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For the past two years, a large swath of the media  engaged in a mass act of self-deception and partisan groupthink. Perhaps it was Watergate envy, or bitterness over Donald Trump’s victory, or antagonism towards Republicans in general — or, most likely, a little bit of all the above. But now that special counsel dirty cop-Robert Mueller has delivered his report on Russian collusion, it’s clear that political journalists did the bidding of those who wanted to delegitimize and overturn Trump’s election.

While bad behavior from partisan sources should be expected, the lack of skepticism from self-appointed unbiased journalists has been unprecedented. Any critical observer could see early on that Trump-era partisan newsroom culture had made journalists susceptible to the deception of those peddling expedient stories. Our weekly bouts of Russia hysteria all sprung from one predetermined outcome: the president was in bed with Vladimir Putin.

The natural disposition of journalists — even opinion journalists — should be skepticism. Like him or not, the notion that the president of the United States, a wealthy showman who’s been in the limelight for decades, and ran one of the most chaotic major political campaigns in history, had been secretly conspiring with Russia to steal a 50-state election should immediately have been deemed too good to be true by any decent journalist.

Yet, once-respectable, if biased, mainstream outlets churned out one deceptive and faulty story on the matter after the next. Even when corrected, these debunked pieces helped foster an environment that allowed the Big Myth to fester.

And for all the alleged reporters who spread tales of conspiracy, there were also an endless number of pundits and liberal writers who regularly accused the president, not of being merely mendacious or incompetent, but of sedition.

A bunch of crackpots were transformed into social media stars. Cable news paraded out officials with axes to grind, like scumbag/commie-John Brennan and scumbag-James Clapper, and a slew of supposedly credentialed talking heads as experts. They all claimed that the most remarkable conspiracy in American history had transpired.

No one, of course, will take responsibility for two years of panic-driven coverage. Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist at The Washington Post, argues that mainstream journalists — not the ones who were rightly dubious about the collusion narrative — should be “proud” of the exemplary job they did.

Sullivan might not be aware that it was The Washington Post that helped ignite the Russia scare with two “scoops” that turned out to be completely false in early 2017: the first, a piece on Russia hacking a Vermont power grid and the other a breathless story about the reach of Vladimir Putin’s fake news operations.

“There’s been so much solid reporting about the Trump-Russia mystery,” wrote Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, “but the media ecosystem tends to reward speculation over straight news.” He would know. Not only was feverish speculation regularly batted around on CNN panels, but also most of the network’s anchors allowed guests to perpetuate conjecture without any pushback.

CNN’s reporters, in fact, were some of the worst offenders. It got to a point where the network had to stop firing people for acts of journalistic malpractice.

There were many false alarms. And every time a story was debunked, we were told that reporters, like all humans, make mistakes. It’s true. Unlike everyone else, though, theses allegedly innocent blunders by mainstream reporters were almost always skewed in the same direction. That takes a lot of luck.

“I’m comfortable with our coverage. It is never our job to determine illegality,” New York Times editor Dean Baquet explained, “but to expose the actions of people in power. And that’s what we and others have done and will continue to do.”

In reality, The New York Times and other outlets have hurt their ability to expose the actions of the powerful, because, even when they’re right, many Americans will have a difficult time believing them. And the powerful will certainly have a lot easier time dismissing them as tools of the Democratic Party.

Now, I’m no fan of Trump’s use of the fraught phrase “enemy of the people” to attack the media. It’s undeniable, though, that the media have done more damage to trust in American institutions, including their own, than the Russians could ever have hoped with their Twitter trolls and Facebook ads.

Polls show that a majority of Democrats still believe Russians tampered with their votes. The 2016 election wasn’t Pearl Harbor. It isn’t the worst attack on America since 9/11. You have free will. No one determines your  vote but you. In truth, Russia didn’t really “meddle” in the election. Russia, as they have always done and always will, tried to meddle in the American election.

