53percenter's Blog

Let’s travel to the future, about 18 months from today, to a presidential debate between President Trump and whichever candidate the DNC finally throws its gold bricks behind.  Two alternate timelines exist: one where Trump has built the wall and an unlikely one where he has not.

In the first, Democrats will be crushed.  President Trump will remind them that they told the American people that the wall is “ineffective” and “expensive.”  But crime has fallen; so have substance abuse-related deaths.  Illegal immigration is manageable for the first time in close to a century.  This Democratic nominee might argue that Trump failed to make Mexico pay for the wall.  His retort?  The U.S. has now officially negotiated lucrative trade agreements with our southern neighbor that have paid for the wall tenfold.  He may even mention the massive burden that illegal immigration costs Americans each year has been lifted.

In the second future, where somehow the wall hasn’t been built, the Democrat will hound Trump and ask him why he did not deliver on his campaign promise.  Besides their own party’s obstruction of the process, they will suggest that the president is not able to get things done with bipartisan support.  They could even suggest that is they, if elected to replace President Trump, who will really get the job of a border wall done.  Based on the Democratic support for border barriers in the past, it’s within the realm of possibility that they will readopt the platform issue since it’s still the number-one issue voters care about.

The Democrats are against the wall because they know it will work.  Their concern isn’t altruistic and about the morality of the wall; it is merely a point to set up and argue during the next election.  If they really believed that a wall would not work, they wouldn’t stand in the way and let President Trump fail when it didn’t deliver what we all know it will.  Lower crime.  Lower drug deaths.  Lower illegal immigration.  And lower taxpayer burden when government funds have been spent combating these problems.  They’re fighting it because they cannot survive if the president, and America, succeeds.

The Democratic Party hasn’t just suddenly developed a sense of fiscal responsibility when it claims that the wall is too expensive.  They wrote the book on wild spending, like sex ed for prostitutes or speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s wild $100K tab of in-flight drinks and dinners.

When Democrats claim to be against the barriers because of their concern for DACA recipients and then simultaneously shoot down an offer for their stability, it should be a sign.  Then, when they claim that their opposition to the wall comes from some moral high ground, all Americans should be able to see through this poor argument, considering the high walls around their own homes.

On Friday afternoon, President Trump reopened the government with a continuing resolution for until mid-February.  He reiterated his determination to follow through on his options to secure the southern border.  To show that he is merciful, he is extending an olive branch to the House and Senate Democrats by giving them a chance fulfill their promise to negotiate when the partial government shutdown had ended.

However, having promptly reneged on their own promises, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer held a press conference shortly after the President’s Rose Garden address, and Pelosi said, “I’ve been clear about the wall,” at which Schumer helpfully clarified: “Democrats don’t want the wall.“

Democrats can’t agree over any other of their own platform issues from health care to raising minimum wage, so why are they so carefully organized around opposition of the wall?  Because a wall would secure President Trump’s re-election in 2020.  It is the last item to be checked off from a long list of promises that have been satisfied during President Trump’s first term.

In this current reality, the wall will be built.  President Trump hasn’t let the liberal media about a lost battle stop him from winning the war.  He has issued an ultimatum to Congress: secure $5.7B for the wall, or he will issue an emergency proclamation, which has already located $7 billion in various funds.  Either way, it’s happening.

What we will witness now is either the Democratic Party supporting a bill with the funding as requested and when the next election roles around, they can at least pretend they helped procure the benefits that have followed.  Or they will continue to fight against it with even nastier means than we’ve witnessed yet.

Don’t anticipate Democrats doing the smart thing and backpedaling on their fear-mongering and divisive politics now to save face as they work toward a secure border.  Instead, prepare for an even more desperate display of anti-American rhetoric and bald-faced denials of the problems we face from unfettered illegal immigration.  Democratic leaders care about only the votes, not the voters.

Image: Lorie Schall via Flickr.

Let’s travel to the future, about 18 months from today, to a presidential debate between President Trump and whichever candidate the DNC finally throws its gold bricks behind.  Two alternate timelines exist: one where Trump has built the wall and an unlikely one where he has not.

In the first, Democrats will be crushed.  President Trump will remind them that they told the American people that the wall is “ineffective” and “expensive.”  But crime has fallen; so have substance abuse-related deaths.  Illegal immigration is manageable for the first time in close to a century.  This Democratic nominee might argue that Trump failed to make Mexico pay for the wall.  His retort?  The U.S. has now officially negotiated lucrative trade agreements with our southern neighbor that have paid for the wall tenfold.  He may even mention the massive burden that illegal immigration costs Americans each year has been lifted.

In the second future, where somehow the wall hasn’t been built, the Democrat will hound Trump and ask him why he did not deliver on his campaign promise.  Besides their own party’s obstruction of the process, they will suggest that the president is not able to get things done with bipartisan support.  They could even suggest that is they, if elected to replace President Trump, who will really get the job of a border wall done.  Based on the Democratic support for border barriers in the past, it’s within the realm of possibility that they will readopt the platform issue since it’s still the number-one issue voters care about.

The Democrats are against the wall because they know it will work.  Their concern isn’t altruistic and about the morality of the wall; it is merely a point to set up and argue during the next election.  If they really believed that a wall would not work, they wouldn’t stand in the way and let President Trump fail when it didn’t deliver what we all know it will.  Lower crime.  Lower drug deaths.  Lower illegal immigration.  And lower taxpayer burden when government funds have been spent combating these problems.  They’re fighting it because they cannot survive if the president, and America, succeeds.

The Democratic Party hasn’t just suddenly developed a sense of fiscal responsibility when it claims that the wall is too expensive.  They wrote the book on wild spending, like sex ed for prostitutes or speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s wild $100K tab of in-flight drinks and dinners.

When Democrats claim to be against the barriers because of their concern for DACA recipients and then simultaneously shoot down an offer for their stability, it should be a sign.  Then, when they claim that their opposition to the wall comes from some moral high ground, all Americans should be able to see through this poor argument, considering the high walls around their own homes.

On Friday afternoon, President Trump reopened the government with a continuing resolution for until mid-February.  He reiterated his determination to follow through on his options to secure the southern border.  To show that he is merciful, he is extending an olive branch to the House and Senate Democrats by giving them a chance fulfill their promise to negotiate when the partial government shutdown had ended.

However, having promptly reneged on their own promises, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer held a press conference shortly after the President’s Rose Garden address, and Pelosi said, “I’ve been clear about the wall,” at which Schumer helpfully clarified: “Democrats don’t want the wall.“

Democrats can’t agree over any other of their own platform issues from health care to raising minimum wage, so why are they so carefully organized around opposition of the wall?  Because a wall would secure President Trump’s re-election in 2020.  It is the last item to be checked off from a long list of promises that have been satisfied during President Trump’s first term.

In this current reality, the wall will be built.  President Trump hasn’t let the liberal media about a lost battle stop him from winning the war.  He has issued an ultimatum to Congress: secure $5.7B for the wall, or he will issue an emergency proclamation, which has already located $7 billion in various funds.  Either way, it’s happening.

What we will witness now is either the Democratic Party supporting a bill with the funding as requested and when the next election roles around, they can at least pretend they helped procure the benefits that have followed.  Or they will continue to fight against it with even nastier means than we’ve witnessed yet.

Don’t anticipate Democrats doing the smart thing and backpedaling on their fear-mongering and divisive politics now to save face as they work toward a secure border.  Instead, prepare for an even more desperate display of anti-American rhetoric and bald-faced denials of the problems we face from unfettered illegal immigration.  Democratic leaders care about only the votes, not the voters.

Image: Lorie Schall via Flickr.

Pro-life Christians of all stripes were appalled when earlier this week the New York state legislature made abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy.  In stark contrast to their sadness and consternation, however, the government of New York celebrated like never before: at the tip of Manhattan, the top of the Freedom Tower was lit up pink; and about 25 miles up the Hudson River, the brand new Tappan Zee Bridge (officially known as “Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge,” that trophy Governor Andrew Cuomo built with taxpayer money to honor his former-governor father) was lit up in a most spectacular way, also in splashy, in-your-face pink.  The statement was clear: all women in the state — nay, all women across America — should be cheering and celebrating this monumental advancement for women the world over.

