demos' worst judicial nightmare: Their fervent hope that no other SCOTUS seat would open up before they could retake the Senate in the 2018 midterms was dashed when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement in June.

That brings us to this week, as Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh began his four-day interrogation by Senate dummycrats-Demo-gogues.

It's clear that obstruction is the only option dummycrats-Democrats have. They don't possess the numeric edge to defeat the Kavanaugh nomination, especially now that Arizona's Republican governor, Doug Ducey, is appointing former Sen. John Kyl to fill the seat of the recently deceased rino-John McCain. So they began the hearings yesterday by rudely and childishly protesting and then attempting to adjourn.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) had only spoken a few introductory words before being interrupted loudly by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who protested, "We cannot possibly move forward, Mr. Chairman, with this hearing. We have not been given an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing on this nominee."

dummycrats-Democrats are complaining that they haven't had enough time to review all of the documents on Kavanaugh's career. But it was they who demanded all the records — another stalling tactic. The National Archives released more than twice as many records on Kavanaugh as the last five judicial nominees combined. Now dummycrats-Democrats are griping that they haven't had time to read them all.

And regarding the "opportunity" for review, the average time between nominations and hearings for the last 10 Supreme Court nominees was 41 days. It has been 64 days since President Trump nominated Judge Kavanaugh.

Sen. scumbag-Cory Booker (D-NJ) used his time to audition for the 2020 presidential campaign, insisting that Kavanaugh's decisions favor "the powerful, the privileged, big corporations, [and] special interests," and that "over and over again, folks that lose are the folks that are why I came to Washington to fight: working folks, consumers, women, immigrants, minorities, the disadvantaged, the poor."

That was followed with a cluster of rancorous dummycrats-Demo howls calling for adjournment, led by Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and the usual leftist Senate suspects: Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Dick Durbin (D-IL).

So rude, contentious, and disgraceful was the behavior of adolescent dummycrats-Democrats and their anti-Kavanaugh cabal of gallery hecklers (70 of whom were arrested), that Judge Kavanaugh's wife, Ashley, removed their young daughters Margaret and Liza from the hearing room.

At least scumbag-Durbin was honest about the pathetic rants: "Why is this happening for the first time in the history of this committee? I think we need to be honest about why it's happening. ... You are the nominee of President Donald John Trump."

Feigning reason and restraint, Dianne Fein-stein (D-CA), the ranking dummycrats-Demo on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, "I really regret this, but I think you have to understand the frustration on this side of the aisle."

In response, Grassley warned, "We are going to be in session Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 'til we get done this week."

Responding to the dummycrats-Demo-toddler temper tantrums, Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Kavanaugh, "I'm sorry that your daughters had to endure the political circus of this morning. ... I believe this fight is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt by ourdummycrats-Democratic colleagues to relitigate the 2016 election. ... The dummycrats-Democratic obstruction today is all about trying to reverse that election."

And Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) offered a brief civics lesson on why SCOTUS confirmation hearings have become so contentious.

Assuming some degree of civility returns to the Senate,dummycrats-Democrats will likely focus on Kavanaugh's views on executive privilege, as dummycrats-Demos want to remove Trump from office by any means necessary. "I'll tell you that will be front and center," insisted scumbag-Durbin.

No doubt they'll also grill Judge Kavanaugh on his opposition to the killing of children before birth and on his position on what's left of scumbag/liar-nObama's so-called "Affordable Care Act."

As consummate race-baiters, dummycrats-Democrats will certainly try to vilify the nominee for his color blindness on civil rights. "Kavanaugh is extreme even by the right-wing, far-right ideological standards of this administration," wailed Blumenthal, the main obstructionist of the first day's proceedings. "I'm willing to wager there's a smoking gun here."

And, of course, they'll grill him on his opinions in support of the Second Amendmentto gauge how much of an obstacle he'll be to their objective of obstructing and repealing "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms."

Leftists have framed the contest for the Supreme Court as "Republican v. dummycrats-Democrat," but it's really about judicial authority v. judicial despotism. SCOTUS has moved ever closer to the "despotic branch" that Thomas Jefferson warned of so long ago, in which the Constitution becomes "a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

The debate, then, is not about Right v. Left but about Liberty v. tyranny. John Stossel puts that into context in a short video about the Kavanaugh nomination.

All the petty rancor aside, by the end of the week, the country should have Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

As I noted prior to the last presidential election, I supported Trump primarily because of his commitment to nominate constitutional constructionists to the Supreme Court. I also noted repeatedly that the presidential election was "much more than a quadrennial vote — it is a quarter-century vote for the composition of the Supreme Court."

Clearly, Trump's 2016 victory was a generational victory for Liberty, much to the Left's consternation.

When you knowingly cross the border into another country — any country — without permission, that’s a crime, right? Yes, in every country in the world.
               Some aspiring dummycrats-Democratic candidates in Texas want to change that. They think we should decriminalize  unlawful border crossings.
               Others on the left want to go even further. They would essentially gut the power of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
               Three candidates running for office in Texas have floated a scheme to remove the power of ICE without actually getting rid of the agency, which has been what protesters and even members of Congress have been advocating over the past several months. This includes Representative socialist-Beto O'Rourke (D., Texas), who is running for the U.S. Senate; Lupe Valdez, who is running for governor; and dummycrats-Democratic congressional candidate Veronica Escobar.
               Most people would say that this scheme is reckless and irresponsible — one that, if enacted, would endanger public safety. And the latest report from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) shows why. Perhaps these candidates should read that  report. Certainly, the residents of the Lone Star State should, as they are the ones who have been the victims of crimes by illegal  aliens — crimes such as murder, rape, assault, robbery, and the like.
               The Texas DPS, which includes among its divisions one of the most storied state law-enforcement agencies in America, the Texas Rangers, collected data on all of the illegal aliens booked into Texas jails between June 1, 2011, and July 31, 2018 — more than 175,000.
               Those illegal aliens have been charged with 273,000 criminal offenses. That includes arrests for:

• 505 homicides;

• 30,408 assaults;

• 3,212 sexual assaults;

• 2,022 sexual offenses;

• 365 kidnappings;

• 5,396 burglaries;

• 1,569 robberies;

• 34,555 drug charges;

• 15,100 thefts;

• 2,754 weapons charges; and

• 22,213 obstructing-police charges.

