by Brian Mark Weber:  Need to cash a check, board an airplane, or pick up a few beers for the weekend? Better bring along your ID. Need to vote in a presidential election? No worries. Heck, you can just pretend to be someone else. Even a dead person.

The good news is that more states are starting to jump on board with voter ID laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But currently only seven states require a photo ID. Three states require identification without a photo. Another 25 states “request” an ID, but allow voters to cast a provisional ballot if they can’t provide one.

In other words, there’s inconsistency across the board when it comes to verifying the identity of voters. If nothing else, these new laws will make it easier to see just how pervasive the problem is.

It’s no wonder the Left opposes commonsense voter ID. After all, the cheaters (as we saw in Florida’s Broward County last November) tend to be Democrats. Accordingly, the Left continues to peddle the false notion that the laws are nothing more than a way for Republicans to keep minorities from voting. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has pushed this false narrative and convinced many Americans that voter ID laws are inherently racist.

A new study, however, is bad news for these false prophets.

Professors Vincent Pons of Harvard Business School and Enrico Cantoni of the economics department at Italy’s University of Bologna conducted a study issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research. They concluded, “Strict ID laws have no significant negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any subgroup defined by age, gender, race, or party affiliation.”

In fact, areas with voter ID in place may actually see more so-called disadvantaged groups on Election Day. According to The Washington Free Beacon, the study also concluded, “Paradoxically … voter ID laws might goose turnout among certain marginalized groups. This, the authors argue, is because a perceived ‘attack’ on a right (e.g., the right to vote) can mobilize voters who would otherwise fail to turn out.”

Pons and Cantoni are not alone in their findings.

The Daily Signal reports, “Various studies in recent years done by professors at the University of Missouri, the University of Delaware, [and] the University of Nebraska surveying elections from 2000 through 2016 found similar results that voter ID laws do not suppress voter turnout.”

While it’s pretty clear that voter ID laws don’t keep anyone from voting, there is inconclusive evidence as to whether such laws combat voter fraud. One of the problems is that we haven’t had a sustained effort to uncover the causes of fraud at the ballot box — a task made even harder by those states that fail to require any form of ID on Election Day in the first place.

Of course, it doesn’t take millions of fraudulent votes to tilt an election — especially in a country whose political loyalties are so evenly split. A few illegals here, a few felons there, and a handful of dead people in that other place can make all the difference. Fortunately, organizations such as The Heritage Foundation are working to show Americans that voter fraud is real.

But Democrats are committed to keeping the scales tipped in their favor. They’re aggressively campaigning against the Electoral College itself and pushing for support of both the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and the grossly misnamed For the People Act. All of these measures are designed to overturn our long-established electoral system and open up the floodgates for widespread fraud.

Leftists are always clamoring that we “count every vote.” How telling it is that they’re also doing everything they can to keep the rest of us from ensuring the integrity of our elections.  ~The Patriot Post

commie-Ocasio-Cortez

by Business Review Board:  The speculation turned out to be authentic. On Thursday, Amazon officially reneged on its New York City headquarters. The rumor that it would do so first appeared last Friday in The Washington Post, which disclosed that “Amazon.com is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City.” The Post elaborated, “The project … faces withering criticism from some elected officials and advocacy groups appalled at the prospect of giving giant subsidies to the world’s most valuable company, led by its richest man.” A man who, by the way, owns The Washington Post.

“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” Amazon announced yesterday. Why? “A number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.”

One of those politicians is actually Rep. commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who crowed about having “defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.”

Democrat Gov. Andrew evil-Cuomo, already battling a revenue shortfall in the state, isn’t happy. He complained, “A small group politicians put their own narrow political interests above their community — which poll after poll showed overwhelmingly supported bringing Amazon to Long Island City — the state’s economic future and the best interests of the people of this state.” He didn’t name commie-Ocasio-Cortez, but the Millennial heartthrob was clearly one of his prime targets.

The second headquarters was to be split between Queens, New York, and the DC suburb of Crystal City, Virginia — a determination that our Thomas Gallatin previously reported was cronyistic from the get-go. “In the end, the reasoning behind this decision is obvious: direct access to the levers of financial and political power in two high-profile leftist enclaves,” wrote Gallatin. “Instead of locating the new headquarters in the most business-friendly states and environments, Amazon chose leftist power centers knowing that the company will be able to seamlessly pass on any higher costs to consumers. And the tax benefits to Amazon work out to almost $50,000 per job created. Cronyism at its finest.”

In this regard, Amazon’s backtracking is good. It’s one thing if a neighborhood decides it doesn’t want a huge corporate HQ in its backyard, but Amazon had no other choice given the prevailing  political headwinds.