But why did this so-called great achievement in human rights take so long?  Couldn’t the state government have struck this blow for women much, much earlier?  The answer lies in the fact that, in the election this past fall, enough Republicans were voted out of office to make a solid majority of Democrats who could pass any legislation they dang well pleased.  And so they dang well did.

Pundit John Zmirak stated in a radio interview recently that if you want to see what this country will look like once the Democrats regain total control in Washington, just watch what happens now in New York state.

Can this trend be stopped?

In New York, as well as in most every other state, there are certainly enough Catholics and others who identify as Christians who could vote their conscience and say “no” to the legalization and/or celebrated-approval of destructive practices — and not just abortion.  The short list includes gay marriage (so-called); allowing boys who think they are girls the privilege of showering with girls; discriminating against people because they’re too “white” (aka, acceptable racism).

Today, there are those in office (and those seeking office) who unabashedly champion abortion rights and LGBT rights, the progressive litmus test for all Democrats.  However, Republicans can vary in their viewpoints; the braver ones push back firmly against these issues and publicly live out their faith (think Vice President Mike Pence).

So, the question is, with such a large percentage of people declaring themselves “Christian” everywhere across America, why have they not risen up and voted against these progressive Democrats who are touting obviously non-Christian values and legislation?  Are these Catholics and Christians that dumb?  Is their allegiance to the “old” Democrat Party (the one that actually stood for Christian values many decades ago) stronger than their love of the God of the Bible and His holy law?

It seems that the only voting bloc that can stop this takeover of America is the Catholic/Christian one.  However, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

My bet is that, come election day in 2020, Catholics and others who call themselves Christian will head in droves to the voting booth to cast their votes once again for the Democrats.  I mean, what’s their alternative?  Apparently, in their minds, how can anyone expect them to vote for those “Evil Republicans”?

Pro-life Christians of all stripes were appalled when earlier this week the New York state legislature made abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy.  In stark contrast to their sadness and consternation, however, the government of New York celebrated like never before: at the tip of Manhattan, the top of the Freedom Tower was lit up pink; and about 25 miles up the Hudson River, the brand new Tappan Zee Bridge (officially known as “Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge,” that trophy Governor Andrew Cuomo built with taxpayer money to honor his former-governor father) was lit up in a most spectacular way, also in splashy, in-your-face pink.  The statement was clear: all women in the state — nay, all women across America — should be cheering and celebrating this monumental advancement for women the world over.

But why did this so-called great achievement in human rights take so long?  Couldn’t the state government have struck this blow for women much, much earlier?  The answer lies in the fact that, in the election this past fall, enough Republicans were voted out of office to make a solid majority of Democrats who could pass any legislation they dang well pleased.  And so they dang well did.

Pundit John Zmirak stated in a radio interview recently that if you want to see what this country will look like once the Democrats regain total control in Washington, just watch what happens now in New York state.

Can this trend be stopped?

In New York, as well as in most every other state, there are certainly enough Catholics and others who identify as Christians who could vote their conscience and say “no” to the legalization and/or celebrated-approval of destructive practices — and not just abortion.  The short list includes gay marriage (so-called); allowing boys who think they are girls the privilege of showering with girls; discriminating against people because they’re too “white” (aka, acceptable racism).

Today, there are those in office (and those seeking office) who unabashedly champion abortion rights and LGBT rights, the progressive litmus test for all Democrats.  However, Republicans can vary in their viewpoints; the braver ones push back firmly against these issues and publicly live out their faith (think Vice President Mike Pence).

So, the question is, with such a large percentage of people declaring themselves “Christian” everywhere across America, why have they not risen up and voted against these progressive Democrats who are touting obviously non-Christian values and legislation?  Are these Catholics and Christians that dumb?  Is their allegiance to the “old” Democrat Party (the one that actually stood for Christian values many decades ago) stronger than their love of the God of the Bible and His holy law?

It seems that the only voting bloc that can stop this takeover of America is the Catholic/Christian one.  However, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

My bet is that, come election day in 2020, Catholics and others who call themselves Christian will head in droves to the voting booth to cast their votes once again for the Democrats.  I mean, what’s their alternative?  Apparently, in their minds, how can anyone expect them to vote for those “Evil Republicans”?

After news broke of the pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone’s home Friday morning in Florida by twenty-nine heavily-armed agents in nineteen vehicles, lights flashing, CNN serendipitously on hand to film the raid, millions of us realized once and for all that we are no longer living in the America we knew and loved.

Those same millions of us have known for over two years that the Mueller “probe” is a huge and well orchestrated cover-up.  There are now at least two books, Gregg Jarrett’s and Dan Bongino’s, and well researched investigative articles that prove this beyond doubt.

Mueller was appointed by Rod Rosenstein not to investigate Trump collusion with Russia.  The principals all knew that was not remotely true.  He was appointed to conceal and obliterate the volumes of evidence of crimes committed by Hillary Clinton; her campaign; and a group of higher-ups in the FBI, DOJ, and CIA, all of whom were involved in a scheme to prevent Trump from being elected.  All of them have lied under oath and before Congress.  Mueller himself was involved in the Clinton scheme to sell 20% of U.S. uranium to Russia.

All of these felons are walking free; their homes are not being raided in the wee small hours of the morning, but their crimes are far more serious than anything Roger Stone or Paul Manafort might have committed.

That such an aggressive show of force could be visited upon a non-violent person accused of alleged verbal crimes is truly frightening.  That so many in the media are celebrating the use of such a Gestapo tactic is horrifying.  Suddenly, it is catastrophically clear that America is no longer a constitutional republic, a nation of laws and justice.  An unelected, tangential officer of the DOJ has for two years abused his position of power to destroy many lives in the cruelest of ways with impunity.  No one is stopping him and his band of legal bullies. 

As for those who for all these many months have continued to maintain that Mueller is a “straight shooter,” a man of “impeccable credentials,” none of which is true, now is the time to reconsider your wishful thinking.  The man is every bit the scoundrel others have reported him to be for years.  Read Sidney Powell’s book, License to Lie.  It is a primer on the abuse of power long exercised by Mueller and his pit bull, Andrew Weismann.  These thugs revel in destroying people, and they keep getting away with it.  Someone must stop them.

American must be restored to its former glory as an example to the world of the sanctity of the rule of law.  The fact that so many powerful people on the left despise the president cannot mean that the Constitution no longer applies to the citizens of this nation.

Where is the investigation into the leaks to the media from Mueller’s office?  Who tipped CNN about the raid on Stone’s home?  What is acting DOJ head Whittaker doing?  Twiddling his thumbs?  How could the FBI head, Christopher Wray, have allowed this raid to happen?

There are so many crimes being committed here, one on top of another.  Is Whittaker a Mueller-Rosenstein plant, too?  Are we to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain“?  Just who is the man behind the curtain?  Is Mueller the Wizard, or is someone else pulling the strings?  Is Mueller more powerful than the president?  It seems that he is.  He has morphed into an American version of Lavrentiy Beria.

May Mueller one day be tried for his crimes.  May he be found guilty for the lives he has ruined, many of them long before he became special counsel for the current investigation.  This man is a menace.

“What makes a king out of a slave?  Courage!” said the Cowardly Lion.  Trump is a courageous man; he needs to have the courage to put an end to this charade that is nothing but an engine of vile and corrupt hatred speeding toward his presidency with malicious intent.  Mueller and his henchmen are violating every tenet of the Constitution and thousands of laws on the books since its drafting.  They are out of control.  That raid on Stone’s home was the last straw.  They don’t use that much firepower for known gang members who they know are armed and dangerous.

For whom was this bit of theater performed?  The left media certainly loved it.  The ladies of The View, the dumbest show on television, were ecstatic, as were all the anchors and guests on CNN and MSNBC.

Does Mueller actually think the left needs any more ammunition to validate his faux investigation?  This entire enterprise, from the Clinton-DNC plot to ruin Trump to the Mueller “Russia collusion” probe is all of a piece and is the most monstrous political scandal in American history.  We are definitely not over the rainbow; as a nation, we are in the throes of self-destruction. 

