National Review’s Jack Crowe says that the DNC “has joined a number of prominent progressive advocacy groups in withdrawing its support for the Women’s March in the wake of reports detailing anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering and support for notorious bigot Louis Farrakhan among its leadership.” This year’s Women’s March will occur Saturday in DC, but with relatively meager support.
               “The list includes fewer than half of the 500 sponsors who supported the march last year,” Crowe reveals, “and many of the most prominent past supporters, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, Emily’s List, and NARAL, are among the defectors. The DNC was initially listed as a sponsor when the list went up on Sunday but it, along with the NAACP and the National Organization for Women, were removed at some point thereafter. The DNC’s withdrawal came after Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory defended her past description of Farrakhan as the ‘GOAT’ or ‘greatest of all time’ during a Monday morning appearance on ABC’s The View.”
               Farrakhan, of course, would love nothing more than to exterminate the Jews, whom he considers to be insects. As recently as October, he groused, “You know what [my foes] do: call me an anti-Semite. Stop it! I’m anti-Termite.” This prompted even Chelsea scumbag/liar-Clinton to fire back, “Comparing Jews to termites is anti-Semitic, wrong and dangerous.” According to The Washington Free Beacon, “He has also attacked ‘that Satanic Jew,’ called Jews ‘the mother and father of apartheid,’ and said that ‘when you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door.’”
               Tellingly, the entire Women’s March leadership is  composed of bigots. As our Nate Jackson reported in November, “Theresa Shook, founder of the Women’s March, called for Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, and Carmen Perez of Women’s March, Inc. to step down because they ‘have steered the Movement away from its true course.’” All this and more eventually forced the DNC’s hand. And while it made the right decision not to sponsor the March, it had nothing to do with morality or conscience. This was all about damage control.
               Ironically, while the Women’s March takes place tomorrow, a far larger and more endearing event is happening today in DC — the March for Life. These gatherings occurred back to back last year as well. As we wrote at the time, “One side features love and science. The other has distorted those things beyond recognition.” This year is no different. Nor will the media coverage be any different. As columnist Gary Bauer observed  earlier this week, “While the media will ignore the March for Life, there will be wall-to-wall coverage of the Women’s March.”
               The biggest irony of all? While the DNC feigns concern over Farrakhan’s hatred of the Jews, the Women’s March would share an alarming ideological kinship with him even if its leadership wasn’t going to bat for him. Both the Women’s March and Farrakhan consider certain people to be disposable. The Leftmedia and DNC are incapable of acknowledging the parallel.  ~The Patriot Post

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             Regarding dirty cop-Robert Mueller’s investigation and the convictions of Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, I wrote last August that the investigation doesn’t “have anything to do with ‘Russian collusion,’ but the worms are out, and in the case of Cohen, so much for ‘lawyer-client privilege.’ … As his former attorney, Cohen knows where, on Trump’s behalf, he hid corporate and personal legal skeletons.”
               To date, Trump’s Cohen problem has centered on campaign-finance issues. But in late November, when it became clear that Cohen’s plea deal included perjury charges related to his congressional testimony about the timing of discussions about a future Russian building project, there were questions about why Cohen would lie about the timing.
               A report broke last night that Cohen lied at Trump’s direction. According to the Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney, “President Trump now stands accused of directing his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about Trump’s attempt to court Vladimir Putin during the campaign and build a hotel in Moscow.”
               During his presidential primary campaign, Trump asserted that he had no “business” in Russia at the time. It can be argued that it was fair enough for Trump to make that claim, because an ongoing conversation about the prospect of a future project does not constitute “business” in the present, as if Trump owned a property in Russia at the time. Trump has admitted he had conversations with Russia about a project.
               However, given that Cohen admitted to lying to Congress about when the 2016 discussions regarding a potential future project in Russia ended, if there is irrefutable evidence that Trump instructed Cohen to lie to Congress about it, that does  constitute suborning perjury — a serious offense. Keep an eye on this one.
               That speculation notwithstanding, now that Democrats  control Congress, expect to hear a renewed chorus of howls to investigate and impeach Trump.  ~The Patriot Post

Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.

