There’s a second good point to be made about this, though, and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy recently made it at National Review: Maybe the slow-walk is to protect Trump, or to create artificial tension to cover for a lack of legislative accomplishment.
               “Prosecutorial power is executive in nature,” wrote McCarthy. “Federal prosecutors therefore exercise the president’s power. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Mueller have no power of their own; they exercise President Trump’s prosecutorial power for as long as that arrangement suits President Trump. The president does not need cause to fire them. He does not need to explain any dismissal to Congress — ‘Gee, it’s Thursday and I feel like firing someone’ is good enough.”
               Rosenstein and Mueller, though, make perfect foils for Trump, who seems to thrive when he can portray himself as fighting against a particular enemy. Enter “the deep state,” which works both as a foil to Trump and, as McCarthy implies, a useful took for him as well.
               But there are many in Trump’s administration who are truly swimming against the tide to make things better — and succeeding.
               Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, for example, is clearing away the deadwood of useless liar-nObama-era rules that targeted males accused of rape on campus, made restrooms unsafe for young girls, and encouraged schools to turn a blind eye toward violent acts perpetrated by children of certain races. Most important for all students, DeVos declared earlier this year that, “at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.”
               Another example has been EPA head Scott Pruitt, who’s come under fire for picayune ethics questions about his choice of travel and lodging. Nate Jackson runs down the reasons why Pruitt’s really torquing the Left: “He stewarded the agency through the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, rolled back Barack liar-nObama’s clean water and clean power regulations, cut costs by $1 billion, pushed through transparency reformson how the EPA uses science, and … scrapped liar-nObama’s vehicle-emissions rules.” That’s a solid record of accomplishment for a full term, let alone less than 14 months.
               And then there’s Mick Mulvaney’s tenure at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where’s he’s been driving Democrat Sen. Elizabeth dinky-Warren up a wall. As Philip Wegmann describes it in the Washington Examiner, it’s a match of Mulvaney, who “hates the organization he leads, because it’s unaccountable to the people it governs,” against Warren, who “hates the organization she used to love, because it’s unaccountable to her and under [Mulvaney’s] control.”
               After dinky-Warren — frustrated that Mulvaney wouldn’t answer a 105-question diatribe of a letter outside of his scheduled congressional testimony — lashed out at Mulvaney for “hurting real people to score cheap political points,” Mulvaney chided Warren with a taunting comeback. “Prior to receiving your letter,” said Mulvaney, “I never would have thought to consider … whether your vote against repealing the bureau’s arbitration rule was influenced by campaign donations you may have received from trial lawyers or other parties who stood to gain financially from the rule. Perhaps I should reconsider.”
               Actually, dinky-Warren should be grateful that Mulvaney said anything. As he noted, thanks to the statute creating the CFPB, “I believe it would be my statutory right to just sit here and twiddle my thumbs while you all ask questions.” In other words, he’s not accountable to anyone by Democrat design.
               This bitter fight between Mulvaney and Warren is all part of his effort to place the heretofore barely accountable agency — which gets its funding from the Federal Reserve and, thus, doesn’t answer to Congress — under some sort of oversight and control. Democrats simply can’t stand a federal agency steeped in “bureaucratic fiat and administrative absolutism” being held to heel by a Republican.
               And that may be the beauty of having the Trump-Mueller imbroglio dominating the airwaves: A lot of good stuff is happening behind the scenes, and the press that would normally circle the wagons to “save” the Department of Education, EPA or CFPB is being distracted by the shiny object of Robert Mueller’s  interminable investigation of Trump. Chalk one up for the swamp drainers.   
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55345-reining-in-the-unaccountable-deep-state

               Attorney Alan Dershowitz, progressive idol-turned-pariah due to his penchant for embracing intellectual honesty over ideological demagoguery, put it best. “If this were liar-Hillary Clinton, the ACLU would be on every TV station in America jumping up and down,” he asserted. “The deafening silence of the ACLU and civil libertarians about the intrusion into the lawyer-client confidentiality is really appalling.” Later on, he called that intrusion unconstitutional.
               Dershowitz insisted Mueller is staying within the confines of the Russian collusion case parameters and “farming out” what appears to be an effort to investigate Cohen for “bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations, according to three people with knowledge of the case,” as The Washington Post reports (or is that leaks?). Nonetheless, those parameters are the epitome of a double standard that may rank as one of the most egregious in the nation’s history.