After news broke of the pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone’s home Friday morning in Florida by twenty-nine heavily-armed agents in nineteen vehicles, lights flashing, CNN serendipitously on hand to film the raid, millions of us realized once and for all that we are no longer living in the America we knew and loved.

Those same millions of us have known for over two years that the Mueller “probe” is a huge and well orchestrated cover-up.  There are now at least two books, Gregg Jarrett’s and Dan Bongino’s, and well researched investigative articles that prove this beyond doubt.

Mueller was appointed by Rod Rosenstein not to investigate Trump collusion with Russia.  The principals all knew that was not remotely true.  He was appointed to conceal and obliterate the volumes of evidence of crimes committed by Hillary Clinton; her campaign; and a group of higher-ups in the FBI, DOJ, and CIA, all of whom were involved in a scheme to prevent Trump from being elected.  All of them have lied under oath and before Congress.  Mueller himself was involved in the Clinton scheme to sell 20% of U.S. uranium to Russia.

All of these felons are walking free; their homes are not being raided in the wee small hours of the morning, but their crimes are far more serious than anything Roger Stone or Paul Manafort might have committed.

That such an aggressive show of force could be visited upon a non-violent person accused of alleged verbal crimes is truly frightening.  That so many in the media are celebrating the use of such a Gestapo tactic is horrifying.  Suddenly, it is catastrophically clear that America is no longer a constitutional republic, a nation of laws and justice.  An unelected, tangential officer of the DOJ has for two years abused his position of power to destroy many lives in the cruelest of ways with impunity.  No one is stopping him and his band of legal bullies. 

As for those who for all these many months have continued to maintain that Mueller is a “straight shooter,” a man of “impeccable credentials,” none of which is true, now is the time to reconsider your wishful thinking.  The man is every bit the scoundrel others have reported him to be for years.  Read Sidney Powell’s book, License to Lie.  It is a primer on the abuse of power long exercised by Mueller and his pit bull, Andrew Weismann.  These thugs revel in destroying people, and they keep getting away with it.  Someone must stop them.

American must be restored to its former glory as an example to the world of the sanctity of the rule of law.  The fact that so many powerful people on the left despise the president cannot mean that the Constitution no longer applies to the citizens of this nation.

Where is the investigation into the leaks to the media from Mueller’s office?  Who tipped CNN about the raid on Stone’s home?  What is acting DOJ head Whittaker doing?  Twiddling his thumbs?  How could the FBI head, Christopher Wray, have allowed this raid to happen?

There are so many crimes being committed here, one on top of another.  Is Whittaker a Mueller-Rosenstein plant, too?  Are we to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain“?  Just who is the man behind the curtain?  Is Mueller the Wizard, or is someone else pulling the strings?  Is Mueller more powerful than the president?  It seems that he is.  He has morphed into an American version of Lavrentiy Beria.

May Mueller one day be tried for his crimes.  May he be found guilty for the lives he has ruined, many of them long before he became special counsel for the current investigation.  This man is a menace.

“What makes a king out of a slave?  Courage!” said the Cowardly Lion.  Trump is a courageous man; he needs to have the courage to put an end to this charade that is nothing but an engine of vile and corrupt hatred speeding toward his presidency with malicious intent.  Mueller and his henchmen are violating every tenet of the Constitution and thousands of laws on the books since its drafting.  They are out of control.  That raid on Stone’s home was the last straw.  They don’t use that much firepower for known gang members who they know are armed and dangerous.

For whom was this bit of theater performed?  The left media certainly loved it.  The ladies of The View, the dumbest show on television, were ecstatic, as were all the anchors and guests on CNN and MSNBC.

Does Mueller actually think the left needs any more ammunition to validate his faux investigation?  This entire enterprise, from the Clinton-DNC plot to ruin Trump to the Mueller “Russia collusion” probe is all of a piece and is the most monstrous political scandal in American history.  We are definitely not over the rainbow; as a nation, we are in the throes of self-destruction. 

In the early part of 2018, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that nearly $5 million in funding to the New York State Companion Animal Capital Fund would invest in “critical improvements projects at New York shelters.”  Cuomo’s abortion activist lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul, had this to say about the effort to make rescue animals more comfortable: “The test of whether a society is civilized and just is how it cares for its most vulnerable.”

In a study, entitled “Who seeks abortion at or after 20 weeks?,” published by the Guttmacher Foundation’s journal, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, authors Foster and Kimport cite data that indicates that “fetal anomaly [and] life endangerment” are not the reasons women have late-term abortions.  Even still, one year after preaching about civilized society caring for its most vulnerable, Kathy Hochul smiled as Andrew Cuomo signed an abortion bill that allows babies to be aborted at nine months, by non-physicians, for any reason, and denies victims who survive the initial procedure the right to warmth, hydration, and oxygen.

At the happy event, the governor who grants sanctuary to MS-13, and bans the use of elephants for entertainment, seemed proud to amend New York State’s public health law and deny those unlucky enough to be conceived in the state of New York both sanctuary and medical assistance.  In keeping with Barack Obama, who once said caring for a child born alive in a botched abortion undermines the “original intent” to produce a dead baby, Cuomo’s law repealed section 4164 of New York’s Public Health Law, which mandated medical care for any child born alive during an abortion.

New York’s governor was so enthusiastic about contributing to the nation’s 3,000 abortions a day that he celebrated by lighting up the spot where, on September 11, 2001, 3,000 Americans experienced agony similar to what an unborn child experiences while being burned, crushed, and dismembered alive in the womb.

Governor Cuomo transformed the site of mass murder in 2001 into a monument honoring mass murder in 2019.  The only thing missing from the festivities was a tablescape designed by Cuomo’s live-in girlfriend, Sandra Lee, to mark the event.

Just last year, the man who joyfully facilitated subjecting unborn babies to extreme pain and then celebrated doing so with raucous applause followed by a light show announced legislation to ensure “pets … be treated in a safe, responsible and humane manner,” because “four-legged friends… are family members” in need of protection.

New York’s Agriculture and Markets Law, §§ 359, 362, which Governor Cuomo enforces, states that it is illegal to “torture, overwork, beat or fail to provide necessary food or drink to an animal.”  It is also illegal in New York to “carry an animal in a vehicle or vessel in a cruel way, or purposely leave objects that could injure animals (like glass, nails, or pieces of metal) in the street.

To protect animals other than humans from cruelty, Agriculture and Markets Law §353-a requires “New York make it a felony to kill or seriously injure a pet … on purpose and in a particularly sadistic manner, or with the intention of causing extreme pain.”  That means that animals are shielded from torture and extreme pain, while instating the Reproductive Health Act grants New York women the right to kill and “seriously injure” an unborn child in a “particularly sadistic manner.”

Eighteenth-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued on behalf of legal protection for animals this way: “[t]he question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

In the state of New York, every year, thousands of non-sentient, non-verbal victims of abortion suffer through treatment legislators protect animals from experiencing, such as scorching; mutilation; and, in one scenario, jabbing through a beating heart with a needle containing a fatal dose of potassium chloride. 

In another scenario, thanks to Andrew Cuomo, while protecting baby chicks and rabbits from harm, defenseless children, destined for abortion but unfortunate enough to survive the first and second trimesters, can look forward to legally suffering through having their craniums crushed for easy removal from their mothers’ wombs. 

Try smashing in the skull of a dog or a cat in New York State, and Andrew Cuomo, Defender of Animals, will have the perpetrator hunted down, prosecuted, and convicted in a court of law.

It was Charles Darwin who once said: “The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”

In an article entitled “Ensuring a stillborn: the ethics of fetal lethal injection in late abortion,” feminist and University of Kentucky philosophy professor Joan C. Callahan disagreed with Darwin’s premise.  In her reproductive ethics article, the author contended that abortion at any stage could be “defended because human fetuses are not persons and because religious commitments cannot be enforced in a pluralistic society.”

Andrew Cuomo must agree with Callahan’s extreme sentiment because his amended law now gives animal rights precedence over the rights of human beings.   To embrace the humanistic view that “human fetuses are not persons,” Cuomo must dismiss his nominal commitment to pro-life Catholicism and downgrade those made in God’s image and likeness to a status lower than the non-human “living creatures” Darwin encouraged all evolved species to love.

