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Kansas Rep. Kevin Yoder’s catch-and-release spending plan “will encourage further massive waves of illegal immigration into the country,” says Peter Kirsanow, a GOP-appointed member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

“American workers finally have a beneficial labor market after suffering years of high unemployment and stagnant wages,” he said in an August 7 letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan. “Now Republicans in Congress want to blow it by gutting immigration enforcement,” Kirsanow added.

Kirsanow, who was appointed to the seven-member commission by former President George W. Bush, is one of the few voices speaking up against Yoder’s July 25 decisive endorsement of a Democratic spending amendment which revives the catch-and-release rules set by former President Barack Obama.

The amendment is now in the draft 2019 sending bill, and it would revive Obama’s rules which allowed hundreds of thousands of Central American economic migrants into the United States. The amendment bars President Donald Trump’s officials from spending any money to implement the asylum reforms announced in June by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“Reversing the Attorney General’s decision to enforce the law as it has been understood for almost 40 years will encourage further massive waves of illegal immigration into the country,” said Kirsanow’s letter to Ryan. “Attorney General Sessions’ decision to return to the understanding of the asylum laws that was in place from 1980-2016 is an effort to stop people at the border before they enter the country.”

Sessions’ reforms are already causing a “dramatic” reduction in successful asylum-claims by migrants, say immigration lawyers. That is good news for Americans seeking a wage raise but is bad news for the lawyers and for cheap-labor employers who gained when 400,000 Central American migrants got work permits in 2017.

So far, White House officials have been publicly silent on the Yoder’s July 25 giveaway to the cheap-labor employers. The giveaways also included expanding the H-2A and H-2B visa-work programs and also changing green-card rules in a way that could dramatically boost white-collar outsourcing of professionals’ jobs to Indian companies.

“I’ve not yet seen anything – but maybe that is a function of that fact that it is August in Washington,” Kisanow told Breitbart News, adding:

It seems as if this is coming in under-the-radar and it could be passed without sufficient time for discussion  … This is really a big deal — it eviscerates any notion of having control of the border.

Without Sessions’ reforms, people cross the border to claim asylum, and then disappear into the illegal-migrant workforce, he said.

White House officials have declined to answer questions from Breitbart News about the apparent lack of response to Yoder’s giveaways.

Sessions called Yoder July 25 to protest the pending amendment, but Yoder rebuffed Sessions.

There is no evidence that Yoder has followed up on his July 28 promise to fix his asylum giveaway, sources have told Breitbart News.

GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder hid plan to revive Obama’s catch-and-release policy from the WH until the day of the July 25 vote. He rejected a telephone plea from surprised AG Jeff Sessions during the markup. Vote came a day after Yoder flew with Trump to Kansas. https://t.co/OegbiNadCj

— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) August 10, 2018

Yoder’s decision to gut immigration controls reportedly contributed to his poor showing in his August 8 Kansas primary, which then prompted the non-partisan Cook Political Report to describe his race as a “toss-up,” instead of a”Lean Republican.”

In his letter, Kirsanow urged Ryan to let the House debate the issues instead of letting Yoder and 29 other GOP legislators insert laws into the must-pass 2019 appropriations bill. He wrote:

If Congress wants the asylum laws to cover people who have violent home lives or who live in countries that are more violent than the United States, it should draft appropriate legislation and pass a law. Then the policy change can be fully debated and the American people can let their representatives know what they think …

… illegal immigration (and high levels of immigration generally) are largely responsible for the declining employment prospects and wages of low-skilled Americans generally, and black men in particular. Right now, unemployment is at 3.9 percent. Black unemployment is at 6.5 percent. We could only dream of these numbers while mired in years-long stagnation. We have more people re-entering the workforce after spending years not even looking for work. And wages are finally ticking up – MarketWatch reports, “the cost of worker compensation in the form of pay and benefits edged up to 2.8% to mark the biggest yearly gain since 2008.” In short, American workers finally have a beneficial labor market after suffering years of high unemployment and stagnant wages. And now Republicans in Congress want to blow it by gutting immigration enforcement.

Four million Americans turn 18 each year and begin looking for good jobs in the free market — but the government provides green cards to roughly 1 million legal immigrants and temporary work-permits to roughly 3 million foreign workers.