               If this investigation is really about Russian collusion, where are the commensurate raids and/or executions of search warrants against Perkins Coie attorney Marc E. Elias, who represented the liar-Clinton campaign and the DNC, as well as retained Fusion GPS, which compiled the infamous Steele dossier? Where are indictments similar to the ones leveled at Paul Manafort and Rick Gates — indictments that fall completely outside the aforementioned Russian collusion parameters — of people like liar-Clinton campaign chief John Podesta? Podesta sat on the board of Russian energy company Joule Unlimited, which obtained $35 million from a Russian government fund linked to Vladimir Putin.
               Where are the commensurate investigations ofliar-nObama administration officials, including former Attorney General scum-Eric Holder, then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, the liar-Clinton Foundation and then-FBI Director Robert Mueller himself for their involvement in allowing the transfer of one-fifth of our nation’s uranium supply to Russian company Rosatom, even as they knew the deal was corrupted by bribes and kickback schemes, courtesy of the FBI’s own informant?
               How is it that the same FBI allowed liar-Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson to claim attorney-client privilege and get side deals limiting the search of their computers to include nothing after January 2015 — preventing a review of documents related to liar-Clinton’s email server — along with an agreement to destroy those computers when the agency was done, even though both women were witnesses to, or suspects in, liar-Clinton’s criminal investigation? Why wasn’t liar-Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s home raided when classified emails showed up on husband Anthony Weiner’s computer? Why hasn’t former AG Loretta Lynch been investigated for her meeting with liar-Bill Clinton in the midst of the criminal probe against his wife?
               Where are the investigations of Susan Rice, John Brennan and Samatha Power over their potentially illegal unmasking of hundreds of Americans?
               “Mueller and his gang have weaponized the criminalized justice system,” assertsattorney Victoria Toensing. “These no-knock raids that were done on his personal lawyer’s house and offices — those kind of tactics are reserved for dope dealers and terrorists.”
               The American Left, suffused with dreams of ultimately removing Trump from office, couldn’t care less.
               “A search warrant for a law office is extremely rare,” explains New York University School of Law professor Stephen Gillers. “Lawyers are given the courtesy of producing documents in response to a subpoena or a request unless the government believes a lawyer will destroy or conceal the objects of the search.”
               Or unless a rogue prosecutor is attempting to intimidate a sitting president.
               When the investigation falls outside the original mandate, getting such a warrant requires the approval of top DOJ officials, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
               What was Rosenstein’s original mandate? According to National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, it was one that “violated governing special-counsel regulations” because such an appointment requires a criminal investigation and the order “disclosed no basis for a criminal investigation and indicated no crimes that had allegedly been committed.”
               Rosenstein “fixed” this by issuing an expanded order 10 weeks after the original one, accompanied by an explanation McCarthy characterizes as “not very convincing, and the extensively redacted form in which it has been released means the memo raises more questions than it answers.”
                So does the damning reality that Mueller conduced his raid of Paul Manafort’s home a full week before Rosenstein issued his original memo. As Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson points out, that timing “shows a willingness to give post hoc justification for conduct of Mueller that does not appear authorized by the text of the original May 17 appointing Order.”
               The raid conducted against Cohen purportedly centers on a $130,000 payoff to Stephanie Clifford, a.k.a. Stormy Daniels, to maintain her silence about an extra-marital affair with the president, because such a payoff constitutes an illegal campaign contribution. In 2008, the liar-nObama campaign collected $1.3 million in illegal campaign donations, and despite the fact that those violations could be treated as felonies, the matter was settled quietly with the payment of a $375,000 fine.
               Nonetheless, while McCarthy points out that illegal campaign donations are trivial compared to Russian collusion, he warns, “When highly aggressive prosecutors are circling, any kind of something is always more perilous than nothing.”
               “Any kind of something” has transcended anything resembling Mueller’s original mandate, eviscerating attorney-client privilege in the process. It is an investigation engendered by the same officials who have allowed Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to remain on the payroll and retain their security clearances, despite anti-Trump bias documented by thousands of emails.
               Emails the FBI insists will take three years to “process” before the agency can satisfy an FOIA lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch.
               Columnist Michael Goodwin asserts it’s “time to clear the air of rumor and speculation and put the facts on the record.” A headline in The Hill suggests why that is wishful thinking. “Mueller will drop midterm Russia bombshells on GOP Congress,” it states. Meanwhile, it took threats of contempt and impeachment from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to convince FBI Director Christopher Wray and Rosenstein to stop stonewalling and hand over documents that could reveal Mueller’s investigation was based substantially, or entirely, on fraudulently obtained FISA court warrants.