According to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, “We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world. Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.” The truth is New York City should not have been a finalist, especially when superior suitors were fiercely vying to be selected. Amazon says, “We do not intend to reopen the HQ2 search at this time.” Regardless, it has an opportunity to make a better business decision than it did back in November.

As the Washington Examiner saliently puts it, “In the end, the termination of this deal is a win for everyone. The socialists get to crow about keeping their neighborhoods poor. New York’s taxpayers don’t have to pay Jeff Bezos exorbitant sums to do business in their state. And Amazon, having learned its lesson about dealing with socialists, might benefit as well if, instead of seeking special handouts, it seeks in the future to create jobs in low-tax states with right-to-work protections and a friendly-but-fair business climate for everyone.”  ~The Patriot Post

Despite all the MSM hyperbole — Left and Right — over the last two years, the latest evidence of a DoJ/FBI conspiracy against Trump illuminates a very dangerous episode in American political history — much more ominous than Richard Nixon’s concealment of the DNC/Watergate burglary.

In fact, Watergate was a wading pool compared to the deep, dark depths of the collusion between scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton and Barack scumbag/liar-nObama operatives within the Department of Justice — all Democrat Party partisans — who contemplated two vectors for removing Trump from office.

First, they considered using the 25th Amendment provision for removing a president who is completely incapacitated. When that consideration was discarded, the same FBI and DoJ conspirators implemented a different tack to severely disable Trump and his administration — hobbling him with endless and baseless investigations. To be clear, this was not the typical obstructionist investigations fronted by opposing factions in Congress — this was a secret conspiracy by high-level government officials to oust a president.

We have covered the FBI/DoJ tactical charade in depth over the last two years, most notably in our analysis of former FBI Director scumbag-James Comey’s higher loyalty to scumbag/liar-Clinton, the firing of then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, the “dirty cop-Mueller/scumbag/liar-Clinton Collusion to Take Down Trump,” and the Department of Justice IG report on scumbag/commie-Brennan,scumbag-Comey, and   scumbag/liar-Clinton as corrupt co-conspirators.

Until this week, discussions about the “25th Amendment” option had been largely dismissed as facetious, but enter Andrew McCabe again, now declaring in a CBS interview that those discussions were serious.

While the full interview has not been released, his interviewer, CBS’s Scott Pelley, says, “The most illuminating and surprising thing in the interview to me were these eight days in May when all of these things were happening behind the scenes. … There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment. These were the eight days from scumbag-Comey’s firing to the point that dirty cop-Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president.”

Regarding consideration of the 25th Amendment option, McCabe told CBS this was not facetious but in fact a repeated and serious consideration — so much so that McCabe consulted lawyers to discuss if it could be done. He also said that then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s suggestion about recording conversations with Trump to set him up for a 25th takedown was not sarcastic, as it has been portrayed.

Regarding what amounts to a brazen coup d'etat attempt, former Harvard constitutional law professor and noted liberal Alan Dershowitz observed: “The 25th Amendment is about Woodrow Wilson having a stroke. It’s about a president being shot and not being able to perform his office. It’s not about the most fundamental disagreements. It’s not about impeachable offenses. Any Justice Department official who even mentioned the 25th Amendment in the context of President Trump has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution. … To use the 25th Amendment to circumvent the impeachment provisions or to circumvent an election is a despicable act of unconstitutional power grabbing. … I challenge any left-wing person to … defend the use of the 25th Amendment. I challenge any of my colleagues who are in the ‘get Trump at any cost’ camp to … justify the use of the 25th Amendment other than for physical or psychiatric incapacity.”  ~The Patriot Post

House Speaker Nancy Pulosi (D-CA) warned, “A Democratic president can declare emergencies, as well. So the precedent that the president is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by the Republicans.” Pulosi then pointed to one of the Democrats long-running hobby horses and said, “Let’s talk about … the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That’s a national emergency. Why don’t you declare that emergency, Mr. President? … But a Democratic president can do that.” Except we have a little thing called the Second Amendment…

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) voiced constitutional concerns over Trump’s decision, stating, “We have a crisis at our southern border, but no crisis justifies violating the Constitution. Today’s national emergency is border security. But a future president may use this exact tactic to impose the Green New Deal.” But Rubio did note that he would await further details of Trump’s emergency declaration before determining whether he’d support it.

Regarding the subject of national emergencies, it’s important to note that the National Emergencies Act of 1976 was passed primarily as a means of keeping better track of the emergency powers granted to the president and determining which declarations were still in effect. Essentially, the authority to declare a national emergency grants the president special temporary power to deal with a crisis directly related to foreign threats that arise against American interests both domestic and abroad. There are currently 31 active national emergencies, the oldest being Jimmy Carter’s sanctions against the Iranian government.

