by Thomas Gallatin:  The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it would not renew Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 200,000 Salvadorans, which had allowed them to legally live and work in the U.S. since 2001. The TPS program established by Congress in 1990 via the Immigration Act was promoted as a means for the U.S. to offer temporary resident status to foreign peoples suffering from armed conflict, environmental disaster or other extraordinary circumstances in their home countries. In practice, however, TPS has primarily served as a backdoor means of conferring amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.

          By refusing to renew these Salvadorans’ TPS, President Donald Trump is once again establishing Rule of Law, while at the same time ratcheting up pressure on Democrats who have been threatening a government shutdown over DACA. None of these Salvadorans are under immediate threat of deportation. They will continue to enjoy legal resident status and work permits up to September 2019. Trump has correctly interpreted the TPS law’s temporary provision and has essentially thrown the issue back to Congress. It will now be up to members of the legislative branch to wrestle with finding a “solution” to prevent deportation or to simply allow the TPS law to be enforced as written.
          Again, this is chess, not checkers. Trump is setting the stage for facing off with Democrats over DACA and the border wall. Democrats, who have long resisted serious illegal immigration controls because they’re after votes, understand that the wall represents not only a physical barrier but also a sustained, long-term commitment by the federal government to finally stem the problem. DACA is for Trump what China was for Nixon. In other words, Trump may be the only Republican who can get away with supporting legislation on DACA, and he knows it. That’s why the deal won’t happen if he doesn’t also get his border wall. With this latest move on TPS, Trump is simply calling the Democrats’ bluff. Will Democrat obstinacy to a border wall trump their loudly expressed concerns for Dreamers? Clearly, Trump is willing and ready to make a deal, but only a deal that reinforces and upholds the Rule of Law.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53337

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by Todd Johnson:  It was just under a year and half ago that then-candidate Donald Trump was campaigning to eliminate the sequester on defense spending, as well as increase troop levels and military spending on weapons.

          He more than lived up to that campaign promise when he signed the $700 billion 2018 National Defense Authorization Act last December. The congressional authorization was championed by many Republican representatives and senators as being badly needed for the defense of the nation.
          The bill authorizes that numerous weapons systems, including 90 F-35s, 24 F/A-18s, and three littoral combat ships, be added to U.S. military formations in the future. However, these items won’t be arriving anytime soon. Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan stated as much last month when he told reporters that weapons modernization takes time and that no new spending can take place until Congress decides to eliminate the Budget Control Act of 2011, better known as the sequester.
          Yet more troubling than the long procurement cycles for new weapons is the fact that the services are currently finding it difficult to maintain or grow their organizations without compromising standards, let alone to the levels that President Trump wants for the future.
          Recruitment challenges are nothing new for the U.S. military, but the dynamics of finding qualified individuals in the 21st century is a real problem. Recent numbers show that 70% of 17-24 year-olds don’t even meet the minimum requirements for military service. According to the Defense Department, “Only 1% of young people are both ‘eligible and inclined to have conversation with’ the military about possible service.” The pool of recruits has shrunk even more over the last couple of years as the unemployment rate has dropped to record lows, so the services have found themselves having to be creative in recruiting and reenlistment practices.
          The U.S. Army recently announced, and later rescinded, a plan to provide waivers to individuals who had a history of mental issues, including bipolar disorders and self-mutilation. Last year, the Army accepted 50% more Category 4 recruits — individuals who score in the bottom third of military exams — than in 2016.
          The U.S. Navy last month pushed out several policy changes designed to keep individuals in the active component. The changes include allowing individuals who fail the physical fitness test twice to remain on active duty. Vice Adm. Robert Burke, the chief of naval personnel, wrote in a message to the fleet, “Adjustments to physical readiness program policies reflect a continued emphasis to invest in and retain our most important resource, our sailors.”
          Lastly, the Air Force continues to grapple with a shortage of pilots and the problem is getting worse. According to recent reports, the USAF is short almost 2,000 pilots and much of the blame is directed at the combination of multiple overseas tours and the airline industry aggressively pursuing talent. The Air Force has attempted to stem the exodus through a combination of bonuses and a reduction of administrative duties but it hasn’t worked.
          Meanwhile, the pace of U.S. military operations around the globe continues to grow and the time is soon approaching when the services will find themselves having to drop standards to even lower levels in order to meet manning requirements. This impending disaster must be avoided at all costs, which is why the Joint Chiefs must work with the secretary of Defense and other administration officials on how to avoid this potential crisis.
          The strength of the American military has always been its people and that’s why it’s important that the services not relax personnel standards in order to meet artificial strength levels. It’s not good for the long term health of organization, our relationships with our allies, and most importantly, our nation’s ability to fight and win our future conflicts and wars.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53336

by Paul Albaugh:  If the 2017 jobs scene is any indication of what the year 2018 is going to look like, then America’s economy is going to continue to grow at levels we haven’t seen in over a decade. And despite the Left’s continuing rants about Trump being a racist, the December jobs report tells a completely different story.