At the end of day, progressive Andrew Cuomo began his third term as New York’s governor with the words “We will make history, and New York will move forward, not by building a wall … but by building new bridges.”  On Election Day, little did New Yorkers know that besides safeguarding the lives of potential patrons of pet cemeteries, the “new bridges” Cuomo planned to build would cross rivers of innocent blood into graveyards full of dead babies.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.

Image: Pat Arnow via Flickr.

In the early part of 2018, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that nearly $5 million in funding to the New York State Companion Animal Capital Fund would invest in “critical improvements projects at New York shelters.”  Cuomo’s abortion activist lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul, had this to say about the effort to make rescue animals more comfortable: “The test of whether a society is civilized and just is how it cares for its most vulnerable.”

In a study, entitled “Who seeks abortion at or after 20 weeks?,” published by the Guttmacher Foundation’s journal, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, authors Foster and Kimport cite data that indicates that “fetal anomaly [and] life endangerment” are not the reasons women have late-term abortions.  Even still, one year after preaching about civilized society caring for its most vulnerable, Kathy Hochul smiled as Andrew Cuomo signed an abortion bill that allows babies to be aborted at nine months, by non-physicians, for any reason, and denies victims who survive the initial procedure the right to warmth, hydration, and oxygen.

At the happy event, the governor who grants sanctuary to MS-13, and bans the use of elephants for entertainment, seemed proud to amend New York State’s public health law and deny those unlucky enough to be conceived in the state of New York both sanctuary and medical assistance.  In keeping with Barack Obama, who once said caring for a child born alive in a botched abortion undermines the “original intent” to produce a dead baby, Cuomo’s law repealed section 4164 of New York’s Public Health Law, which mandated medical care for any child born alive during an abortion.

New York’s governor was so enthusiastic about contributing to the nation’s 3,000 abortions a day that he celebrated by lighting up the spot where, on September 11, 2001, 3,000 Americans experienced agony similar to what an unborn child experiences while being burned, crushed, and dismembered alive in the womb.

Governor Cuomo transformed the site of mass murder in 2001 into a monument honoring mass murder in 2019.  The only thing missing from the festivities was a tablescape designed by Cuomo’s live-in girlfriend, Sandra Lee, to mark the event.

Just last year, the man who joyfully facilitated subjecting unborn babies to extreme pain and then celebrated doing so with raucous applause followed by a light show announced legislation to ensure “pets … be treated in a safe, responsible and humane manner,” because “four-legged friends… are family members” in need of protection.

New York’s Agriculture and Markets Law, §§ 359, 362, which Governor Cuomo enforces, states that it is illegal to “torture, overwork, beat or fail to provide necessary food or drink to an animal.”  It is also illegal in New York to “carry an animal in a vehicle or vessel in a cruel way, or purposely leave objects that could injure animals (like glass, nails, or pieces of metal) in the street.

To protect animals other than humans from cruelty, Agriculture and Markets Law §353-a requires “New York make it a felony to kill or seriously injure a pet … on purpose and in a particularly sadistic manner, or with the intention of causing extreme pain.”  That means that animals are shielded from torture and extreme pain, while instating the Reproductive Health Act grants New York women the right to kill and “seriously injure” an unborn child in a “particularly sadistic manner.”

Eighteenth-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued on behalf of legal protection for animals this way: “[t]he question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

In the state of New York, every year, thousands of non-sentient, non-verbal victims of abortion suffer through treatment legislators protect animals from experiencing, such as scorching; mutilation; and, in one scenario, jabbing through a beating heart with a needle containing a fatal dose of potassium chloride. 

In another scenario, thanks to Andrew Cuomo, while protecting baby chicks and rabbits from harm, defenseless children, destined for abortion but unfortunate enough to survive the first and second trimesters, can look forward to legally suffering through having their craniums crushed for easy removal from their mothers’ wombs. 

Try smashing in the skull of a dog or a cat in New York State, and Andrew Cuomo, Defender of Animals, will have the perpetrator hunted down, prosecuted, and convicted in a court of law.

It was Charles Darwin who once said: “The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”

In an article entitled “Ensuring a stillborn: the ethics of fetal lethal injection in late abortion,” feminist and University of Kentucky philosophy professor Joan C. Callahan disagreed with Darwin’s premise.  In her reproductive ethics article, the author contended that abortion at any stage could be “defended because human fetuses are not persons and because religious commitments cannot be enforced in a pluralistic society.”

Andrew Cuomo must agree with Callahan’s extreme sentiment because his amended law now gives animal rights precedence over the rights of human beings.   To embrace the humanistic view that “human fetuses are not persons,” Cuomo must dismiss his nominal commitment to pro-life Catholicism and downgrade those made in God’s image and likeness to a status lower than the non-human “living creatures” Darwin encouraged all evolved species to love.

At the end of day, progressive Andrew Cuomo began his third term as New York’s governor with the words “We will make history, and New York will move forward, not by building a wall … but by building new bridges.”  On Election Day, little did New Yorkers know that besides safeguarding the lives of potential patrons of pet cemeteries, the “new bridges” Cuomo planned to build would cross rivers of innocent blood into graveyards full of dead babies.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.

Image: Pat Arnow via Flickr.

It may be hard for some to believe, but the Democrats today are interchangeable with the left, because there are no longer any moderate Democrats.  And along with their journey away from the middle, the Democrats have become ever more illiberal in how they feel about their political opponents.  To disagree with the left has become heresy punishable by excommunication and often preceded by what has become their specialty, hatred accompanied by personal, political, and career destruction.

When Barack Obama became president with full control of both houses of Congress, the left was ecstatic.  Some were proud of their country for the first time, blissfully unaware that most Americans had always been proud of America.

It was clear to Democrats that citizens had finally agreed to give them the opportunity and power to realize their dream of a “fair” America of equal outcome with an unchecked government elite making all decisions for everybody in a socialist utopia where everyone can have everything they want, and no decisions or policies could ever be wrong and thus ever reviewable.

When voters began to realize that Obama wasn’t as moderate as he pretended to be to get elected, they began the eight-year trek away from the Democratic utopia.  First, Democrats lost the House, then the Senate, and 2016, they lost the presidency.

The left, which had become convinced they would never again be relegated to the minority, were not only surprised, they were outraged.  Who were these people to go against the “arc of history?”  This is “not who we are” they complained.

It can be said that Trump’s election was the point where the Democrats abandoned the deplorable bastards who stole Hillary Clinton’s presidency, but it had been coming for a long time.

When Barack Obama went on his worldwide apology tour, he wasn’t apologizing for America, he was apologizing for Americans.  To himself, He was America; and Americans were merely the evil people who refused to accept this higher truth.  It wasn’t America that cost him the House and the Senate, it was Americans who rejected the truth that his radical transformation of the United States of America was god’s plan.

Trump wasn’t the beginning, he was the last straw.  That’s what sanctuary cities, abolish ICE, open borders, DACA, amnesty, and a path to citizenship are all about.  These things are not a function of compassion for the poor paperless migrant searching for a better life — remember, Democrats were anti-illegal immigration when they thought illegals were a boon to business and increased profit.  These policies are nothing more than a means by which the left can switch out Americans for people who aren’t so depraved as to think they have a right to vote against them.

The left doesn’t stifle, bury, and ridicule conservative opinion in the media, Google searches, college campuses, and the public square because they won’t tolerate disagreement, they do it because they know that only they are on the side of all that is right and just and hence, any dissent is evil.  And all dissenters are malevolent.  It’s not a lack of tolerance, the left is tolerant of all good people, but since only evil people won’t agree with them, the beastly get what they deserve.

This is why it’s so easy for them to go to extremes to express their hatred for a Kavanaugh or a Covington kid, or lie and cheat to destroy a candidate Trump, or commit crimes to usurp his presidency, or investigate anyone ever involved with the man; these people are villainous, and hatred and extremism in the battle with evil is no vice. 