               There’s a midterm election to influence and the Rule of Law be damned.
               “Mueller needs to be removed,” writes columnist Daniel Greenfield. “This investigation needs to be shut down and replaced with a credible investigation into what the Russians actually did and didn’t do, rather than a pretext for bringing down political opponents.”
               More wishful thinking. There are substantial numbers of Americans, including members of both political parties, who have far less interest in credibility than reasserting the ruling class status quo Trump disrupted — even if the Constitution is shredded in the process.
               And once again, in the midst of all these machinations, the age-old question — one usually attached to authoritarian regimes — arises:
               Who investigates the investigators?   
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55320-who-will-investigate-the-investigators

               Now the CBO is estimating GDP to be $6.1 trillion more by 2027 than its pre-tax cut estimates. Essentially, what the CBO is now saying (albeit not too loudly) is that the tax cuts are paying for themselves. So why all the bad news on a growing budget deficit? As is typical of big government, the fault lies not with tax cuts, as they are proving to create revenue and economic growth. Instead, it’s a convenient excuse designed to avoid the real issue: Government has a spending problem, especially with entitlements. As CNS News reports, “The federal government collected a record $736,274,000,000 in individual income taxes through the first six months of fiscal 2018” — and it still ran a deficit of $599.7 billion.
               Too many lawmakers simply refuse to accept a fact that has been demonstrated time and again: People who are free to keep and spend more of their own money as they see fit have a greater positive impact on economic growth and development than a bunch of elitist bureaucrats in Washington taxing us in order to fund their special interest projects.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55296-cbo-quietly-revises-gdp-growth-outlook-upwards

               There won’t be any shortage of celebration among Democrats or some conservatives over Ryan’s departure. John Hayward, for one, wrote, “Ryan rose to prominence as one of the most articulate advocates of fiscal responsibility in his party. His career ends with Republicans proving beyond all doubt that they were never really serious about it.”
               It’s true that spending is not under control — especially entitlements — and, as Ryan’s former signature issue, that is a significant failure. Ryan clearly failed to change the budgeting system, instead allowing the all-or-nothing omnibus method to dominate. As Dan McLaughlin explains, “This excess of brinksmanship gives a massive structural advantage towards the passage of individual spending items that could not survive on their own, since the choice is literally one between shutting down the government and approving all the spending on everything.” That said, before he was speaker, Ryan was instrumental in holding the line on spending during the Barack liar-nObama years. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly enough, and he didn’t stick to his guns when he was in charge.
               And yes, Republicans failed to repeal liar-nObamaCare as they promised for seven long years. But it’s not primarily the fault of conservatives like Ryan that conservative priorities have failed. The liar-nObamaCare failure is the fault of “centrist” Republicans, particularly in the Senate (here’s looking at you, rino-Susan Collins and rino-Lisa Murkowski, et al.), where Ryan had no control. Leadership for Ryan has meant pulling together Republicans that are much further apart in the majority than they were when liar-nObama was the common opponent, making legislative accomplishments few and far between. The same could be said for his counterpart, Mitch McConnell. Both failed to lead on liar-nObamaCare, but the deck was stacked against them.
               President Donald Trump hasn’t made life any easier for Ryan, either. Part of that is welcome — Trump was elected to drain the swamp, and in many ways he’s done so. Clearly that doesn’t make swamp dwellers happy, but there has been some collateral damage too. Republicans are constantly on their heels either defending Trump, bracing for what’s next, or shaking their heads and distancing from him. Trump supporters love it. Ryan and other conservatives trying to accomplish legislative goals, not so much.
               Yet, in spite of all that, Ryan steered through the biggest tax reform in 30 years, and Americans of all stripes are benefiting. For all his faults, that is a huge success. Ryan is also a profoundly decent man, and there are far too few such men in Washington. But perhaps his critics will be happier with the impeachment agenda of Speaker Nancy Pulosi.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55298-ryans-retirement-rattles-republicans

               All of which is to say: liar-Clinton deserved to be prosecuted. But Lynch — then the nation’s highest law enforcer — preemptively communicated how the investigation would ultimately conclude when she conversed privately with liar-Hillary’s husband  during the probe. According to CNS News’ Susan Jones, “Lynch told Holt that because of her tarmac meeting withliar-Bill Clinton, she would have recused herself from theliar-Hillary Clinton case if legal experts had advised her to do so, but they did not.” Well, of course they didn’t — most, if not all, of them are careerists and leftists who, like Lynch, tried everything they could to ensure liar- Clinton’s coronation.