Trump antagonists, with the help of the media, used fear over Russia to try to reverse the results of a legitimate election. Nothing like this has ever happened in modern American history.  ~The Patriot Post

From Justice

Michael Swartz:  It may have been a case that defined a campaign. Just two weeks after Donald Trump descended down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced he was in the 2016 presidential race — running on a get-tough approach to illegal immigration — 32-year-old Kate Steinle was fatally shot as she walked down a San Francisco pier.

The stray bullet, fired from a gun which had been stolen from a federal agent, came from a five-time deportee then going under the name Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. Also known as Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, the assailant had only weeks before been released from prison on a drug offense. While federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials had asked the San Francisco sheriff’s department for notification of Garcia Zarate’s release, the department followed then-newly adopted “sanctuary city” protocol prohibiting this notice, allowing the illegal alien his freedom.

Eventually Garcia Zarate was acquitted of all but the least serious charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm, avoiding conviction on charges of murder, involuntary manslaughter, and assault with a deadly weapon. Still, that conviction was enough to put him back in federal prison, where he continues to serve — and is expected to once again be deported upon his release. Our prediction: he’s back here inside a month.

Since the Steinle family clearly wasn’t satisfied with the “justice” meted out by the criminal courts, they turned to civil court to sue the defendant as well as city, county, and federal authorities. In December 2017, the civil case was dismissed by a federal district court, and this week the Steinles’ appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was turned aside.

While it’s natural to blame the notoriously leftist Ninth Circuit for not overturning the district court’s decision, in truth the problem stems from California state law that’s overly protective of public officials’ liability. In the case summary, the Court wrote:

Specifically, the panel held that although 8 U.S.C. §§ 1373(a) and 1644 prohibit restrictions on providing certain types of information to ICE, they plainly and unambiguously do not prohibit the restriction at issue in this case regarding release date information. The panel further held that, assuming the Sheriff’s actions adversely affected ICE’s ability to do its job, this did not … strip him of the discretionary authority under California law to institute the policy that he did.

For the record, the verdict was written by Judge Mark J. Bennett, a recent Trump appointee, with concurrence by a scumbag/liar-Clinton-appointed jurist, Susan P. Graber. The third judge on the panel was Stephanie Dawn Thacker, on loan from the Fourth Circuit.

Regarding the ruling itself, as Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw puts it, “California has given all of their officials blanket immunity  from repercussions resulting from their actions as long as the action in question was part of their official duties.” The problem, then, isn’t the court but the law.

While much of the media maintains an apologetic tone to the convicted Garcia Zarate, there’s no denying that “sanctuary city” policy was the deciding factor in this series of events. Remove the assailant from the equation and Kate Steinle may still be alive today.

Simply following federal law would allow us to remove illegal immigrants. And while it can’t bring back the thousands being mourned by “angel parents” around the nation, it would help America to return to being the nation of laws it was intended to be.  ~The Patriot Post

Progressive candidates and new Democratic representatives have offered lots of radical new proposals lately about voting and voters. They include scrapping the 215-year-old Electoral College. Progressives also talk of extending the vote to 16- or 17-year-olds and ex-felons. They wish to further relax requirements for voter  identification, same-day registration and voting, and  undocumented immigrants voting in local elections.

The 2016 victory of Donald Trump shocked the left. It was entirely unexpected, given that experts had all but assured a scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton landslide. Worse still for those on the left, Trump, like George W. Bush in 2000 and three earlier winning presidential candidates, lost the popular vote.

From 2017 on, Trump has sought to systematically dismantle the progressive agenda that had been established by his predecessor, Barack scumbag/liar-nObama — often in controversial and unapologetic style.

The furor over the 2016 scumbag/liar-Clinton loss and the new Trump agenda, the fear that Trump could be re-elected and anger about the Electoral College have mobilized progressives to demand changes to the hallowed traditions of electing presidents.

The Electoral College was designed in part to ensure that candidates at least visited the small and often rural states of America. The generation of the Founding Fathers did not want elections to rest solely with larger urban populations. The Electoral College balances out the popular vote.

The founders were also terrified of radical democracies of the past, especially their frenzied tendencies to adopt mob-like tactics.