Many of these charges are still pending, but these arrests have already resulted in more than 112,000 convictions, including 225 murder convictions, 12,540 assault convictions, 152 kidnapping convictions, 1,567 sexual-assault convictions, and 1,076 sexual-offense convictions.
               The number of crimes committed in Texas by illegal aliens may actually be higher. In total, more than 261,000 aliens were arrested in Texas from 2011 to 2018, of which more than 175,000 were immediately identified as being in the U.S. illegally. However, according to the Texas DPS report, these crime numbers only include aliens who “previously had an encounter” with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “that resulted in their fingerprints being entered into” the department’s “IDENT” database. Aliens who get into the country successfully without being detected by DHS, but who are later arrested by Texas law enforcement for violating a state law, aren’t in the DHS system and “do not appear in these [Texas] counts.” Yikes.
               An additional 10,182 aliens who are in prison in Texas have since been identified as being in the country illegally through investigations conducted by the Texas DPS. They were charged with more than 6,000 criminal offenses, including 81 homicides.
               These numbers also do not include illegal aliens convicted of federal crimes in Texas, such as Gustavo Tijerina-Sandoval. Tijerina-Sandoval, a repeated border-crosser, was convicted in June in a federal prosecution for murdering Javier Vega Jr., a U.S. Border Patrol officer. Vega was on a family fishing trip when he was killed. His father was also shot.
               An additional chilling point is made at the end of the Texas DPS report. The 273,000 criminal charges against more than 175,000 illegal aliens only count the criminal charges lodged between 2011 and 2018 against these aliens. But over the course of their entire criminal careers, these illegal aliens have actually been charged with more than 437,000 criminal offenses, including 969 homicides; 49,422 assaults; 651 kidnappings; 5,282 sexual assaults; and 3,227 sexual offenses.
               The bottom line here is that these crimes, committed against hundreds of thousands of Texans, need not have occurred. We must enhance our border security to make it as difficult as possible for illegals to get across the border; and we must efficiently find and remove criminal aliens who get into the country — and keep them out.
               Instead, we have political candidates, protesters, and members of Congress who want to take away ICE’s authority, provide sanctuaries for criminal illegal aliens, and extinguish the line between legal and illegal aliens.
               How many more families have to suffer losses like those who mourn Mollie Tibbetts, Kate Steinle, and many others before liberals realize that their attitude endangers public safety and causes families all over the country to experience terrible tragedies that could have been avoided?

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/58022?mailing_id=3716&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3716&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Qais al-Khazali, a prominent Shiite politician and militia leader in Iraq, was captured and interrogated by coalition forces in 2007 for his suspected role in the death of five American soldiers. At the time, Khazali revealed that his group and other Iraqi Shiite militias had received training and arms directly from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. This was during the height of insurrectionist violence targeting U.S. and allied troops in an effort to drive them from Iraq.
               Khazali also revealed information about trips he took to Iran with Moqtada al-Sadr, one of the most powerful militant Shiites in Iraq. He told interrogators that Sadr and several other Iraqi political figures were sympathetic to Iran.
               Khazali’s group won 15 seats in Iraq’s assembly in May. It’s only a sliver of the 329-seat total, but the group’s rapid growth signifies that Iran may be gaining influence in the Iraqi power structure. The Trump administration is currently mulling whether to declare Khazali’s group a terrorist entity. Khazali now claims that he is not connected to Iran, but we have only his word to confirm that.
               These reports further detail Iran’s role in dragging out the  Iraq war and causing the deaths of American troops there. This was part of its long-term strategy to become the premier power in the region, a strategy that was rewarded by our previous president.
               Barack scumbag/liar-nObama began helping Iran’s cause by unilaterally abandoning Iraq. After that, the country spiraled into chaos, the Islamic State rose to power, and much of the hard-fought gains of the U.S. coalition were rolled back. He then rubbed salt in the wound by sending Iran a pallet of $400 million in cash.
               The money, which was in gold, U.S. dollars, Swiss francs, and other currencies, was part of a $1.7 billion settlement over disputed funds from an arms deal dating back before the 1979 Iranian revolution. This payout came “coincidentally” at the same time the U.S. was working to release U.S. citizens held in Iran and trying to put together the Iranian nuclear deal.
               scumbag/liar-nObama vigorously defended his actions and belittled any charge that the money was a ransom payment. When asked why $400 million had to be paid in cash, the State Department insisted that it was the only way to make a payment since Iran and the U.S. do not have any banking ties per U.S. law.
               No matter whether scumbag/liar-nObama’s lackeys at State believed their own excuse about the lack of banking ties, that cash will be used to support terrorist activities. The U.S. will see — or more likely has already seen — that ransom money used against us to kill Americans somewhere in the world.
               President Donald Trump has played a much stronger hand with Iran. By pulling out of the nuclear deal, he signified that the U.S. will not be snowballed or bullied into working with the terrorist state. Unfortunately, a significant amount of damage has already been done by our previous president, leaving Americans and our allies less safe.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/58027?mailing_id=3716&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3716&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body