The 10 candidates with at least 2% support in recent polls will be in Houston, Texas, facing questions from ABC’s George Stephanopoulus. They will predictably aim to outwork each other to hold the hardest left positions on socialism, free health insurance, eliminating student debt, a universal wage — with and without work — gun restrictions, reduced sentencing for crimes, open borders, sanctuary cities protecting illegal immigrants and any number of issues.

These topics will be as various shades painted on the canvass of identity politics stretched tightly to saturate all the applications of tint that distinguishes divisions by race and class warfare … just like the 1860s.

What? How are today’s Democrats the same as those Abraham Lincoln faced as the first president of the newborn Republican Party?

Let’s take a little stroll down history lane — the one that’s so endangered of being rewritten by those of the partisan Left working feverishly to leave the origins of their party behind. In Dinesh D'Souza’s book, Death of a Nation, he cites the words of Abraham Lincoln from a Sept. 11, 1858 speech, almost 161 years ago to the day.

Lincoln declared in his debate against the slavery-defending Democrat Stephen Douglas: “The Republican Party holds that this government was instituted to secure the blessings of freedom, and that slavery is an unqualified evil to the Negro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the State. … They will use every constitutional method to prevent the evil from becoming larger and … will oppose, in all its length and breadth, the modern Democratic idea, that slavery is as good as freedom, and ought to have room for expansion all over the continent. This is the difference, as I understand it between Republican and Democratic Parties.”

Now, substitute a few words, and understand the point. Today, this could be said out of the mouth of Lincoln as a candidate for president as a Republican: “The Republican Party holds that this government was instituted to secure the blessings of freedom, and that enforced government dependency is an unqualified evil to all Americans — regardless of race, gender or ethnicity — and even to the very land that is America. Republicans will use every constitutional method available to prevent this evil of dependency from becoming larger and will oppose, in all its length and breadth, the modern Democratic idea, that being dependent upon the government — for your rights, your income, your identity, your property, everything — is as good as freedom, and ought to have room for expansion all over the continent. This, indeed, is the difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties.”

As Americans hear and see the various candidates running to serve in county courthouses, state houses, and in the White House, compare the messages and the philosophies from which the policy positions originate. Do candidates honor the truth that we are* created* equal — not born equal? At the moment of creation, in the mother’s womb, life has value.

Do candidates honor and observe that equality comes from the standing we have as a created being endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Or, instead, do American voters hear that as citizens we’re endowed and kept by a government with certain rights afforded by the that same government and exist in a state of enforced dependence on said government?

Do voters hear that governments have no money except the money paid into the treasury by law-abiding working, productive citizens that should be stewarded to provide for the national defense and the common welfare under the enumerated powers of the U.S. Constitution and the respective State constitutions? Or, in contrast will voters continue to hear that government will cancel debt, provide those who don’t even work a basic income and ensure that the need to be self-reliant is removed since an individual has all needs met through the power and spending of the government?

The greatest threat to the Democrat Party, of both the North and the South, in the Civil War and during the Reconstruction Era was a citizenry — regardless of race — that understood their unalienable rights were protected by a government that honored their created equality, not doled out as an entitlement, and destroyed the enforced dependency of the slave plantation.

Today, the greatest threat to the Democrat Party is when citizens understand the same and live in a self-reliant manner — working, keeping one’s own money, observing the enumerated rights of the Constitution and our Creator, providing for our families, and seeking a better life.

The elections of 2020 are really simple. Voters will choose between enforced dependency on the government or self-reliance based on authentic Liberty, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or other identifying factors. Americans can choose to live free.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/65340?mailing_id=4519&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4519&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

[Taliban leaders] were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. … Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?

Clearly, Trump, like many Americans, is tired of the unending war in Afghanistan. He has regularly noted not only the war’s financial cost but its continued toll in American lives. And like the businessman that he is, Trump’s instinct is to cut his losses on a seemingly futile endeavor and move on to greener pastures. But Afghanistan is not some business deal, and evaluating a just return for all the human and financial capital the U.S. has invested is not easily calculated or dismissed. That said, this war needs a clearly defined goal.