               Still, Lynch acted as if Comey’s personal exoneration of liar-Clinton was wrong. When Lester inquired, “Did he usurp your authority?” Lynch retorted: “Well, it certainly was an unusual move. It was a different way to deliver a recommendation to the attorney general. I have not had any of my other law enforcement agencies deliver a recommendation in a case to me in that way.” She then advised Comey “to speak to why he took those actions.”
               Of course, Comey at least pretended to be equally leery of Lynch, though she denies it. In the interview, Lester mentioned that “Comey says you want to call it ‘the liar-Clinton matter.’ He wants to call it ‘the liar-Clinton investigation.’” Speaking of Comey, Lester described this disagreement as something that “bothered him.” However, Lynch now contends that “concerns were not raised” in their dialogues. Who’s the bigger liar?
               According to NBC News, “Lynch again insisted she and the former president did not talk about liar-Hillary Clinton … or any other criminal investigations. Instead, Lynch said liar-Bill Clinton told a ‘long but charming story’ about grandchildren. The two also chatted about ‘issues of the day,’ such as Brexit.” That’s about as truthful as claiming Comey’s upcoming book tour isn’t about profiting off his firing and accentuating his anti-Trumpness.
               Apparently, Comey and Lynch weren’t just competing when it came to figuring out how to handle theliar-Clinton probe; they’re competing even now. The “he said/she said” imbroglio is not necessarily going to help their case, nor is it necessarily going to fuel the anti-Trump bandwagon. Ironically, and more importantly, it also underscores the extent to which liar-nObama’s Justice Department was far more political than it was impartial.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55266-lynchs-lying-trip-down-memory-lane

               All of which is to say: liar-Clinton deserved to be prosecuted. But Lynch — then the nation’s highest law enforcer — preemptively communicated how the investigation would ultimately conclude when she conversed privately with liar-Hillary’s husband  during the probe. According to CNS News’ Susan Jones, “Lynch told Holt that because of her tarmac meeting withliar-Bill Clinton, she would have recused herself from theliar-Hillary Clinton case if legal experts had advised her to do so, but they did not.” Well, of course they didn’t — most, if not all, of them are careerists and leftists who, like Lynch, tried everything they could to ensure liar- Clinton’s coronation.
               Still, Lynch acted as if Comey’s personal exoneration of liar-Clinton was wrong. When Lester inquired, “Did he usurp your authority?” Lynch retorted: “Well, it certainly was an unusual move. It was a different way to deliver a recommendation to the attorney general. I have not had any of my other law enforcement agencies deliver a recommendation in a case to me in that way.” She then advised Comey “to speak to why he took those actions.”
               Of course, Comey at least pretended to be equally leery of Lynch, though she denies it. In the interview, Lester mentioned that “Comey says you want to call it ‘the liar-Clinton matter.’ He wants to call it ‘the liar-Clinton investigation.’” Speaking of Comey, Lester described this disagreement as something that “bothered him.” However, Lynch now contends that “concerns were not raised” in their dialogues. Who’s the bigger liar?
               According to NBC News, “Lynch again insisted she and the former president did not talk about liar-Hillary Clinton … or any other criminal investigations. Instead, Lynch said liar-Bill Clinton told a ‘long but charming story’ about grandchildren. The two also chatted about ‘issues of the day,’ such as Brexit.” That’s about as truthful as claiming Comey’s upcoming book tour isn’t about profiting off his firing and accentuating his anti-Trumpness.
               Apparently, Comey and Lynch weren’t just competing when it came to figuring out how to handle theliar-Clinton probe; they’re competing even now. The “he said/she said” imbroglio is not necessarily going to help their case, nor is it necessarily going to fuel the anti-Trump bandwagon. Ironically, and more importantly, it also underscores the extent to which liar-nObama’s Justice Department was far more political than it was impartial.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55266-lynchs-lying-trip-down-memory-lane

               The CBO predicts the combination of tax cuts and new spending will drive deficits back above the $1 trillion threshold annually for the foreseeable future, and the national debt to 100% of GDP by 2028. The CBO claims tax cuts will “cost” the government $1.3 trillion in revenue.