I look forward to seeing you soon and even more forward to watching our open and dangerous Southern Border finally receive the attention, funding, and security it so desperately deserves!

The letter was signed, “Sincerely, Donald Trump.” Trump’s move was clearly a response to Pulosi’s political theatrics earlier this week when she threatened to postpone the annual State of the Union Address until after the partial government shutdown is ended due to bogus “concerns” over security.
               Sen. Ted Cruz was spot on regarding Pulosi’s motivation for postponing the SOTU: “It’s not a substantive disagreement; it’s that they’re terrified of their extreme left wing, who hates Trump. And that’s why we’re having a shutdown. So why does Nancy Pulosi not want the State of the Union? Because the State of the Union is an enormous platform for the president to speak directly to the American people, and she doesn’t want people focusing on the substance of this issue. She wants their information to come from the mainstream media rather than the president.”
               Mark Alexander speculates further: Pulosi may also be “concerned that new left-wing members of Congress will act poorly during Trump’s remarks.” Recall how foolishly the Democrats behaved during Trump’s SOTU speech last year.
               Pulosi and her fellow Democrats are in unfamiliar territory — they’re facing off against a Republican president who is willing to use Democrat hardball tactics. It’s as if they are fighting against their own shadow. It’s also important to note that Trump postponed a trip for members of his Cabinet to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, likewise citing the shutdown. Trump is sending a clear message: Everyone stays in Washington until this shutdown is resolved.  ~The Patriot Post

             Even with Trump’s action guaranteeing that there is light at the end of the shutdown tunnel, hundreds of thousands of federal workers — many of them essential and still on the job — are feeling the immediate financial hit from missed paychecks. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pulosi and her fellow Democrats are content to play political games by refusing to even meet with Trump and Republicans in negotiation efforts and by requesting that Trump postpone the annual State of the Union Address over bogus security concerns. In truth, Pulosi doesn’t want Trump to have that much unfiltered access to the American people, where he can make a strong compelling case for the need for a border wall and can expose the Democrats for being opposed to enforcing the nation’s sovereign right to secure our borders. She’d rather continue the pain and theater of her shutdown so she can better represent people who aren’t even citizens of the nation.
               Importantly, though, despite the partial government shutdown, the vast majority of Americans are getting along just fine. In fact, if it wasn’t for the media constantly covering it, would many Americans even know there was a shutdown?  ~The Patriot Post

On January 3rd, it was my privilege as Speaker to invite you to deliver the State of the Union address on January 29th. …

The U.S. Secret Service was designated as the lead federal agency responsible for coordinating, planning, exercising, and implementing security for National Special Security Events by Public Law 106-544, December 19, 2000. However, both the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have not been funded for 26 days now — with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs.

Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th.

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen immediately contradicted Pulosi’s assertion, saying the Secret Service is “fully prepared” for the SOTU. Pulosi responded curtly, “I don’t care what they say.
               Ed Morrissey quips, "And with that, the new Speaker of the House just made the best case possible for a perpetual shutdown. Kidding! What I meant to say was that Nancy Pulosi has finally sounded a note of wisdom, at least in her reminder that presidents used to just deliver a report in writing to Congress.” Indeed they did. As Pulosi also noted, “During the 19th Century and up until the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, these annual State of the Union messages were delivered to Congress in writing.”
               Morrissey rightly says this is “a tradition worth restoring, especially to reverse the treatment of the president as some kind of feudal lord in Congress.”
               Philip Klein chimes in, “There may be times when it makes sense for a president to address a joint session of Congress in front of the whole nation, such as when former President George W. Bush spoke to the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks and laid out his vision for fighting the ‘war on terror.’ But as an annual staged event, the State of the Union is pointless. In an era of the 24/7 news, the Internet, and social media, there is no reason for networks to provide airtime to this event. The president has endless tools at his disposal to make his case to Congress and the country.”
               Meanwhile, Pulosi is hardly acting with honorable intentions here. As Morrissey points out, “Pulosi’s not looking to restore the proper co-equal-branch dynamics under the Constitution. She was delighted to offer regal hosannas to Barack scumbag/liar-nObama, and she’d be equally delighted to offer them to President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or President Jill Stein, for that matter. She just doesn’t want Trump using Congress to beat up Democrats over the wall.”
               Indeed, security has nothing to do with her political theater. It’s entirely within Pulosi’s power to end the shutdown, which would render a SOTU delay completely unnecessary. But blocking funding for border security isn’t the only thing she’s after. She also wants to stifle her opponents’ justification for standing their ground. That’s called having your cake and eating it too.
               If Trump decides to continue with the address, Ben Shapiro offers this salient advice: “Trump should do a remote State of the Union from the border and feature Border Patrol agents and Angel Moms.”  