In response, the Electoral College was designed to discourage crowded fields of all sorts of fringe presidential candidates in which the eventual winner might win only a small plurality of the popular vote.

Voting requirements have also reflected disdain for radical democracy. Lawmakers have argued that young adults who are at least 18 years old have more experience, are more independent and take on more responsibilities than do younger teenagers living at home. Therefore, they are likely to make more reasoned decisions. Some progressives want to lower the voting age.

Similarly, most states consider the judgment of felons who have committed serious crimes suspect compared with those who have followed the laws. These states have prohibited felons from voting by first requiring completion of their sentences or parole or probation, depending on the nature of their crimes. Many on the left support measures that would ease voting restrictions on ex-felons.

Progressives have deliberately confused residency with citizenship, as if a person living in America, paying some sales or income taxes, should have the same voting rights as those who are legal citizens.

All these proposed modifications are aimed at changing the nature of the electorate and the method of voting in order to change results. In reductionist terms, new rules and new voters reduce the relative voting clout of law-abiding adult citizens.

Leftists assume that Americans are not sympathetic to their new advocacies. In other words, the current 2019 potpourri of progressive issues might not warrant 51 percent sport among the existing voting public in the next election.

Most Americans are skeptical of reparations. They do not favor legalizing infanticide. They do not want open borders, sanctuary cities or blanket amnesties. They are troubled by the idea of wealth taxes and top marginal tax rates of 70 percent or higher.

Many Americans certainly fear the Green New Deal. Many do not favor abolishing all student debt, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Electoral College. Nor do many Americans believe in costly ideas such as Medicare for All and free college tuition. The masses do not unanimously want to stop pipeline construction or scale back America’s booming natural gas and oil production.

A cynic might suggest that had scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton actually won the 2016 Electoral College vote but lost the popular vote to Trump, progressives would now be praising our long-established system of voting.

Had current undocumented immigrants proved as conservative as past waves of legal immigrants from Hungary and Cuba, progressives would now likely wish to close the southern border and perhaps even build a wall.

If same-day registration and voting meant that millions of new conservatives without voter IDs were suddenly showing their Trump support at the polls, progressives would insist on bringing back old laws that required voters to have previously registered and to show valid identification at voting precincts.

If felons or 16-year-old kids polled conservative, then certainly there would be no progressive push to let members of these groups vote.

Expanding and changing the present voter base and altering how we vote is mostly about power, not principles. Without these radical changes, a majority of American voters, in traditional and time-honored elections, will likely not vote for the unpopular progressive agenda.  

~The Patriot Post

Here are some of Pence’s comments:

Now, my friends, we’ve reached a fateful moment in our history. All over the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise — on college campuses, in the marketplace, even in the halls of Congress…

Recently, a freshman Democrat in Congress trafficked in repeated anti-Semitic tropes; alleged congressional support for Israel reflected an “allegiance to a foreign country." Said that Israel had, and I quote, "hypnotized the world.” And she accused Americans who support Israel of being bought off by campaign contributions. Anti-Semitism has no place in the Congress of the United States of America…

As governor of Indiana, I was proud to sign the toughest anti-BDS legislation of any state in the Union. But remarkably, today, all but one Democrat running for president voted against the Combatting BDS Act in the United States Senate. And as I stand before you, eight Democratic candidates for president are actually boycotting this very conference.

So let me be clear on this point: Anyone who aspires to the highest office in the land should not be afraid to stand with the strongest supporters of Israel in America. It is wrong to boycott Israel, and it is wrong to boycott AIPAC.