This is also why everything Trump does is labeled racist.  He won’t agree with them and do as he is told; he also refuses to be quiet and accept a beating as all deplorables should.  Instead, he tries to implement policies that he believes are good for all us loathsome Americans.  This makes everything he does malicious and obviates the need for them to look at what he says or supports on an individual basis – we are wicked, and he is wicked and therefore, everything he espouses or tries to accomplish is wicked as well.

Democrats don’t want to destroy America, they want to destroy us, and in particular, Donald Trump.  We deserve it for who we are.

Right now, they are in the process of replacing execrable Americans with people who they believe will be better for the country, for America.  Therefore, they can’t ever agree on funding for a wall — a wall would only make that harder. 

We should all beware of what they will do with us when replacement is no longer an option.  After all, we already know what they are capable of — they show us every day.

It may be hard for some to believe, but the Democrats today are interchangeable with the left, because there are no longer any moderate Democrats.  And along with their journey away from the middle, the Democrats have become ever more illiberal in how they feel about their political opponents.  To disagree with the left has become heresy punishable by excommunication and often preceded by what has become their specialty, hatred accompanied by personal, political, and career destruction.

When Barack Obama became president with full control of both houses of Congress, the left was ecstatic.  Some were proud of their country for the first time, blissfully unaware that most Americans had always been proud of America.

It was clear to Democrats that citizens had finally agreed to give them the opportunity and power to realize their dream of a “fair” America of equal outcome with an unchecked government elite making all decisions for everybody in a socialist utopia where everyone can have everything they want, and no decisions or policies could ever be wrong and thus ever reviewable.

When voters began to realize that Obama wasn’t as moderate as he pretended to be to get elected, they began the eight-year trek away from the Democratic utopia.  First, Democrats lost the House, then the Senate, and 2016, they lost the presidency.

The left, which had become convinced they would never again be relegated to the minority, were not only surprised, they were outraged.  Who were these people to go against the “arc of history?”  This is “not who we are” they complained.

It can be said that Trump’s election was the point where the Democrats abandoned the deplorable bastards who stole Hillary Clinton’s presidency, but it had been coming for a long time.

When Barack Obama went on his worldwide apology tour, he wasn’t apologizing for America, he was apologizing for Americans.  To himself, He was America; and Americans were merely the evil people who refused to accept this higher truth.  It wasn’t America that cost him the House and the Senate, it was Americans who rejected the truth that his radical transformation of the United States of America was god’s plan.

Trump wasn’t the beginning, he was the last straw.  That’s what sanctuary cities, abolish ICE, open borders, DACA, amnesty, and a path to citizenship are all about.  These things are not a function of compassion for the poor paperless migrant searching for a better life — remember, Democrats were anti-illegal immigration when they thought illegals were a boon to business and increased profit.  These policies are nothing more than a means by which the left can switch out Americans for people who aren’t so depraved as to think they have a right to vote against them.

The left doesn’t stifle, bury, and ridicule conservative opinion in the media, Google searches, college campuses, and the public square because they won’t tolerate disagreement, they do it because they know that only they are on the side of all that is right and just and hence, any dissent is evil.  And all dissenters are malevolent.  It’s not a lack of tolerance, the left is tolerant of all good people, but since only evil people won’t agree with them, the beastly get what they deserve.

This is why it’s so easy for them to go to extremes to express their hatred for a Kavanaugh or a Covington kid, or lie and cheat to destroy a candidate Trump, or commit crimes to usurp his presidency, or investigate anyone ever involved with the man; these people are villainous, and hatred and extremism in the battle with evil is no vice. 

This is also why everything Trump does is labeled racist.  He won’t agree with them and do as he is told; he also refuses to be quiet and accept a beating as all deplorables should.  Instead, he tries to implement policies that he believes are good for all us loathsome Americans.  This makes everything he does malicious and obviates the need for them to look at what he says or supports on an individual basis – we are wicked, and he is wicked and therefore, everything he espouses or tries to accomplish is wicked as well.

Democrats don’t want to destroy America, they want to destroy us, and in particular, Donald Trump.  We deserve it for who we are.

Right now, they are in the process of replacing execrable Americans with people who they believe will be better for the country, for America.  Therefore, they can’t ever agree on funding for a wall — a wall would only make that harder. 

We should all beware of what they will do with us when replacement is no longer an option.  After all, we already know what they are capable of — they show us every day.

There are numerous defensive, reflexive, and self-serving empty arguments against building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. One of the most misapplied ones is that “most illegal aliens enter the United States through airports, and so the wall wouldn’t do any good.”

First of all, any evidence as to how many Persons Here Illegally (PHIs) there are in the United States, let alone how they got here, is dubious. It is not as if PHIs readily comply with reporting their illegal status to census takers and law enforcement authorities so as to maintain an accurate tally. More importantly, even if the argument were true, that more PHIs enter through airports than caravans, that demonstrates an utter lack of understanding that not all PHIs are alike, and that all other things being equal, the wall would keep out the worst ones.

PHIs achieve that illegal status either by entering the United States without authorization, or entering legally and then staying here beyond their allotted time. The big difference between the two groups is that the latter have been vetted whereas the former never were. To illustrate, let us consider the examples of Frank, Juan, and Maria.

Franz and Juan are hardened criminals who have escaped prosecution and are on the run. Franz is from a European country and Juan is from Central America. Juan has an advantage over Franz: he trekked on foot and at times hitched rides up the countryside through Mexico and eventually walked across a vulnerable border spot along the U.S. southern border, into the United States. Franz, however, does not have the luxury, or ability, to sail across the Atlantic Ocean on a raft, or fly his own plane overseas. And, surely, he cannot swim across, or fly like a bird. Because of their criminal backgrounds, neither Franz nor Juan have any prayer of attaining a valid visa to enter the United States legally; their only hope is to enter illegally. Juan, based on his geographic advantage, can do so, whereas Franz is out of luck.

Then, there is Maria, a Mexican citizen who was awarded admission into an American university and flew into the United States on a student visa and enrolled. After two successful semesters, Maria received the sad news that her parents lost their family business, and would no longer be able to send her tuition money. Worse yet, they were in danger of losing their home and living on the streets. Seeking to help her family, Maria dropped out of school and got a job off the books as a waitress, and she is saving enough money to return to Mexico to help her family.

Franz, again, never even attempted to enter the United States, so he is out of the equation. Juan and Maria, though, are both here as PHIs. The difference is that Maria has an exemplary background, which is why she was allowed here in the first place. Her only transgression is that she remained illegally, motivated by the primal need to support her family. She is not likely to hold up a convenience store or join a gang. She is working hard as a waitress.

Juan, on the other hand, is immersed in crime. It is his second nature. He wouldn’t think twice about hitting an elderly person over the head, perhaps fatally, to steal a wallet or a purse. And if the chance of joining a ruthless criminal gang to make big money is a possibility, he’d jump on it in a heartbeat.

Granted, in an ideal America, the immigration system would operate so effectively that there wouldn’t be a single PHI here. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Comparing the two types of PHIs, then, those who were respectable enough to be allowed to enter legally to begin with, like Maria, and those who, like Juan, had such heinous backgrounds that the only possibly way for them to enter would be to sneak across the border, who wouldn’t prefer the Marias of the PHI universe to the Juans?

In fairness, it is important to note that sophisticated criminals, including terrorists, might have the infrastructure to circumvent the system and enter the United States legally, hoodwinking our vetting system and wreaking havoc on our nation. And though we have a great, though not foolproof counterterrorism process in place, it would be monumentally absurd to turn away from it because it is not 100% guaranteed.

Accordingly, a wall along our Southern border will not keep out every PHI, but the chances are most of our PHIs will be Marias instead of Juans. While too many Marias are still a detriment to our society in terms of logistics, they are not likely to shock our system by committing violent crimes.

To ignore the benefits of a wall by arguing that some wrongdoers might be able to outsmart the system would be like wanting to do away with every law enforcement officer in America, because not 100% of crime will be eradicated.

It is time for those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) to cut their losses and realize that opposing the wall is a preposterous, illogical, factually devoid, and thereby inevitably losing battle.

 

Constantinos E. Scaros has practiced, taught, and written about immigration law. His latest book is Stop Calling Them “Immigrants” and is available in print and Kindle formats on amazon.com. He is a contributing writer of Attorneys United for a Secure America.