~The Patriot Post

One of the world’s most successful brands committed ideological hara-kiri this week. Recognized around the world as a symbol of manly civility for more than a century, Gillette will now be remembered as the company that did itself in by sacrificing a massive consumer base at the altar of progressivism.

To which I say: R.I.P.-C. (Rest In Political Correctness).

In case you hadn’t seen or heard, parent company Procter & Gamble launched a Gillette ad campaign blanket-demonizing men as ogres and bullies. Guilt-ridden actors gaze ruefully at their reflections in the mirror — not because they’ve neglected their hygiene, but simply because they’re men. Various scenarios of boys being boors and males being monsters flash across the screen before woke interlocutors show how “real” men behave in nonaggressive, conciliatory and apologetic ways.

At home and at work, in the boardroom, on the playground, and even while barbecuing in the backyard, Gillette sees nothing but testosterone-driven trouble. Message: Y chromosomes are toxic. The “best a man can get” can no longer be attained without first renouncing oppressive manliness.

Self-improvement must begin with self-flagellation.

A Gillette company statement explained that after “taking a hard look at our past” and “reflecting on the types of men and behaviors we want to celebrate,” officials decided to “actively challenge the stereotypes and expectations of what it means to be a man everywhere you see Gillette.”

But Proctor & Gamble, which bought Gillette in 2005 for $57 billion, doesn’t spell out which part exactly of the 118-year-old company’s past it now rejects. Was it founder King Gillette, the relentless entrepreneur who appealed to “red-blooded” young American soldiers? Was it the decades of multimillion-dollar promotional campaigns catering to physically superior athletes?

Or perhaps the mau-mauing marketers have adopted the radical feminist position that shaving itself is sexist. Is the ultimate goal to undermine the very raison d'etre of the $15 billion shave care industry?

I ask only half in jest. How else to explain this latest suicidal episode of collective consumer-shaming? Gillette’s two-minute, man-bashing missive may have racked up 7 million views on YouTube, but the “dislikes” outnumber “likes” by 4 to 1.

And the reviews are brutal:

“How to destroy your company in 1 minute 48 seconds.”

“Companies attempting to make profit should stick to that.”

“The single male is the most attacked maligned ridiculed and forgotten person in today’s society.”

“You can buy High Quality Razors that are NOT Gillette at the 99 Cents Store with NO lecturing on how to be a Man.”

“I’ll buy P&G products again when I see them release an equivalent ad targeting negative female traits: toxic femininity/paternity fraud/fake accusations… doubt that’s going to happen any time soon!”

“So now Gillette thinks that it is the arbiter of what all men should think, say, and watch. Screw Gillette, bought their products for almost 50 years, I will never buy another Gillette product. NEVER!!!”

“Thank you Gillette, I purchased your razors and chopped off my testicles with it. No more toxic masculinity!”

Ouch.

