During Saturday’s Weekly Address, President Trump called for an end to chain migration and the visa lottery and argued the current immigration system “helps special interests, but hurts American workers, taxpayers, and national security.”

Transcript as Follows: 

“My Fellow Americans,

This week I signed the National Defense Authorization Act – a historic step forward to rebuild our military. Now, it is critical for Congress to pass the Clean Government Appropriations Bill that fully funds our Military Needs. We must not play politics with our troops – we should pass a clean funding bill and leave the politics aside. We must protect our nation.

I’d also like to take a moment today to discuss our immigration system, and how we can reform it to make it work for everyday Americans.

Our current immigration system helps special interests, but hurts American workers, taxpayers, and national security.

For decades now, U.S. immigration rules have been based on an outdated system known as Chain Migration. Under chain migration, foreign nationals can come to the United States and bring in unlimited numbers of foreign relatives. A single immigrant can begin a chain that could ultimately bring in dozens of increasingly distant relations.

Because these individuals are admitted solely on the basis of family ties – not skill or not merit – most of this immigration is lower-skilled, putting great strain on federal welfare.

And because there is no real selection criteria, the current system is totally incompatible with national security.

This week, a terrorist exploded a pipe bomb on a busy subway passage during rush hour in New York City, injuring innocent Americans. This individual arrived through chain migration.

In October, another terrorist drove a truck into pedestrians and cyclists in New York City, killing 8 people and wounding many others. That individual came through a visa lottery.

It is time to create a merit-based immigration system that makes sense for a modern economy – selecting new arrivals based on their ability to support themselves financially and to make positive contributions to U.S society. Base it on love of our country. We want people that come in, that can love our country.

This process begins with Congress passing a bill to end chain migration and also end the visa lottery.

I have called on Congress to do exactly that. Ending chain migration and also ending the visa lottery will allow us to have commonsense immigration rules that promote assimilation and wage growth. It also promotes, most importantly, safety. It’ll help Americans both old and new to thrive, flourish and prosper.

Thank you, and God Bless America.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

There’s more trouble for special counsel Robert Mueller.

A lawyer for President Donald Trump’s transition team has accused Mueller of illegally obtaining transition documents as part of his probe into alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election.

According to Fox News, attorney Kory Langhofer of the group Trump For America said the General Services Administration engaged in “unlawful conduct.”

Here’s what happened:

Langhofer told Fox that the GSA turned over thousands of emails to Mueller’s investigation when it had no legal authority to do so. The GSA “did not own or control the records in question,” Langhofer said.

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For the government agency to give them to the investigation team, and for the special counsel’s team to accept them, could constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, Fox News reported.

In a letter Langhofer wrote to House and Senate committees — and obtained by Fox News — the lawyer claimed the special counsel’s investigation had used information it did not have a right to legally.

According to Fox, The Associated Press reported that the GSA had turned over a flash drive after receiving a request from Mueller’s office on Sept. 1. Among those documents were emails written by or to Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor in the Trump White House who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.

“We understand that the special counsel’s office has subsequently made extensive use of the materials it obtained from the GSA, including materials that are susceptible to privilege claims,” Langhofer wrote in the letter to the congressional committees, according to Fox.

Langhofer told Fox News on Saturday that the transition team is closely monitoring any new developments.

“This morning we sent a letter to Congress concerning the unauthorized sharing of private and transition emails with the Mueller team,” he noted.

But Mueller’s office denies any wrongdoing.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, said “When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process.”

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On the other hand, Trump transition lawyers say they have proof that the documents were obtained without permission.

In the letter to Congress, which was published by Politico, the Trump team claimed it never received any requests from the GSA to obtain the documents. And it explained why there is a problem with the GSA’s cooperation with the special counsel’s office.

“As discussed above, the GSA’s unlawful production of TFA’s internal records was exacerbated by the Special Counsel’s Office failure to preserve and respect the legal privileges that attach to a large number of those documents,” the letter stated. “More generally, however, the GSA’s and the Special Counsel’s Office’s misconduct in this matter demonstrates why investigators and government attorneys, who in many cases are not entirely neutral, should not be trusted to decide without proper oversight which records belonging to private parties are privileged. “

That last sentence “should not be trusted” is damning.