And that lack of a clearly defined objective is why both Trump and Barack scubag/liar-nObama struggled in bringing about an acceptable resolution to the war. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Trump’s decision to suspend talks with the Taliban stemmed from opposing views within his administration, the group’s refusal to meet certain conditions and growing bipartisan criticism of an emerging deal to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.” Trump’s advisers are divided over the issue, with National Security Advisor John Bolton “consistently opposed [to] making a deal with the Taliban.”

The proposed deal would have brought about a 5,000-troop withdrawal within the first 135 days following its signing, with the remaining 9,500 Americans drawing down in several subsequent phases, assuming the Taliban upheld the agreement.

For the moment, the current Afghan government is breathing a sigh of relief, as Afghan officials’ fears were mounting that the U.S. was about to sign a deal that would have effectively handed the country over to the Taliban. A spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani noted that Trump’s decision “reflects the concerns raised by the Afghan people and government about a process that would make a group that is behind the killings of so many innocent people, both Afghans and otherwise, look victorious, rather than lead them to halt violence.” There is still no end in sight for the Long War.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/65343?mailing_id=4519&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4519&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

But even though the Democrat candidates seem to be in lockstep regarding the need to radically regulate the economy by way of some variant of their Green New Deal, one fissure among them is whether to reduce our carbon-based fuel dependency by increasing our use of nuclear power — a carbon-free source that already provides about one-fifth of our electricity despite a dearth of new nuclear facilities coming online in recent years. According to the industry advocacy group NEI, nuclear power produces 55 percent of America’s carbon-free power, blowing away the wind and solar alternatives producing much of the rest.

The debate comes at an important time for both the wind and solar communities, which have traditionally depended on government subsidies and carve-outs to artificially boost their market share. Unfortunately, these sources just aren’t as clean and green as their proponents would have us believe. Solar panels are chock full of highly toxic cadmium and other heavy metals that can leach out over time and present a threat to water supplies, while the decommissioning of wind turbines that have reached the end of their 20-year lifespan presents the problem of what to do with their massive 15-ton fiberglass rotor blades. They’re currently causing havoc for at least one landfill. (One suggestion: stand them in the ground as border fencing.)

Still, Democrats believe that solar and wind are the way to go despite their flaws — flaws that include a deep dependence on the government subsidies we’ve criticized over the years. As for nuclear, Democrat opinions range from wary to downright hostile. At Wednesday night’s town hall, top-tier contender Elizabeth Warren vowed to prevent the building of new nuclear plants and shut down those remaining in operation by 2035.

(Irony alert: Democrats laud the Paris climate agreement, but France currently derives 75% of its electricity from nuclear power — albeit with government policy set to reduce that to 50% by 2035.)

“Any realistic path to weaning us off of carbon-based sources of energy would have to involve increasing nuclear generation,” argues The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein. “Phasing it out makes that goal significantly harder. Suddenly, instead of having to replace the remaining 63.5% of our energy sources, Warren would have to come up with a way to replace 83% of our energy sources. Essentially, renewables would have to more than double just to make up for the lost nuclear power.”

Even farther to the left is commie-Bernie Sanders: “We know that the toxic waste byproducts of nuclear plants are not worth the risks of the technology’s benefit, especially in light of lessons learned from the Fukushima meltdown and the Chernobyl disaster,” as Miranda Green notes at The Hill.

“To get to our goal of 100 percent sustainable energy,” says commie-Sanders, “we will not rely on any false solutions like nuclear, geoengineering, carbon capture and sequestration, or trash incinerators.”

Green also points out the problem of nuclear waste, which makes advocacy for nuclear power a non-starter in the early primary state of Nevada, which is home to the shuttered Yucca Mountain nuclear disposal facility. Despite its flaws, though, even the most radical environmentalists grudgingly admit that nuclear power is a better option for them than opening new natural gas power-generation plants. “If the current situation continues, more nuclear power plants will likely close and be replaced primarily by natural gas, causing emissions to rise,” wrote the leftist Union of Concerned Scientists in a 2018 report. Their answer, however, as echoed by the Democrat presidential field? More taxes and regulations on ratepayers and utilities.