In declaring a national emergency, Trump can point back to his repeated calls to Congress to act on the growing illegal-immigration crisis that has contributed to the drug-related deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and the murders of many others, costs American taxpayers billions annually in welfare services provided to illegal aliens, and hurts American workers by flooding the labor force with low-skilled illegal workers. Trump has worked to paint Democrats into a corner on this issue, demonstrating that they have no desire to protect American  citizens first and foremost, which is their constitutional duty.

Recall that Democrats didn’t voice any objections when Barack scumbag/liar-nObama overreached his executive authority some 76 times, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) notes, and yet when Trump seeks to use his rightful executive authority to enforce the nation’s laws, Democrats (and a few Republicans) squeal about constitutional overreach.

While we would certainly have preferred to see Congress act to provide the full funding for the construction of a more secure border barrier and increased border security, Trump’s emergency declaration is well within his constitutional authority. However, there is no question that this battle will soon move to the courts.  ~The Patriot Post

Cuomo has been governor of New York since 2011, and in the years since he’s become increasingly emboldened to force his extreme leftist ideology on the state and inspire it elsewhere. This culminated in his recent signing of a bill that not only authorizes but encourages late-term abortions. His polling slump most assuredly isn’t coincidental.

We know this because even most pro-choice advocates have a limit. YouGov/Americans United for Life has published new survey results on the matter. Sixty-eight percent of this group take issue with abortions within a day of birth, and a similar 66% assail third-trimester abortions in general. Moreover, of this same group, 77% agree with medically protecting viable children.

evil-Cuomo dug thousands upon thousands of additional graves when he signed New York’s late-term abortion law. But he’s possibly also dug himself his own political grave — and nobody should lament his downfall assuming it ever happens.  ~The Patriot Post

In late January, the Leftmedia pounced on the boys for alleged racist taunting and bullying of a Native American on the National Mall. But the resulting hate-narrative lynch mob had the facts all wrong. Not only were the boys not the aggressors, they were the recipients of racial epithets from the Black Hebrew Israelites, a group of racist haters advocating black supremacy. Then Nathan Phillips, a well-documented liar and fraud, showed up to beat his Native American drum in the face of the most famous of the boys, Nick Sandmann. The video evidence is clear, and investigators concluded that the statements they received “are remarkably consistent” with each other and “with the videos we reviewed.”

Investigators could not reach Phillips, however, even when they parked outside his home for a day. It’s no surprise that he doesn’t want to talk to them. He’s much more comfortable spouting lies on CNN.

Nevertheless, the reason that even a few conservative outlets initially dumped on the Catholic students was that their own diocese was so quick to throw them under the bus. Within hours of the initial reports, Covington Catholic High School and its Kentucky diocese shamefully issued a joint apology to Phillips, noting, “This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”

That apology was taken down from the web, and Bishop Roger Foys of Covington soon issued an apology to the students. In fact, he now says “I commend them” for what “one might even say [was] laudatory” behavior. That’s as it should be, but, again, a lot of damage had been done already.

Unfortunately, there will also be those who are so deeply insulted at the mere sight of a MAGA hat that the truth is irrelevant. Guy Jones, a Hunkpapa Lakota and member of the Greater Cincinnati Native American Coalition, complained after the report, “The fact that you have these students wearing these MAGA hats and they were doing the tomahawk chop — that was a statement.” Dina Gilio-Whitaker, a member of Colville Confederated Tribes in California and professor of American Indian studies at California State University at San Marcos, likewise grumbled, “They were all wearing MAGA gear, which is, unfortunately, a visual cue.”

Sandmann’s attorney, Lin Wood, was having none of that nonsense. “The MAGA cap that Nick was wearing provides no legal excuse or justification for the politically motivated accusers, rather it only confirms their bias and malice. Anyone who falsely attacked, disparaged, or threatened a minor because of the cap he was wearing should hang his or her head in shame and be held fully accountable in a court of law.” Well said.  

~The Patriot Post

In the past few weeks, prominent Democrats have endorsed infanticide; admitted to dressing in blackface; called for an end to fossil fuels, airplanes and farting cows; and trafficked in open anti-Semitism. None of this is a serious problem for many in the media. For members of the media, the real story is that Republicans keep pouncing.

Two weeks ago, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam stated in an interview that he favors legislation that would allow a woman to abort a baby at the point of dilation and then added that in certain cases in which a baby would be born alive, the baby would be kept “comfortable” while parents and doctors decide what to do with it. This seems rather radical. Here was the Washington Post’s take, as said in a headline: “Republicans seize on liberal positions to paint Democrats as radical.” The positions, you see, are ackshually mainstream. It’s just that Republicans seized on them and painted them as radical.

