ACTION

Stung in recent years by valid charges of rampant anti-Semitism  in their ranks — not to mention the whole racist fiasco in Virginia — Democrats may have had enough. House Speaker Nancy Pulosi and other Democrat leaders quickly issued a statement condemning Omar’s “use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters” and demanding an apology.

That apology was soon forthcoming, but Omar couldn’t resist a wink and nod to make clear it wasn’t sincere. “Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes,” she said. “My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. … I unequivocally apologize.” But then she added, “At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists [like] AIPAC” — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Translation: Sorry not sorry.

At least she has the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

From a larger perspective, the growing anti-Semitism on the Left could become a political problem for Democrats. More than 75% of American Jews voted Democrat in the 2018 midterms, and that’s roughly in line with most of the last century. There are 34 Jews in Congress, and all but two are Democrat.

Dennis Prager and Don Feder, both conservative Jews, have attempted to explain this seeming paradox. The situation may be unlikely to change anytime soon, but Democrats must also be careful to sweep their anti-Semites under the rug where they won’t cause too much voter bleed. That also explains their effort to elevate a small rabble of anti-Semitic “alt-right” loudmouths and tie them to President Donald Trump. Like blacks or women, if Democrats ever begin to lose Jews in serious numbers, they’ll be in serious trouble.  ~The Patriot Post

Our modern news media has failed spectacularly in this regard.

There is debate about why the media today is one of the most distrusted establishments in America. Some blame the corporatization of the news media. Others fault academia for churning out brainwashed leftist mouthpieces disguised as journalists. Everyone seems to blame social media to some degree.

Whatever the cause, and all the above reasons surely play some role, today’s news media has proven itself to be out of synch with the needs of the American public and totally incapable of doing the job the public expects. To be sure, there are some individual reporters and some news outlets that are doing good, or at least better, journalistic work. Unfortunately, these are too few and far between to save the downward spiral of American journalism as an institution.

The liberal bent of the news media was an open secret for decades, becoming more pronounced in the 1990s when acolytes of scumbag/liar-Bill and scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton repeatedly turned a blind eye to his sexual indiscretions and their downright illegal dealings. The sheer leftward tilt of the media grew worse, to the point that Barack scumbag/liar-nObama was treated like a leftist messiah in the news while his “scandal free” administration committed untold numerous unconstitutional actions.

Now that Donald Trump is president, the news media has completely, and in some cases admittedly, jettisoned any pretense of impartiality. Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen the rise of “fact-checkers,” stand-alone websites or bureaus within existing news outlets that “check” statements made by public figures for falsehoods. They’ve gone into hyperdrive with Trump.

But these fact-checking sites are a complete fraud. Many of those that claim to be independent are backed by Leftmedia organizations, and for some reason, rarely seem to get around to fact-checking statements made by Democrats. When they do, Democrats mysteriously rank higher with the truth in their view. Gee, who’d have thunk it?

Rest assured that Trump’s State of the Union Address was given the full “fact-check” treatment. The problem that the Leftmedia had to get around was that Trump gave a good speech that was well received by the overwhelming majority of the public. It was also relatively free of Trump’s typical hyperbole and misleading details. Media propagandists had to find new ways to bend the outcome to their will.

Trump was attacked by Politico for claiming that one in three women, or 33%, are sexually assaulted while trying to come to the U.S. illegally. The actual figure was 31%. The New York Times claimed that Trump’s statement that illegal border crossings presented an urgent national crisis was false because illegal border crossings have decreased. This basically means that because the Times does not agree with Trump’s assessment of the situation, then he is “wrong.” NPR also went out of its way to state that Trump’s praise of the high number of women in Congress was thanks to Democrats, not Trump or the Republicans. Trump never took credit for the fact; NPR just wanted to make sure that the public was aware of it.

The media’s long and twisted lists of fact-checks of Trump’s speech did not sway public opinion. That’s supposed to be the job of opinion columnists, not reporters. But with major newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, it’s virtually impossible these days to tell what’s an op-ed and what’s supposed to be news.

Today’s news media doesn’t much care about that, though. Outlets are so eager to print stories that demean Trump and anyone who supports him that they will publish anything. Corroborating facts, confirming statements, and using reliable sources are techniques for squares in today’s world. The media repeatedly pushes stories with great fanfare that soon die quiet deaths because they were nothingburgers that didn’t hold up to greater scrutiny.

Michael Cohen’s lie to Congress about a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow? Nope. That man who was stalking Stormy Daniels? Zilch. All those women that Brett Kavanaugh supposedly assaulted in college? Nada.

