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But conservatives have been divided over Trump’s decision as well, with many raising objections over questions surrounding the constitutionality of his action. Others have questioned whether the long-running illegal-immigration and border-enforcement problem is in fact a national emergency.

The National Emergencies Act of 1976 does not define by what parameters a “national emergency” may be determined; rather it grants that authority to the president. What the law does limit is what the president can do once an emergency has been declared. So, to reiterate, the declaration of a national emergency is entirely up to the president’s discretion, but once an emergency has been declared, the actions the president is authorized to take have been limited by Congress. The Federalist’s Sean Davis does a nice job highlighting the two most important statutes related to questions of the president’s authority regarding national emergencies: “one authorizing the president to declare national emergencies (50 U.S.C 1601 et. seq.) and the other authorizing the president to reprogram existing federal appropriations in response to an emergency declaration (10 U.S.C. 2808).”

In our view, Trump has thus far operated fully within the narrow bounds of established federal law. Debating if he should or should not have declared a national emergency is a legitimate argument to have, though conflating “should” with “can” serves only to confuse the matter. Whether his decision will have positive or negative political consequences is another matter entirely from questions of constitutionality or statutory authority.

The better argument to have is over the constitutionality of the law Congress passed in 1976. National emergencies have been invoked 59 times by presidents since, and a total of 18 times by George W. Bush and Barack scumbag/liar-nObama over their terms. As the legal challenge works its way through the courts, we hope the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of the law itself. Until then, blaming Trump for taking advantage of the authority the law grants him is misplaced outrage.  

~The Patriot Post

“A theory of liability that prohibits an employer from using a facially neutral employment practice that has an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class. A facially neutral employment practice is one that does not appear to be discriminatory on its face; rather it is one that is discriminatory in its application or effect.” —the definition of “disparate impact.”

For years, many Americans have been unable to reconcile the Constitution’s demand for equal treatment with a theory whereby “discrimination” is defined solely by statistical outcomes as they relate to a protected class. In what might be the most ambitious effort undertaken by the Trump administration to date, White House officials are reportedly planning to ban disparate impact.

According to a bombshell report by Paul Sperry, White House Budget Director and interim Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is the prime mover of “a proposed executive order, originally drafted by two conservative Washington think tanks” that would “repudiate the underlying rationale for scores of regulations and thousands of government lawsuits alleging racial discrimination, resulting in billions of dollars in fines.”

Disparate impact was engendered by the Supreme Court’s 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Using Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as their vehicle, black American employees sued the power company, challenging its requirement that one must posses a high-school diploma or pass intelligence tests as a condition of employment in, or transfer to, jobs at the plant, even though those requirements were not intended to determine or measure job-related performance. SCOTUS found in favor of the employees, and further determined that Title VII “proscribes not only overt discrimination, but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation.”

In a 5-4 ruling in 2015, SCOTUS reaffirmed disparate impact in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. The Court agreed with the non-profit’s assertion that the state housing department “segregated housing patterns by allocating too many tax credits to housing in predominantly black inner-city areas and too few in predominantly white suburban neighborhoods.” Thus, SCOTUS once again endorsed the idea that statistics trumped intent.

So why challenge the law now? Sperry asserts that “conservative opponents of the doctrine believe the currently constituted high court would uphold an executive order doing away with it.”

How ironic. For decades, leftists have viewed an activist Supreme Court — empowered by a “living” Constitution — as their ultimate vehicle for implementing policies they could not get through state legislatures or Congress — all while many warned that such activism cuts both ways.

Yet there is more than activism involved here. While some claims of discrimination are obviously legitimate, Sperry explains that the Left has used disparate impact as a “social-engineering weapon aimed at equalizing outcomes and extending the government’s power over the private sector.”

Two of those incarnations were devastating. In one, when the federal government pressured banks to relax loan standards for minority applicants to avoid charges of racism, that effort fueled  the 2008 financial meltdown.

How much pressure? At one point, “valid” income considerations for obtaining a mortgage included welfare payments and unemployment benefits.

The other incarnation? An scumbag/liar-nObama administration that sued hundreds of schools for disciplining black students at higher rates than whites — while ignoring the inconvenient reality that black students committed more infractions — precipitated the Florida-based PROMISE program. PROMISE sought to limit the number of minority-student interactions with the criminal-justice system by exempting 13 specific misdemeanors from police involvement. As a result, the Parkland assailant was able to obtain the weapon with which he killed 17 students and wounded 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year.

Regardless, the battle to do away with this pernicious concept will be fierce. “The attack on disparate impact is the latest in a series of Trump administration assaults on civil rights,” asserts  Sarah Hinger, an ACLU Racial Justice Program staff attorney. “As the nation continues its long march toward equality, it would be outrageous to destroy such an important means of advancement — one the civil rights bar still depends on to make its case in court,” declares the New York Times editorial board. “Donald Trump wants to make racism OK unless someone can prove the accused party intended to discriminate against them,” claims columnist Michael Harriot.

