In our through-the-looking-glass world, we so often view matters backwards without even realizing it. Take DACA (actually, leave it), where even many conservatives consider it a given that the individuals covered under it must somehow be granted amnesty.
Overlooked is that they’ve already been granted amnesty.
Consider: Imagine you return from a trip to find someone has broken into your home, is squatting there and is eating your food and using your services. Might you not call the police? Might this invader not be charged with various crimes, such as breaking and entering, trespassing and theft?
Now, let’s say that for some reason you feel compassion for the individual — maybe because he’s a young adult whose father broke open your door and told him to make himself at home — and instead of pressing charges, you just tell him he must leave your place and never return. How would you react if, after exhibiting such mercy, a community activist called you bigoted and intolerant and insisted you grant “amnesty” by allowing the interloper to live with you permanently? Would you not be outraged and point out that you’re already granting amnesty by not pressing charges? In fact, the attack on your character might stiffen your resolve to expel the trespasser.
This is largely analogous to the situation with the DACA illegals: They have already received amnesty. We’re not going to punish them for remaining in our country, even though they’ve long known their presence here was a violation of law. We’re not even going to demand they reimburse us for the American services (e.g., education, handouts) from which they’ve greatly benefitted. They’re way ahead of the game (and we’re being played). Insisting someone return to his native land is not punishment. It’s mercy. It simply amounts to making things right.
Of course, we often hear the argument that the “DREAMers” — a sickening, manipulative propaganda term if ever there were one (how about “Schemers”?) — are enriching the U.S. Contrary to this assertion, however, DACA recipients have considerably lower educational attainment than do American citizens. Almost a quarter are functionally illiterate, 73 percent live in low-income housing and only four percent complete college, according to certain studies. Allowing DACA individuals — who range from high-school age to middle age — to stay, “is really the importation of an additional underclass,” as American Thinker editor Thomas Lifson puts it. (It’s also the importation of future Democrat voters.)
Having said this, let’s for a moment assume Invasion USA advocates are right about DACA aliens’ achievement. They then should stop being selfish and allow these bursting-with-potential people to enrich their native lands. Talk about cultural appropriation: We suck the best and brightest from these Third World countries and then wonder why they’re in shambles. You leftists ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Denuding a developing nation of its intellectual capital is a type of resource rape.
Returning to my analogy (and to seriousness), why aren’t we outraged about the DACA appeals, as we’d be if someone insisted we coddle a home invader? Sadly, it’s because we’re no longer a nation, properly defined. A nation is an extension of the tribe, which itself is an extension of the family (think: the Sioux Nation); it’s one united people — not disparate peoples trying to coexist within the same borders.
Whether large or small, whether a family in a home or national family, such a cohesive entity will naturally defend the home front from invaders. In contrast, a balkanized country, a land of strangers, doesn’t react as viscerally to the introduction of more strangers. It has already been diversified out of its defense mechanisms.
Everyone should be mindful that we have, quite generously, already offered amnesty. We’re not insisting on DACA — Draconian Action against Childhood Arrivals. The Schemers just need to go home.
Anyway, that would be the dominant attitude in a nation. As for us…well, that’s a different matter.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/daca-1.jpg357640Selwyn Dukehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSelwyn Duke2018-01-09 09:33:372018-01-09 09:33:37Truth on DACA: We’ve Already Granted Amnesty to These Illegals
Governments are prone to abuse, especially when unchecked.
Recently revealed actions by the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency under the Department of Interior charged with managing federal land, are reminiscent of the IRS scandal in which that agency targeted conservative tea party groups for extra scrutiny.
A federal judge ruled Dec. 20 that she was throwing out the Bureau of Land Management’s case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy because the prosecution withheld key facts.
On Monday, the same judge ruled that the case could not be tried again due to the actions of the prosecution, which she said had been “outrageous” and “violated due process rights,” according to azcentral.com.
The story broke before Christmas, but hasn’t received the attention it deserves. It perfectly underscores the pernicious problem of unaccountable agencies and how quickly they can become abusive to citizens.
The trial involved a dispute over grazing rights between Bundy and the federal government, a persistent problem in western states.
The government claimed Bundy owed money for public land use fees going back to the early 1990s, which the Bundy family refused to pay.
After years of trying to recoup the fees, the Bureau of Land Management, working in conjunction with the FBI, tried to impound Bundy’s cattle in 2014.
The story hit national headlines after Bundy, his family, and supporters got into an armed standoff with authorities that fortunately ended without violence. Bundy and his sons Ammon and Ryan eventually were arrested and chargedwith various offences.
However, the actions of government agents badly damaged the credibility of the case and raised questions about the power of supposedly independent agencies to deliver justice responsibly.
What is particularly worrisome is that the Bureau of Land Management appears to have acted punitively against political and religious groups they simply didn’t like.
An investigative report by one of the bureau’s own special agents revealed that the agents in the Bundy case acted with “incredible bias” and likely broke the law, as The Daily Caller News Foundation reported
The level of malfeasance of which one of its own accused the Bureau of Land Management is stunning.
Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management law enforcement officer who led the 2014 raid on the Bundy compound in Clark County, Nevada, was fired recently amid charges of corruption. That was something prosecutors denied until pressured to release his fellow agent’s report to the defense.
Worse, an investigative report by one of the bureau’s own special agents revealed that the agents in the Bundy case acted with “incredible bias” and likely broke the law, as The Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
In the memo, lead investigator Larry Wooten explained how agents acted maliciously toward the Bundys. He said the “punitive” and “ego-driven” campaign against the ranchers was all an effort to “command the most intrusive, oppressive, large scale, and militaristic trespass cattle impound possible.”
Wooten wrote: “The ridiculousness of the conduct, unprofessional amateurish carnival atmosphere, openly made statements, and electronic communications tended to mitigate the defendant’s culpability and cast a shadow of a doubt of inexcusable bias, unprofessionalism, and embarrassment of our agency.”
The agents called Bundy and his supporters “deplorables,” “rednecks,” and “idiots” among many other worse names, Wooten said. They also insulted the Bundy family’s Mormon beliefs.
Their behavior showed clear prejudice toward “the defendants, their supporters, and Mormons,” Wooten wrote.
Wooten claimed that fellow agents put him through a “religious test” of sorts on several occasions.
“You’re not a Mormon, are you?” they asked.
Wooten’s memo suggested that the attitude and ambition of Bureau of Land Management agents led them to inappropriately militarize the operation against the Bundys, even after the FBI had conducted a threat assessment and concluded that the Bundys weren’t dangerous.
The day after U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro’s declaration of a mistrial, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called for an investigation into the matter.
However, there is some frustration over the Navarro’s decision, especially among environmental groups that generally would like to boot ranchers from government-owned western land.
Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, an environmental conservation organization, blasted the mistrial decision in The Hill.
“These federal agencies have been patient and cautious to a fault in their prosecution of the Bundys and their accomplices,” Molvar wrote. “It’s long past time to stop playing games with the prosecution of federal crimes, and instead lay all the facts on the table and let the judicial system work.”
But one doesn’t need to think the Bundys acted appropriately in the dispute to understand why the case had to be thrown out. Nor is it out of line to think it’s worrisome for government agents to act in such an aggressive and abusive manner no matter the guilt or innocence of the citizen.
As columnist Debra Saunders wrote, the disturbing facts that have come to light point “to the sort of federal prosecutorial abuses that give the right cause for paranoia.”
There are better ways of of dealing with Western land. Reducing the federal footprint would certainly help.
Ranchers have been using government land for grazing for many generations, as individuals generally don’t have the financial means to acquire the amount of property necessary to run their business.
But this setup is not a free ride or “welfare,” as some have suggested.
Studies show it is generally more expensive for ranchers to use public land, which, in addition to fees, they are required to maintain, than to use privately leased land. In fact this land use helps the government save a significant amount of money on management costs.
Many ranchers would much rather contract with private entities and pay for services rather than deal with the headache of negotiating with the federal government. In many cases, however, this is impossible.
In Nevada, the federal government owns over 80 percent of the land and creates serious problems for ranchers and others who want and need to use it.
In the past, the federal government was more likely to give ranchers freer use of this land. Government actually encouraged western migration and frontier settlement through policies such as the famed Homestead Act of 1862.
But pressure from environmentalists outside and inside the agencies during the 20th century led to more restrictive policies on how ranchers may use the land.
This resulted in confrontations between the federal government and western farmers and ranchers, most notably the so-called “Sagebrush Rebellion” in the 1970s and 1980s, in which a coalition of westerners demanded that the government privatize land or transfer it to local authorities.
Confrontations and tension between ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management will likely continue as long as the government pursues such tight-fisted policies and insists that it’s more important to close off land use for the needs of the desert tortoise rather than those of ranchers and farmers.
Regardless of policy, Americans have a right not to be targeted by a government created to protect them and mete out appropriate justice.
The unfortunate facts of the Bundy case show how an unaccountable agency can become abusive toward citizens, and strikes at the heart of what we believe about republican government.