But the headlines took hold in the public consciousness, even if they had to later be retracted. Well, retraction and correction is another journalistic tool that went the way of the typewriter. Nowadays, the media just stops talking about screw ups and hopes that they go away.

Fortunately, things might be changing. Parents of the unjustly maligned Covington students are preparing a major lawsuit against media outlets and celebrities who made horrible accusations against Nicholas Sandmann and his fellow classmates. The parents are also accusing Google and Facebook of playing a role in the defamation of their children.

Social-media outlets have tried to steer clear of being considered news organizations, claiming that they merely share information from point to point. While they sure don’t mind censoring that information to make sure only leftist points of view get good play, they don’t want to be legally responsible for the content they spread. So far, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other platforms have been able to have it both ways.

The media claims repeatedly that it’s under attack by Trump, but the trouble started long before he entered the Oval Office. Things started going downhill when news outlets stopped caring about the truth and started focusing on results — the chief result being supporting the leftist agenda. Any dangers that the media faces today are of its own making.  ~The Patriot Post

There is no question that if a wall is to be built on America’s Southwest border, it will only be done if Trump does it himself. We know that because both parties had complete control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government for two years each, and neither one would defy the open-border, cheap-labor, big-government globalist agenda. Can Trump build a wall without Congress? The answer appears to be yes.

We begin with a paper released Jan. 10 by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) entitled, “Can the Department of Defense Build the Border Wall?” It cites federal statute 10 U.S.C. § 284, which states that the secretary of defense “may provide support for the counterdrug activities or activities to counter transnational organized crime” that may include “an unspecified minor military construction project,” as well as the “[c]onstruction of roads and fences and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.”

The paper further explains that using Section 284 “would not require a declaration of a national emergency under the NEA. However, the DOD’s Section 284 authority to construct fences appears to extend only to ‘drug smuggling corridors,’ a condition that may limit where DOD could deploy fencing.”

A possible sticking point? “Drug corridors” have not been defined by law.

What about Trump’s threat to declare a national emergency? “For much of our history, presidents have understood the Constitution’s grant of ‘the executive power’ to include a power to declare national emergency,” explains former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo. “Thomas Jefferson effectively did so in response to Aaron Burr’s effort to raise a rebellion in Louisiana; Abraham Lincoln did so, with far more justification, at the start of the Civil War; FDR did so, with far less justification, at the start of his presidency in response to the Great Depression; and Harry Truman did so at the start of the Korean War.”

Yoo further explains that Congress passed the National Emergencies Act (NEA) in 1976 to restrict presidential power. But the law did not define national emergencies per se, or place any limits on the president’s ability to declare one. More important, Yoo notes “that every president since 1976 has used the NEA to declare a national emergency, several under circumstances far less immediate than this one, and the Supreme Court has never overturned one.”

The NEA grants the president the power to “seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication.” Congress can counter it by passing a joint resolution negating the president’s declaration, at which point Trump would have to convince them that the mayhem taking place at our border constitutes an “emergency.”

According to America First Policies, a pro-Trump group that asserts its statistics are based on data from the DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, approximately 1,800 illegal aliens attempt to breach the border every day, and about half succeed. If that’s accurate, approximately 328,500 illegals successfully sneak into America each year. For perspective, as of 2017 there were only 57 cities in the entire nation with populations greater than a single year’s influx of illegal aliens.

If that doesn’t constitute a national emergency, what does?

What about Congress’s ability to deny Trump funding for any construction? The NEA allows the president to spend previously appropriated money, such as funds for disaster relief for “military construction projects.” Approximately $10 billion is available. 10 U.S. Code § 2808 also allows the military to complete “construction projects” during a national emergency, and unspent Department of Defense (DOD) funds totaling $100 billion could be used. Congress could pass a joint resolution denying that spending, but Trump could veto it, thus requiring a two-thirds vote in both chambers to override that veto.

Democrats and their constituents would cheer such an override. But Republicans would be committing political suicide, by demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that their Chamber of Commerce campaign contributors take precedence over their base — and their purported principles.

The Courts? No doubt “resistance” jurists in several lower courts would leap at the chance to thwart Trump’s agenda, just as they have at an unprecedented rate already.

The Supreme Court? In 1981’s Dames & Moore v. Regan, SCOTUS, addressing actions taken by both the Carter and Reagan administrations related to the Iran hostage crisis, determined that when Congress broadly delegates foreign affairs powers to the executive branch, it does not necessarily follow that Congress’s failure to grant more specific authority precludes a president from exercising it. Rather Congress’s silence would be seen as acquiescence, especially in the advent of an emergency.