               There are several problems with these claims. First, the CBO is a horrible predictor of economic outcomes; it’s often inaccurate by orders of magnitude. For example, before liar-nObamaCare was passed, the CBO predicted liar-nObamaCare’s cost at $938 billion over the following decade. Just two years later, the CBO had “revised” that number to $1.76 trillion, doubling the projected cost. Likewise, the CBO drastically overestimated the number of Americans who would enroll in liar-nObamaCare (24 million projected, nine million actual). Historically, the CBO has significantly overestimated potential revenues from tax increases and significantly underestimated economic growth (and thus tax receipts) from tax cuts.
               But perhaps the biggest problem is the idea that tax cuts “cost” the government money. For that to be true, one must start from the premise that the money rightfully belongs to the government, not those earning it. That is fundamentally wrong.
               Of course, the lamentations of Democrats over increasing the deficit ring hollow. They cheered the nearly $10 trillion of new debt under Barack liar-nObama; indeed, they demanded even more spending, not less.
               Despite typical Democrat hypocrisy, the rapidly expanding national debt is leading us toward economic catastrophe. First gradually, then suddenly.
               Under liar-nObama, America suffered its worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. liar-nObama became the first president to never achieve a single year of 3% GDP growth, averaging just 1.5%. But President Trump’s aggressive agenda to slash regulations and enact pro-growth policies has jump-started the economy, with two 3%+ quarters in his first year. That creates a problem, though. The $10 trillion in debt underliar-nObama was created with essentially 0% interest rates, but as the Trump economy heats up, interest rates rise, so the cost of servicing the national debt rises. The more money taken in taxes to pay interest on the debt, the less for private investment and consumer spending, creating a dampening effect on the economy.
               The reality is that the national debt will never be paid off by making the “rich” pay their “fair share,” for several reasons. First, the top 1% pays nearly half of all federal income taxes, and the bottom 50% pay almost nothing. Taxing the most productive people even more is a disincentive for additional work and investment. Why work more if Uncle Sam is going to take half? Second, if government took 100% — every dime — earned by the top 1%, it would fund the government for about six months. After we’ve completely robbed the “rich,” who do we rob next? Third, spending is far outpacing revenue growth.
                liar-nObama once told backstabber-John Boehner, “We don’t have a spending problem.” He couldn’t have been more wrong.
               The primary drivers of the national debt are entitlement spending and interest on the debt. Entitlement spending is on autopilot, expanding every year despite shrinking “contributions.” The Social Security Trust Fund has been hemorrhaging red ink for years, and the CBO projects it will be bankrupt in 13 years. That will result in either reduced benefits for seniors or high taxes on the working class, either of which would have a devastating effect on the economy. Likewise, the near-term outlook for Medicare and Medicaid is dismal, with tax revenues unable to keep up with spending growth. By 2028, the public debt will total $82,000 per American. So what does this mean for the midterm elections?
                Democrats are campaigning on a promise to roll back the tax cuts, which seems bizarre considering the benefits of the tax cuts go disproportionately to the lower and middle class.
                 As for Republicans, the credit they rightfully deserve for the success of the tax cuts — and the pay raises and bonuses that followed — is somewhat negated by their passage of the massive omnibus bill that, while including from GOP priorities like military spending increases, was held hostage by Democrats until they secured domestic spending increases. That was probably inevitable with the GOP holding such a narrow majority in the Senate, but it still doesn’t sit well with a party whose voters have long demanded some fiscal sanity.
                While the vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment this week is little more than an election year gimmick, there is another opportunity for Republicans to energize their base; use the 1974 Impoundment Act to “claw back” some of the spending allocated in the omnibus bill. The advantages of this are that it can be done with a simple majority vote in the House and Senate, it is not subject to a filibuster, and it is automatically fast-tracked in both houses of Congress. It wouldn’t negate all of the wasteful spending of the omnibus, but it would be a good start and would show Republican voters, in what will be an election won by turning out the party base, that Republicans are doing more than paying lip-service to fiscal responsibility.
               And it might just give the GOP the edge it needs to once again buck historical trends and avoid a Democrat wave in November.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55287-cbo-report-misleads-but-still-underscores-debt-crisis

               scum-Durbin deserves credit for not grandstanding about fake news, but focussing on the real issue — private data dissemination by social media aggregators.