Image credit: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons // via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0

 

There are numerous defensive, reflexive, and self-serving empty arguments against building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. One of the most misapplied ones is that “most illegal aliens enter the United States through airports, and so the wall wouldn’t do any good.”

First of all, any evidence as to how many Persons Here Illegally (PHIs) there are in the United States, let alone how they got here, is dubious. It is not as if PHIs readily comply with reporting their illegal status to census takers and law enforcement authorities so as to maintain an accurate tally. More importantly, even if the argument were true, that more PHIs enter through airports than caravans, that demonstrates an utter lack of understanding that not all PHIs are alike, and that all other things being equal, the wall would keep out the worst ones.

PHIs achieve that illegal status either by entering the United States without authorization, or entering legally and then staying here beyond their allotted time. The big difference between the two groups is that the latter have been vetted whereas the former never were. To illustrate, let us consider the examples of Frank, Juan, and Maria.

Franz and Juan are hardened criminals who have escaped prosecution and are on the run. Franz is from a European country and Juan is from Central America. Juan has an advantage over Franz: he trekked on foot and at times hitched rides up the countryside through Mexico and eventually walked across a vulnerable border spot along the U.S. southern border, into the United States. Franz, however, does not have the luxury, or ability, to sail across the Atlantic Ocean on a raft, or fly his own plane overseas. And, surely, he cannot swim across, or fly like a bird. Because of their criminal backgrounds, neither Franz nor Juan have any prayer of attaining a valid visa to enter the United States legally; their only hope is to enter illegally. Juan, based on his geographic advantage, can do so, whereas Franz is out of luck.

Then, there is Maria, a Mexican citizen who was awarded admission into an American university and flew into the United States on a student visa and enrolled. After two successful semesters, Maria received the sad news that her parents lost their family business, and would no longer be able to send her tuition money. Worse yet, they were in danger of losing their home and living on the streets. Seeking to help her family, Maria dropped out of school and got a job off the books as a waitress, and she is saving enough money to return to Mexico to help her family.

Franz, again, never even attempted to enter the United States, so he is out of the equation. Juan and Maria, though, are both here as PHIs. The difference is that Maria has an exemplary background, which is why she was allowed here in the first place. Her only transgression is that she remained illegally, motivated by the primal need to support her family. She is not likely to hold up a convenience store or join a gang. She is working hard as a waitress.

Juan, on the other hand, is immersed in crime. It is his second nature. He wouldn’t think twice about hitting an elderly person over the head, perhaps fatally, to steal a wallet or a purse. And if the chance of joining a ruthless criminal gang to make big money is a possibility, he’d jump on it in a heartbeat.

Granted, in an ideal America, the immigration system would operate so effectively that there wouldn’t be a single PHI here. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Comparing the two types of PHIs, then, those who were respectable enough to be allowed to enter legally to begin with, like Maria, and those who, like Juan, had such heinous backgrounds that the only possibly way for them to enter would be to sneak across the border, who wouldn’t prefer the Marias of the PHI universe to the Juans?

In fairness, it is important to note that sophisticated criminals, including terrorists, might have the infrastructure to circumvent the system and enter the United States legally, hoodwinking our vetting system and wreaking havoc on our nation. And though we have a great, though not foolproof counterterrorism process in place, it would be monumentally absurd to turn away from it because it is not 100% guaranteed.

Accordingly, a wall along our Southern border will not keep out every PHI, but the chances are most of our PHIs will be Marias instead of Juans. While too many Marias are still a detriment to our society in terms of logistics, they are not likely to shock our system by committing violent crimes.

To ignore the benefits of a wall by arguing that some wrongdoers might be able to outsmart the system would be like wanting to do away with every law enforcement officer in America, because not 100% of crime will be eradicated.

It is time for those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) to cut their losses and realize that opposing the wall is a preposterous, illogical, factually devoid, and thereby inevitably losing battle.

 

Constantinos E. Scaros has practiced, taught, and written about immigration law. His latest book is Stop Calling Them “Immigrants” and is available in print and Kindle formats on amazon.com. He is a contributing writer of Attorneys United for a Secure America.

Image credit: © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons // via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0

 

President Trump’s Rose Garden declaration of an end to the partial shutdown was a tactical retreat, a rejection of a Little Big Horn strategy. He found himself in a no-win situation, and rather than bear unacceptable costs, has redefined the contest on better terms: sending the issue to a House and Senate conference committee charged with coming up with a deal that prevents a resumption of the shutdown, and provides border security, something that Democrats say they believe is important.

Making the best of a bad situation. Rose Garden speech January 25, 2019

Cropped from Fox News, via YouTube

It is important that Nancy Pelosi declined to rule out funding for a physical barrier. We do not know what was said in the process of reaching an agreement to re-start the normal operations of the federal givenrment for the next 21 days.

Democrats naturally are gloating, calling it a surrender and admonishing Trump to “learn his lesson” and acknowledge his defeat by the wise and all-knowing Nancy Pelosi.  This certainly gives them a sugar high while providing evidence for future use that their priority is humiliating Trump rather than attending to the needs of border security.

Nonetheless, as President Trump correctly noted in the Rose Garden address, it was an “agreement.” The Dems agreed to procedural rules that can be used to make the case for border barrier construction. The deal will be hashed out in the conference committee, which will then submit the same legislation to both Houses of Congress, with the 21-day clock ticking. Either chamber can modify the legislation, but that happens under the gun of the ticking clock.

Trump’s stonewall on the shutdown had to end because a choke point had been discovered by the opposition (a group that includes Congressional Democrats and government employee unions along with the media): commercial aviation. It was obvious when the Air Traffic Controllers demonstrated their ability to stymie air travel at the nation’s busiest airports that President Trump, having declared ownership of the shutdown, would be blamed for strangling the economy, and was on the hook for any air traffic control disaster that might, God forbid, happen. The Executive VP of the Air Traffic Controllers Association went on CNN to blame Trump for delays and safety issues. With the Super Bowl next weekend in the city with the world’s busiest airport, not only would business and family travel be impaired, the functioning of the nation’s premier sporting event was in peril.  

It may be coincidence, but this kill shot job action occurred in the wake of extraordinary signs that House Democrats were wavering in their support for Pelosi’s “not one dollar” opposition to a border wall – while the government is (partially) shut down. This gives Trump’s allies something to work with. Steny Hoyer, second-ranking House Democrat, already has conceded that a physical barrier is part of the solution – just not while the government is shut down.  The Democrats now own the House majority because new members have been elected from historically GOP-leaning districts, and many of those freshmen fear facing voters in November next year and being painted as Pelosi’s pawns who prevented a border barrier desired by their constituents.

The Senate members of the conference committee have been announced:

The Republicans are Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Hoeven of North Dakota, and the Democrats are Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Jon Tester of Montana.

Tester won re-election in Montana, but cannot afford to be too far left. Leahy is the biggest camera hog in the group, and Dick Durbin is a chronic schemer. None of the Republicans are among the highest profiles in the Senate..

I have not been able to locate a full list of the House members, but Rep. Chuck Fleishmann, the Republican ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee is on it.

It is possible that the conference committee will not be able to come up with anything that satisfies both parties, in which case the partial shutdown resumes, but this time with the Democrats shown to be willing to shut down the government in order to prevent a border barrier. Trump will have met their demand to resume government funding, and they will have refused to meet him halfway. And President Trump will be delivering the State of the Union address at a date to be determined, but before the shutdown might resume. This will allow the highest possible platform for President Trump to comment on the negotiations, with Nancy Pelosi sitting behind him.

Will the Democrats refuse to give Trump funds for something his base would accept as a reasonable start on the wall he promised? They certainly might, in which case the government will partially shut down again, with federal workers having received their back pay, but facing another bout of financial stringency. Would Trump then pull the trigger on a national emergency declaration?  If he does, the Democrats will find a judge in the Ninth Circuit who believes that a district court judge has the power to overrule the statutory authority clearly granted to the president to declare a national emergency. What happens then? I think it is quite possible that the Trump administration will appeal directly to the SCOTUS, bypassing the Ninth in the name of a national emergency. He might even decide to take a stand aginst the new concept of district court jurisdiction over the entire United States.