You may remember that P&G, which I un-fondly refer to Protest & Grumble, has dipped its sanctimonious toe into social justice waters before. In 2017, the company tackled identity politics with a video called “The Talk.” The preachy ad stoked fear and hatred of police and perpetuated racial stereotypes of officers lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on innocent black children and teenagers — alienating law enforcement families across the country and insulting every minority cop to boot.

The backlash against that ad apparently didn’t faze Protest & Grumble’s activist zealots. Once again, industry marketers are proving they’re not satisfied with selling useful products people want and need. No, they’re hell-bent on exploiting successful businesses to cram odious politics down consumers’ throats.

Like many Silicon Valley giants (hello, Facebook and Twitter) and SJW-hijacked sports enterprises (hello, NFL and ESPN), Gillette is now openly discriminating against its consumers-turned-critics to curry political favor with the #MeToo movement. Savvy social media observers caught the company throttling negative comments and dislikes on its YouTube video. They can manipulate likes and de-platform dissenters. But they won’t be able to disguise the bloodletting effect of toxic sanctimony on their bottom line.

Falling on your virtue-signaling blade may win you awards and headlines, but ultimately, it’s a fatal proposition.  ~The Patriot Post

             A careful examination of cultural changes in America leads to the inescapable conclusion that we are engaged in a slowly unfolding, collective national suicide. The very values, principles, and social norms we once accepted as universal truths have given way to a tsunami of mass delusion in which a growing portion of society vehemently, even violently, rejects the standards of past generations.
               The evidence is obvious to even the most obtuse person. We now live in a country where a large segment of the population believes sex is not biologically determined but rather an expression of inner feelings, while simultaneously claiming sexual orientation is genetic. We stifle economic growth to save the snail darter and delta smelt while slaughtering tens of millions of human babies in abortion clinics.
               And we are even now eroding the foundation of the traditional, nuclear family that has been the bedrock of society since the dawn of mankind.
               According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the total fertility rate for American women fell below the replacement rate for the ninth straight year. The total fertility rate (TFR) is an estimate of the number of births per 1,000 women over their lifetimes, and replacement rate is the average number of births child-bearing women must have to maintain static population levels. Replacement rate is generally considered to be 2.1 births per woman and, according to the latest data, the TFR for the United States now stands at 1.75 births per woman.
               It’s another checkpoint in a long-term decline in American fertility rates. Since 1971, American woman have only been above replacement rate twice — in 2006 and 2007. These rates also vary by race and region. White women are now having the least children, and Hispanic women the most. Birth rates are highest in the American Southeast and Midwest, and lowest in the District of Columbia.
               Though America had long been the exception, with rising birth rates and increasing wealth, our decline now mimics historical trends among advanced nations. The richer a nation becomes, the fewer children families have on average. Additionally, there is a clear correlation between a nation’s religiosity and its birth rate; the more religious a nation is, the more children it has on average. As a nation becomes less religious, its birth rate declines. Higher immigration levels are also associated with higher birth rates, although by the third generation, immigrant birth rates are in line with native birth rates.
               In the U.S. there are various factors that contribute to the declining birth rate. According to an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, in recent years there has been a significant decline of the number of American women in their 30s having children, meaning that Millennial women will likely have far fewer children than previous generations. Part of this is due to notable changes in marriage patterns, with Millennials waiting longer to get married than previous generations.
               In addition to the progressive cultural shift that has placed a lower priority upon marriage (and even vilified it as an anachronistic relic of an oppressive patriarchal society), other barriers have impeded marriage and family creation, including prohibitive levels of student-loan debt, decreasing levels of home ownership due to rising costs, an extended adolescence as younger men and women spend longer in college, rising childcare costs resulting in part from a decline in the support of extended families, and a self-centered mindset that places personal desires (for responsibility-free living, travel, accumulation of wealth, etc.) well above the thought of sacrificing in order to create, raise, and provide for a family.
               While married women are more likely to have children than unmarried women, there are fewer women getting married during their peak fertility years, with the average age at marriage increasing. So by the time women do get married and begin to have children, the length of time they can conceive, even with the assistance of reproductive technology, declines. Interestingly, women surveyed indicated a desire for more children, and were inhibited by the barriers mentioned previously.
               This trend has dire long-term consequences for society. As society falls below replacement rates, the average age of the population increases while the number of younger people working to support the social infrastructure, and available and willing to care for the elderly, declines. With a declining population, the demand for housing lessens, causing home values (the largest asset owned by the average American) to drop. Social Security and Medicare continue to race toward insolvency as the ratio of contributing workers to beneficiaries plummets.
               In summary, the abandonment of “traditional family values,” building block of civil society, has led to a dissolution of social cohesion, which in turn has led to myriad social problems.
               Fortunately, these principles are eternal, and we can reverse this trend with effort — by restoring respect for marriage and family and elevating the nobility of self-sacrifice in the service of a greater good. Marriage and family require enormous sacrifice, patience, and delayed gratification, but the rewards, both personal and societal, are enormous.  ~The Patriot Post