          Recall that during Trump’s campaign for the presidency, he specifically told black voters his economic agenda would do far more for them than liar-Hillary Clinton’s — or that of any other Democrat candidate in history. In an unscripted portion of a speech given in Dimondale, Michigan, he said, “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?”
          Like every other Republican for a generation, Trump received only 8% of the black vote on Election Day, but based on employment numbers for blacks, at least those 8% can feel vindicated. In the speech mentioned beforehand, Trump also promised that after his first four years he would win 95% of the black vote during his re-election bid — something that no Republican candidate has done since Reconstruction. Let’s just say that his comment was typical Trumpian boasting, but it’s something that perhaps ought to come true.
          So what of the jobs numbers? The Wall Street Journal reported that headline unemployment remained at 4.1% with the economy creating 148,000 new jobs. The U-6 number, a better, fuller measure, sits at 8.1% — a far cry better than its high of 17% under Barack liar-nObama. But one figure that really jumped out at economists was the headline rate of unemployment for black Americans, which fell to 6.8%, the lowest it has been since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking employment data in 1972. That’s a 45-year time frame, and it’s great news as we start 2018.
          The Journal further notes, “The black jobless rate fell into the 7%-8% range in 1999-2000, before the dot-com bubble burst, and briefly in 2007 before the financial panic. But it climbed back to as high as 16.8% in 2010 before a long, slow decline as the economy recovered.” But now it’s at 6.8% and the number is likely to go down further once Trump’s economic agenda kicks into full gear.
          But wait, there’s more. It turns out that it’s not just black Americans benefiting from the economic gains during Trump’s first year in office. Overall, minorities across the board have seen the greatest gains in employment. “Over the past year, the unemployment rate has dropped 17% for Hispanics, 14% for African Americans and 11% for Asians.” Hispanics have seen unemployment drop to record-low levels, standing at 4.9% in December, and Asians have seen unemployment drop to a record low of 2.5%.
          So, the question remains, are Trump’s economic policies and ambitions for economic growth really racist as so many leftists claim? Of course not. In fact, Trump’s deregulation and Republican tax cuts benefit everyone.
          The Left, of course, will hear none of this and will continue to paint Trump as a racist while Democrats who run America’s cities push destructive socialist policies that left our economy stagnant for nearly a decade. Democrats are hoping the policies that have kept minorities on urban poverty plantations for years will prevail, and you can bet that they and their Leftmedia allies will do everything imaginable to undermine Trump’s successes.
          Leftists can’t stand that his economic agenda is producing positive results for Americans. They can’t stand that there is economic optimism among most Americans that we haven’t seen in over a decade. And they really can’t fathom how a man who has been slammed by the media for the past year as being a sexist, racist, bigoted and, most recently, “mentally unfit” for office has somehow managed to produce more positive results for Americans in his first year of office than his predecessor did in eight years. Their socialist, utopian dreams have been shattered, and frankly, that’s making America great, again.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53333

by Robin Smith:  Why does health care in America cost so much and increase annually? Why do medicines, even generics, get more expensive? It’s primarily because the practice of medicine is not a service delivered in a free market driven by economic principles. Other goods and services sought by the public feature known prices and the consumer is both the payer and the decision-maker. Not so with health care.