The Founders created our institutions to serve us and faithfully uphold the law, not be weaponized to attack individuals and groups in the shadow of darkness.
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.
Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.
Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.
The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.
Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.
Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.
You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/BLM-STANDOFF-e1515504036416.jpg371640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-01-09 08:20:582018-01-09 08:22:41This Case Against Western Ranchers Shows Why Americans Are Right to Fear Government
As American women prepare to put on their pink hats for a second time to protest President Donald Trump on the anniversary of his inauguration, women in Iran are taking off their hijabs, protesting an oppressive theocratic regime.
For nearly 40 years since the 1979 revolution, Iranian women have been forced to follow the country’s mandatory dress code, which includes long, loose garments and headscarves known as hijabs. While wearing a hijab here in the United States is a sign of female empowerment, taking them off in Iran is the ultimate sign of defiance.
The anti-regime protests in Iran ignited days after the American press declared 2017 the “Year of the Woman,” where women here in the United States took to the streets by the millions to protest Trump, and shared their #MeToo moments of sexual harassment and assault. Given this, you’d think it’d be a no-brainer to align themselves with women reportedly leading their protests in search of freedom in cities like Isfahan.
But no. The Women’s March along with celebrity feminists have been silent, instead, choosing to tweet about their own happenings here in the First World.
According to Human Rights Watch, women in Iran are routinely and systematically discriminated against and oppressed. They’re banned from sports stadiums, even when their husbands, brothers, or sons are playing in the game. If they’re married, they can’t leave the country without their husband’s permission. And according to the BBC, they can’t even be “Happy.”
In 2014, three men and three women were reportedly arrested for the crime of dancing on camera to Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy.” They were sentenced up to 91 lashes and one year in jail.
And yet, liberal feminists in America such as Joy Behar think it’s us that have the problem. Speaking on “The View,” Behar compared what’s happening in Iran’s oppressive autocratic regime to protests against Trump.
Here’s a wake-up call for American women who can’t seem to open their eyes to the true intolerances against women worldwide. In America, when men and women take to the streets to protest a democratically-elected president who they don’t like, they have police putting their lives on the line to protect them.
In Iran, when men and women dare to speak out against their government, they’re suppressed and sent to jail. Seven days into these rallies, at least 20 people are dead.
So let’s be clear: The uprise happening in Iran is far more important for women’s rights than any of our First World problems here in the United States. Instead of being silent—or worse, trying to draw parallels between Iranian women and ourselves—American women should support them. Because in Iran, unlike the United States, women’s lives may actually depend on it.
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.
Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.
Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.
The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.
Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.
Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.
You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/woman-iran-hijab.jpg357640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-01-08 05:59:002018-01-08 08:26:17As American Women Put Their Pink Hats Back On, Women in Iran Rip Off Their Hijabs [Video]
Abortion giant Planned Parenthood released its annual report over the New Year’s holiday weekend posting record-setting income numbers for its fiscal year that ended June 30, 2017.
Again, the abortionist reported performing over 320,000 abortions this year, accounting for approximately 1/3 of the abortions performed in the United States. However, National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis points out “one glimmer of positive news” is the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood decreased from previous year, a result of the overall abortion rate continuing to drop across the country.
With fewer women seeking abortion, Planned Parenthood is apparently seeking to expand its business model. However, this does not mean actually providing more healthcare services for women such as mammograms or prenatal care. Instead, this year’s report highlights the organization’s new focus on providing transgender hormone therapy.
In other words, while masquerading as a “healthcare” provider for women, Planned Parenthood is apparently more invested in turning men into woman than expanding what are very critical women’s healthcare services.
The Washington Times reports “the nation’s largest abortion provider struggling to keep its doors open as fewer women undergo abortions and patients seek health care services elsewhere.” Overall patient visits are down 20% from 2010 and the latest financial numbers indicate a 43% decrease in assets due to the closing of dozens of clinics across the country.
Planned Parenthood’s record setting income is the result of a 19% increase in private contributions and bequests, including corporate donations, over the previous year. Undoubtedly, the 2016 election cycle was a boon for Planned Parenthood’s fundraising efforts as the organization remains a major player in left-wing political engineering circles.
The big picture here illustrates the overall exploitative nature of Planned Parenthood’s work. 37% of Planned Parenthood’s income comes from “Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants.” A reimbursement of this nature is typically a Medicaid-type payment, something that happens at every qualified healthcare provider for every patient covered under the program. These services are covered at countless clinics that don’t serve as a front for an abortion business.
When patients seek these services elsewhere, abortion, the most expensive service offered, becomes more important to the bottom line, which DeSanctis believes is the underlying motivation for Planned Parenthood’s abortion quotas.
Furthermore, the politicization of gender identity is exploitative in nature as well. Planned Parenthood’s newest business initiative of providing sex-change therapy hormones essentially supports an agenda that is determined mandate men be allowed to use women’s restroom facilities on the basis of how they feel, not their biological sex. The left aims to enable predators in support of the LGBT agenda on this issue, despite the well-documented incidents that show these policies do in fact cause safety concerns.
All in all, Planned Parenthood works more to exploit women, provide abortions, help men become women, and less to provide actual healthcare services to women. So why would any corporation partner with such an organization? Clearly, with the reported 19% rise in donations this year, Planned Parenthood is depending on charity to keep its doors open.
One crucial Trump accomplishment appears to have gone unnoticed. Trump repeatedly spoke the truth about issues fake news media demanded that we either embrace its lie about the issue or stay silent. Single-handedly, Trump has opened the door for Americans to freely speak truth again.
Before Trump entered the political arena, fake news media controlled public speech with an iron-fist. Citizens and politicians knew they had better toe-the-politically-correct-line or suffer severe consequences.
When fake news media demanded that we ignore biology and pretend that Bruce Jenner is a woman, Americans played along with Bruce’s mental disorder for fear of public humiliation and economic crucifixion by fake news media.
NFL player Don Jones broke fake news media’s ban on speaking truth publicly. When Michael Sam kissed his boyfriend on national TV, Jones tweeted what tens of millions of Americans were thinking. “OMG, horrible.” Jones was immediately high-tech lynched by fake news media, sentenced to forced mind-altering therapy.
When Trump announced that he was running for president, Trump said he would deal with the problem of criminal illegals invading our country. Illegals and the accompanying criminals are another issue fake news media forbids us to speak truthfully about. Trump, in essence, said screw fake news media’s rules about what truths we are allowed to state publicly.
Trump honestly addressing the problem of illegals invading our country sparked a fake news media firestorm against him. Fake news media launched a bogus story line that Trump is a racist who hates all Mexicans. In their usual fearful submission to fake news media, Conservatives and Republicans ran to microphones to condemn and distance themselves from what fake news media decreed to be Trump’s “racist” remarks.
However, a majority of American voters did not buy fake news media’s bogus Trump-is-racist narrative. Quite the opposite. We the People were elated by Trump’s unprecedented lack of fear of fake news media. Trump remained steadfast in speaking truth, exposing the negative impact of illegals invading our country with no desire to assimilate. Trump boldly disobeying fake news media’s ban on speaking truth inspires all Americans to begin speaking truth again.
Folks, we are at war; fake news media vs America. Fake news media believes America is the greatest source of evil on the planet. Its 24/7 laser-focused mission is to bring down America from her throne as the world super power. Fake news media also seeks to transform America away from her foundation of Christian values and principles. Fake news media relentlessly sells its lie that a majority of Americans share its disdain for our homeland.
That horrifying Sunday when Americans watched the entire NFL (players, coaches and management), in essence, taking a knee against our country, Americans were stunned with disbelief. How on earth could the NFL think a majority of Americans and football fans agreed with them disrespecting our flag, National Anthem, country, fallen-veteran-active military and brave men and women in blue? In short, the NFL believed fake news media’s bogus story-line that America and cops routinely abuse blacks and football fans would support the NFL protest. Polls confirm the NFL made a huge miscalculation.
As I stated folks, we are at war; fake news media vs America.
Fake news media has suppressed our first amendment right of free speech for years. Anyone who dares speak truth which contradicts a fake news media lie is severely punished; branded stupid; crazy or guilty of hate speech.
While you were sleeping or taking your kids to soccer, fake news media began the process of criminalizing speaking truth; disagreeing with its socialist/progressive agenda.
Fake news media’s sole purpose is to block truth while spreading lies and deception. By controlling speech, fake news media can use pretty words to paint a smiley face on evil, depravity and sin unabated. Trump courageously speaking truth has caused a serious crack in fake news media’s control-what-truths-Americans-are-allowed-to-publicly-express armor. Thank you Mr President.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/donald-trump-serious-1-e1515234805617.jpg356640Lloyd Marcushttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLloyd Marcus2018-01-06 05:33:322018-01-06 05:33:32President Trump’s Unnoticed Great First Year Accomplishment
Edited image of the painting “Iris Tree”from People Magazine.