Last week, Rep. commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., released a Green New Deal backgrounder and FAQ on her website — and her staff sent the six-page document to a variety of media outlets. The document happens to be fully insane. It calls for America to be carbon emissions-free within 10 years without use of nuclear power. It suggests that every building in the country be either replaced or retrofitted. It calls for universal health care, free college education, replacement of airplanes with high-speed trains, replacement of “every combustion-engine vehicle,” government-provided jobs, abolition of “farting cows” and, best of all, total “economic security” for anyone “unwilling to work.” The proposal is so farcical that even Democrats ran from it screaming. AOC took down it down from her website and then deployed campaign aides to state that the document was “accidentally” released as an “early draft.” Unsurprisingly, no revised draft has been posted.

Here is The New York Times’ headline: “commie-Ocasio-Cortez Team Flubs a Green New Deal Summary, and Republicans Pounce.”

This week, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., engaged in open anti-Semitism, suggesting that American support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins” and then doubling down on that comment by blaming the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for America’s pro-Zionist attitude. This follows years of overtly anti-Semitic content from Omar, as well as from Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who suggested back in January that Americans who like Israel suffer from dual loyalty and “forgot which country they represent.”

Politico tweeted: “The Republican Party has a new trio of Democratic villains: Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”

Now, pouncing is never a story. Ever. It is a simple fact of politics that when people screw up, their political opponents react with alacrity. Highlighting that response rather than the underlying screw-up is the equivalent of a headline that reads “Sun Rises in Morning.” Yet that’s what the media do … whenever Democrats screw up. Republican gaffes are a story in and of themselves. Democratic gaffes aren’t a story; Republican nastiness is.

All of which demonstrates that a huge swath of the media is inseparable from the Democratic Party. If your first response to Democratic nut-jobbery is to get defensive about Republican blowback, you’re no longer a journalist. You’re merely a hack. You are, as President Trump would put it, “fake news” — an activist masquerading as a journalist.

I suppose this means I’m pouncing on the media, though.  

~The Patriot Post

Yes, Democrats want to start a new investigation into already-under-investigation Trump-Russia allegations. And yes, they want to investigate Trump associates like Michael Cohen, Roger Stone and others. But by far the biggest thing Democrats want, now that they have the majority in the House, is to get their hands on the president’s tax returns.

House Democrats want to use a 1924 law that allows any one of three entities — the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation — to demand that the Treasury Department turn over the returns of any individual. The law has almost never been used. For the first 50 years of its existence, no one tried to get a president’s returns — although the law played a role in the fight over Richard Nixon’s finances — and in the years since Gerald Ford took office, presidents have voluntarily made their returns public. Until Donald Trump.

So now, Democrats propose that the entity they fully control — the Ways and Means Committee — force Treasury, parent agency of the Internal Revenue Service, to turn over the president’s returns. What do they hope to find? What is remarkable is that even the most aggressive Democrats don’t seem to have a clear idea what they will find in the returns. They’re just sure there must be something bad in there.

The former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has written of Trump-Russia special counsel dirty cop-Robert Mueller that “dirty cop-Mueller does not have a crime he is investigating. He is investigating in hopes of finding a crime.” That is what Democrats are planning with the president’s tax returns.

“President Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns makes it clear he has something to hide,” said Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is a sponsor of the Presidential Tax Transparency Act, which would require presidents and presidential candidates to release their returns.

Of course, Democrats do have some broad ideas about what might be in the returns.

“We want to see if the president of the United States has a conflict of interest that he brought with him or that he created since he got here,” Rep. Bill Pascrell, a member of Ways and Means, said recently. “The only way to do that is to get his tax returns.”

Others think — no surprise — that there’s a Russia connection. Rep. Jackie Speier, a member of the Intelligence Committee, said it is important “for the American people to know to what extent Russia was engaged with then-entrepreneur Donald Trump. … Was there money laundering going on? … That’s why having his tax returns becomes so important.”

Other Democrats want the tax returns to see if Trump might have violated the “emoluments clause” of the Constitution. Still others want to see if Trump got a special break in the tax cut law he signed.

Democratic Rep. scumbag/mad-Maxine Waters, chair of the Financial Services Committee, was the most blunt. “We’re gonna get your tax returns,” scumbag/mad-Waters said recently, addressing Trump. “We’re gonna find out where your money has come from, the way that you have cheated the IRS.”

The tax returns — many House Democrats believe — will be a Rosetta Stone to Trump corruption.