This new development comes amid ongoing trouble for Mueller’s team.

At the beginning of December, the news became public that Peter Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was removed from Mueller’s Russia probe over the summer after it was revealed that he sent anti-Trump text messages while on the job to an FBI lawyer with whom he was engaged in an adulterous affair.

At one point, Strzok even called Trump an “idiot.”

Rumors are already flying around Capitol Hill that Mueller could be fired by Trump. Whatever the political fallout of that could be, news that Mueller’s office might have been skirting the law in its already questionable investigation isn’t going to help Mueller’s case — or the Democrats’ who engineered his appointment.

Share this story on Facebook and Twitter if you think Mueller should be fired from the investigation.

What do you think this report will do to the special counsel probe? Scroll down to comment below!

Talk about a feast for the eyes.

A McDonald’s franchise in Tennessee got some national fame two years ago when social media picked up an annual Christmas display the restaurant owners used to proclaim the real reason for the season.

And proclaim it in no uncertain terms.

The mural was posted to social media Dec. 14, 2015, by Facebook user Amy Basel, a Michigan native who used a nickname for her home state to describe her surprise at seeing the unabashedly Christian sentiment posted on a mural in a Volunteer State McDonald’s.

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Basel wasn’t the only one who appreciated the gesture. It had generated tens of thousands of shares, and almost 10,000 comments.

“Nice to see a business keeping it real and putting it out there,” one commenter wrote. “Outstanding, McDonald’s.”

The Christmas displays are a tradition in the McDonald’s in Spring Hill, about 30 miles south of Nashville. Though

Gina Wolfe, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Tony, told local station WZTV at the time that the holiday paintings go back years.

“It’s a family business which has been owned and operated by my family for 40 years,” she told the station.

“My dad started this 40 years ago when he had a local art student paint it on his store. My husband and I have been owners for 28 years and we’ve done this or something similar during Christmas each year. I guess with social media, it’s taken off.”

The couple owned three restaurants in Spring Hill as well as one each in the nearby towns of Columbia and Mount Pleasant, according to WZTV.

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At all the stores, the Nativity scene got pride of place with a display on the front, WZTV reported. Paintings on the side of the store varied by location, with themes such as a “Charlie Brown” Christmas, or characters from the hit movie “Frozen.”

Judging by the social media reaction to the tradition, it’s got an enduring sort of popularity.

Other restaurant owners might want to draw a lesson here.

Please like and share on Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about this unapologetically Christian display.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below!

The increasing costs of population growth in Sweden, driven almost entirely mass migration, have forced the government to seriously consider raising the national retirement age to pay for the additional costs.

Swedish Socialist party Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson announced that the retirement age would likely be raised in the near future in order to offset increased welfare costs, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports.

“Looking at those who start working at 30, there should be opportunities to work longer than 65,” Andersson said.

The minister made her remarks following an economic report from the Local Authorities and County Council (SKL) released earlier this week. The report claimed that the welfare state would grow faster than revenue obtained through taxation due to the dramatic rise of Sweden’s population.

Due to the influx of migrants during the migrant crisis and Sweden’s growing birthrate, the population of the country has expanded faster than almost any other European country.

Sweden’s Population Growth Second Highest in EU Due to Mass Migration
https://t.co/6UwY0IEvc3

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 12, 2017

Some Swedish cities, like the southern city of Malmo, owe their population growth almost entirely to mass migration from predominantly Middle Eastern countries.

The SKL study claims there is a 47 billion SEK (£4.1 billion) gap between current revenue and welfare state costs that will have to be made up either by tax increases or increasing the retirement age.

While migrants are increasing the cost of the Swedish welfare state in terms of added infrastructure and cost for services, many are unemployed and directly on welfare. A recent report showed that while the native Swedish unemployment rate was around 3.9 percent, it stood at 21.8 percent for Swedish residents from foreign backgrounds.

A 2016 report claimed that the one-year cost of the migrant crisis for the Swedish taxpayer could amount to as much as 600 billion Swedish Kronor (£48.3 billion), enough to pay for the national armed forces for the next 14 years. Stockholm University associate professor Jan Tullberg made the calculations based on welfare and housing costs, education costs and other factors.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com