                   As Mark Alexander noted prior to the hearings, “Congress has the authority to enact, and should, legislation requiring social media and other aggregators of individual user data be required to obtain specific and explicit user permissions for each and everytransfer of such data, prior to that transfer. And the financial penalties for failing to do so should be steep.”
               But Zuckerberg also faced other serious inquiries, most notably Facebook’s practice of suppressing conservative content, which their PC censors have done with Patriot Postcontent. Both Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ben Sasse (R-NE) took the opportunity to grill Zuckerberg over the issue of censorship. Sasse suggested that Facebook’s policies are “less than First Amendment full-spirit embracing.” He also pressed Zuckerberg to define “hate speech,” which the tech guru could not do, after Zuckerberg had admitted it’s a category used by Facebook as a guideline for limiting speech. Sasse pointedly stated, “I’m worried about the psychological categories around speech. We see this happening on college campuses all across the country. It’s dangerous.”
               Cruz also called out Zuckerberg over Facebook’s leftist bias, asking, “Do you consider yourself a neutral public forum or are you engaged in political speech, which is your right under the First Amendment?” Zuckerberg responded, “Well, senator, our goal is certainly not to engage in political speech.” But Cruz didn’t let him off the hook and followed up by listing multiple instances where conservative content was limited or censored. Zuckerberg then suggested he was unaware of the biased censoring of political content, but he did admit that Facebook’s location in Silicon Valley “is an extremely left-leaning place.” That’s putting it mildly.
               There are two issues at play here; one deals with protecting Americans’ privacy rights, the other with free speech. Facebook plays fast and loose with users’ data. As Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) bluntly opined, “Here’s what everybody has been trying to tell you [Zuckerberg] today, and I say this gently: Your user agreement sucks!” Meanwhile, Zuckerberg and the Left would love to paint Facebook’s primary problem as one of needing help in preventing the dissemination of “fake news” and propaganda, not one of needing to better protect user data. What has made Facebook so profitable has been its ability to accumulate and then sell user data, and that’s why it’s the last thing Zuckerberg wants regulated. Instead, he would love for the focus to be on protecting Americans against the “dangerous” influence of propaganda — from conservatives, of course.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55289-zuckerberg-and-the-facebook-data-black-hole

               Since taking office, President Donald Trump has taken the issue of refugees very seriously. One of his first acts was to issue a ban on accepting people from seven nations that have a proven history of terrorist activity and anti-American sentiments. The Left went nuts, sending protesters to the streets and flooding the airwaves with screeds about how Trump was anti-Muslim. They conveniently left out certain details about the ban being temporary, how it was specifically targeted to countries from which terrorists are trying to infiltrate the U.S., and the fact that it is the purview of the president to engage in such actions in the interest of national security.
               The Supreme Court sided with Trump on that basis, but as his orders routinely get updated to add or remove certain nations from the travel ban list, a new round of court challenges takes place. This keeps the issue in the news, but brings us no closer to settling the issue of what to do with the flood of refugees seeking asylum or how to handle those already in the United States.
               A recent study by the leftist Urban Institute suggests that we have nothing to fear from the refugees already in the U.S. Through analysis of census and refugee survey data, the report claims that refugees largely integrate into all aspects of American life, learning English, buying homes, and starting their own businesses. According to the report, the longer refugees stay in America, the more American they become.
               This all sounds great, but a deeper dive into the study reveals that it is based on an aggregate view of all refugees. It does not look at refugees from specific cultures or countries. Therefore, it does not help us understand how refugees from certain Islamic countries are faring in the U.S., or whether they are assimilating or contributing positively to the American ideal. Europe is experiencing major issues with Islamic refugees who blatantly refuse to assimilate. Even leftist European leaders are starting to admit there’s a migrant problem. It is only common sense that America be aware of this and act to prevent the same problem here.
               In a sense, Urban’s study is rather worthless when it comes to addressing which refugees we should accept and which ones must either be kept under tight surveillance or turned away outright. It serves as good fodder for the anti-Trump Leftmedia to paint him as a bully while portraying the illegals as saints. Most probably are, but it’s the ones who aren’t that we should be worried about.
               A different analysis on refugees indicates that not every person who comes to America seeking asylum is worthy of protected status. While the number of refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. has risen across all countries of origin in recent years, asylum claims have risen dramatically from Latin American countries.