Like most media reporting on the story, People magazine presented disgraced teacher Mateo Rueda in a flattering light. He was recently fired from Lincoln Elementary School in Hyrum, Utah, for showing young children nude “artwork.” But he’s actually, we’re to believe, an intrepid martyr persecuted by prudish, uncultured rubes who can’t distinguish between porn and fine art. And to prove its point, People printed a couple of the pictures shown to the fifth and sixth-graders, one of which was a full-frontal female nude titled “Iris Tree.”
Only, People obscured the woman’s nipples and nether region.
Apparently adult readers shouldn’t see what the children saw.
Now the magazine is trying to obscure the truth. After I and others called it out on Twitter — I wrote, “If the ‘artwork’ Iris Tree really is appropriate for 10-year-olds, why are you blurring out part of the picture in your article?” — the image completely disappeared from the piece.
Thanks to Internet archiving and the computer function “Print Screen,” however, the evidence remains. The article originally appeared as shown here (thank you, Wayback Machine).
And here is the deforested version, with “Iris Tree” sent to the e-sawmill.
Here are the tweets that started it all:
Unsurprisingly, People also blurred the truth behind the story (which I reported, conducting interviews with local parents), but didn’t scrub from its article Rueda’s posturing, moral preening and demeaning of his adopted community. Its writer, Cathy Free, quoted Rueda as saying, “[E]ven though I was overqualified, I took the [teaching] position with an open heart to make a difference in a predominantly-Mormon community where there isn’t much culture. I hate that this controversy happened, but I stand for art, altruism and enlightenment, and I’ll never back down from that.”
Rueda, a native of Colombia, also said, “There are a lot of skeletons in the closet of the repressed culture here…and there is very little freedom of expression,” reports Free. Rueda had earlier characterized his fellow Cache Valley residents as “cultural dead-ends” and members of a “narrow-minded community.”
What Free didn’t report is that, according to the parents I interviewed, Rueda forced the children to view the nudes and belittled students who complained, telling them they had to “grow up.” (A local source tells me he is not getting his job back.)
Of course, the article by People’s Free is now free of the Tree, but observers note the hypocrisy. As the aforementioned Twitter respondent also opined:
It’s interesting that People didn’t demonstrate its own “enlightenment” and react to the initial criticism by uncovering “Iris Tree” for all to see, but instead decided it didn’t want to be mistaken for Hustler. The only question now is whether, using descriptions Rueda and his defenders have generously applied to opponents, the people at People are best characterized as narrow-minded, repressed prudes, puritans, Nazi-like censors or cultural dead-ends. Because the magazine knows something: Certain images are too indecent for it to publish.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released a report titled “Uprising In Iran 2017-2018 – Update” by A. Savyon and Yigal Carmon. Savyon and Carmon report:
After seven days of mass demonstrations across Iran, in major cities and with the participation of protestors who appear to be middle class, not only in smaller, far-flung cities with the participation of working class people, it can be said that the uprising has the following characteristics:
The uprising is clearly against the regime of the Islamic Republic. The regime is trying to neutralize this aspect of it, by ostensibly consenting to the holding of demonstrations demanding improved economic conditions, but protestors are demanding the following: “death to the dictator,” “death to Khamenei,” the end of the regime of the Islamic Republic, no compulsory hijab, no more sending of Iranian wealth to Syria and Gaza (with the slogan “No Syria, no Gaza, my life is for Iran”), and more. On social media, the following demands are circulating: a referendum, abolition of the regime of the Rule of the Jurisprudent, free elections, no compulsory hijab, fair distribution of wealth, an independent judiciary, a free press, separation of religion and state, and gender equality.
Poster of protestors’ slogans circulating on social media. Source: Twitter.com/pessarbad/status/948452946232119296, January 3, 2018.
The following MEMRI TV clip, published November 20, 2017, shows a protest in Tehran that was a precursor to the current uprising:
Protesters In Tehran: Our Money Is Sent To Iraq, Lebanon, And Syria, While Our Men Steal And Our Women Sell Their Bodies Out Of Poverty – November 20, 2017
This popular uprising has no known leadership that speaks in its name. OnJanuary 3, 2018, announcements of cities, locations, and times of the day’s demonstrations, signed by an entity calling itself “Iran Azadi [“Free Iran”] – The Headquarters for Coordinating the Demonstrations,” were circulated on social media, but no more details about this entity are known.
Twitter.com/iranazadi1395/status/948478702383456258, January 3, 2018.
The Iranian regime has not called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to suppress the uprising; it has assigned this task to the Basij and the police, apparently out of fear that extensive use of force, as in 2009, would fan the flames of the popular uprising against it.
The most prominent figures in the reformist camp, which was banished from power and from public life, have joined the regime’s attempts to calm the people. The regime is trying to use them as a bridge to the protestors in order to prevent the uprising from spreading, and the Interior Ministry has, to this end, called a meeting of all the parties in Iran, including the banned reformist parties, to discuss the economic problems raised by the protestors.
In contrast to the uprising in Syria, there has been no known significant defection of security personnel to the protestors. The tweeted clip below shows a policeman explaining to protestors that he did not “become a soldier to fight” his own people, and is applauded by the crowd:
Source: Twitter.com/ArminNavabi/status/948001957884542977, January 1, 2018.
During the first days of the uprising, no member of the senior leadership of the ideological camp addressed the situation publicly.The only political figure to appear was President Hassan Rohani, to deliver a conciliatory message expressing understanding of the protestors’ motives but trying to set restrictions for the protests.For his part, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called a conference of families of martyrs, and in his statements to them accused Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the U.S. of being behind the uprising.
Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei Blames Popular Uprising On Iran’s Enemies: ‘All Those Who Oppose The Iranian Regime… Have United’
President Rohani blamed the regime for the economic crisis, and explained that most of the country’s budget – that is, 200 billion of a total 360 billion toman (360 billion toman is about $100 billion) – is not under his control at all. This means that most of the national budget is controlled by Supreme Leader Khamenei and the IRGC.
In the regime, a dispute has broken out over the question of who is to blame for the uprising. The ideological camp blames President Rohani and his economic policy, which includes cutting direct public subsidies and raising taxes and the prices of basic commodities, and accuses him of corruption. Rohani, like his mentor, the late Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has spoken out against Supreme Leader Khamenei’s and the IRGC’s policy of exporting the revolution and establishing Iranian hegemony in the region, which has for years required that tremendous resources go to military development and to funding proxies instead of to the Iranian public. The MEMRI TV clips below show statements by Rafsanjani on this subject and Khamenei’s rebuttal:
Iranian Expediency Council Head Rafsanjani Protests Against Regime’s Oppression of Its Citizens – January 22, 2016
On December 21, 2017 the Department of Justice issued a press release, “Departments of Justice and Homeland Security Release Data on Incarcerated Aliens—94 Percent of All Confirmed Aliens in DOJ Custody Are Unlawfully Present.”
The initial statistic cited in the title of that DOJ press release shows that there is a truly significant distinction to be drawn between aliens who are lawfully present in the United States and aliens who are illegally present in the United States, either because they have entered the United States illegally or they have violated the terms of admission after entering the United States via the inspections procedure at ports of entry.
The press release begins with the following statement:
President Trump’s Executive Order on Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect relevant data and provide quarterly reports on data collection efforts. On Dec. 18, 2017, DOJ and DHS released the FY 2017 4th Quarter Alien Incarceration Report, complying with this order. The report found that more than one-in-five of all persons in Bureau of Prisons custody were foreign born, and that 94 percent of confirmed aliens in custody were unlawfully present.
Although immigration anarchists have consistently manipulated language, engaged in tactics of bullying and intimidation and, when all else failed, flat-out lied about every aspect of immigration, the Trump administration is providing the truth.
The DOJ press release, upon which my commentary today is based, lays out the cold, hard and unequivocal facts. It is significant to note that the title of the press release included the phrase, “confirmed aliens in DOJ custody” because all too frequently aliens who face deportation make false claims to United States citizenship to avoid being deported. Therefore there may even be more deportable aliens in federal custody, while the actual number of such aliens in local and state custody are unknown and unknowable particularly in Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States.
Here is an excerpt from the press release that provides some quick statistics and a paragraph that addresses the lack of information about aliens in city and state facilities.
A total of 58,766 known or suspected aliens were in DOJ custody at the end of FY 2017, including 39,455 persons in BOP custody and 19,311 in USMS custody. Of this total, 37,557 people had been confirmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be aliens (i.e., non-citizens and non-nationals), while 21,209 foreign-born people were still under investigation by ICE to determine alienage and/or removability.
Among the 37,557 confirmed aliens, 35,334 people (94 percent) were unlawfully present. These numbers include a 92 percent unlawful rate among 24,476 confirmed aliens in BOP custody and a 97 percent unlawful rate among 13,081 confirmed aliens in USMS custody
This report does not include data on the foreign-born or alien populations in state prisons and local jails because state and local facilities do not routinely provide DHS or DOJ with comprehensive information about their inmates and detainees—which account for approximately 90 percent of the total U.S. incarcerated population.