             One major aspect of incessantly negative coverage is Russia. “For the second year in a row,” NewsBusters notes, “the Russia investigation was the single most-covered topic amid the networks’ Trump coverage, garnering 858 minutes of airtime. Since January 20, 2017, the Russia probe has received 2,092 minutes of coverage on just the three evening newscasts.”
               Or, as humorist Dave Barry put it, “That was all we heard about, day after soul-crushing day, for the entire year.”
               Oddly, Trump’s relationship with the mainstream media is almost symbiotic. As we’ve noted before, the Leftmedia gave Trump $5 billion in free airtime during the 2016 campaign in what was supposed to prop him up for a sure loss to scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton. Beset by Trump Derangement Syndrome after he won and desperate for ad revenue, the media ramped up the negative attacks. But Trump feeds off of those attacks, and, as with Democrats retaking the House, he arguably benefits from having a foil or a villain. He loves battling “the FAKE NEWS media,” which he calls “the enemy of the American People!”
               It works. NewsBuster (a division of MRC) says, “Despite the media’s obvious disapproval, public opinion of the President actually improved slightly during 2018, from an average 40% approval on January 1 to 42.7% approval on December 31, according to RealClearPolitics.” We noted a similar trend last May.
               A Republican with less backbone — which is to say virtually every other Republican — would have backed down long ago in the face of this media barrage. Not Trump, for good or ill. The real collusion scandal in our nation is between the media and the Democrat Party. This study is another marker.
               As a final question: What would our 50/50 political landscape look like if media coverage was 50/50 instead of 90/10?  

~The Patriot Post

             According to the Rhodium Group, “After three years of decline, US carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rose sharply last year. Based on preliminary power generation, natural gas, and oil consumption data, we estimate emissions increased by 3.4% in 2018. This marks the second largest annual gain in more than two decades — surpassed only by 2010 when the economy bounced back from the Great Recession.”
               Investor’s Business Daily says the report “has set off alarms in all the predictable media quarters.” But before getting our knickers in a twist, it’s important to consider why emissions might have risen. “Thanks to a booming economy set off by President Trump’s new trade deals, tax cuts and deregulation, in the past two years the U.S. has seen manufacturing jobs surge,” Investor’s explains. That surge manifested in roughly 500,000 additional manufacturing positions. “All those people going back to work in refurbished factories in America’s Heartland … helped push emissions from manufacturing up 5.7% last year alone.”
               Other causes for the emissions increases might include jet fuel (33.1%), diesel fuel (3%), electricity producers (1.9%), and Old Man Winter. “That’s right,” Investor’s says. “Businesses and homes used more fuel for heat than they have in years. Rhodium noted that CO2 from this winter effect rose 10% in 2018.” A similar situation could unfold this year. Over the coming weeks, severe cold is expected to encompass a large swath of the country.
               “A healthy economy always produces more CO2 when it’s growing fast than otherwise,” Investor’s observes. “Our current growth rate is roughly 50% higher than it was under President scumbag/liar-nObama. If it didn’t produce more CO2, that would be surprising.” The editors also point out, “By the way, those gains in CO2 won’t go on forever. The next slump or slowdown will take care of that, by causing many companies to close and many people to lose their jobs. And fracking will continue to chip away at our CO2 emissions. … The truth is, the world is getting much cleaner, when measured by CO2output per dollar of GDP. So is the U.S. It’s decarbonizing. And as the world population begins to decline later this century and new energy technologies come on line … CO2 emissions won’t be a problem, real or imagined.”
               In other words, when it comes to emissions rhetoric, our media need to cool it. A warming economy is far more alluring than a temporary increase in CO2 that, truth be told, may not even have anything to do with climate change.  ~The Patriot Post