          In American health care, we have managed health insurance, not care. Almost all of the debate about policy revolves around the current system that empowers the insurers and/or the government as the decision-makers, the payers and, in reality, the customer — not the patient.
          So, while some have really well-intended discussions and policy debates, unless the consumer is in control of making informed decisions and holds the responsibility of payment, there will not be authentic health care reform. There will be little more than tweaking policies that address the actual customers — the insurance companies and/or the government.
          We need insurance policies. But we need insurance policies that pay when we have catastrophic events or expensive procedures, not the average wellness check-up or routine physicals. If Americans used their homeowners insurance policy or their auto insurance just as they use their medical insurance policy, the rates would be unaffordable and out of control too. The time for Health Savings Accounts is now. The time for price transparency of medicines and procedures is now. If Americans want to see the cost of care and medicines decline while simultaneously increasing access due to affordability, true reforms must be made to return the service of health care and medicines to a free market.
          We also need the innovation of new medicines, devices and procedures. As long as a third-party payer controls the terms of coverage, care delivered and medicines on a formulary, the decisions are not made by patients, but by insurers or a government agency. A horrible side-effect is that those who are uninsured get hammered by the cost of care that is delivered outside a contracted rate, and they pay exorbitant costs.
          So let’s do as Dr. Tom Coburn, former U.S. senator from Oklahoma, did in his recent Washington Examiner analysis. Let’s look at ways that real reform can come to health care and not just address health insurance.
          Dr. Coburn focused primarily on the cost of pharmaceuticals, or prescription drugs. His simple solution is to reintroduce actual free markets to the sale and purchase of medications. Chiefly, Coburn says, just make the net price of all medicines available in the public domain and easy accessible by the consumer, the patient, not a contracted formulary of tiered/approved medicines by an insurance company. As it relates to insurance reimbursement for health care items ranging from very specialized medicines that cost upwards of $10,000 per month to the average wellness checkup, allow value-based payment with data on cost and efficacy made available. Simpler, if a hammer will do, there’s no need for a sledge hammer.
          Throughout the former senator’s analysis, he refers to an extensive report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine entitled, “Making Medicines Affordable: A National Imperative.” Take one guess what recommendations are offered by a government-funded study by a government-run group? Bingo! The study’s sponsors recommend more bureaucratic, centralized control. That government report, by the way, will cost you $67.00 to read online.
          Coburn argues for the pharmaceutical market what should be argued throughout all of health care: Transparency and the free market work; government control does not.
          In health care, we routinely pay for services that are very important without knowing their cost, thanks to the control of government and insurers. Not only does the American consumer need to demand price transparency, the debate surrounding “Big Pharma” must also address the unbelievably lengthy and costly in place for new medicines. A published study by the renowned Tuft’s University recorded that “the average cost to bring just one drug to the market is about $2.6 billion. It takes an average of 15 years from the time a drug developer first begins testing a new formula until the FDA approves it. Only 1 in 1,000 drug formulas will ever enter pre-clinical testing, and of those, roughly 8 percent will ultimately receive FDA approval.”
          Fifteen years and $2.6 billion are averages for a new medicine to be approved. Without argument, the safety of patients is absolutely mandatory. Yet the U.S. government process is not constructed to respond to the needs of patients in the here and now. Can you imagine if the smartphone or computer industry was controlled in a similar manner? Would Apple find it profitable to be able to bring a new product to market only every 15 years? The first iPhone was advertised on June 29, 2007. Look at the improvements to the technology, the innovation and the response to consumer needs while keeping the costs within range for mass consumption during that decade-long window.
          Summing this up, America does not have a health care problem rooted in the actual delivery of medicine. We have a health care billing issue that hides information that would create competition, provide a patient-centered approach and permit control by the actual consumer. Just take a look at the National Health System currently in England. Up to 50,000 surgeries have been canceled due to the onslaught of influenza that has hit a system understaffed and ill-prepared to be responsive to sudden change. You see, when you socialize the health care market, everyone gets a little with no incentive for excellence or to prioritize the patient experience.
          If you want the best health care, then return to free markets and the characteristics that truly empower the patients.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/532881

by Political Editors:  A favorite straw man regularly held up by anti-gun activists in their endless attempt to limit Americans’ Second Amendment rights is the supposedly significant problem of gun law “loopholes.” This false argument is often trotted out as justification for the calls for more gun-control laws. One example of this loophole fallacy is the claim of no background check requirements for firearm purchases at gun shows. This false claim has been repeatedly debunked and yet anti-gun activists and much of the mainstream media still repeat it as if it were gospel truth.