Moreover, Congress not only hasn’t passed a law denying Trump’s authority to protectthe border, it did pass a law known as the Secure Fence Act of 2006 by a bipartisan margin of 283-138 in the House and 80-19 in Senate — including “yes” votes by then-Senators Barack scumbag/liar-nObama, scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton, loose lips-Joe Biden, Chuck scumbag-Schumer, and 22 other Democrats.

An additional statute, 33 U.S. Code § 2293, is also in play. In the event of war or a national emergency, it empowers the secretary of defense to reallocate resources from projects “he deems not essential to the national defense,” and apply them to “construction, operation, maintenance, and repair of authorized civil works, military construction, and civil defense projects that are essential to the national defense.”

Given SCOTUS’s decision on the travel ban, it is likely the Court sides with the president. However, if the Trump administration can’t get SCOTUS to fast-track a hearing on the inevitable avalanche of lawsuits aimed at preventing a wall’s construction, the issue could conceivably become one of the centerpieces of the 2020 presidential campaign.

In 2002, Duke University constitutional law professor H. Jefferson Powell, who served in the DOJ under the scumbag/liar-Clinton and scumbag/liar-nObama administrations, asserted, “The president has a constitutional responsibility, independent of any act of Congress … to preserve the physical safety … of the United States against foreign threat.”

Regardless, Democrats, and a few Republicans are already marshaling their forces, and the reliably hypocritical Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who once favored “real border security measures,” added a dollop of fearmongering to the mix: “If today, the national emergency is border security … tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change.”

Border security? Try constitutionally mandated national security, Mr. Rubio — a lack of which represents the quintessential  national emergency. Borders are the essence of the nation-state, no matter how vehemently they are opposed by a ruling class beholden to their globalist masters. The same globalist masters who have coordinated the avalanche of hate and hysteria directed at the one man and his “deplorable” followers for thwarting their ambitions since 2016.

Build the wall, Mr. President. Those who still believe in nations will stand behind you.  ~The Patriot Post

What Connolly said of federal workers is often true. But it’s also often not. Pushing back against Connolly’s assertion, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) noted the obvious irony: “Think about what this bill says. All of those hard-working taxpayers in the private  sector, hey, you are already making less, but now you are going to have more of your tax dollars go to pay people — who are already making more money than you — to get a raise. How is that fair?”

Backing Jordan’s argument are last year’s federal workers’ salary numbers, provided by the Congressional Research Service. One statistic that is quite illuminating shows that  92,000 federal bureaucrats earn as much of more than the governor of the state where they work. For example, 1,000 clerical workers in Alabama made $120,000 in salary; in Ohio, 333 made nearly $149,000; in Maryland 3,561 made at least $170,000. And the list goes on.

Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of the government accountability website OpenTheBooks.com, pointedly asks, “When public affairs staffers in Alabama are out-earning their governor, it’s time for Congress to hold hearings regarding the proper pay levels for federal employees. How can [thousands of] general administrators, clerks and office service staffers make as much as a governor?”

The House voted 259-161 in approving the salary raises, with 29 Republicans siding with every Democrat.  ~The Patriot Post

In his prepared testimony, Scalise was to argue, “These new gun-control measures being proposed in H.R. 8 would not have prevented any number of recent mass violence events. … Instead, whether intentionally or not, the gun-control proposals in H.R. 8 could turn law-abiding citizens into criminals while also failing to achieve the stated purpose of reducing gun violence.”

Scalise planned to point out that the data simple doesn’t support the Democrats’ justification for their latest draconian gun-control effort, as well as to warn that it would only endanger law-abiding Americans by further encumbering their Second Amendment right to self-defense. “Every single month in America, law-abiding citizens with concealed carry permits defend themselves and others against criminals who have guns,” Scalise notes. “For example,” he says, “on January 8th, a man approached a 25-year-old woman in Chicago, displayed a weapon, and attempted to rob her at a bus stop. The woman had a concealed-carry permit. She drew her own weapon and fired a shot, killing the armed robber. The owner of a nearby pharmacy said such violence happens ‘all over’ Chicago. However, in this case, the intended victim was able to defend herself with her own gun.”

Once again, rather than being honest, Democrats attempt to hide their anti-Second Amendment agenda and cloak it with disingenuous terminology like “commonsense gun-control” as they seek to further erode Americans’ constitutionally protected rights. In doing so, they weren’t about to give the floor to a real Second Amendment advocate who’s life had been saved by good guys with guns.  ~The Patriot Post