The Washington-imposed economic policy of economic growth via immigration shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap foreign labor. That process spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. The policy also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.

The huge influx of cheap labor has helped to stall Americans’ wages since the 1970s:

Business groups and Democrats tout polls which prod Americans to declare support for migrants or the claim that the United States is a “Nation of Immigrants.” The alternative “priority or fairness” polls — plus the 2016 election — show that voters in the polling booth put a much higher priority on helping their families, neighbors, and fellow nationals get decent jobs in a high-tech, high-immigration, low-wage economy.

Rep. Yoder outlines fix for his revival of Obama’s catch & release border policies. But he & 29 GOP Reps silent on their curbing migrant-detentions, growing 2 cheap-labor visa programs, risky giveaway to 200K visa-workers in Indian w-collar outsourcing biz https://t.co/tT29D05pdW

— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) August 3, 2018

 

Congressman Lou Barletta (R-PA) chastised Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-PA) support for sanctuary cities on Monday, contending that a five-year-old rape victim was not provided “sanctuary” from criminal illegal aliens.

Last week, Juan Ramon Vasquez, a 45-year old Honduran national, was sentenced to two years in jail for illegally entering the country. Vasquez raped a five-year-old child after Philadelphia authorities ignored an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer and released him. Vasquez was deported from the country in 2009 but was later re-entered the United States illegally. Rep. Barletta slammed Sen. Casey for supporting the city of brotherly love’s sanctuary city policy.

Barletta asked rhetorically, “How would Bob Casey justify his support for sanctuary cities to the family of the little girl who was raped? Does Bob Casey believe it was a sanctuary city for them?”

William McSwain, the U.S. Attorney for the Philadelphia region, said in a statement last week, “The facts of this case highlight the danger posed by the City of Philadelphia’s decision to disregard ICE detainers and release previously deported aliens from local custody.”

In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, McSweeney blamed Philadelphia’s sanctuary city status for “fostering mistrust between the community and local law enforcement” by favoring illegal aliens.

Stu Bykofksy, a staff columnist for the Inquirer, noted in his article, “Given sanctuary in Philly, he raped a child”:

ICE had requested that he be detained for deportation, but our self-righteous city turned the Honduran loose, and the next time he was in custody it was for raping a 5-year-old girl. I’m sure the victim’s family appreciates Kenney’s policy that protects foreign convicted felons, which is what Vasquez was.

Sen. Casey voted against legislation in 2016 to defund sanctuary cities, including Philadelphia, as well as Kate’s Law, which imposes harsher penalties on illegal immigrants who reenter the United States. Kate’s Law would have hit Vasquez, who reentered the country after previously being deported.

“If someone is deported for a criminal conviction then we need to make sure they are prevented from ever coming back into this country,” Sen. Casey said in a 2016 statement.

Congressman Barletta said last year that “everyone’s family is put at risk” by sanctuary cities.

U.S. Department of Interior Secretary (DOI) Ryan Zinke told Breitbart News Saturday that “environmental terrorist groups” are, in part, responsible for the deadly wildfires in the Western United States. Wildfires have charred hundreds of thousands of acres and caused loss of life, including six firefighters.

Zinke said, while it is true that wildfire seasons have grown dryer and hotter, the underlying cause of the fires themselves is because of the “fuel load” of dead timber and other combustible matter littering forests.

“We have been held hostage by these environmental terrorist groups that have not allowed public access — that have refused to allow [the] harvest of timber,” Zinke told Washington Deputy Political Editor Amanda House on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM Patriot 125.

This includes as many as 80 million acres of land filled with trees that have died from beetle infections or other causes.

“This is a catastrophe and, in my opinion, a lot of it has to do with these policies refusing to actively manage our forests,” Zinke said.

“We’re spending probably, this season, over $2 billion fighting forest fires when many of them could be prevented by better forest management techniques,” Zinke said.

“But we have these radical environmentalists that close off roads, refuse to have firebreaks, refuse to have any timber harvested, no grazing, and the result is these catastrophic fires,” Zinke said.

When asked about the claims by left-wing environmental groups and even U.S. lawmakers who blame climate change for contributing to the fires, Zinke said that is a separate matter from the need to manage forests to help lessen the spread of wildfires or even prevent them.