I have a guess, based on the fact that Trump has not deployed insulting nicknames for either Schumer or Pelosi. I suspect that in the discussions that led to the agreement to set up a conference committee both sides agreed that another shutdown was in nobody’s interest, and that a compromise would benefit both parties. If I am wrong, the Democrats will be going to the mattresses over a barrier free border, a position that may please Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but would not help the Dems win in 2020.

President Trump’s Rose Garden declaration of an end to the partial shutdown was a tactical retreat, a rejection of a Little Big Horn strategy. He found himself in a no-win situation, and rather than bear unacceptable costs, has redefined the contest on better terms: sending the issue to a House and Senate conference committee charged with coming up with a deal that prevents a resumption of the shutdown, and provides border security, something that Democrats say they believe is important.

Making the best of a bad situation. Rose Garden speech January 25, 2019

Cropped from Fox News, via YouTube

It is important that Nancy Pelosi declined to rule out funding for a physical barrier. We do not know what was said in the process of reaching an agreement to re-start the normal operations of the federal givenrment for the next 21 days.

Democrats naturally are gloating, calling it a surrender and admonishing Trump to “learn his lesson” and acknowledge his defeat by the wise and all-knowing Nancy Pelosi.  This certainly gives them a sugar high while providing evidence for future use that their priority is humiliating Trump rather than attending to the needs of border security.

Nonetheless, as President Trump correctly noted in the Rose Garden address, it was an “agreement.” The Dems agreed to procedural rules that can be used to make the case for border barrier construction. The deal will be hashed out in the conference committee, which will then submit the same legislation to both Houses of Congress, with the 21-day clock ticking. Either chamber can modify the legislation, but that happens under the gun of the ticking clock.

Trump’s stonewall on the shutdown had to end because a choke point had been discovered by the opposition (a group that includes Congressional Democrats and government employee unions along with the media): commercial aviation. It was obvious when the Air Traffic Controllers demonstrated their ability to stymie air travel at the nation’s busiest airports that President Trump, having declared ownership of the shutdown, would be blamed for strangling the economy, and was on the hook for any air traffic control disaster that might, God forbid, happen. The Executive VP of the Air Traffic Controllers Association went on CNN to blame Trump for delays and safety issues. With the Super Bowl next weekend in the city with the world’s busiest airport, not only would business and family travel be impaired, the functioning of the nation’s premier sporting event was in peril.  

It may be coincidence, but this kill shot job action occurred in the wake of extraordinary signs that House Democrats were wavering in their support for Pelosi’s “not one dollar” opposition to a border wall – while the government is (partially) shut down. This gives Trump’s allies something to work with. Steny Hoyer, second-ranking House Democrat, already has conceded that a physical barrier is part of the solution – just not while the government is shut down.  The Democrats now own the House majority because new members have been elected from historically GOP-leaning districts, and many of those freshmen fear facing voters in November next year and being painted as Pelosi’s pawns who prevented a border barrier desired by their constituents.

The Senate members of the conference committee have been announced:

The Republicans are Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Hoeven of North Dakota, and the Democrats are Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Jon Tester of Montana.

Tester won re-election in Montana, but cannot afford to be too far left. Leahy is the biggest camera hog in the group, and Dick Durbin is a chronic schemer. None of the Republicans are among the highest profiles in the Senate..

I have not been able to locate a full list of the House members, but Rep. Chuck Fleishmann, the Republican ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee is on it.

It is possible that the conference committee will not be able to come up with anything that satisfies both parties, in which case the partial shutdown resumes, but this time with the Democrats shown to be willing to shut down the government in order to prevent a border barrier. Trump will have met their demand to resume government funding, and they will have refused to meet him halfway. And President Trump will be delivering the State of the Union address at a date to be determined, but before the shutdown might resume. This will allow the highest possible platform for President Trump to comment on the negotiations, with Nancy Pelosi sitting behind him.

Will the Democrats refuse to give Trump funds for something his base would accept as a reasonable start on the wall he promised? They certainly might, in which case the government will partially shut down again, with federal workers having received their back pay, but facing another bout of financial stringency. Would Trump then pull the trigger on a national emergency declaration?  If he does, the Democrats will find a judge in the Ninth Circuit who believes that a district court judge has the power to overrule the statutory authority clearly granted to the president to declare a national emergency. What happens then? I think it is quite possible that the Trump administration will appeal directly to the SCOTUS, bypassing the Ninth in the name of a national emergency. He might even decide to take a stand aginst the new concept of district court jurisdiction over the entire United States.

I have a guess, based on the fact that Trump has not deployed insulting nicknames for either Schumer or Pelosi. I suspect that in the discussions that led to the agreement to set up a conference committee both sides agreed that another shutdown was in nobody’s interest, and that a compromise would benefit both parties. If I am wrong, the Democrats will be going to the mattresses over a barrier free border, a position that may please Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but would not help the Dems win in 2020.

This might just work…

President Trump seems to have allowed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to bring in Elliott Abrams as his special point man for Venezuelans affairs. Here’s Politico’s hostile report:

Elliott Abrams, a controversial neoconservative figure who was entangled in the Iran-Contra affair, has been named as a Trump administration special envoy overseeing policy toward Venezuela, which has been rocked by a leadership crisis.

Abrams’ appointment, announced Friday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is something of a surprise — President Donald Trump nixed his 2017 bid to be deputy secretary of State after learning that Abrams had criticized him.

Regardless of what you think of Abrams, a neocon who has vociferously opposed Trump in the past, and who was turned down for a State department job on just those grounds in the past, his appointment should keep Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s brutal dictator, up at night.

The Associated Press’s Josh Goodman pointed out the obvious in this tweet:

 

Abrams was one of the architects of the U.S. invasion of Panama to remove Manuel Noriega in 1989. Maduro frequently cites “Operation Just Cause” as the mold the US is following to oust him. US denies it is coup-mongering. https://t.co/NEnOPuJm0l

— Joshua Goodman (@APjoshgoodman) January 25, 2019

 

He’s also been a dogged defender of the Nicaraguan people’s efforts to get rid of communists from their midst, something that the left calls the Iran-Contra scandal, but which in reality was about keeping Castro and his colonizations at bay in the face of a KGB-coopted Congress that denied funds to oppose it. He was a hero on that one, not a ‘convicted’ person as the left yells. (He got a pardon for a politically motivated prosecution, while his KGB-coopted congressional opponents got away with actual treason.) There’s no reason to criticize him on that.

The response from prominent freedom-fighting Venezuelans has been quite positive:

 

Maravilloso el nombramiento de Elliott Abrams como Coordinador Especial para la Crisis de VENEZUELA 🇻🇪 en el gobierno de 🇺🇸. Abrams fue mencionado en un momento como posible #2 del Departamento de Estado. Trae experiencia en cantidad a un tema que promete ser importante por años. https://t.co/l3LaDEslzp

— Pedro Mario Burelli (@pburelli) January 25, 2019

 

Abrams has his good and bad points, so it’s not useful to just join the rabid left and sound the alarm, as Breitbart, unfortunately, is doing. Yes, he was an architect of the Iraq war, famous for its free-spending ways on American lives, its amazing naivete with crooked charlatans such as Ahmed Chalabi, spouting the right beltway cocktail-party democracy talk about Iraqis just being Jeffersonian democrats all along, and above all, its failure in nation-building, based on its failure to enact free market reforms and personal security measures. To my mind, Abrams was even worse on the matter of Pinochet’s Chile, blithely ignoring the late great Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s dictum on dictators and double standards to treat the free-market-transforming Chile the same as a typical communist regime. The Chicago Boys, in their memoirs, wrote a lot about how Abrams nearly derailed their transformation of Chile through his sanctions and vetos of development bank loans which came at a time when the country was doing the right things and needed U.S. support. Only someone with no understanding of free markets (and that was visible in Iraq, too) could do something that stupid, and given that Abrams comes from a typical leftist-origin neocon background, free markets are probably still a black box to him. If the Venezuela mission stays limited to getting rid of Maduro and his Russian masters and the U.S. doesn’t get into nationbuilding, so what? Another problem is that Abrams is also a true swamp thing who has loudly spoken out against Trump and hasn’t the slightest clue as to why Americans voted for him, which would suggest he is out of touch with popular sentiment despite his pretensions to being all in for democracy. He probably still hates Turmp on style grounds alone as most nevertrumps do, wanting all those cocktail party invitations in Georgetown, and might be capable of leaking to the press, deep state-style, to undermine President Trump. One has got to hope that Trump and Pompeo have made an understanding with him ahead of bringing him onboard so that isn’t an issue. 