The question that should be asked of all these presidential hopefuls, though, is just what their plans would do to our nation’s economy. Fossil fuels have been an economic boon, given that they’re reliable, plentiful, and inexpensive, and given that the U.S. is now the top oil and natural gas producer in the world. Why mess with success?   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/65309?mailing_id=4515&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4515&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body 

The late bank robber Willie “The Actor” Sutton is said to have been asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, to which he supposedly replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” In his autobiography, Sutton denied the quote, but it serves as a warning to those who fear Democrats will come after their retirement savings because that’s where the money is.

All of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates and their advisers seem united in their belief that the federal income tax is inadequate to meet their increasingly voracious spending needs, despite the fact that Washington regularly collects record amounts of tax revenue.

The Wall Street Journal reports on what may be coming should a Democrat win the White House in next year’s election: “For the richest Americans, Democrats want to shift toward taxing their wealth, instead of just their salaries and the income their assets generate. The personal income tax indirectly touches wealth, but only when assets are sold and become income.”

The Economic Innovation Group, a nonprofit that seeks to encourage investment in low-income areas, reports by the end of 2017, American households had $3.8 trillion in unrealized gains in stocks and investment funds and even more in real estate, private businesses and artwork, says the Journal.

If raiding retirement funds occurs, it will start at the extremes, as most outrages do. The strategy will be to again beat up on the successful and wealthy as part of the left’s envy, greed and entitlement scenario.

We regularly hear from Democrats how rich people aren’t paying their “fair share,” though they never tell us what they consider fair and how much of that share they think government should seize.

After socking it to the rich, Democrats won’t stop there. Having established a precedent and again raising taxes on capital gains, they will ultimately find a way to come after your IRA and 401K accounts, which harbor money you have earned for your retirement and pay taxes on as the funds are withdrawn. Not soon enough for Democrats. They think you should be taxed on it now, though how that would happen is yet to be determined as we currently receive a tax deduction for money we invest until age 70-½ when mandatory withdrawals must start.

As usual, this debate begins at the wrong end. Since college has just started for many students, try this analogy. Your child is sent off to school and has agreed to a budget. After the first month, you get a call asking for more money because the kid has spent it all on partying. You can either send more money, which will only encourage the irresponsible behavior, or you can say “no.”

Politicians seem incapable of saying “no,” chiefly because it isn’t their money they are spending and because they use it to buy votes, addicting more people to government and thus, to them.

It’s an old, but relevant quote: “We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.” Add $21 trillion to Ronald Reagan’s remark, to reflect the current debt.

Irresponsible spending by both parties is sufficient reason not to give politicians more of our money. Who will stop them from coming after our retirement funds? Since a majority in both parties seems unwilling to restrain themselves, we the people must do it for them. Call it an intervention and it has never been more needed.

It can start with next year’s election.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/65267?mailing_id=4513&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4513&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

A quick read of George Washington’s official proclamations and writings reveals that he is the Founding Father of Christian nationalism.

Currently, those words generally refer to faithful  grassroots Americans who advocate for legislation that reflects Christian morals and ethics; who promote faith as a discussion point in national political dialogue (including the sanctity of human life); and who support such things as displaying the Ten Commandments on public property — as they are in the reliefs above the Supreme Court building. Christian Nationalists also support our national motto, “In God We Trust,” and are defenders of the fundamental tenets of Liberty, especially religious Liberty, enshrined in our Constitution.

In 2016, one of our analysts, Paul Albaugh, expressed his reservations about the rise of a particular sect of Christian nationalism — one that related to Christian leaders and organizations hitching their wagons to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Frankly, I too have had reservations about the way national evangelical Christian leaders have closed ranks around Trump. My concern was never so much about their motive — which was not a declaration that Americans are the new “chosen people” — but about their proximity to Trump and the company they keep. While there is much to applaud about Donald Trump’s policy achievements, he is most assuredly not known for his Christian morals nor his devotion to Christ and the teachings of the Gospels. Thus, merging ministries with the Trump campaign is a potential Faustian bargain.

That being said, like the majority of our nation’s Founders, and most of its leaders since, I share a devotion to God and my country, in that order, and not as co-equals. I belong to the former and have sworn allegiance to the latter.

I’m a pragmatist when it comes to electing government officials. I voted for Donald Trump because there was no question in my mind that he was a better candidate than his opponent, given that he was far more likely to appoint conservative judges, rebuild our military, strengthen our southern border, and protect our Constitution. Further, I believed he would do far more for all Americans than would scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton and her Left-elite cadres.