“Whether you believe or don’t believe in climate change, it doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to remove the dead and dying timber and manage our forests, so you don’t have these burns,” Zinke said.

Zinke said it is ironic that environmental groups oppose access to federal lands to protect wildlife habitats when mismanagement of the land that results in fires destroys those habitats.

He also said that letting timber go to waste increases the need — and cost — of importing lumber, resulting in added expense for Americans who need it to build homes and other structures.

Zinke and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue are in California this week to meet with state officials and to personally thank the firefighters who are battling the fires.

“It’s good to get out of Washington and actually talk to the front line,” Zinke said. 

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Trump administration official and longtime Trump family ally Lynne Patton on Monday night offered a detailed rebuttal against claims involving her, made by former Trump administration official and reality personality Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

Manigault claimed on page 149 of her new book Unhinged, according to Fox News, that Trump 2016 campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson had heard from someone who knew political strategist Frank Luntz that Luntz had heard a tape of Donald Trump using the n-word. Manigault then writes, “Lynne [Patton] reported that she asked Trump about it on the plane, specifically whether it was possible that such a tape might exist, and he said ‘no.’ Then she asked him what he wanted her to do and he said, ‘Put it to bed.’”

Patton shot back against Manigault-Newman’s claims in a statement issued Monday night:

My name is Lynne Patton and I am a senior official in the Trump Administration. 

White House leadership, both past and present, can confirm that I was the closest confidante & friend to Ms. Manigault-Newman during her tenure at the White House, Transition and Campaign – texting and speaking multiple times per day.

To that end, Omarosa attempted to contact me just two days ago, but I refused to accept her call. 

Like Ms. Manigault-Newman, I have also known and worked for both the President and his family for over a decade and am confident that they would collectively confirm that I know them far better than she.

To be clear, at no time did I participate in a conference call with Katrina Pierson advising me, Jason Miller and Omarosa Manigault-Newman that Frank Luntz had heard President Donald J. Trump use a derogatory racial term – a claim that Luntz himself has also denied.

What I can confirm is the following:

On December 12, 2017, at approximately 11:30PM (EST) – a date I now know to be the evening Omarosa was relieved of her official duties by General Kelly – I received a telephone call from her informing me that she had personally heard a second-hand recording of President Trump using the “N-word” in a derogatory fashion.

She proceeded to tell me the full name of the individual who played this second-hand tape for her, from whom the primary audio tape had originated, as well as the specific context of the President’s usage of this term and to whom the derogatory term was allegedly directed.

Omarosa also proceeded to inform me that she had officially submitted her resignation to General Kelly and that I should promptly do the same before the audio surfaced.

The next morning, I immediately notified senior communications officials and a Trump family member of the same, only to discover the true nature of her departure was termination.

Today, the individual who Omarosa confirmed to me as having played the second-hand audio recording to her last year confirmed that they have no tape, never had possession of a tape, never claimed to have possession of a tape and never played such a tape for Ms. Manigault-Newman. 

Tonight, on the MSNBC program, Hardball, Omarosa revealed to the general public what she had told me last December: That former Apprentice producer, Bill Pruitt, was the original source of the “N-word” tape. 

Bill Pruitt is a mutual friend. 

I just spoke to Bill Pruitt tonight before releasing this statement. 

He confirmed to me (before Hardball had even gone off the air) that he does NOT have an audio tape of President Trump using the “N-word” and has NEVER had an audio tape of President Trump using the “N-word.” Period. 

Suffice it to say that the past few weeks have been wrought with disappointment, immense sadness, anger and outright disgust.

Based upon her conflicting accounts and the newfound information revealed in my statement, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that not only is her book a complete work of fiction, but that the existence of this elusive “N-word” tape is a figment of her imagination and merely a destructive tool of manipulation applied only when it best serves her interests. 

Like countless other minorities and women, the President has given me the opportunity of a lifetime to rise up through the ranks of The Trump Organization and now proudly serve this country. 

Therefore, unless directed otherwise, this will be my only statement on this baseless accusation and imaginary audio tape, as falsely claimed by a former friend.

My primary and sole focus remains the low-income and public housing residents of New York & New Jersey, as the President would expect it to be — and as the President has hired me to do.