          Recently, another one of these gun law loophole fallacies was debunked, and royally so. In 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was commissioned for some research by three Democrat members of Congress, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Sen. Elizabeth dinky-Warren (D-MA), who are well known for their anti-gun rights crusading. Motivated by a 2011 Michael Bloomberg-funded anti-gun campaign called “Point, Click, Fire” — which claimed that in supposedly largely unregulated online transactions, 62% of private sellers would sell a firearm to an individual who couldn’t pass a background check — the three Democrats sought to have the GAO officially validate this loophole problem.
          However, The Washington Free Beacon reports, “Between July 2015 and November 2017 investigators from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), following up on a congressional request, tried to make the illegal private gun purchases through a number of online forums and market places. They made 72 attempts over that time but couldn’t complete a single sale using legitimate sites.” [emphasis added]
          Not only does the GAO report largely debunk Bloomberg and company’s online gun-purchasing loophole fabrication, it reinforces the fact that the cause of criminal violence stems not from the legal availability of guns but from the hearts and minds of lawless individuals. Lawful gun owners are simply not the problem, and this study only further cements this reality. As our friends at 2ndVote so effectively point out, a gun has yet to act alone to kill anyone.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53322

by Arnold Ahlert:  Under the heading, “be careful what you wish for, you might just get it,” the satisfaction  Democrats, other leftist organizations and their media allies derived from President Donald Trump’s decision to disband the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, may be short-lived.

          Not that they get it — yet. Thus, the reliably feverish Sen. Chuck clown-Schumer (D-NY) reiterated the Left’s tiresome tropes that ensuring the integrity of American elections constitutes “a front to suppress the vote” and an effort to “perpetrate dangerous and baseless claims.” clown-Schumer further insisted the Committee’s disbandment demonstrates that “ill-founded proposals that just appeal to a narrow group of people won’t work, and we hope they’ll learn this lesson elsewhere.”
          clown-Schumer’s assertion that protecting elections resonates solely with a “narrow group” is laughable. A 2015 CBS News poll revealed a majority of Americans considered voter fraud to be fairly widespread, and a 2016 Gallup poll revealed a whopping 80% of Americans favor requiring voters to provide photo ID to cast a ballot. Moreover, a 2007 Gallup poll and a 2012 Washington Post poll both revealed more Americans are concerned with voter fraud than voter suppression.
          So why did Trump shut down the Commission? “Despite substantial evidence of voter fraud, many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry,” Trump said in a brief statement last Wednesday. “Rather than engage in endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, today I signed an executive order to dissolve the Commission, and have asked the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues and determine next courses of action.”
          Leftists will likely regret the shift and fittingly, they have only themselves to blame. As columnist Thomas Lifson explains, Democrats made so-called Russian hacking of the election “a national security issue. This opens the door for DHS — armed with far more investigatory power than any commission might exercise — to go full bore at election fraud,” he writes. “President Trump tried it the nice way, only to encounter obstruction. Now it is time for Plan B, and I am pretty sure that Democrats will not like it at all.”
          Kobach, who led the Commission along with Pence, was equally explicit. “What’s happening is a tactical shift where the mission of the commission is being handed off to Homeland Security without the stonewalling by Democrats,” he stated. Kobach also hammered reliably leftist organizations like the ACLU and the NAACP, along with congressional Democrats and their Commission members, who attempted undermine its work at every turn. “They have absolutely no interest in stopping voter fraud,” Kobach declared. “It’s truly extraordinary that one party in our system has made clear that they don’t care.”
          The most critical aspect of the change? Leftists who often use the courts to get what they want (or prevent that which they don’t) will no longer have that option. “The investigation will continue. And it will continue more efficiently and more effectively,” Kobach warned. “By throwing their food in the air, [Democrats] just lost their seat at the table.”
          At least eight lawsuits have been filed against the Commission, largely based on accusations that asking for state voter data, much of which is on the public record, violated open-records laws, or breached privacy protections. Moreover, Democrat Commission member and Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap filed his own lawsuit, accusing the commission of hiding information from him. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly partially agreed, saying the panel should provide him the requested documents.
          Despite the commission being disbanded, Dunlap insists it still has to honor the judge’s decision. “I didn’t want to go to court,” he told The Daily Signal. “All I wanted, honest to God, was to participate and get an answer to all of my questions.”
          Dunlap was also concerned about the change of course. “How many driver’s licenses has Homeland Security issued?” he asked rhetorically. “None. How many elections has Homeland Security run? None.”
          Despite Dunlap’s take, DHS’s outsider status is a good thing. Driver’s licenses? Twelve states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Vermont and Washington, plus the District of Columbia — allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses. Of those 12, only Utah favored Trump in the 2016 election. Only three — Washington, Nevada and Hawaii — were willing to provide the Commission with any information.
          As for running an election, Americans might be shocked to discover that at least 38 states currently or will soon allow voters to register online, and 14 currently or will soon permit voters to register on Election Day. Moreover, according to Ballotpedia, 34% of the states have no ID requirement to vote, 24% have non-strict, non-photo voter ID laws, 20% have non-strict, photo ID laws, 6% have strict, non-photo ID laws, and 16% have strict, photo ID laws. In other words, there is ample opportunity to commit voter fraud.
          Nonetheless, Democrats would have Americans believe lax registration and voting procedures, coupled with wholesale resistance to investigations, has a non-existent or marginal impact on the integrity of elections. Moreover, they insist any effort to conduct an investigation that would either reveal fraud — or the lack thereof that would validate their assertions — amounts to “a wild-goose chase for voter fraud, demonizing the very American voters whom we should all be helping to participate — with the not-so-secret goal of making voting harder with unnecessary barriers,” according to Dale Ho, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project.
          That would be the same ACLU whose executive director, Anthony D. Romero, called for the DOJ “to appoint a special prosecutor to independently investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian interference in November’s election and for Congress to create a select committee, akin to the Watergate select committee, to ensure an adequate and public resolution of this crisis” — to “preserve our constitutional values.”
          Thus, some allegations of voter fraud are “more equal than others.” And despite Democrat denials, the Commission did document 8,471 cases of double-voting in elections in 21 states, and 938 voter fraud convictions since 2000. Moreover, the same Democrats who have issues with the DHS’s current effort to supersede their resistance, had no problem when liar-nObama administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson determined that state election systems were “critical infrastructure,” requiring federal oversight due to “hacking” concerns — despite no evidence of hacking.
          Again for leftists, hacking by extra-national entities is highly problematic, but “hacking” by thousands of potentially ineligible or double voting individuals, including “extra-nationals” (read: illegals), is no problem at all.
          In short, the Democrat Party’s stance on investigations of voter fraud is highly selective. Any DHS investigations that might prove inimical to their interests amounts to “disenfranchisement,” while any investigation that even hints at delegitimizing the current president — courtesy of a Special Counsel armed with extra-constitutional power — must be pursued with unrelenting vigor.
          How Democrats miss the searing irony that the special counsel’s investigation provides a powerful justification for the DHS’s investigation is anyone’s guess.
          Let the proverbial chips fall where they may.  
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53283