By “better candidate,” I mean in every single respect, including his economic policies and his promise to “Make America Great Again.”

But in retrospect, considering Trump’s record since taking office, I underestimated how much his presidency would comport with our Patriot Post core mission — “advocating for individual rights and responsibilities; supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary; and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values,” as outlined in our Statement of Principles. To that end, mostly by way of executive orders but with some help from congressional Republicans, he’s made enormous strides to promote and protect Liberty and Rule of Law — particularly religious Liberty, which is one reason why he’s so utterly loathed by the Left.

Consequently, the Democrat Party and its frontline socialists have identified a new target for their wrath: “Christian Nationalists.” They are reframing those words to be used in a deprecating and pejorative context, and I can assure you that whatever reservations reasonable Christians have about the notion of Christian nationalism, the Left is setting up a straw man to bushwhack all Christians.

There is an effort to redefine Christian nationalism by those who detest both Christians and Patriotism. This self-anointed group of “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” has an official statement defining “Christian Nationalism” that is being promoted and endorsed by leftist social-justice types.

Those endorsers include the Most Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church (now considered apostate by the World Anglican Communion); Sister Simone Campbell, who heads the Catholic social-justice lobby NETWORK; Jim Winkler, who is president of the National Council of Churches; and Melissa Rogers, former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under Barack scumbag/liar-nObama, himself a disciple of afrocentric hate.

The group’s statement, which doesn’t identify its author or authors, wastes no time in setting up a straw-man argument: “[Christian Nationalism] overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our Christian brothers and sisters to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and to our nation.”

Gosh, we’re all against “white supremacy and racial subjugation,” so we’d better get on board!

Caveat emptor. No doubt the group’s target list is a much broader roundup of those with whom it disagrees — and likely mirrors the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center’s radical definition of hate.

The statement continues: “Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. … As Christians, we must speak in one voice condemning Christian nationalism as a distortion of the gospel of Jesus and a threat to American democracy.”

The great irony is that those endorsing this statement have made great strides to distort the gospel of Jesus and undermine our nation — which, by the way, is a Republic, not a “democracy.”

Finally, the statement notes that it seeks to defend the “separation of church and state.” Ah, yes, that errant assertion of the “wall of separation” myth espoused by those who seek to undermine the unalienable rights of all people as “endowed by our Creator.”

Recently, Pastor Robert Jeffress, who leads First Baptist Church in Dallas and is an unapologetic supporter of Trump, summed up the proper contextual understanding for Christian nationalism: “God’s no respecter of people or nations. But any nation that honors God will be blessed by God and any nation, including the United States of America, that rejects God will be rejected by God.”

Likewise, political observer Gary Bauer provides the historic context for Christian nationalism, observing that the Left “never misses an opportunity to bash Trump, and any form of nationalism must be a bad thing [but] the notion that God had a uniquely Christian purpose for our country pretty well sums up the views of our Founding Fathers.”

(For additional context on how the Left defines Christian Nationalism, listen to David Barton’s remarks on this topic.)  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/alexander/65258?mailing_id=4513&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4513&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Let me mention three distinctive themes that run through the book, themes that are hinted at in the book’s title and are instructive about America’s character.

First, there is the theme of America as a land — not just an idea, but also a people and a nation; a nation with a particular history, connected to a particular piece of real estate. To understand our nation, it’s not enough to understand principles such as equality and liberty, as important as those are. We also have to understand how those principles were put into action, how they were developed, how they came to be forces in our national life. American history, to be sure, is inseparable from America’s principles and ideals, but America is not simply those things. It is a place with a venerable history created by men and women to whom our veneration is owed. Think of those who lie in Arlington National Cemetery and of countless others in the long history of such sacrifices made on behalf of our country. These things bind us to the land in visceral ways that go beyond ideas or principles.

Second is the theme of hope. The idea of America as a land of hope shouldn’t be misinterpreted as signifying a saccharine or sentimental view of America’s past, but rather as taking into account history’s spiritual dimension. We are creatures with free wills and aspirations, not merely tumbleweeds at the mercy of large historical forces. Hope is a quality of soul, something that’s not quantifiable or explicable in strictly material terms. It is a consistent characteristic of this country that we have always sought to rise above or move beyond the conditions that are given to us at birth — something not true of every people. To be an American is to believe that the status we are born into is never the final word. We have a spirit of striving, a spirit of hope that goes back to our very beginnings.