Thank you. #MAGA

Shortly after 11:00 p.m. Monday night on Fox News, Trump 2016 spokeswoman and 2020 Trump campaign Senior Adviser Katrina Pierson laid down details of Patton’s account and refuted Manigault’s book claims of a conversation involving Pierson and Patton. Pierson said flatly, “No Ed, that did not happen,” after Ed Henry read Manigault’s claims from page 149 of her book.

Henry asked Pierson directly whether, in the course of working on the president’s campaign or since in her time around the president, she had ever heard the president use the n-word or racial slur. “Absolutely not,” she said. “The answer is no. In fact the president and his family have been nothing but kind, generous, and respectful to myself and everyone else that I know of color.”

Pierson then spoke to Patton’s statement refuting Manigault’s claims of having heard a tape with Trump using the racial word. “Omarosa was the source of this tape, she was concern-trolling this tape since the latter part of the campaign. In my opinion as a tool of manipulation of those around her,” said Pierson. who pointed to Manigault’s invocation of Patton’s name in the book promoting interviews over the past several days.

“It’s the timeline. The reason why Omarosa is facing a wrath of contradiction is because she can’t keep her lies straight,” said Pierson. She pointed to Manigault’s previous claims that she hadn’t heard the tape until after her book was finalized, then pointed to Patton’s statement that contradicts Manigault’s claim.

Pierson then pointed to a media appearance by Manigault two days after the December 12 call Patton says Manigault made to her “informing [Patton] that [Manigault] had personally heard a second-hand recording of President Trump using the “N-word” in a derogatory fashion.” Pierson cited the December 14 ABC News interview with Manigault in which Manigault defends President Donald Trump, clearly stating he “is not a racist.” Pierson questioned how Manigault could defend the President in that way if she had heard such a tape and been so concerned just two days earlier.

President Trump himself weighed in Monday afternoon refuting Manigault’s tape claims. “Mark Burnett called to say that there are NO TAPES of the Apprentice where I used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by Wacky and Deranged Omarosa.”

Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook

A gang of masked “youths” rampaged through Sweden’s second-largest city Monday night, setting cars ablaze in an attack described as “extremely organised” and like a military operation by the Prime Minister.

Shocking video of fire engulfing numerous vehicles in Gothenburg spread on social media Monday evening with other footage clearly showing masked people in dark clothing intentionally lighting the blazes.

Police chose not to arrest the “young people” at the scene and have since contacted their parents, reports state.

Officers said Tuesday that up to 100 cars had been either burnt to or vandalized in the city and in nearby towns such as Trollhattan, an industrial area with high unemployment, and Falkenberg.

Falkenberg contains gender-segregated asylum seeker homes and police have been repeatedly attacked en mass in nearby Trollhattan, with well knows Islamic State fighters hailing from the area.

Such areas, with large migrant populations, have become hotspots for violence in the Nordic nation in recent years with many described as “no-go zones.”

pic.twitter.com/M88JFvxXqv

— Johan Jansson (@JJohanJJansson) August 13, 2018

Fires were also reported on a smaller scale in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city.

Sweden is to hold national elections in less than a month, and left-wing Prime Minister Stefan Löfven reacted angrily to the latest attacks, blasting the perpetrators directly.

“I’m getting pissed off – really! My question to these people is what the hell are you doing?” he said on a radio show according to Aftonbladet, promising to push for harsher penalties against those involved.

“It seems very organized, almost like a military operation,” he said, adding: “My message to those involved is that there is no disappointment, frustration, or injustice that motivates you to turn on someone else’s car.”

Meanwhile in Gothenburg, Sweden.#sweden #riots #breaking #Gothenburg #BreakingNews #news @TomHall pic.twitter.com/pF0jawxETM

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) August 13, 2018

“We have summed up the damage in all the different places. It’s a total of about 100 cars that are damaged or burned out,” police spokesman Ulla Brehm told SVT.

She added: “We have already started talking to parents of the young people who were active in the morning. We chose not to seize someone on the spot but have identified them, and talked with them.”

Witnesses told Swedish news agency TT they had seen “masked youths” fleeing the scene. No injuries have been reported and no arrest made, according to local reports.