by Political Editors:  The New York Times recently reported that the leftist organization Media Matters, founded by David Brock, had spent $200,000 funding an effort in 2016 to bring down Donald Trump via allegations of sexual assault. The Times reports that leftist organizations are still “raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to support accusers who come forward with charges against President Trump and members of Congress.”      Motivated by the success of the #MeToo movement, which has been credited in helping to expose and bring down famous and powerful men in Hollywood and the mainstream media, as well as prompt the resignation of members of Congress like former Democrat Sen. Al Franken, Brock and other leftists seek to do the same to Trump and Republican candidates. Just as Mark Alexander recently warned.

          California lawyer Lisa Bloom received significant amounts of funding as she sought “to encourage victims to bring forward similar claims against Republican politicians.” Her efforts “included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000,” The Hill reported. Bloom justified the funding claiming that it was needed in order “to ensure the safety” of the accusers.
          The fact of the matter is, this has nothing to do with concerns over the problem of sexual assault or harassment against women. Instead, it’s all about politics. In an American Bridge 21st Century Foundation internal memo from last year, Brock explains, “We are going to resist the normalization of Donald Trump. Trump has the legal authority, but we have the moral authority — and the moral responsibility to oppose him.” In other words, let the witch hunts begin.
          Ron Rotunda, a professor at Chapman University School of Law, noted, “These victims have serious stories to tell and we have to get justice for them. But we undercut that when people are paid for their testimony. It taints it. … The problem is, if a real victim accepts a payoff it undercuts their story. That’s just a fact of life.” The truth of the matter is, by politicizing the issue, Democrats are guaranteeing that it will be immediately assumed that every accuser must have some political motivation rather than a genuine pursuit of justice. In other words, fewer people will believe them. How does that help women who are real victims?  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53279