Also appearing and speaking at AIPAC was Speaker Nancy Pulosi (D-CA), which was ironic given her recent failure to directly rebuke Omar over her repeated expressions of anti-Semitism. Pulosi sought to spin the record, however, claiming that “the full House came together to condemn the anti-Semitic myth of dual loyalty and all forms of bigotry.” Remember that “condemnation” was so harsh Omar herself voted for it. In any case, some have wondered if Pulosi’s appearance at AIPAC was designed to be a seen as a warning to Omar, but given the Democrats’ feckless leadership in combating the growing anti-Semitism within their own ranks, it hardly seems likely. Pulosi’s message seems aimed more at Jewish Democrats to assure them that Democrats still have their back. It remains to be seen if the message is believed.  ~The Patriot Post

The specter of a terrorist group bouncing back is not one to be ignored. That’s how we ended up fighting ISIS. In 2003, after the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s regime, al-Qaida took our troops on. They lost a lot more jihadists than they killed Americans. When America was ready to vote for president in 2008, Operation Iraqi Freedom had succeeded in setting up an Iraqi government that could have emerged.

There was just one problem: Barack scumbag/liar-nObama pulled American troops out at the end of 2011. He’d called the liberation of Iraq a mistake, said it would lead to greater instability — and then he removed the one stabilizing element: an American military presence. As a result, ISIS rose up, and unleashed a wave of terror. It even managed to hit America in San Bernardino and Orlando.

So, here’s the hard truth about keeping ISIS down. We have to deploy troops. We have historical evidence of premature withdrawals causing tragedy. Not just Iraq in 2011, but Vietnam in 1974. American troops stayed in South Korea, and now that country has emerged into a functioning democracy. They even have baseball over there — and exported “The Masked Singer” to our TVs.

The defeat of ISIS has given America something very rare in the geopolitical sphere — a second chance. Can we make that second chance work? Honestly, it’s going to be difficult with the present state of the Army and Marine Corps. To be blunt, we needed a much larger force structure, and George W. Bush’s failure to push for it was a huge blunder.

Why? Because it will take about a division of troops, plus a brigade or two, to do two things that the Iraqi military needs. First, these Army units corset the Iraqi forces — in essence improving their ability to fight and win against insurgents and terrorists. Second, they serve as a deterrent against external aggression. Back them up with one or two fighter wings, and a carrier strike group in the region, and now you have the conditions for Iraq to take the long, difficult path South Korea took.

Right now, we may be lucky to deploy one or two brigades to Iraq. If that is what we can send, then we should — and President Donald Trump should negotiate a long-term status of forces agreement to ensure that those troops stay long enough to finish the job. Because as much as a permanent deployment stinks, pulling out troops only to send them back to fight round three is going to be far worse.  ~The Patriot Post

Have we reached a crisis with regard to illegal immigration? By every indicator — including the shameless spectacle of Republicans in both chambers of Congress joining Democrats to defeat President Donald Trump’s use of a national emergency declaration to build a wall — our Ruling Class believes the answer is “no.”

Why? Because secure borders, the Rule of Law, and an America-first immigration policy do not serve the interests of the globalist elitists in both parties. Elitists who portray themselves as servants of the people, even as they remain more disconnected from whom they ostensibly serve than at any time in recent history — and even as they remain wholly insulated from the policies they inflict on the rest of us.

Yet reality on the ground cannot be ignored. Data released by the DHS reveals that a new onslaught of illegals arrested or turned away at the border has reached levels not seen in years. Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney and member of a Homeland Security advisory committee formed by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, asserts, “At the moment, we have the closest thing to an open border that we’ve had.”

Not quite. “In 2000, the number of U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal immigrants along the southwest border reached an all-time high of 1.6 million. Fast forward 17 years to 2017 and apprehensions plummeted to a record low of 303,000,” writes columnist Sylvia Longmire. “Many border security observers have credited everything from the border fence to improved surveillance technology to changing economic conditions for this drop.”

According to a 2017 Homeland Security report, DHS contends that 55% to 85% of immigrants crossing the border illegally were apprehended or interdicted in 2016. If one takes the record low of 303,000 apprehensions in 2017, and the DHS’s most self-serving apprehension rate of 85%, that leaves a record low of 45,450 illegal aliens successfully entering the United States in a single year.

Now go the other way. Take 2000’s 1.6 million, and apply the low end apprehension rate of 35% the DHS conceded they were reaching a decade ago. That leaves the possibility that as many a 1,040,000 illegals successfully entered the nation 19 years ago — which was 14 years after the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granted unconditional amnesty to 2.7 million illegals — in exchange for securing the border and cracking down on businesses that hired illegals.