             However, thus far, there has been no change on King’s part. He defiantly insists that his statements were “completely mischaracterized” and claims that McCarthy was motivated by “a political decision that ignores the truth.” Meanwhile, several House Democrats have introduced censure resolutions against King, so more discipline could be coming.
               So about those Democrats… In the midst of this very public condemnation of King by both Democrats and Republicans, Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel highlighted the glaring hypocrisy of Democrats for failing to deal with racism within their own ranks. McDaniel pointedly asserted, “[The] GOP leader made the right decision. There’s no place for white supremacy in our country & it’s totally inconsistent with the Republican Party. I hope Nancy Pulosi also takes action against all the Democrats who continue to associate with prominent anti-Semite scumbag-Louis Farrakhan.”
               McDaniel makes a cogent point. When will Pelosi take action against Democrats such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)? She recently dined with Abbas Hamideh, a “Palestinian right of return” activist with a history of expressing anti-Semitic views that include calling Israel a “terrorist entity” that “has no basis to exist.” Hamideh also stated in 2015, “Yes, the Nazis are still around with a different name: Zionists!”
               The trouble is Democrats are willfully ignoring (if not cultivating) the growing anti-Semitism within their own ranks. They love to speak about themselves as the party of diversity and inclusion when in fact Democrats have a long history steeped in racism. It’s ironic that current Democrat 2020 presidential hopefuls are currently courting Al Sharpton in efforts to gain his endorsement. It speaks volumes that Democrats still stubbornly view scumbag-Sharpton, despite his long checkered history of anti-Semitic sentiments and racial provocations, as an important leading figure within their party.
               Did we mention that today is Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday? Or that Democrats have grossly distorted his legacy?  ~The Patriot Post