Third and finally there is the theme of story. Our narratives large and small are an essential part of the way that we Americans make sense of the world.

Such lessons from history are in jeopardy as leftists take over and revise the American education system to make student ashamed of their heritage rather than proud of it. Read the rest of McClay’s speech here.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/65265?mailing_id=4513&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4513&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

In the days leading up to the town hall, several of the candidates released their “moderate” versions of the Green New Deal (GND). We say “moderate” because while the GND carries a staggering price tag of $93 trillion, plans offered by the clown car of Democrat candidates range anywhere from $1 trillion to $16 trillion — completely reasonable by comparison, right?

Wrong. Every Democrat who participated last night either endorsed or cosponsored the outrageous Green New Deal, and their comparatively less expensive individual plans are still totalitarian. Here are just a few platform planks:

• Onerous taxes on emissions

• “Social justice” remedies for the supposedly racially disparate impact of climate

• Expanded abortion for population control

• Restrictions on consumption of red meat

• Buy-back programs for gasoline-powered vehicles

• The complete elimination of fossil fuels and even nuclear power in the near future

Those are radical proposals, which is precisely why Democrats and their Leftmedia super PAC continue screaming that climate is truly a crisis. “We are fighting for the survival of the planet Earth, our only planet,” commie-Bernie Sanders declared. Elizabeth dinky-Warren likewise warned, “This is an emergency, and without rapid and widespread change, we will soon be unable to prevent the worst harms.” She also claims, “The future of our planet depends on it.”

No crisis, no need for radical transformation.

Yet that radical transformation wouldn’t even achieve the goal Democrats claim. “One hundred percent renewable energy defies the laws of physics,” said Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research. “It would be impossible to achieve.” A study by the National Academy of Sciences three years ago agreed: “It is extremely difficult to achieve complete decarbonization of the energy system, even when using every current technology and tool available, including energy efficiency and wind, hydroelectric, and solar energy as well as carbon capture and storage, bioenergy, and nuclear energy.”

But, again, saving the planet isn’t the Democrats’ real objective. By their own admission, Democrats are fomenting panic to justify a socialist power grab.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/65282?mailing_id=4513&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4513&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The decision by a California appeals court Friday overturning the conviction of an illegal immigrant who shot and killed Kate Steinle in San Francisco in 2015 once again put the national spotlight on the serious problem of crimes committed by people in the U.S. illegally.

The appeals court in San Francisco overturned the conviction of Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Garcia-Zarate was earlier found not guilty of first- and second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and assault with a semi-automatic weapon.

Garcia-Zarate said he unwittingly picked up a gun, which he said was wrapped in a T-shirt, and it fired accidentally. The appeals court overturned his conviction on the firearm possession charge because it said the judge at his trial failed to give the jury the option of finding him not guilty on the theory that he only possessed the gun for a moment.

Opponents of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress repeatedly claim that illegal immigrants are “less likely” to commit crimes than U.S. citizens — and thus represent no threat to public safety. But that’s not true when it comes to federal crimes.

Non-citizens constitute only about 7 percent of the U.S. population. Yet the latest data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that non-citizens accounted for nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all federal arrests in 2018. Just two decades earlier, only 37 percent of all federal arrests were non-citizens.

These arrests aren’t just for immigration crimes. Non-citizens accounted for 24 percent of all federal drug arrests, 25 percent of all federal property arrests, and 28 percent of all federal fraud arrests.

In 2018, a quarter of all federal drug arrests took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border. This reflects the ongoing activities of Mexican drug cartels. Last year, Mexican citizens accounted for 40 percent of all federal arrests.

In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.

Migrants from Central American countries are also accounting for a larger share of federal arrests, going from a negligible 1 percent of such arrests in 1998 to 20 percent today.

Critics will try to downplay the importance of the Justice Department’s report by pointing out that the majority of crimes in the United States are handled by prosecutors in state and local courts. But even there the data is shocking.

A recent report from the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that 297,000 non-citizens had been “booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and July 31, 2019.” So these are non-citizens who allegedly committed local crimes, not immigration violations.