Sweden Rivals Mexico for Grenade Attacks, Shooting Fatalities Five Times Higher Than Neighbouring Countries
https://t.co/F1pNRTSMCn

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 6, 2017

The son of a “mentor” to liberal activist and Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour stands accused of running a camp in the New Mexico desert in which children were abused, neglected and radicalized, multiple news sources have reported.

The saga began in early August when authorities received a message saying, “We are starving and need food and water,” according to TheBlaze. That led the Taos County Sheriff’s Office to a compound where five adults and 11 children between 1 and 15 were being kept in absolute squalor — all, apparently, in the name of Islamist extremism.

“The father of a missing 3-year-old who was arrested at a New Mexico compound linked to ‘extremist Muslims’ last week was training children to commit school shootings, court documents filed on Wednesday revealed,” Fox News reported Thursday (emphasis added).

The investigation had begun after Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, a child with severe medical issues, was reported missing from Georgia last December.

“Prosecutors allege Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 39, was conducting weapons training on the compound, where 11 children were found hungry and living in squalor,” Fox News reported. “They asked Wahhaj, who appeared in court on Wednesday, be held without bail.”

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The news media jumped on the horrific details of the story, although some details seemed more important than others. For instance, the fact that Sarsour, had a very strong connection with Wahhaj’s father, who also happened to be a prominent Brooklyn imam, was pretty much glossed over

Here are some tweets she’s made over the past few years in support of Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a man the New York Post identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing:

“Islam has made me love people.” ~ Imam Siraj #RIS2016

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) December 25, 2016

@GMUPatriot13 Imam Siraj is an amazing man. I have prayed at Masjid Taqwa a few times but it’s far from where I live.

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) August 15, 2012

Imam Siraj is the man. ~ @imamzaidshakir #taqwa30

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) December 18, 2011

It wasn’t just a matter of giving some social media power-daps, either. Sarsour would also engage in public conversations with the imam:

2017: A discussion with Linda Sarsour & Imam Siraj Wahhaj, moderated by Mehdi Hasan https://t.co/0Jk80QKHz5

— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) August 8, 2018

Now, let me be the first to say I’m not accusing Sarsour of knowing that Imam Siraj’s son was allegedly running the jihadist version of the Spahn Movie Ranch. However, at some level, it beggars belief the Women’s March principal had no inkling she was dealing with someone whose beliefs on religion were extreme enough that his son would set up an operation like this.

Oh, and in case you hadn’t caught the subtext I’d only hinted at before, Imam Siraj’s son didn’t just set up shop in the New Mexico hinterlands because he was a wacky dude. If you missed the motive, you’re far from the only one. Let’s take NBC News’ treatment of it, starting with the first two paragraphs and the last two paragraphs.

RELATED: Western Journal Warned of US Islamist Camps Years Ago, Media Forced to Finally Agree After NM Discovery

First the beginning: “The resident who owns the sprawling New Mexico land where a makeshift compound was discovered says he notified authorities about spotting a missing boy on his property, but they didn’t step foot on the grounds — until it was too late,” they reported Friday.

“Jason Badger owns the land in rural New Mexico where investigators raided a squalid compound last Friday while looking for Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, a toddler who was last seen in Jonesboro, Georgia, with his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj. They found the elder Wahhaj, four other adults and 11 starving children ages 1 to 15. But there was no sign of the boy.”

Stomach-churning stuff, you’ll admit. But in a sort of world-record attempt at burying the lede, the first mention of the motive appears in the last two paragraphs in a 19-paragraph story: “Few details are known about those living in the compound. After the raid, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said that a tactical unit had been sent because the residents were likely ‘heavily armed and considered extremist of the Muslim belief.’

“Wahhaj identified himself as ‘the son of the famous Muslim Imam Siraj Wahhaj’ in a 2006 federal court filing obtained by The Associated Press. He said he was harassed by customs agents at New York’s Kennedy International Airport before and after a trip to Morocco, according to the AP.” (emphasis added)

That was pretty much the main attraction here — jihadists training children in the desert to commit school shootings as part of Islamic terrorism.

Instead, it got completely lost in a narrative where there was absolutely no space for that conclusion. And as for mentioning the connection to Linda Sarsour’s mentor — well, you don’t want to come across as prejudiced, do you?

