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

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

~The Patriot Post

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

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

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

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

             What the Times story makes even clearer was the degree of anti-Trump bias of FBI leaders at the time, which motivated them to essentially conspire with scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton’s campaign by leveraging the bogus Christopher Steele dossier as evidence to justify surveilling members of Trump’s campaign under the guise of investigating allegations of Russian election meddling. Through timely leaks to the press, FBI officials helped foment the Trump-Russia collusion narrative all the while denying that the president was implicated — as former FBI Director scumbag-James Comey did when he lied to Trump’s face, saying the president was not an FBI target. Then, the day after Trump fired scumbag-Comey, an incensed FBI leadership secretly launched a retaliatory investigation against the president that was used to fuel demand for creating the dirty cop-Mueller probe.
               “This is yet more evidence that FBI leaders actually had no real evidence against the Trump team,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) declared. “Instead, they were simply trying to undermine a president they didn’t like and avenge scumbag-Comey’s firing. By relying on the Steele dossier — a fraudulent document funded by Democrats and based on Russia sources — FBI leaders were either complicit or too oblivious to notice they were being used in a disinformation operation by the Democratic Party and Russian operatives.”
               Trump expressed his disgust at the Times report, stating that it showed “the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ scumbag-James Comey, a total sleaze!”
               The Democrat charge that Trump is Vladimir Putin’s “best buddy” is made with absolutely no supporting evidence — and in the face of actions by the president that demonstrate just the opposite. Trump is no more beholden to Putin than the Democrat Party is beholden to Trump.
               Yet Democrats and their cohorts in the Leftmedia keep parroting the Russian collusion conspiracy sans any evidence in their ongoing efforts to delegitimize his election, while attempting to convince the American public that Democrats are justified in their outsized resistance to his presidency.  ~The Patriot Post

             On Thursday, Trump doubled down, saying, “If we don’t make a deal, I would say it would be very surprising to me that I would not declare a national emergency and just fund [the wall] through the various mechanisms.”
               It has become clear that the possibility of the president invoking his power to declare a national emergency was not merely an off-the-cuff remark but is rather a calculated threat. In his Oval Office address, Trump appealed to Democrats to work toward a bipartisan solution to the border crisis. But this message was really aimed at the American people, whom Trump wants asking: If we have a border crisis that the president is eager to address, why are Democrats standing in the way?
               While many presume that Democrats have the upper hand when it comes to government shutdown showdowns, this time it may be Democrats feeling the heat. Most government shutdowns in the past have been blamed on Republicans, primarily because it was the GOP attempting to refuse funding for something Democrats insisted was essential. Here we are witnessing the reverse — it is Democrats who are on the defensive, trying to block funding for a needed government program. And $5 billion is such a small amount when compared to other budgeted items, such as the $10.6 billion being sent to Mexico for its own immigration enforcement, that the party of Big Government will have a difficult time defending their stinginess.
               Trump’s power to bypass Congress is up for debate, and conservatives are divided as to whether he should even attempt it. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) believes Trump has the authority and should use it: “Speaker Pulosi’s refusal to negotiate on Wall/Barrier funding — even if the government were to be reopened — virtually ends congressional path to fund Wall/Barrier. Time for President [Trump] to use emergency powers to build Wall/Barrier.”
               However, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) offered a very insightful warning: “If today, the national emergency is border security … tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change.” In other words, Trump invoking the power to declare a national emergency here may be setting a dangerous precedent.
               The longer this shutdown drags on, the more Democrats rather than Republicans will be feeling the pressure to compromise. That’s especially true as Trump continues to declare that this is an issue of national security for which he has the power to bypass Congress to address, all while insisting he would much rather have Congress on board.  ~The Patriot Post