For decades, the truth has been carefully kept from Americans by globalist politicians from both political parties. They have been far more concerned about doing the bidding of the globalist special interest groups that fund their campaigns, than they have been about the threats that open borders and immigration anarchy pose to public safety and national security.
On April 19, 2016, towards the end of the Obama administration, the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security conducted a hearing on the topic, “The Real Victims of a Reckless and Lawless Immigration Policy: Families and Survivors Speak Out on the Real Cost of This Administration’s Policies.”
I wrote about that hearing in an article which also included links to statements made by Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Chairman of the subcommittee, who opened the hearing with his statement that set the tone for what would follow. Breitbart.com used one of Rep. Gowdy’s statements as the title for their article, “Trey Gowdy: More Illegal Immigrants Convicted of Crimes At Large in the U.S. Than The Population of Pittsburgh.”
At that same hearing Congressman Lamar Smith noted that although it has been estimated that illegal aliens account for about 3% of the U.S. population, they account for 30% of all murders — making illegal aliens 10 times more likely to commit murder than anyone else. Adding that huge number of at-large criminal aliens to the huge number of criminal aliens who are incarcerated in prisons provides a measure of the true scope of the immigration crisis that can only be solved by ramping up efforts and resources to secure our nation’s borders and enforce our nation’s immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.
Beginning with Carter’s administration, the globalist immigration anarchists have embarked on a campaign of deceit. Their goal was to erase America’s borders and flood America with a virtually unlimited supply of cheap and exploitable workers, an unlimited supply of foreign tourists and foreign students and ultimately new voters who would be indebted to the politicians who made their presence in the United States possible.
To further obfuscate the truth, Carter demanded that all INS employees substitute the term “immigrant” for the term “alien” even though the term alien is an integral part of the immigration laws of the United States and is defined by the Immigration and Nationality Act simply as “Any person, not a citizen or national of the United States. Under his campaign of deceit, illegal aliens were be referred to as “undocumented immigrants” as though all that these illegal aliens lacked was a piece of paper. The truth is that aliens who run our borders are not undocumented, they are un-inspected.
Here is a bit of clarity: the difference between an illegal alien and an immigrant is compared to the difference between a burglar and a houseguest.
Today so-called sanctuary cities betray America, Americans and immigrants and pose a clear and immediate danger to public safety and national security as their leaders resort to similar Orwellian propaganda to justify their dangerous illegal policies. Those cities should be referred to as “magnet cities” because they attract transnational criminals, fugitives and terrorists and flood the labor market with illegal aliens who displace American and lawful immigrant workers and undermine wages and working conditions.
This past year Congress conducted hearings about America’s gang crisis, particularly MS-13, once again disclosing the deadly impact of failures of immigration law enforcement.
Today immigration anarchists continue to tell lies. They say that if local police were to work in coordination with immigration law enforcement authorities that illegal alien victims of crime would be fearful of coming forward to report crimes committed against them.
In reality, visas are available for illegal alien crime victims that would enable them to remain in the U.S. if they cooperate with police in identifying the criminals. Other visas are also available for illegal aliens who, although not the victims of crimes, nevertheless provide actionable intelligence to law enforcement to combat criminals and terrorists and the organizations to which they may belong.
Throughout my career with the INS one of my key areas of responsibility was to use my authority as an INS agent to cultivate informants and cooperating witnesses within ethnic immigrant communities to assist in criminal investigations on the local, state and federal levels.
This was particularly true when I was assigned as the first INS representative to the Unified Intelligence Division of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and subsequently promoted and assigned, as a Senior Special Agent, to the Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force.
Indeed, this was one of the critical elements of my annual evaluation.
If advocates for Sanctuary Cities were truly concerned about “immigrants” why in the world aren’t they providing information about the visas that are available to illegal aliens who cooperate with law enforcement authorities? The answer is self-evident- they don’t care about the immigrants, only about promoting their false narrative.
Another deceitful claim is that through implementation of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” our authorities would be able to get all of the illegal aliens “out of the shadows” so we would finally know who is here.
In reality, terrorists might avail themselves of the opportunity to acquire new identities if their biometrics were not on file while those alien criminals fugitives and terrorist aliens who know that their biometrics are likely on file, would simply remain in the shadows.
CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has more than 60,000 employees, including inspectors at ports of entry and Border Patrol agents. If, as immigration anarchists claim, it does not matter how aliens enter the United States, why do we need to continue to fund CBP?
The answer, of course, is self-evident.
President Trump understands the truth and is acting appropriately. All rational Americans should be appreciative and supportive of his efforts to protect America and Americans.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/crime-scene-tape-e1514975342863.jpg360640Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2018-01-03 05:33:072018-01-04 08:15:18Illegal Immigration and Crime: The stunning numbers that no one can refute
Don’t ask us not to be men. Ask us to be real men.
Since the #MeToo phenomenon hit, I have started asking my female friends directly about their everyday experiences with men. For example, what proportion of men that they “meet” on a dating app send utterly inappropriate communications, and how often in everyday life does a guy disrespect them in a way that’s overtly or implicitly sexual?
While I am sure that my circle of male friends isn’t fully representative of the population of men at large, I was shocked to discover from my unscientific survey how many men have no clue about how to behave. Based on the combined responses of several women I trust, the number of men who say or do something offensive to a woman they don’t know on a dating app, almost right out of the gate, may be just shy of a majority.
And many a young woman can, if you ask her, relate tales of men making inappropriate remarks, shouting out of a car window as she walks down the street, whipping out his genitalia after one too many drinks, or being opportunistically crude at a coffee shop, even as she sits there with a very young child. (These were all stories I was told.) For some young women, these things seem to happen on a more or less monthly basis.
My recent conversations with female friends about the matter has led me to this question: what the hell is wrong with these men, and why are there so many of them?
What Has Happened to Men?
To me, this is not a question about sexual harassment. It’s a more fundamental one: an old-fashioned idea called manners. My female friends’ experiences with men have surprised me because they have to put up with a lot more, and a lot more often, than I could have expected based on the evidence available to me as a result of my interactions with other men.
Even though I have robust views about not calling gittish and crass people “predators” or those on the receiving end of rude behaviors “victims”, it must be horrible to have to put up with so much boorishness. I don’t think I’d have the patience for it.
How have we let this happen?
If you’re male and reading this with the same limited appreciation of the matter as I had before I started asking my female friends to list examples of ill-mannered, sexually-loaded behavior, you may be skeptical. I urge you, however, to do the same thing as I have done and ask a cross-section of your female friends to give you examples of their personal anecdotes of such behavior from the last few months. They may well provide more than you expect.Thinking on all of this, and being appalled by bad manners anywhere for any reason, I have started considering what I, as a man, should be saying to other men, if anything, about this problem. My long-held opinion (stated elsewhere) that Western culture is suffering a crisis in masculinity may well find sympathy among many of those who have been fervent in driving the #MeToo phenomenon, but I suspect my prescription for solving this crisis may be more controversial: I believe we need more masculinity, not less, and we need it because what the Louis C.K.s and the Weinsteins of this world have been doing is not an expression of masculinity in its true sense at all.
I’d like to see us turning to these men and asking them in a very disappointed tone, as opposed to a dramatic and scandalized one, “How pathetic are you — and why?” Because that question in that tone conveys the important message that their behavior doesn’t make them more manly; it makes them less so.
Toxic Masculinity Is the Problem, Not Simply Masculinity
Scientifically trained, I generally take care to get out of my own subjective way in my political articles, but this time, I’ll make an exception and happily admit that what follows is a subjective, almost intuitive suggestion offered in the hope of inviting constructive discussion.
The true masculine, or the “sacred masculine” if you prefer, is kind, honest, controlled, disciplined, heroic, protective, strong, rational, and even clever. Throwing out the baby of masculinity with the bathwater of disrespect is absolutely the last thing we need to be doing. Telling men that masculinity is inherently flawed or dangerous is to tell a lie born of misdiagnosis. The moral vacuum in which Weinstein and Franken and others of their ilk operate can only be filled by a celebratory masculinity that is held up as something to aspire to.
If there is such a thing as a spiritual law, none is more certain than, “What is focused on is made bigger,” so let us define that highest version of masculinity as an invitation to men – a north star, if you will, to guide them as they interact with others. That would enable those aspects of men that are gendered, sexual, and desirous to be integrated into the highest versions of who they are, rather than denied or pathologized only to be expressed in distorted ways that can, indeed, reasonably be called “toxic.”Treating toxic masculinity with real masculinity and pointing to the difference between the two has the benefit of engaging the irrepressible male ego on the side of good — of aligning maleness with manners rather than against them.
Perhaps most importantly, a culturally normalized notion of proud and positive masculinity would allow mothers once again to be able to say to their sons, “This is how you treat a woman, and, in so doing, this is how to be a man.” Boys want to be men, so we can surely only improve them by appealing to that desire rather than suppressing it and thereby creating a vacuum to be filled by a distorted and hollow replacement.