             According to Fox News’s Chris Stirewalt, “Trump most assuredly has the authority to declare a national emergency concerning matters of immigration. He has that authority because the Congress explicitly gave such power to the executive branch in 1976. In the wake of Richard Nixon’s reign, Congress still devolved its own authority to an executive branch that had just proven itself to be an unreliable custodian of liberty. … We don’t have enough test cases to know for sure, but the constitutional legitimacy of the law is dubious at best. Like our friend Judge Andrew Napolitano would say: ‘Legal but not constitutional.’”
               NPR adds: “Some scholars of presidential emergency powers say there is next to nothing, at least procedurally, that Capitol Hill could do to stop Trump from exercising what lawmakers of all stripes agree is his right to declare a national emergency. … Congress had tried to remedy its lack of control over emergency powers in the mid-1970s, in a Washington rocked by the Watergate scandal. At the time, once a national emergency had been declared, there were neither time limits for its duration nor requirements for reporting to Congress. Congress’ reform effort was the National Emergencies Act of 1976. It requires not only that the president formally declare a national emergency but also that he or she cite the specific statutory authority the president sought to use. An emergency declaration would lapse after one year unless formally renewed by the president. … Should Trump decide to circumvent Congress by declaring a national emergency to build a border wall, he would very likely rely on a statute that lets him reprogram unobligated funds that Congress has appropriated for military construction projects.”
               University of Texas, Austin School of Law professor Stephen Vladeck says, “Congress didn’t define what is and what is not a national emergency, so it’s hard to imagine what criteria a federal court could use in trying to decide whether a national emergency was properly declared or not.”
               However, NPR adds, “If there were to be a court challenge, [Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Todd] Harrison says, it is not likely to be over Trump’s invocation of the National Emergencies Act. A more plausible challenge, he says, would be over whether the wall Trump wants the military to build is aligned with a statute that stipulates any reprogramming of military funds must be ‘to undertake military construction projects.’ ‘Border security is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Department of Defense,’ says Harrison. ‘So I think it is not clear at all that the declaration of a national emergency here would actually allow the administration to use military funding for a nonmilitary purpose.’ Ultimately, Harrison says, it may be the landowners and local officials affected by the wall’s construction who would have legal standing to fight it in court.”
               On that note, columnist Rich Lowry says: “Although declaring a national emergency sounds frightening, there is ample — indeed absurdly extensive — precedent for it. The nation is awash in more than two dozen, little-noticed declared national emergencies. So we have room for a national emergency at the border. The next step, which would presumably be reallocating military funds to building the border fence, is trickier. The administration can perhaps rely on statutes enabling the president to spend on military-related construction under his emergency powers. Yet no one to this point has thought of the border fence as a military project. It has been built up over the years with civilian funds by civilian workers. Yes, the National Guard and, at the moment, the active-duty military have been deployed to the border, but in a logistical or backup role, and largely as symbolism. The border crisis is not amenable to a military solution.”
               Lowry goes on to note: “Legalities aside, a declaration of a national emergency won’t achieve what Trump wants, unless his goal is simply getting out from under the shutdown. That’s easy. He can say he’s going it alone under his emergency powers and agree to open the shuttered parts of the government, then fight it out in the courts. But in terms of his substantive goal of building a fence, and his political goal of building enough of it to showcase in his 2020 re-election campaign, it would get him very little. A district court somewhere would immediately issue an injunction blocking the action. Once the administration gets to the Supreme Court, it might have a chance to prevail if the court concludes that it shouldn’t second-guess the chief executive on questions related to national security. But when would such a decision get handed down? Sometime in 2020? Assuming Trump wins at the high court, it would take time to get anything going on the ground. Progress on the fence probably wouldn’t be any more advanced by November 2020 than it would be otherwise, and perhaps less advanced than if the president simply got some inadequate compromise out of Congress. In a different world, Congress as a body would be more exercised about a potential emergency declaration, but Congress is not a self-respecting institution. It is still a mistake to try to take advantage of its laxity. Such a move would strain our system, and probably not even work.”
               Meanwhile, the editors at National Review argue: “The proximate cause of the attempt to redirect funds under emergency powers wouldn’t be radically new circumstances at the border. There has been a simmering crisis there for a long time. It would be a failure to get Congress to appropriate the funds the president wants during a political fight and negotiations. Legalities aside, this would be a very bad practice. It’s an offense against the spirit of our system for a president to fail to get he wants from Congress — in a dispute involving a core congressional power, spending — and then turn around and exploit a tenuous reading of the law to try to get it anyway. We know this seems increasingly quaint, especially after President scumbag/liar-nObama’s pen-and-phone governance in his second term, but we believe presidents have an obligation to honor the role of the respective branches of government, even when it’s not in their political interest, even when there seems to be a clever workaround.”
               The editors conclude: “An attempt to spend unilaterally on the fence would almost certainly get tied up in the courts immediately. In the most favorable scenario for the administration, it eventually prevails in a Supreme Court loath to second-guess even dubious military-related determinations by the commander-in-chief. In the meantime, the administration will have built nothing new on the border and created another precedent for unilateral government sure to be exploited the next time a Democrat occupies the White House.”
               As you can see, this is a very complicated issue, and it would be prudent to leave room for nuance. Moreover, Trump deserves accolades for his devotion to finally addressing the issue and not just regurgitating talking points during stump speeches. However, as Thomas Jefferson warned, “Power is of an encroaching nature and … it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.” On that note, Sen. Marco Rubio observes, “If today, the national emergency is border security … tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change.” The bottom line is that, assuming Trump even has the authority to declare an emergency, the activist courts will leave no stone unturned, similar to the way they tried to derail the president’s travel ban. Republicans will fare better if they compel Democrat obstructionists to acquiesce by convincing the American people that the Left couldn’t care less about keeping them safe.  ~The Patriot Post