Note that even when “only” 45,450 illegals successfully broke into the country, government officials were speaking in terms of “success” and “credit.”

Some perspective? Nineteen Islamists perpetrated the September 11, 2001 atrocities, and three of the jihadis who crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had expired visas, meaning they were here illegally — when they slaughtered 2,996 Americans.

Yet how do leftists and their media allies rationalize all criminal activity committed by illegals? We’re told they commit crimes as lesser rates than native born Americans.

That this argument is given an iota of credence epitomizes the ideological bankruptcy of those who are never asked an essential question:

How many wholly avoidable crimes, in addition to being in America illegally, must Americans tolerate — lest they be deemed xenophobic or bigoted, no less — to accommodate globalist sensibilities?

Moreover, what is the hard number of illegals entering the nation Americans must tolerate? Border authorities are predicting that more than one million illegals will be stopped at the southern border this year.

More perspective? The are only 10 cities in the entire nation with populations that exceed one million.

And what breaks down? “As you know, every day, thousands of illegal aliens are being released into the United States by your administration,” stated the Texas union of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a letter toTrump. “‘Catch and Release’ is not just happening — it’s in overdrive.”

Overdrive is an understatement. From December 21 to March 20, ICE released approximately 107,000 family members into the nation’s interior, including 1,000 released in a single day in the Rio Grande Valley.

On top of that, interior arrests are down 12% because ICE has had to shift resources to the border to deal with the increasing influx, and the immigration courts where illegals are supposed to show up and make their cases for being allowed to remain in America are “irredeemably dysfunctional and on the brink of collapse,” states a 2019 report by the American Bar Association.

As a result, approximately 1.1 million illegals from Mexico and Central America remain free in America until their cases are heard. How long will that take? “There were more than 760,000 pending cases at the end of FY 2018 and an additional 330,000 cases that could be returned to active dockets in short order,” the ABA report continued. Moreover, the average case takes 578 days to complete — for those who show up. In 2017, 43% of illegals didn’t appear for scheduled follow-up hearings.

Catch and release? Catch no longer has any real meaning, and illegals know it. They are now so well aware of how to game the system, they actively seek out border agents and claim asylum instead of evading arrest.

Remember that when you hear the advocates promoting  “virtual” or “smart” walls. Again, only the ideologically bankrupt could assert that a physical barrier preventing illegals from crossing the border is inferior to one that merely locates those illegals for catch — and release.

Even more bankrupt? “According to the State Department, up to 17,500 — even up to 19,000 — foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States every year,” the Daily Caller reports. “Most of those, an estimated 70 percent, are trafficked from Mexico, and half of those are minors forced into prostitution.”

And because Congress fails to act, they abet this human trafficking.

Drugs? “Government data for 2018 shows more drugs were seized near open parts of the U.S.-Mexico border than were seized at ports of entry,” the Washington Examiner reports, ruining another leftist anti-wall argument that posited most drugs were coming through ports of entry. Again, what’s the acceptable level of non-port-of-entry drug smuggling “deplorable” Americans must abide?

Trump has vetoed the effort to prevent his [entirely legal] https://patriotpost.us/articles/61073-trump-can-build-a-wall-without-congress) emergency declaration, and Congress has failed to override that veto, yet nagging questions remain unanswered. Will Democrats continue to be more concerned about illegal aliens than American citizens? Will the media keep insisting Americans’ desire to preserve national sovereignty is tantamount to white supremacy and/or Nazism? Will Trump himself stop talking the talk and begin walking the walk? (Hint:  refurbishing previously existing barriers doesn’t count).

If not, and current trends hold, approximately 2,730 illegals will be apprehended and released by the Border Patrol — every day — in FY2019. And every one of those days, Americans will be told there’s no crisis at the border.

All because most members of Congress are now “AINOs” — Americans In Name Only!  ~The Patriot Post