There’s no doubt the law gives Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Richard Neal the power to demand the returns. That doesn’t mean Neal would get them right away; the Trump administration would surely raise legal objections that could tie the issue up in court. Perhaps for that reason, Neal has been a voice of caution in the push to see the returns.

There are others, too. Democratic Rep. Ron Kind, also a Ways and Means member, recently remarked that Mueller and his prosecutors have surely seen the returns, and therefore it would be best for the House to proceed carefully. But that is precisely what worries some Democrats. What if dirty cop-Mueller investigates and does not accuse Trump of any wrongdoing based on the tax returns?

Just in case, Democrats propose to perform an “MRI” on Trump’s finances, based in large part on the tax returns.

“Our priority is to make sure the president of the United States is working in the national interest, that he is not motivated by some pecuniary interest or fear of compromise or actual compromise,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. scumbag-Adam Schiff said recently. “What we’re interested in is: Does the president have business dealings with Russia such that it compromises the United States?”

For the Democrats to start the “MRI,” the first step has to be securing the president’s returns.

Trump broke a 40-year tradition by not releasing his tax returns during the campaign or since. Now, there are bills in both the House and Senate that would require presidents, and party nominees for the presidency, to release their returns. But they’re not law yet, and might never be.

Whatever happens, there will likely be serious consequences if the Ways and Means Committee chooses to force the release of the president’s returns. For one, it will set a precedent for the House majority, in this case the Democrats, to go after the tax returns of individuals. It is not hard to imagine that coming around to bite Democrats in the future.

Nevertheless, that is what Democrats appear to want. At a recent Ways and Means hearing into the issue of acquiring individual returns, Rep. John Lewis summed up the situation, and in the process said perhaps more than he intended: “This is not the end,” Lewis said. “This is just the beginning.”  ~The Patriot Post

It’s official. We just had the longest government shutdown in history over nothing. Democrats have agreed to fund $1.375 billion for 55 miles of physical barrier along the border, which is only a little more than what Trump would have gotten under a continuing resolution that funded the government at current levels — and far less than the $5.7 billion Trump demanded to build 230 miles of barriers that experts and the Department of Homeland Security said they need to secure the border.

But Trump can still get the rest of the money — without a government shutdown or declaring a national emergency.

Shutting down the government again isn’t an option. Democrats are not afraid of another shutdown. They know if Trump rejects this deal and closes the government, he would get the blame, and in a few weeks’ time we would end right up back where we are now — with a bad deal. They have zero incentive to give him more money for a border wall.

Declaring a national emergency would also be a mistake. Trump could face a rebellion within his own party, and rightly so. An emergency declaration is intended for actual emergencies — such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks or Hurricane Katrina. If Trump declares an emergency to circumvent Congress and build his wall, then a left-wing president could use that precedent one day to declare climate change a national emergency and implement the Green New Deal. Besides, the courts would likely enjoin his emergency declaration, tying up wall money for months if not years.

To win, Trump needs to shift the debate to a place where he has real leverage: using the threat of a sequester, rather than a shutdown, to force the Democrats to give him his border barrier. In 10 months’ time, if Congress fails to act, then an automatic sequester will kick in that would reduce federal spending in 2020 to levels that Congress and President Barack scumbag/liar-nObama set in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Congress agreed to lift those spending caps for two years in 2018, increasing both defense and nondefense discretionary spending above sequester levels by $165 billion and $131 billion, respectively. But that deal runs out at the end of the year. If Congress does not lift the caps by December, then automatic $55 billion across-the-board cuts to domestic discretionary spending will take place, while defense spending will be cut by $71 billion.

That looming deadline gives Trump leverage he needs to get his wall. Democrats may not fear another shutdown, but will they really sacrifice $55 billion for domestic priorities next year just to deny Trump a measly $5.7 billion for a physical border barrier? Unlikely. If anything, Democrats want to use their new House majority to demand significant increases to domestic spending. Denying Trump his wall in December would lead to severe cuts. And Democrats would hardly have grounds on which to complain, since Trump would simply be following the terms of a budget deal that a Democratic-controlled Senate passed and scumbag/liar-nObama signed into law.

Of course, the defense cuts were intended as a deterrent to conservatives, who know they would be potentially disastrous for U.S. national security. But Trump may not care. He wants his wall and may be willing to swallow temporary defense cuts to inflict sufficient pain on the Democrats to get it.

Trump can’t win a shutdown fight today. But he can win a sequester fight at the end of the year. He should take the deal on the table today, resist the temptation to invoke a national emergency and then get the rest of his wall money in December when he finally has the upper hand.  

~The Patriot Post