             What does any or all of this have to do with building a wall on our southern border? Everything.
               For as long as Americans can remember, the political divide in this nation has been termed Left vs. Right, conservative vs. liberal, or Republican vs. Democrat. For at least a decade, those terms have been little more than orchestrated distractions aimed at obscuring the real and most debilitating divide that has ever afflicted this nation: globalism vs. nationalism.
               In 2016, the globalist agenda was suddenly and shockingly rejected by the American electorate, who had been assured the ascension of scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton was a done deal, and that the “fundamental transformation” envisioned by Barack scumbag/liar-nObama — and supported by media, academia, Hollywood, Wall Street, Corporate America, Democrats, Establishment Republicans, and the legions of useful idiots convinced this nation is irredeemably flawed — would continue unabated.
               A wall is both a symbolic and substantive rejection of the globalists’ open-border, national sovereignty-despising agenda.
               Aided by their corrupt media lackeys, (who do the bidding of the multinational corporations that employ them), globalists insist a wall is ineffective. Yet politicians have them around their homes, the Vatican is surrounded by a wall, and Israel built one to keep terrorists at bay. Moreover, the number of countries who have constructed, or are constructing border barriers, has increased from 16 in 1989, to 65 today.
               Globalist arguments against building a wall? It’s “immoral.” Note that this bankrupt assertion is made by the same people who make the most morally bankrupt assertion of all: Illegal aliens commit crimes as “lesser rates” than native Americans. In the last two years alone, ICE arrested 266,000 illegal aliens with criminal records that included 100,000 violent assaults 4,000 murders, and 30,000 sex crimes. In 2016, more Americans died from drug overdoses than the total numbers of deaths recorded in Vietnam — over the course of 20 years. Drugs that include heroin smuggled from Mexico and fentanyl manufactured in Chinese labs and smuggled through Mexico and Canada.
               Those would countenance any number of such wholly avoidable crimes because it serves their ideological agenda are utterly despicable.
               It’s “too expensive.” Illegal immigration costs America more than $100 billion per year. Reduce that by only 10% and The Wall pays for itself in two-and-a-half years. Greater reductions equal quicker payback. It’s “racist.” As is anything that doesn’t align with globalist dogma.
               If we must have a wall, some or all illegals should get a “pathway to citizenship.” In 1986, America granted unambiguous  amnesty to 2.7 million illegals — in exchange for a secure border and a crackdown on businesses who hired illegals. The border  wasn’t secured and businesses still hire illegals. And after 30 more years of border-busting, 11-22 million illegals live here. Globalists would have you believe this time will be different.
               It won’t, and once again America will signal the world that coming here is worth the risk. Moreover, the idea that national security should be used a bargaining chip for anything else is absurd.
               “High-tech” surveillance makes a wall unnecessary. High-tech precipitates more arrests … of illegals well-rehearsed by leftist immigration lawyers to exploit our nation’s “catch and release” policy that transmits the exact same risk/reward message. A wall would partially undermine this contemptible policy.
               Open-border supporters deflect this reality by insisting more people overstay their visas. That’s true. So why not address both problems? Congress could make illegally crossing the border or overstaying one’s visa a felony that also makes one automatically ineligible for asylum. They could fully institute the E-Verify system and make it a felony to hire illegal workers. Congress could also write a law holding government officials who support sanctuary cities criminally and civilly liable for crimes committed by illegals they harbor, a clear violation of a 2014 Supreme Court ruling reiterating that immigration laws are regulated by the federal government.
               That they’ve done none of this reveals how blatantly our lawmakers have capitulated to the globalist agenda.