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

What started as peaceful protests outside the White House on Sunday soon drew the attention of the Secret Service.

While the bulk of the protesters marched while carrying banners of “Peace” and chanting peaceful slogans, the crowd was also “peppered with anarchists, black bloc thugs and armed, masked Antifa members,” as reported by The Daily Caller.

Amid chants the of “Love, not hate. That’s what makes America Great,” threats of violence against President Donald Trump were being recorded by reporters on the scene.

The Secret Service policy prohibits comments on “protective intelligence investigations,” but the agency confirmed with The Daily Caller that it was aware of the threats and the incident was under investigation.

As reporters asked the antifa protesters what they would say to the president if he showed up at the rally, they answered with violence in all instances.

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“If I get the chance to f— him up I would.”

“We’d have to do him like Gaddafi.”

“Beat his ass.”

“I would murder him, for the people.”

“If I get a chance to f— him up, I would.”

“I would throw the f—— bell at him.”

“I would p— on his leg.”

Violence against those with whom they disagree seems common in the antifa movement.

In this video from the dismal Unite the Right rally on Sunday in Washington, a man was pushed by an antifa protester, and large groups of demonstrators marched through the street chanting anti-American slogans.

RELATED: NBC Abandons Own Crew To Avoid Spoiling “Peaceful Antifa Protest” Narrative

Social media chronicled antifa protesters attacking media and law enforcement.

Masked antifa launch fireworks, water bottles, eggs at cops

Secret service has backed off pic.twitter.com/Jrru0by0WM

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) August 12, 2018

Dodged an egg thrown at my head from inside the Antifa crowd as NPR’s Brian Mann narrated pic.twitter.com/wQKUdSCirw

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) August 12, 2018

Protesters very aggressive with media. #Charlottesville pic.twitter.com/CSYNyvBbeG

— Cal Perry (@CalNBC) August 12, 2018

“Fu** you, snitch ass news bitch. Fu** you”. #Charlotsville pic.twitter.com/JPl3480FUG

— Cal Perry (@CalNBC) August 12, 2018

However much these thugs claim to be motivated by battling what they call “fascism,” it seems they have no other interest except to be oppositional and violent, especially against conservatives and capitalism. It may be amazing to you, as it is to me, that this group claims to be anti-fascist. They are anything but that.

It’s long past time that the Secret Service steps in to investigate the actions of these radicals. It’s never acceptable to threaten a president. And neither should anyone in the United States fear for their own safety as they peacefully gather to demonstrate, no matter what the cause.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded to the diplomatic spat engulfing Turkey-U.S. relations by pledging a national  boycott of U.S.-made electronic goods.

As Breitbart News reported, Turkey faces “the very real risk of U.S. sanctions” if it does not free American pastor Andrew Brunson, arrested on dubious charges of aiding Marxist and Islamist terrorist groups.

Mr. Erdogan suggested that Turkey would stop buying U.S.-made iPhones and instead look to Korean Samsung or Turkish-made Vestel if the boycott goes ahead. The threat comes during a Turkish currency crisis that has seen the lira’s value collapse against the U.S. dollar.

AP reports he said: “If they have the iPhone, there is Samsung elsewhere. We have Vestel.” It was unclear how Erdogan intended to enforce the boycott.

Turkish Airlines also announced on Twitter that it would join a campaign circulating on social media with a hashtag #ABDyeReklamVerme (don’t give ads to America).

“We, as the Turkish Airlines, stand by our state and our people. Necessary instructions on the issue have been issued to our agencies,” Yahya Ustun, spokesman for the country’s flag-carrier, wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Erdogan said Turkey was facing an “economic attack” and a “bigger, deeper operation”.

“They don’t hesitate to use the economy as a weapon,” he said. “What do you want to do? What do you want to achieve?” he added, referring to the US.

Turkey’s lira currency has been falling steadily for the last year because of a clearly stated view by Mr. Erdogan that interest rates are “evil,” and because he has been controlling Turkey’s central bank consistent with that belief.

The lira has already lost 40 percent of its value in the past month. On Friday, the currency fell another 20 percent, before settling at being down 14 percent from Thursday’s level.

Mr. Erdogan last week renewed a call for Turks to convert their dollars into the Turkish lira, to help underwite  the currency’s value.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com