But Abrams is not without his strengths. The Venezuela crisis is a multi-faceted one and experience here is important. We have something we have never seen before in foreign affairs – a legislative president declaring himself president on valid constitutional grounds, and the U.S. recognizing that over the objections of the sitting dictator. There’s the issue of the embassy kickout, which the U.S. is refusing to honor, something that puts our diplomats in considerable danger from Maduro’s thugs, which could be a showdown. There’s also the issue of finance. Acting President Juan Guaido can make all kinds of calls for sanctions and financial resources which will be denied to the Chavista usurpers who will believe they are entitled to them. Right now an amazing little battle is going on with ownership of Citgo, the Venezuelan government’s U.S.-based refiner and marketer of fuel, with Guaido expected to appoint a new board that shareholders and U.S. law will recognize. Imagine Maduro cut off from that money and Guaido in control of it.  There are plenty of other issues that will require very deft diplomatic handling. Abrams might just be the right guy for this.

He has experience in spades and he’s close to Marco Rubio, who’s made quite a few excellent calls in the run-up to the current crisis. Abrams is indeed famous for using force and intervention, and that has potential to be good stuff, too, starting with the coming to life of Maduro’s worst nightmare. Trump is against Iraq War-style force, so I can’t see an actual Marine invasion happening although I don’t want to say it won’t happen. But just the threat of force is sometimes all it takes, and Abrams embodies that. He will unnerve Maduro. Rest assured, as the left that Maduro listens to screeches, you can bet they will be expecting the very worst of Bush-style interventions. That works to Trump’s advantage.

If Abrams’ strengths are optimally employed, he should ensure that the U.S. and the Venezuelans see a good outcome to the current crisis. Maduro will dislodged, the Monroe Doctrine will be restored with Russians and other overseas players kicked out, and the Venezuelans will be empowered to restore their own democracy. Like some of that Noriega action, Nicolas? Heh. Let’s cross our fingers and be cautiously optimistic.

Image credit: Miller Center, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

 

 

 

 

This might just work…

President Trump seems to have allowed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to bring in Elliott Abrams as his special point man for Venezuelans affairs. Here’s Politico’s hostile report:

Elliott Abrams, a controversial neoconservative figure who was entangled in the Iran-Contra affair, has been named as a Trump administration special envoy overseeing policy toward Venezuela, which has been rocked by a leadership crisis.

Abrams’ appointment, announced Friday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is something of a surprise — President Donald Trump nixed his 2017 bid to be deputy secretary of State after learning that Abrams had criticized him.

Regardless of what you think of Abrams, a neocon who has vociferously opposed Trump in the past, and who was turned down for a State department job on just those grounds in the past, his appointment should keep Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s brutal dictator, up at night.

The Associated Press’s Josh Goodman pointed out the obvious in this tweet:

 

Abrams was one of the architects of the U.S. invasion of Panama to remove Manuel Noriega in 1989. Maduro frequently cites “Operation Just Cause” as the mold the US is following to oust him. US denies it is coup-mongering. https://t.co/NEnOPuJm0l

— Joshua Goodman (@APjoshgoodman) January 25, 2019

 

He’s also been a dogged defender of the Nicaraguan people’s efforts to get rid of communists from their midst, something that the left calls the Iran-Contra scandal, but which in reality was about keeping Castro and his colonizations at bay in the face of a KGB-coopted Congress that denied funds to oppose it. He was a hero on that one, not a ‘convicted’ person as the left yells. (He got a pardon for a politically motivated prosecution, while his KGB-coopted congressional opponents got away with actual treason.) There’s no reason to criticize him on that.

The response from prominent freedom-fighting Venezuelans has been quite positive:

 

Maravilloso el nombramiento de Elliott Abrams como Coordinador Especial para la Crisis de VENEZUELA 🇻🇪 en el gobierno de 🇺🇸. Abrams fue mencionado en un momento como posible #2 del Departamento de Estado. Trae experiencia en cantidad a un tema que promete ser importante por años. https://t.co/l3LaDEslzp

— Pedro Mario Burelli (@pburelli) January 25, 2019

 

Abrams has his good and bad points, so it’s not useful to just join the rabid left and sound the alarm, as Breitbart, unfortunately, is doing. Yes, he was an architect of the Iraq war, famous for its free-spending ways on American lives, its amazing naivete with crooked charlatans such as Ahmed Chalabi, spouting the right beltway cocktail-party democracy talk about Iraqis just being Jeffersonian democrats all along, and above all, its failure in nation-building, based on its failure to enact free market reforms and personal security measures. To my mind, Abrams was even worse on the matter of Pinochet’s Chile, blithely ignoring the late great Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s dictum on dictators and double standards to treat the free-market-transforming Chile the same as a typical communist regime. The Chicago Boys, in their memoirs, wrote a lot about how Abrams nearly derailed their transformation of Chile through his sanctions and vetos of development bank loans which came at a time when the country was doing the right things and needed U.S. support. Only someone with no understanding of free markets (and that was visible in Iraq, too) could do something that stupid, and given that Abrams comes from a typical leftist-origin neocon background, free markets are probably still a black box to him. If the Venezuela mission stays limited to getting rid of Maduro and his Russian masters and the U.S. doesn’t get into nationbuilding, so what? Another problem is that Abrams is also a true swamp thing who has loudly spoken out against Trump and hasn’t the slightest clue as to why Americans voted for him, which would suggest he is out of touch with popular sentiment despite his pretensions to being all in for democracy. He probably still hates Turmp on style grounds alone as most nevertrumps do, wanting all those cocktail party invitations in Georgetown, and might be capable of leaking to the press, deep state-style, to undermine President Trump. One has got to hope that Trump and Pompeo have made an understanding with him ahead of bringing him onboard so that isn’t an issue. 

But Abrams is not without his strengths. The Venezuela crisis is a multi-faceted one and experience here is important. We have something we have never seen before in foreign affairs – a legislative president declaring himself president on valid constitutional grounds, and the U.S. recognizing that over the objections of the sitting dictator. There’s the issue of the embassy kickout, which the U.S. is refusing to honor, something that puts our diplomats in considerable danger from Maduro’s thugs, which could be a showdown. There’s also the issue of finance. Acting President Juan Guaido can make all kinds of calls for sanctions and financial resources which will be denied to the Chavista usurpers who will believe they are entitled to them. Right now an amazing little battle is going on with ownership of Citgo, the Venezuelan government’s U.S.-based refiner and marketer of fuel, with Guaido expected to appoint a new board that shareholders and U.S. law will recognize. Imagine Maduro cut off from that money and Guaido in control of it.  There are plenty of other issues that will require very deft diplomatic handling. Abrams might just be the right guy for this.

He has experience in spades and he’s close to Marco Rubio, who’s made quite a few excellent calls in the run-up to the current crisis. Abrams is indeed famous for using force and intervention, and that has potential to be good stuff, too, starting with the coming to life of Maduro’s worst nightmare. Trump is against Iraq War-style force, so I can’t see an actual Marine invasion happening although I don’t want to say it won’t happen. But just the threat of force is sometimes all it takes, and Abrams embodies that. He will unnerve Maduro. Rest assured, as the left that Maduro listens to screeches, you can bet they will be expecting the very worst of Bush-style interventions. That works to Trump’s advantage.

If Abrams’ strengths are optimally employed, he should ensure that the U.S. and the Venezuelans see a good outcome to the current crisis. Maduro will dislodged, the Monroe Doctrine will be restored with Russians and other overseas players kicked out, and the Venezuelans will be empowered to restore their own democracy. Like some of that Noriega action, Nicolas? Heh. Let’s cross our fingers and be cautiously optimistic.

Image credit: Miller Center, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0