               Traditionally, a very low number of asylum seekers from Central American and Mexico are granted asylum in the U.S. However, migrants from these countries have been more willing to seek asylum status. The recent so-called caravan that was turned back after Trump deployed troops to meet them at the border was a perfect example of this. Over a thousand migrants made plain their intention to come to the U.S. illegally and claim asylum once they were caught. This would put them in a whole different bucket than traditional illegal immigrants. They could stay in this country indefinitely until their case is heard in the courts — courts that are already severely backlogged.
               The sharp uptick in potential asylum cases from Latin America suggests that illegal immigrants have grown wise to how the U.S refugee system works. Their attempt to game the system clogs the courts and keeps legitimate cases from being heard. It also allows these fake refugees an opportunity to stay in the country illegally, abusing America’s good will for their own short-term gain. And the more that good will is abused, the less likely Americans are willing to help any refugees.
               There is no short answer to relieving the courts of the backlog of refugee cases to be heard. And there may be no way to know for certain which groups of refugees will be a net gain for the country. But there is a surefire solution to stopping illegal immigrants from coming into the country and claiming false asylum. Build the wall and tighten border security. After that, all the other problems will become easier to solve.   ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55256-nothing-to-fear-from-refugees

               It was only a year ago that Trump ordered a Tomahawk missile strike on April 6, 2017, at the Al Shayrat airfield in retaliation over Assad’s chemical attack against his own people at the town of Khan Shaykhun — an attack that killed more than 80 people.
               Following that U.S. aerial attack, President Trump said, “It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.” Sadly, the U.S. attack did nothing to deter Assad’s blood-thirst, and now Trump finds himself in the same position that he was in last year.
               Unfortunately for the commander-in-chief, the geopolitical situation this year is arguably much more complicated. Both the Russian and Iranian governments asserted that the international community’s calls for action against Assad were unwarranted, and both nations have been vociferous in their defense of the embattled Syrian regime.
               Meanwhile, CNS News reports, “Syria’s Assad regime is set to assume the chair of a United Nations forum whose agenda includes an end to weapons of mass destruction, at a time when it is accused of using them against civilians in Syria.” Only at the UN…
               Complicating the delicate situation even more is that on Monday, Israel appeared to launch a predawn airstrike against Iranian-backed militias at a Syrian air base, thus ratcheting up the tensions between these two Middle Eastern powers. It’s an open secret that Iran and Israel are engaged in kinetic operations against one another in Syria and are actively looking for opportunities to take the fight to one another.
               It is against this tenuous strategic backdrop that Trump and his national security team are having to make some tough decisions about U.S. foreign policy toward Syria and the region as a whole. That is why Trump’s pronouncement last week that the United States will soon pull all 2,000 troops out of Syria is such a potentially damaging move for our nation and our allies in the Levant.
               A look at the facts shows that the United States’ current fight against the Islamic State in Syria is not complete, notwithstanding the success of that same fight in Iraq. Recent reporting shows that one last ISIS stronghold in eastern Syria is on the verge of collapse and that the military mission of training Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is going well. Any move to pull resources at this critical juncture has the potential to eliminate gains that have been made over the last year.
               More importantly, a precipitous exit sends a message to Iran that the United States isn’t dedicated to fulfilling its foreign policy goals, either in the short term or the long. Iran continues to pour a massive amount of personnel and munitions into Syria, as Tehran views the fight as an ongoing campaign to not only prop up the beleaguered Assad government but spread Iranian influence. The mullahs are hoping that Trump does pull troops out as it enables them to spread their tentacles of influence even more. That is why the U.S. can’t cede the region to Iranian proxies.
               As national security expert Matthew RJ Brodsky writes, “Maintaining a military presence in Syria provides the U.S. opportunities to prevent the peaceful imposition of an Iranian post-war order on the country, and to disrupt Iran's logistical lines, including the land corridors it uses for moving arms and personnel.”
               Barack liar-nObama made a massive error in judgement when he pulled troops out of Iraq in 2011. It not only created the space for ISIS to metastasize throughout the area, it allowed Iran to strengthen its influence in the country as well. liar-nObama’s team also promised to rid Syria of chemical weapons, and then crowed — repeatedly — about its supposed success. Look where we are now.
               President Trump should learn from that mistake and pledge to keep a small footprint of troops and resources in Syria until the fighting is done and post-conflict transition is complete. A failure to do this will only embolden Assad to conduct more chemical attacks on his people and allow more innocent people to die.   
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55257-no-easy-solution-in-syria