Attention: Men. Don’t Be Stupid.
Shocking as they are, it’s not all the male bad manners that astonished me most about the stories I’ve recently heard. It’s male stupidity. After all, if I were a man who wants any kind of sexual satisfaction or affirmation from a woman, and the most sophisticated play I had was to shout out of a car window, rub up against her on a train, or ask her if I can masturbate in front of her, then you’d hope that I’d eventually work out that my method isn’t all that effective.
How deficient, one may ask, does a person have to be to be unable to assess the results of his actions against his goals, especially as the results (or lack thereof) repeat themselves over and over? Indeed, a need for sexual affirmation or activity that is so great that they would cause me to leave my manners at the front door should, even if I were a sociopath, motivate me to start collecting the data. (Rationality is supposed to be a “masculine trait” too, isn’t it?) How long, then, before the thought hits that being rude to every second woman that I find faintly attractive isn’t getting me what I want from them?
In reaction to that level of stupidity alone, I can’t help but feel that men should be asking other men, “What is this nonsense?”
That would be an approach to making better men that makes more of true masculinity, not less of it. It’s an approach that says to those who are toxic in their approaches to women, “That’s the opposite of masculinity. That’s what you do when you’re not a man. That’s what you do when you haven’t got the basics.”
Holding the Feminine and the Truly Masculine Sacred
I love the polarity that exists between the masculine and feminine. Long before #MeToo, I was writing that no one benefits when men can’t be men because masculinity itself has almost become taboo. Men who can’t be, and feel like, real men cannot give women the pleasure of feeling like real women.
I stand by all of that, but when I first wrote it, I was missing something: there are a bunch of men out there on dating apps and shouting out of car windows who actually are making women feel very much like women – but not the kind of women they want to feel like being. You could say, rather, that toxic male approaches are causing women to have a toxic experience of their own femininity. How dare we do that to something so exquisite and delicious?
So, my message to men who are disrespecting women is that you are making it harder for the rest of us. By giving women good reason to be wary of any kind of male approach, you’re making all the women out there skeptical of me and the decent examples of my gender. And I’m not ok with that.But I also have a message for mothers. Mom, it’s okay to make your son a man. It’s okay to use that word. Only once you’ve used that word can you turn around and say, “This behavior isn’t masculine; it’s pathetic. And by the way, son, if you actually want to get with an attractive woman, here’s how not to do it. Don’t disrespect her; don’t throw crude one-liners out of a car window, and don’t send a picture of your genitals to her on a dating app. If you want to get the attractive women, the smart women, the kind of women you’re going to enjoy — and you should — then why don’t you learn a little bit about them? Indeed, why don’t you learn a little bit about the difference between them and you?”
And that last piece is so important because I have a sense (and I could be wrong) that many people who have been pushing the #MeToo phenomenon hard are of the more third-wave-feminist persuasion, wanting to collapse that distinction between men and women. (It’s all socialization, they say.) But I’m suggesting the exact opposite approach to solving the problem out of which #MeToo has arisen.
Why not tell our boys what’s great and beautiful about masculinity so that once we’ve built them up in what they are, they have no need to feel threatened or intimidated by learning about the feminine other — that other that will drive them through life in more ways than they will ever consciously realize? Let’s spend more time promoting models of positive masculinity than on telling guys, young and old, that, and why, we’re all awful. (We’re not.) Let’s talk up the good alpha-males: those who are comfortable in their masculinity — assertive while respectful, confident while polite, ambitious while kind. They exist in all areas of life. The next time you’re about to talk about Al Franken’s shenanigans, how about talking instead about one of those real men, who gets what he wants through respect? And draw the contrast between them explicitly.
Spoiler Alert: Sex Is Amazing. So Seek It Properly.
Then, as we start celebrating healthy, robust masculinity, let’s not slip back into thinking that the problem we are trying to solve has anything much to do with sex. As Oscar Wilde famously said, “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.”
That applies here and now – albeit not in quite the way Wilde meant it.
The unacceptable sexual behaviors of men who exhibit toxic masculinity are rooted in something to do with power – but not primarily in the conscious exertion of sexual power over another. Rather, their disrespectful treatment of women for a sexual prize (which they invariably fail to win) is reflective of a lack of inner power as men which leaves them resorting to aggressive behavior and exploiting the immediate superficial and circumstantial power that exists by virtue of a professional relationship or particular social or economic context.Men shouldn’t behave disrespectfully toward women not because there’s anything wrong with their sexuality, their desire, or their masculinity. No; they shouldn’t do it because no one should disrespect anyone, ever. Period. End of story.
We have to take care, then, that we don’t misdiagnose the disease just because it is more easily seen in certain situations than in others: disrespect from men is disproportionately observed in the sexual domain because the male sexual imperative is never really turned off, and it necessarily manifests in ways that are directly seen and experienced by women (assuming the men are straight).
Women, please help us good men police our own by talking up positive masculinity – the masculinity that you want more of. Celebrate the polarity between your femininity and the masculinity of the men you like. Tell us that it’s ok to be sexually assertive and thoroughly masculine – but only in the right context. And explain to us that that context always involves the prior establishment of mutual respect, a sense of safety, and trust. We are basic creatures. You, ladies, are gatekeepers. So let us know that respect and social competence will open that gate much more easily than will crude attempts to bash it down.
In short, don’t ask us not to be men. Ask us to be real men.
Robin Koerner is British-born and recently became a citizen of the USA. A decade ago, he founded WatchingAmerica.com, an organization of over 200 volunteers that translates and posts views about the USA from all over the world, works as a trainer and a consultant, and recently wrote the book If You Can Keep It.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Cure-for-Toxic-Masculinity-Is-Real-Masculinity-e1514941448351.jpg384640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2018-01-02 20:04:182018-01-02 20:04:49VIDEO: The Cure for Toxic Masculinity Is Real Masculinity
StandWithUs published the below commentary and composite video of the Iranian spring:
BREAKING: Iranian protests against the Iranian government continue into their third day. The Iranian people are rising up against an oppressive terrorist supporting regime, calling for an end to the dictatorship, and chanting “Death to Hezbollah.”
Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Iranian leadership has brutally oppressed its own people and become the world’s biggest funder of terrorism worldwide. The regime also consistently threatens to “wipe Israel off the map.”
Violence against protesters is already being reported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Now, all eyes are on Iran.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/stand-with-us-iran.jpg360640Wallace Bruschweilerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngWallace Bruschweiler2018-01-01 16:14:572018-01-02 07:49:47VIDEO: Iranians Call for Freedom and Death to Terrorist Organization Hezbollah
It’s only weeks away from the day in January last year when Donald J. Trump ascended to the presidency and took his oath of office as the 45th President of the United States of America.
In only 12 months, it’s fair to say that he has already had an extraordinary presidency—more bold, courageous, and revolutionary than any American president since the Founding Fathers almost two-and-a-half centuries ago.
I use the adjectives spectacular and extraordinary not only to describe the sheer ebullience and optimism the president exhibits every day at his impossibly daunting job—and in spite of the non-stop vilification of the angry, bitter, jealous left—but mostly because his accomplishments in both domestic and foreign affairs have been so stupendous for the American people.
Haven’t you been reading the papers and watching TV?” the pathetic Never Trumpers grouse. “If you had,” they insist, “you would have seen clearly that the president has had just about no accomplishments!”
Of course, if I depended on the media whores at CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR)—the list is long—I would be forced to believe the avalanche of fake news which consistently fails to give even passing mention to the president’s laudable achievements.
But one of the genius things candidate Trump accomplished before he was elected and entered the Oval Office was identifying the colossal phoniness of the so-called mainstream media.
Jim Hoft, proprietor of Gateway Pundit reports that according to Wikileaks, at least 65 mainstream-media reporters met and coordinated with top Hillary Clinton advisors during the 2016 presidential campaign. Below is only a tiny sampling of what a friend of mine calls partisan prostitutes:
All of these shills worked closely with the Clinton campaign, were invited to top elitist dinners with Hillary Campaign Chairman John Podesta and Chief Campaign strategist Joel Benenson, and in every case were given an “off-the-record” agenda which was blatantly and fawningly pro-Hillary. NOTE: significantly, no fair-and-balanced Fox News reporters made the list.
It wasn’t only fake news that militated against candidate Trump. It was also the leftist polling companies that consistently reported “fake” numbers right up until 8 p.m. on election night.
But whaddaya know—in spite of a massive coordinated blitz of negative reporting, candidate Trump’s message resonated with the entire country, which promptly awarded him the presidency!
FORGING AHEAD
Last May, I wrote about “The Juggernaut and the Jerks” in which I described the formidable inroads the juggernaut president had made on behalf of America, as opposed to the drumbeat of negative “press” he received from the jerks in the media.
Three months later, covering President Trump’s second quarter in office, I wrote about “The Unstoppable Trump Train,” again cataloging how the chief executive was slashing the mountain of wasteful government spending, getting rid of strangulating regulations, establishing strong ties with foreign leaders, and initiating measures designed to improve American lives forever.