The report noted that a little more than two-thirds (202,000) of those booked in Texas jails were later confirmed as illegal immigrants by the federal government.

According to the Texas report, over the course of their criminal careers those illegal immigrants were charged with committing 494,000 criminal offenses.

Some of these cases are still being prosecuted, but the report states that there have already been over 225,000 convictions. Those convictions represent: 500 homicides; 23,954 assaults; 8,070 burglaries; 297 kidnappings; 14,178 thefts; 2,026 robberies; 3,122 sexual assaults; 3,840 sexual offenses; 3,158 weapon charges and tens of thousands of drug and obstruction charges

These statistics reveal the very real danger created by sanctuary policies. In nine self-declared sanctuary states and numerous sanctuary cities and counties, officials refuse to hand over criminals who are known to be in this country illegally after they have served their state or local sentences.

This refusal to cooperate with federal immigration officials suggests that state and local officials supporting the sanctuary movement believe it’s better to let these criminals return to their communities rather than being removed from this country. Not all of their constituents would agree.

The Texas report is careful to note that it is not claiming “foreign nationals” commit “more crimes than other groups.” Whether that is true or not — and it is certainly true when it comes to federal crimes — is irrelevant.

What is highly relevant to the current debate about immigration policy is that the Texas report “identifies thousands of crimes that should not have occurred and thousands of victims that should not have been victimized because the perpetrators should not be here.”

We know that in Texas and around the country some individuals would be alive today — and their families would not be mourning their loss — if we had a secure border and an effective interior enforcement system.

Instead of trying to obstruct enforcement of our immigration laws, state and local officials should do everything they can to help the feds reduce the very real — and all too often fatal — dangers posed by criminal illegal immigrants.

One of the worst recent examples of a state official who refuses to help federal immigration authorities carry out their duties is North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

The Democratic governor recently vetoed a bill that would require local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Cooper did so just days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents captured an illegal immigrant charged with first-degree rape and indecent liberties against a child.

The man arrested in that crime was on the loose because he had been released from custody by county officials, despite the existence of a federal detainer warrant for him.

Politicians who declare their jurisdictions to be sanctuaries for illegal immigrants who commit crimes are needlessly endangering their law-abiding citizens. That is shameful.  ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/65240?mailing_id=4509&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4509&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Rep. worthless-Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is accused of improperly using political campaign funds to reimburse her alleged lover for travel expenses, doesn’t need to worry for now about a complaint filed against her with the Federal Election Commission. Vacancies on the FEC make it impossible for the commission to take any action.

The FEC, where I served as a commissioner over a decade ago, is supposed to act as a government watchdog against election law violations. But unless it has four members, the watchdog is effectively muzzled and chained, helpless to act. Right now there are three members and three vacancies on the commission.

That’s good news for worthless-Omar, who refused Wednesday to answer questions about the allegations filed against her this week by a nonprofit group called the National Legal and Policy Center, which describes itself as “a charitable and educational organization” that seeks to “foster and promote ethics in government and public life.”

Asked by a reporter in Minneapolis why she is refusing to answer questions, worthless-Omar said: “Because they’re stupid questions.” Later in the day the married congresswoman told reporters: “I will just say I have no interest in commenting on anything that you are about to ask about my personal life, so you can chase me all you want.”

The FEC will send worthless-Omar a copy of the complaint filed against her and she will have 15 days to send a response. But the question of whether to open an investigation of the congresswoman — who has been accused by President Trump and others of anti-Semitism and hatred of the Jewish state of Israel — will have to wait until there are four confirmed FEC commissioners. No one knows when that will happen.

With at least four members, the FEC could levy a fine against worthless-Omar if it finds she committed a civil violation of campaign finance law. The commission has the power to determine the amount of such a fine, based on whatever commissioners believe is appropriate.

The complaint filed with the FEC against worthless-Omar alleges that her election campaign paid a consultant — Tim Mynett and his E. Street Group, LLC — $230,000 for fundraising consulting, digital communications, Internet advertising and travel expenses.

However, in a divorce case filed by Tim Mynett’s wife, Beth Mynett, she alleges that her husband told her “he was romantically involved with” worthless-Omar — a claim worthless-Omar denies.