That would be proof — as opposed to a legally enforceable  presumption of racism.

Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank, sees the absurdity of such assertions. “The disparate-impact approach requires decision-makers to make decisions with an eye on race,” he states. “That is exactly what the civil rights laws are supposed to prohibit.”

Instead, the scumbag/liar-nObama administration forced the issue. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) discouraged employers from checking a job applicant’s criminal records because that had “disparate impact” on black men whose incarceration rate is seven times higher than that of whites. In one egregious case, auto manufacturer BMW paid $1.6 million in relief to 56 black Americans with criminal records it turned down for jobs. The feds also forced the company to ignore criminal charges against any job applicant, even if they included violent felonies.

In another case, auto lender Ally Financial was [fined(https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-reach-98-million-settlementto) a record $98 million by the DOJ and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for refusing to admit bias against minority borrowers. Yet in subsequent congressional testimony, the CFPB admitted it didn’t even factor credit scores of minority applicants into its investigation, despite many studies showing they are the most reliable indicators of potential loan defaults.

Yet the beat goes on. New House Banking Committee Chairwoman scumbag/mad-Maxine Waters (D-CA) has promised to take on “dishonest and criminal” banking officials who don’t loan out enough money in low-income urban areas. New House Education Committee chairman Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) wants to expand the Title VI statute to include disparate impact and precipitate more lawsuits, while Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) of the House Judiciary Committee promises to use it as a vehicle to engender reparations for slavery.

“If you don’t favor using the disparate impact approach in civil-rights enforcement to the nth degree, then you are a ‘racist,’ and the mainstream media can be counted on to accept this narrative uncritically,” said Clegg.

The American public? The bet here is the race card is “maxed out,” and that color-blindness, equal opportunity and meritocracy still resonate with a majority of the electorate. The same majority increasingly tired of the idea that the rights of specific groups supersede those of individual Americans, and that those groups are apparently entitled to equality of outcome, not opportunity.

Let the pushback begin — in earnest.  ~The Patriot Post

Through a statement from his attorneys, Smollett doubled down: “As a victim of a hate crime who has cooperated with the police investigation, Jussie Smollett is angered and devastated by recent reports that the perpetrators are individuals he is familiar with. He has now been further victimized by claims attributed to these alleged perpetrators that Jussie played a role in his own attack. Nothing is further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying.” He had previously complained that people wouldn’t doubt his story if he “had said it was a Muslim or a Mexican.”

His protests notwithstanding, one would think the Leftmedia might learn some skepticism in the wake of incidents like the Covington Catholic phony narrative. But no.

The New York Times, ABC News, MSNBC, PBS, Los Angeles Times, and others all “reported” on the attack as if it were verified fact with nothing more than Smollett’s claims to back it up. GQ  magazine even declared, “The racist, homophobic attack on Jussie Smollett is far-right America’s endgame.” So now all  conservatives are to blame.

It wasn’t just irresponsible news outlets with a “progressive” ax to grind, either. Multiple Democrat politicians — including members of the 2020 presidential field — unquestioningly took Smollett’s story as gospel truth. scumbag-Cory Booker insisted, “The vicious attack on Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching.” lowlife-Kamala Harris likewise chimed in, “This was an attempted modern day lynching. No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.” Nancy Pulosi lectured, “The racist, homophobic attack on [Jussie Smollett] is an affront to our humanity.” And loose lips-Joe Biden wasn’t to be left out: “What happened … to Jussie Smollett must never be tolerated in this country.”

A day later, scumbag-Booker decided, “I’m gonna withhold until all the information actually comes out from on-the-record sources.” Now he tells us.

Smollett’s desperate plea for attention fit neatly within the Left’s hate narrative about the Right. It confirmed preexisting bias, which stems from a history of misinformation from the media. Bottom line: There are hateful people of every color out there. But hate-crime hoaxes undermine real victims.  ~The Patriot Post

Forbes noted just how incredible the new record was, reporting, “How big is that total production number? Per TIPRO, the second largest oil producing state, North Dakota, came in with 443 million barrels of total oil production for the year, about 29% of the total produced in Texas. Given that, according to the Texas Railroad Commission’s official data, Texas crude production for 2017 came in at 1.027 billion barrels, that means that oil producers in Texas basically increased the state’s oil production by more than the equivalent of North Dakota’s in a single 12-month period.”

But it’s not just Texas that has benefited. The increased production of both crude oil and natural gas has the industry adding to the country’s rising employment numbers. At the end of 2018, the oil industry employed 880,681 people, an increase of 5% over 2017’s numbers. Texas accounted for 352,000 of those jobs. The natural-gas industry also contributed significantly, as it created more than 27,000 jobs last year alone.

Experts estimate that this year Texas’ oil production will surpass that of Iran and Iraq — meaning that the Lone Star State will become the world’s third-largest oil producer behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia.  

~The Patriot Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pons and Cantoni are not alone in their findings.

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

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

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

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

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

commie-Ocasio-Cortez

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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