Now that the November 8th date has passed since Donald J. Trump’s historic upset election, and President Trump is approaching the one-year date of his inauguration on January 20th, 2018, it is fitting that I close out my assessment of his first year in office.
THE SUPER-HUMAN FACTOR
There is a very good reason why President Trump, long before he ever contemplated a run for the presidency, became a multi-billionaire in the real-estate industry and one of the most successful TV stars of the 20th century. It is simply because he’s smarter than most people—definitely than most politicians—and he has that X factor of charisma that is missing in most of the nearly eight-billion people on earth.
Brains and charisma, in his case, equal the ability to get Big Things accomplished, combined with the charm to convince even his rivals that what they originally thought was a bad idea is, in fact, a good idea. And this is not to omit President Trump’s ability to play the kind of hard ball that eclipses the NY Yankees’ 27 World Series championships!
Case in point. The President just proclaimed that Jerusalem was the official capital of Israel, after just about every president since 1948 campaigned on this promise and never delivered. Most people know this instinctively, since Jews have lived in the Holy Land for over 3,000 years and Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible over 600 times, in dramatic contrast to the Muslim’s holy book, the Koran, which mentions Jerusalem NOT ONCE!
Following the president’s pronouncement, 128 ofthe corrupt, tin-pot-dictators in the United Nations condemned the declaration.But unlike past presidents, especially the poseur “president” Barack Obama, who had a peculiar fetish for those anti-Semitic dictators, President Trump said, really? You don’t want to vote with the country that supports you to the tune of billions of dollars every year? Okay… it’ll cost you. Hard ball!
Meanwhile,within days, the president ofGuatemala, Jimmy Morales, announced that he would move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. And shortly after, Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Tzipi Hotovely, announced that at least 10 more countries joined the growing list of those who intend to move their embassies to Jerusalem.
I credit each and every one of them with helping me compile the following list of President Trump’s mind-boggling first-year accomplishments. But because of space constraints, it is only possible for me to mention a tiny percentage of the smashing successes the president has brought about since his inauguration.Believe me, this is only the proverbial drop in the bucket!
ECONOMY
In contrast to Breitbart writer John Nolte’s description of Mr. Obama’s “anti-growth policies and anti-free market rhetoric,” President Trump, he says, has taken “complete ownership of the American economy”—including:
The enactment of the massive tax cuts and jobs-creation law which eliminates the Obamacare mandate and provides “incentives for corporations to repatriate trillions stashed overseas to avoid America’s unnecessarily high tax rates” and consumers to have greater choice in healthcare options.
A Latino unemployment rate that is has hit a record low in the 45-year history of government tracking,
A black unemployment rate hitting a 17-year low—after nearly two decades of double-digit unemployment,
An unexpectedly high growth rate of 3.3 percent in the third quarter of 2017…with projections for the fourth quarter edging into the magic number of 4 percent,
The unemployment rate hitting a 17-year low, the lowest since 2000,
Mortgage applications for new homes rise to a seven year high,
Lowest gas prices in more than 12 years,
A boom in manufacturing jobs, with 171,000 having been created under President Trump, in stark contrast to the 16,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the poseur “president’s final year, and the manufacturing unemployment rate just 2.6 percent, the lowest in history.
In addition, a booming stock market, with a gain of more than $4 trillion in wealth, the DOW over 24,000, and for the first time ever, rising 5,000 Points in one year, and the S&P and NASDAQ setting all-time highs,
A decrease in the U.S. debt by $101-billion dollars! (In his first five months, the poseur “president” Barack Obama increased the U.S. debt by $771-billion dollars).
The president convinced companies such as Ford, Chrysler and Carrier Air Conditioners to manufacture and build plants in the United States and Corning announced it was investing $500 million in new U.S. production, creating 1,000 new jobs. Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, which makes the iPhone, announced in July it was investing $10 billion in Wisconsin to build a factory that will employ 3,000 workers directly and up to 22,000 workers indirectly.
According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, international business editor of the London Telegraph, “American companies have stashed trillions of dollars overseas in what amounts to the greatest cash reserve in the world,” and President Trump, as part of his tax reform, is not bringing that money back to the U.S.
POTUS reversed the Dodd-Frank Act, financial-regulation legislation in which regulators were given too much power and big banks were given special treatment.
Refused his $400,000 a year salary as president, took just one dollar, and donated to the Park Service, Veterans Affairs.
Signed Executive Order for an Apprentice program to train skilled works to fill six-million open positions.
Reduced White House payroll by $22 million.
FOREIGN POLICY
Bruce Thornton, of frontpagemag.com, notes that Pres. Trump “has begun to repair the damage to our international prestige wrought by” the poseur president’s “one-world, naïve internationalism favored by progressives, who want to diminish America’s global clout…” In that regard, POTUS has:
Increased the sanctions on Iran and refused to recertify Obama’s disastrous agreement with the nuke-hungry mullahs,
Bombed a Syrian airfield and destroyed a fifth of Assad’s jet fighters,
Took the gloves off our military and ended ISIS’s “caliphate,”
Rolled back Obama’s cringing concessions to Cuba,
Put Russia on notice by recommitting to the Magnitsky Act and increasing sanctions on regime oligarchs,
Unleashed U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on “the anti-American pygmy states infesting that ‘cockpit in the Tower of Babel’ (the United Nations),
Under Trump, Thornton says, “America seems to be getting its international mojo back.”
In addition, according to journalist and author Matthew Vadum, the president’s 11-day Asian trip—to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Beijing, the People’s Republic of China; Danang, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; and in Manila, the Philippines—succeeded in bolstering “resolve to combat North Korean nuclear adventurism and Islamic terrorism, and to promote his signature ‘America First’ trade policies… after eight years of pathetic servility, weakness, and apology tours” by the poseur president.
During the trip, Pres. Trump scuttled the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying: “We will no longer enter into large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty, make meaningful enforcement practically impossible,” and produce “unfair trade practices and enormous trade deficits for the United States.”
VP Mike Pence announced that the U.S. will quit funding refugee programs carried out by the United Nations, given its failure to protect Christian [and other] minorities “in the wake of genocide and the atrocities of terrorist groups.”
MILITARY
Pres. Trump removed the poseur president’s crushing Rules of Engagement in combat, which tied the hands of our military and resulted in both greater combat and civilian casualties. And heempowered military leaders to “seize the initiative and win,” reducing the need for a White House sign off on every mission.
According to James Lewis of The American Thinker, when President Trump dropped the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) in Afghanistan…“a hundred or more of the worst human beings since Hitler died in one big explosion,” and both our allies and our enemies knew there was a powerful new sheriff in the United States. “Obama would never even name the enemy,” Lewis says, and he “never, ever seemed to get that basic point of morality, nor did Hillary, nor did any other Democrat. Trump and Mattis obviously understand it…”
Journalist Rick Moranreminds us that today, ISIS has lost 98 percent of its territory and that now, fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters remain in Iraq and Syria. And Fox News reports that number is down “from a peak of nearly 45,000 just two years ago. U.S. officials credit nearly 30,000 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and regional partners on the ground for killing more than 70,000 jihadists.
In addition, President Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018, which approves one of the largest defense spending increases in the past 30 years. The NDAA does the following:
Increases the size of our forces for the first time in 7 years,
Authorizes funds for the continued defeat of ISIS and to cover critical missile defense capabilities to confront the threat posed by North Korea,
Takes concrete steps to rebuild U.S. military readiness
Approves a 2.4 percent pay raise for our troops—the largest in 8 years!
VETERANS
Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire failing employees and establish safeguards to protect whistleblowers,
Authorized $2.1 billion in additional funds for the Veterans Choice Program in healthcare; allowed private healthcare choices for veterans,
Launched an online “Access and Quality Tool” providing veterans with a way to access wait time and quality of care data,
THE BEST IS YET TO COME
Conservatives like me knew one thing after observing the poseur president Obama after his very first month in office, i.e., that the worst was yet to come.
Sure enough, for eight long years we witnessed a remarkable avalanche of apologies for America, non-stop race baiting, the evisceration of our military, and a virtual devolution of everything positive America stood for.
After the big-hearted people of America gave a community organizer with not one microsecond of executive or foreign affairs experience a chance to lead the greatest, strongest, most generous country on earth, those same big-hearted people regained their sanity and voted for an American patriot with vast executive experience to seize the reins of power and—literally—to save both America and Western civilization!
For those of us who value safety, a strong military, a booming economy, high employment, a belief in the sanctity of life, and a reverence for the U.S. Constitution, the election of Donald J. Trump was a godsend.
And we fervently believe that under his leadership, the best, indeed, is yet to come!
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-president-1-e1514678684436.jpg401639Joan Swirskyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJoan Swirsky2017-12-30 19:04:012018-01-02 07:54:08A Year of Spectacular Accomplishments for President Trump
A new poll by the American Culture & Faith Institute uncovered some interesting—and perhaps worrisome—trends when it comes to how Americans think they can properly support their country.