Beth Mynett’s divorce complaint alleges that her husband’s “recent travel and long work hours now appear to be more related to his affair with Rep. worthless-Omar than with his actual work commitments.”

The complaint filed with the FEC points out that the payment of Tim Mynett’s travel expenses started the same month that Mynett reportedly told his wife he was having an extramarital affair with worthless-Omar.

Thus, according to the complaint filed with the FEC, the travel expenses for Tim Mynett made with funds collected as political campaign contributions “may have been unrelated, or only partially related, to worthless-Omar’s campaign” and instead may have been “so that Rep. worthless-Omar would have the benefit of Mynett’s romantic companionship.”

If that is the case, then payments by worthless-Omar to Tim Mynett were “personal in nature” and not related to the campaign, according to the complaint.

If these allegations are true, worthless-Omar may have run afoul of a federal law — specifically, 52 U.S.C. §30114. This law bars the use of campaign funds “to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.”

Examples of what is prohibited for funding with campaign donations include such items as a personal mortgage, clothing purchases, non-campaign-related car expenses, and vacations and other non-campaign-related trips.

In other words, if Mynett’s travel expense were unrelated to his actual work for the campaign but in furtherance of an affair with worthless-Omar, those would be personal expenses. Campaign funds couldn’t be used to pay them.

worthless-Omar’s attorneys have dismissed the complaint filed with the FEC as a “political ploy.” But until the FEC gets another commissioner, neither this complaint nor any others will be investigated by the commission to see if there is actually any substance — and any credibility — to the allegations being made.

So while the complaint against worthless-Omar is making headlines — both because of the nature of the allegations and her prominence as one of four far-left Democratic freshman congresswomen known as the “Squad” — all political candidates are getting a free pass on any complaints filed against them with the FEC as long as the commission has three vacancies.

The resignation of Commissioner Matt Petersen (who replaced me) from the FEC earlier this month left the commission in its current state of paralysis, with three vacancies.

The six FEC commissioners are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. There is a long tradition that whenever a seat held by the political party not in control of the White House opens up, the president asks the leader of that political party in the Senate for his choice to fill the seat.

There are currently two empty Republicans seats and one empty Democratic seat on the commission.

The names of FEC nominees are sent to the Senate in pairs — one Republican and one Democrat.

President Trump nominated a Texas lawyer, Trey Trainor, in 2017 to fill an open Republican seat. But there has been no public report that Senate Minority Leader Chuck scumbag-Schumer, D-N.Y., has given Trump a nominee for the Democratic seat that has been empty since 2017.

Without a quorum — four commissioners on the six-member FEC — the commission can’t hold meetings, initiate audits, vote on enforcement matters, issue advisory opinions, or engage in rulemaking.

As a result, as the 2020 presidential election cycle heats up, the FEC remains unable to carry out the most important duties it was created to perform.

The FEC regulates all of the contributions and expenditures of federal candidates for the presidency and Congress. When it has at least four members, the commission is empowered to go after candidates, political parties, political action committees and others who violate the law, imposing civil penalties consisting of fines.

The vast majority of campaign finance violations are civil matters because they are usually inadvertent violations of the law. The Federal Election Campaign Act is byzantine in its complexity and often ambiguous. Even the commissioners sometime disagree on the proper interpretation and application of the law.

The U.S. Justice Department retains jurisdiction over criminal campaign finance violations, which are “knowing and willful” violations of the law. However, criminal prosecutions are very rare.

As an example, missing the deadline for filing a required campaign finance report on contributions received by a candidate is a civil violation, while knowingly spending campaign funds on personal expenses unrelated to a campaign would be a criminal violation.

That’s why former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D-Ill., went to jail in 2013. He pleaded guilty to spending $750,000 in campaign funds on everything from personal travel and restaurant expenses to a Rolex watch, fur coats for his wife, and memorabilia from Bruce Lee, Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix, along with mounted elk heads for his office.

Right now the ball is in Sen. scumbag-Schumer’s court to nominate a Democratic FEC commissioner, and for the Senate to then confirm a Democrat and a Republican to the commission. Until that happens, worthless-Ilhan Omar has nothing to worry about from the FEC.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/65208?mailing_id=4507&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4507&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body