The study found that Americans think patriotism is generally in decline, but we can’t even agree on how to define it, let alone settle on whether it’s generally a good or bad thing.
For instance, believing that America should always come first, conservatives rated military service and protecting the American flag highly on the patriotism scale, while liberals did not.
Liberals largely embraced the idea that using nonviolent civil disobedience to overcome social injustice was a particularly patriotic act, while conservatives tended to be more lukewarm to that.
There was even a divide over which corporations and organizations are considered patriotic. Conservatives favored retailer Hobby Lobby, the National Rifle Association, and Chick-fil-A as patriotic, while liberals clearly leaned toward Starbucks, The New York Times, and Planned Parenthood.
It was perhaps no surprise that the National Football League, which has been plagued all season by controversy over national anthem protests by players, is viewed very differently by the American left and right.
Only 10 percent of conservatives labeled the NFL “very patriotic,” while 30 percent of liberals in the survey said it is.
If anything, the survey’s findings point to some of the most intense friction points in the culture wars.
That there are sharp political divisions in this country is nothing new. From the earliest days of the United States’ existence we have been fighting over what policies are most effective, who is fit to hold power, and what cultural norms will produce the best outcomes.
But if this poll and the general feeling of America in 2017 are any indication, our divisions are a bit deeper than they had been even up until quite recently.
If we can’t agree on what patriotism is, where are we going to find common ground?
Part of this trend undoubtedly flows from the powerful push by America’s elite institutions to move away from creating unity out of an incredibly diverse nation.
Instead, they aim to divide and elevate what are often the smallest distinctions among us.
America in the past was mostly devoted to celebrating its unity and its institutions designed to buttress our national identity. We were committed to forging this identity through our country’s timeless founding ideas, as well as our unique history.
Our culture now almost reverse-engineers that effort—both in rejecting our founding ideas as untrue or outdated, and abandoning our history as in many ways sordid and indefensible.
In place of a kind of unifying and expanding civic nationalism, we are left with the all-too-familiar squabbles over race, class, and gender.
That’s why battles over identity and patriotism are now so ferocious and seem worse than in the past.
A fundamental disagreement over what defines our country’s cornerstone ideas, along with polar opposite conceptions of how best to define identity, are creating unbridgeable fissures in our society—ones that many Americans desperately want to stitch back together.
Some liberals, like professor Mark Lilla at Columbia University, have pleaded for the left to re-embrace the kind of civic unity of the New Deal-era progressivism or face catastrophe.
“We must relearn how to speak to citizens as citizens and to frame our appeals for solidarity—including ones to benefit particular groups—in terms of principles that everyone can affirm,” Lilla said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed column.
So the culture wars, and the wars over identity, will continue as many Americans grasp for leaders who can effectively re-create a concept of unity from the shattered and hostile factions of our republic.
This is almost impossible to do if, at the ground level, Americans have such a vastly different notion of what human nature is or define patriotism in radically different ways.
The American Culture & Faith Institute poll found that only 10 percent of conservatives consider themselves “culture warriors” as opposed to 22 percent of liberals.
If we are committed to reversing our country’s long-term problems, perhaps that needs to change.
Elections serve their purpose, but it’s clear that culture and outlook define our politics more than anything else. That battleground is more important than any temporary electoral victory or defeat.
The Daily Signal exists to be a trusted alternative to biased mainstream media. We take pride in delivering the truth about what is happening in Washington and how it affects your life.
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and for good reason. Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, the liberal slant of many major media outlets has been exposed.
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Every newspaper and TV network will be doing their year-in-review issues around now. Considering they will primarily be re-hashing their own partisan attacks and intentional undermining of a duly elected American president, they’re not worth consuming.
But America and the American people actually had a much, much better year than the deeply discredited media and than Democrats — which are basically the same people. In fact, it was a downright amazing year — if you think America remains the best nation in the world, a shining city on a hill, a beacon of hope. For eight years we had people running the federal government who thought roughly the opposite. But 2017 brought a dramatic change to the White House and to the hopes of millions of Americans — and actually, the world.
The amazingness of the year is multiplied if you were unsure of what policies President Trump would pursue and his effectiveness in pursuing them. Many people voted against Hillary Clinton for good reason, but held their breath on Trump.
However, if you are conservative, traditionalist, pro-American or even libertarian, there has been an amazing amount of achievements to like in 2017 — even some Trump opponents admit that — generational tax reform and cuts, a booming economy and historically low unemployment, pulling out of the Paris climate accord, decertifying the Iran deal, the Jerusalem embassy, military revitalization, deregulation, immigration control, Obamacare mandate repeal, destruction of ISIS, Justice Gorsuch and the rest of the judiciary.
Amazing. Here’s the full look:
➙ Conservative judiciary. This of course starts with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, but extends far beyond. Once Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke the Democrats’ obstructionism on every appointee, Trump’s picks began slowly flowing through and they are amazingly conservative and originalist. Trump has nominated 12 constitutionally conservative appellate justices alone — a record for a president in his first year.
➙ Tax reform. The unnecessarily scorned tax reform law lowers corporate taxes sharply from 35 percent to 21 percent. We were by far the highest in the industrialized world which made it hard for American companies to compete globally and was creating the perverse incentive for them to create offshore entities to limit tax liability. The passage of this morally and economically right legislation was followed immediately by a stream of major American corporations announcing new investments, employee bonuses or hiking their own minimum wage to $15/hour — something Democrats are fighting for through the heavy hand of government. On the individual side, the reform is much more modest, but most Americans outside of some in high-tax states will get a pay raise or no change due to reduced tax rates. This is Trump’s only major legislation of 2017, but it is a generational change — as big as those by Presidents Kennedy and Reagan.
➙ Repeal of Obamacare mandate. This was part of the tax reform bill and unburdened Americans from the most Constitutionally questionable and liberty onerous provision. The Supreme Court should never have found it acceptable, even with the contortions it went through to do so, to force Americans to buy a private product. Striking this heavy hand of government from law is an amazing accomplishment considering full Obamacare repeal failed.
➙ De-regulation. The Trump Administration has eliminated 22 existing regulations for each new regulation it instituted. While some will wail that the world is ending, the voices are small and marginal because these were so overly burdensome, driven by ideologies of the previous administration and too often paybacks for political supporters. These have received very little news coverage because every tweet is more important, apparently. But they undoubtedly have had a huge impact on the booming economy.
➙ Keystone Pipeline and ANWR. This crucial pipeline that will create economic impact along its corridor and provide better oil prices and more energy independence for America, was needlessly and recklessly blocked by the ideologies of the Obama administration. It frustrated and angered everyone except environmental activists — a key Democrat constituency — and it hurt American workers. Many years after Obama and Democrats blocked any oil exploration in the mammoth and relatively uninhabited Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska, Trump signed legislation to open up the empty region for oil drilling.
➙ Rocking economy. After eight years of paltry growth that left Americans depressed and in a malaise, the jump in measurable economic activity in 2017 is astonishing. GDP growth is the best it has been in a decade and well above expectations. This has naturally led to a rapidly increasing workforce participation rate — more people with jobs and more people once again looking for work — and the lowest unemployment rate since 2000. We are sitting at near what economists consider full employment, and that will help everyone as such competition will create upward pressure on wages — if immigration is controlled properly.
➙ Immigration. Trump’s efforts to put a temporary ban on a handful of nations where terrorism is rampant, or actually government-supported, was initially blocked by politically-motivated liberal judges in one circuit. But the ban has since been lifted and is expected to be found constitutional and is now in place. Immigration controls help the American worker and much still needs to be done, but Trump has moved in the right direction. The administration has also beefed up border security forces and policies on enforcement of existing laws. The Department of Homeland Security found in October that the Border Patrol is stopping people trying to cross illegally at almost twice the rate of the past decade. Unshackled, the Border Patrol can do a lot more, and Trump unshackled them. However, the border wall itself is still just talk. This must begin to be reality in 2018 because a new president one day can simply undo the executive policy changes. He or she won’t demolish a wall.
➙ Paris Climate Accords. Walking away from this bit of fictional environmental salvation — but real-world economic harm — was a bold stroke by Trump and good for America. He knew the “world community” would come down on him like a ton of bricks, despite the fact that by its own measurement, the accords would not accomplish much on global warming while the biggest contributors of carbon emissions weren’t likely to ever be part of it. That means it was just going to competitively disadvantage the United States without being beneficial to its own, stated cause. This was always just a feel-good accord among people who would not individually be harmed by it. But Trump was right to pull out.
➙ De-certifying the Iran Deal. This awful and inexplicable deal enabled the worst state player in the Middle East to be put on a path to nuclear weapons, and be given hundreds of millions in cash, much of which Iran would promptly distribute to its Islamist terrorist arms to attack our ally Israel and perhaps even America. This was an unconscionable deal as part of a bumbling foreign policy. De-certifying is a start as it was unconstitutional on two grounds, but the United States needs to walk away entirely and re-institute sanctions. Unfortunately, we can’t get back the cash the Obama Administration literally flew to Iran on a plane.
➙ Jerusalem. Acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a campaign promise made by multiple presidents, including Obama and Bush, but which was never kept — until now. Trump kept his and will move the U.S. Embassy to the capital. Amazingly, despite the constant noise from the left, actually very little terrorism and outrage has happened. It was the right thing to do as it is the historic capital of Israel and countries have a right to choose their own capitals.
➙ Destruction of ISIS. This amazing accomplishment has been largely ignored by the media, for the obvious reason that it is great news under Trump. ISIS’ territorial holdings — it’s primary claim to a caliphate and recruiting power, are essentially gone. Not only is the caliphate gone and ISIS now reduced to another terrorist organization — dangerous but only a shadow of its former terror — nothing worse has popped up in its place at this point. Outstanding. It’s sad to think the world possibly had to endure the plague of ISIS for so many years unnecessarily.
➙ Military revitalization. Trump rightly jettisoned the hand-tying rules of engagement for the military that existed for eight years and allowed military commanders to make military decisions more freely. This resulted in the rapid destruction of ISIS. Trump also altered America’s military’s strategic timeline in Afghanistan and continues to push for a more fully-funded military after the readiness erosion of the previous administration.
➙ Asserting sovereign right at the U.N. When the United States acknowledged the reality of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the world had a conniption fit and the United Nations, a weak but negative influence on world affairs, opposed our sovereign foreign policy and voted to condemn us. Those votes included most of our allies and the murderous dictators around the world that inhabit the U.N. and that we give aid to. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the U.S. will remember those who we have been generous to and then spit in our face. Funding cuts have already begun. Hopefully, 2018 will see a defunding of this anti-Semitic and anti-America institution.
This is not the list you will be seeing in your local newspaper or TV station, nor on any of the national media outlets. That will be a reiteration of what they got wrong in the first place — Russia collusion and other non-stories. But this list is true.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-american-flag-white-house.jpg335640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2017-12-28 12:58:262017-12-28 13:30:01America’s Most Amazing Year — Not Fake News Edition
KEY TAKEAWAY: Almost 30,000 rank-and-file government employees make over $190,823, more than any governor of the 50 states, according to a report from OpenTheBooks.com.
The U.S. government pays employees a total of about $1 million per minute, according to a watchdog group’s report on the sprawling federal bureaucracy.
Looking at 78 large agencies, the nonprofit organization OpenTheBooks.com found that the average salary of a federal employee exceeds $100,000 and that roughly 1 in 5 of those on the government payroll has a six-figure salary.
Almost 30,000 rank-and-file government employees make over $190,823, more than any governor of the 50 states.
“Our oversight report shows the size, scope, and power of the administrative state,” Adam Andrzejewski, Open the Books’ CEO and founder, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “Two million federal bureaucrats have salaries, extraordinary perquisites, and lifetime pension benefits. This compensation package has never been seen in the private sector.”
The median wage for all American workers was $44,148 a year for a 40-hour work week in the final quarter of 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Andrzejewski said the Open the Books report, released Tuesday and including an interactive map of the 2 million federal bureaucrats by ZIP code, is meant to educate taxpayers on where their dollars are going.
So what about those perks?
When federal employees reach the third anniversary of their employment, he said, “they get eight and a half weeks’ paid time off” plus “10 holidays, 13 sick days, and 20 vacation days.”
“We estimate those perks alone cost the American taxpayer $22.6 billion a year,” Andrzejewski said.
With the government paying the disclosed workforce $1 million per minute, according to the report, every eight-hour workday costs taxpayers more than $500 million.
A total of 406,960 employees make a six-figure income, amounting to roughly 1 in 5 employees. From 2010 through 2016, the number of federal employees making more than $200,000 increased by 165 percent.
“People are really hungry for these hard facts, they are interested in searching their little piece of the swamp,” Andrzejewski told The Daily Signal.
An image from the report. (Photo: OpenTheBooks.com)
—A small federal agency in San Francisco, Presidio Trust, paid out three of the government’s four largest bonuses, including the largest in fiscal year 2016. The biggest bonus, $141,525, went to a personnel manager who did payroll.
—The Postal Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs employ over half of all disclosed federal workers, at 32 percent of and 19 percent, respectively.
—About 2 million “undisclosed” employees work for the Defense Department, including active military duty. Their compensation, including $1 billion in bonuses and $125 billion in pensions, amounts to $221 billion per year.
Federal workers are paid a “new minimum wage,” Open the Books argues, because the average employee at 78 of the 122 departments and independent agencies reviewed makes $100,000 or more.
“Congress should hold hearings to bring transparency to all the information we’re still missing, including performance bonuses and pension payouts,” Andrzejewski said in a prepared statement. “It’s time to squeeze out waste from compensation and stop abusive payroll practices.”
Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/mapping-the-swamp.jpg360640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2017-12-28 07:14:092017-12-28 07:14:09INFOGRAPHIC: 1 of Every 5 Government Employees Has a 6-Figure Salary
On Dec. 20, in an unsigned, four-page opinion, the Supreme Court struck down a lower court order that severely burdened efforts by the Trump administration to end the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded certain younger illegal aliens from deportation.
This is good news, a helpful sign that the Supreme Court will not give unelected judges carte blanche to hamstring the federal government’s legitimate efforts to enforce immigration law restrictions, consistent with the current statutory law.
Continuation of DACA offends the rule of law. As Heritage Foundation scholar Hans von Spakovsky has explained, DACA should be eliminated as a matter of law: “Why? Because the president doesn’t have the authority to decide who should be in the United States legally when it comes to immigrants. That power resides entirely in Congress [because] . . . the Constitution says it.”
In short, allowing a category of illegal aliens not to be deported requires an act of Congress, not an arbitrary presidential decision.
DACA was established in 2012 by a Department of Homeland Security memorandum. It applied to a large number of young illegal aliens who met certain conditions: they illegally entered the U.S. before the age of 16; were under the age of 31; had “continuously” resided in the U.S. since June 15, 2007; and were in school, graduated, or honorably discharged from the military.
DACA provided a period of deferred action (a promise that the alien would not be deported) as well as access to certain government benefits (including work authorizations, Medicare, Social Security, and the earned income tax credit). The period of deferred action was initially for two years, but that period was extended to three years by a second DHS memorandum on Nov. 14, 2014.
The Trump administration took a different approach. On Sept. 5, then-acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke issued a new memorandum terminating the DACA program and all benefits provided under it effective March 18, 2018, unless President Donald Trump provides another extension of the program or Congress passes a bill addressing the issue.
The acting secretary stated that her determination was based in part on the attorney general’s conclusion that DACA was unlawful and likely would be enjoined in potentially imminent litigation.
Shortly thereafter, the administration found itself in a legal battle. Five related lawsuits challenging the acting secretary’s Sept. 5 determination were filed in a federal district lower court in California. The suits argued that the determination violated the Administrative Procedure Act (which governs the way in which federal administrative agencies may propose and establish regulations), and denied affected aliens due process and equal protection under the law.
On Oct. 17, the district court issued an order accepting plaintiffs’ contention that the 256-page record DHS used to support its Sept. 5 determination was “incomplete.” In so doing, the court imposed an enormous burden on the government, ordering it to turn over all “emails, letters, memoranda, notes, media items, opinions and other materials” that fell into several broad categories.
The Justice Department unsuccessfully challenged this ruling before the largely liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and then appealed to the Supreme Court.
In its short unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court held that, before imposing its heavy-handed documentary request, the district court first should have ruled on the government’s two “serious” threshold arguments—that the decision to terminate DACA was unreviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act because it was “committed to agency discretion,” and that the Immigration and Nationality Act deprived the lower court of jurisdiction.
As the court explained, “[e]ither of those arguments, if accepted, likely would eliminate the need for the [d]istrict [c]ourt to examine a complete administrative record.”
Accordingly, the Supreme Court ordered the district court to rule on the government’s threshold arguments and certify its ruling for immediate appeal “if appropriate.” Thereafter, if the case was not dismissed, the district court and the 9th Circuit “may consider whether narrower amendments to the record are appropriate.” The Supreme Court concluded by stating that its order “does not suggest any view on the merits of” the case.
In sum, although the Supreme Court has removed (for now) one unnecessary burden to elimination of DACA, the final judicial word has not been said. Let us hope that, in considering this case, the federal courts remember that it is their job to construe the law and say what it is—not to impose their subjective immigration policy preferences on the American people.
Alden Abbott is deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and the John, Barbara, and Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Fellow. Read his research. Twitter: @AldenAbbott1.
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The Daily Signal exists to be a trusted alternative to biased mainstream media. We take pride in delivering the truth about what is happening in Washington and how it affects your life.
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and for good reason. Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, the liberal slant of many major media outlets has been exposed.
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