Category: US Politics

Czarist Russia was plagued by an unprecedented wave of terror starting after the 1905 revolution. This laid the groundwork for the Bolshevik Coup of 1917. It is worth reviewing this history since there are similarities between those who supported that anarchy and terrorism then and those behind groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter (BLM), and the entire leftist movement today. 

During the early 20th century, bombing, robberies, extortion, and riots were as common as traffic accidents in Russia. It was said that anyone in uniform or public office was a candidate for a bullet in the head or sulfuric acid in the face. During those tumultuous years there was a political party named the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party. “Though the Kadets advocated democratic, constitutional procedures, and did not themselves engage in terrorism, they aided the terrorists in any way they could.” Among other things, the Kadets collected money for anarchists and terrorists and called for amnesty for those arrested. The party’s position was that it did not consider those involved in the mayhem as criminals but as saints and martyrs. Does that sound familiar?

The Kadets were not alone. The terrorists also had support from much of the Russian intelligentsia, and money flowed to them from doctors, lawyers,  industrialists, and bankers. This calls to mind the old axiom that revolutions never succeed without the support of the wealthy, liberal, and the educated in society. Another axiom is that revolutions devour their own, and so it was in Russia. When Lenin came to power, his Bolsheviks liquidated all opposition starting with the Kadets and the foolish liberals and those in the business class who aided and abetted the destruction of orderly society.  

Why would liberals and intellectuals support bloodthirsty revolutionaries when logic would dictate it would lead to their own demise? Peter Struver, a Kadet dissident, was so intrigued by that question that he and six others published Landmarks: A collection of Essays on the Russian Intelligentsia in 1909.  These essays were intended to give insight to the mentality of the intelligentsia which Gary Saul Morson believes is must reading for anyone trying to understand that phenomenon.

The authors of Landmarks noted common elements among the intelligentsia that warped their ability to think rationally. One was a firm, unquestioned desire to replace the established societal order with some vague, ill-defined idea of a Utopian society. Reform was not part of the intelligentsia’s agenda. Destruction was. Another trait of the intelligentsia was that they had abandoned traditional religious belief, were atheistic, accepted materialism as their religion, and proselytized determinism. Since Christianity was part of the established order, it too had to be, if not eliminated, then at least marginalized. 

Struver observed that the intelligentsia believed all questions must be resolved based not on reasoning or facts but by the political consequences of the answers. This includes questions on history, science, and everything else. Only politically correct answers were allowed. Others would be shouted down. Dovetailing with this was the habit of the revolutionaries and their supporters to accept the same positions they had once condemned when it was advantageous for them to do so. They could switch back and forth and back again without missing a beat. 

Another characteristic of the intelligentsia was their compelling desire for conformity, that is, conformity among themselves. The slightest deviation from their politically correct way of thinking would get a member shunned from ‘acceptable company.’ Morson writes that part of the glue binding the intelligentsia into such a tight cohesive group was the fact that they were “socialized to regard anything conservative as reprehensible — and still worse, as a social faux pas — they contrived ways to justify radical intolerance and violence as forced, understandable, and noble.”

Make your own parallels as to the symmetries between the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and what has been happening in America. It’s not merely the turmoil in the streets. From corporate boardrooms to the universities, the media, entertainment, and now even sports, there is an eerie similarity. It would be a mistake to assume America is immune to Marxism. We are not. To prevent its takeover, good men and women must stand up and speak out. This is not a call to sabotage one’s career or safety in a futile attempt to make a point. Rather, take your shots wisely, the most important of which is to vote and work for the reelection of Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican ticket. As always, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 

Image: 

Czarist Russia was plagued by an unprecedented wave of terror starting after the 1905 revolution. This laid the groundwork for the Bolshevik Coup of 1917. It is worth reviewing this history since there are similarities between those who supported that anarchy and terrorism then and those behind groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter (BLM), and the entire leftist movement today. 

During the early 20th century, bombing, robberies, extortion, and riots were as common as traffic accidents in Russia. It was said that anyone in uniform or public office was a candidate for a bullet in the head or sulfuric acid in the face. During those tumultuous years there was a political party named the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party. “Though the Kadets advocated democratic, constitutional procedures, and did not themselves engage in terrorism, they aided the terrorists in any way they could.” Among other things, the Kadets collected money for anarchists and terrorists and called for amnesty for those arrested. The party’s position was that it did not consider those involved in the mayhem as criminals but as saints and martyrs. Does that sound familiar?

The Kadets were not alone. The terrorists also had support from much of the Russian intelligentsia, and money flowed to them from doctors, lawyers,  industrialists, and bankers. This calls to mind the old axiom that revolutions never succeed without the support of the wealthy, liberal, and the educated in society. Another axiom is that revolutions devour their own, and so it was in Russia. When Lenin came to power, his Bolsheviks liquidated all opposition starting with the Kadets and the foolish liberals and those in the business class who aided and abetted the destruction of orderly society.  

Why would liberals and intellectuals support bloodthirsty revolutionaries when logic would dictate it would lead to their own demise? Peter Struver, a Kadet dissident, was so intrigued by that question that he and six others published Landmarks: A collection of Essays on the Russian Intelligentsia in 1909.  These essays were intended to give insight to the mentality of the intelligentsia which Gary Saul Morson believes is must reading for anyone trying to understand that phenomenon.

The authors of Landmarks noted common elements among the intelligentsia that warped their ability to think rationally. One was a firm, unquestioned desire to replace the established societal order with some vague, ill-defined idea of a Utopian society. Reform was not part of the intelligentsia’s agenda. Destruction was. Another trait of the intelligentsia was that they had abandoned traditional religious belief, were atheistic, accepted materialism as their religion, and proselytized determinism. Since Christianity was part of the established order, it too had to be, if not eliminated, then at least marginalized. 

Struver observed that the intelligentsia believed all questions must be resolved based not on reasoning or facts but by the political consequences of the answers. This includes questions on history, science, and everything else. Only politically correct answers were allowed. Others would be shouted down. Dovetailing with this was the habit of the revolutionaries and their supporters to accept the same positions they had once condemned when it was advantageous for them to do so. They could switch back and forth and back again without missing a beat. 

Another characteristic of the intelligentsia was their compelling desire for conformity, that is, conformity among themselves. The slightest deviation from their politically correct way of thinking would get a member shunned from ‘acceptable company.’ Morson writes that part of the glue binding the intelligentsia into such a tight cohesive group was the fact that they were “socialized to regard anything conservative as reprehensible — and still worse, as a social faux pas — they contrived ways to justify radical intolerance and violence as forced, understandable, and noble.”

Make your own parallels as to the symmetries between the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and what has been happening in America. It’s not merely the turmoil in the streets. From corporate boardrooms to the universities, the media, entertainment, and now even sports, there is an eerie similarity. It would be a mistake to assume America is immune to Marxism. We are not. To prevent its takeover, good men and women must stand up and speak out. This is not a call to sabotage one’s career or safety in a futile attempt to make a point. Rather, take your shots wisely, the most important of which is to vote and work for the reelection of Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican ticket. As always, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 

Image: 

With Democrat threats to further undermine the presidential election process, the best thing average patriotic Americans can do to combat this is to vote in person.  We need to have overwhelming numbers of Americans in line to fill out their ballots on Election Day.  Crowds of Trump-supporters are the only force that can surpass the Democrats’ plans to cheat through mail–in voting.  And guess what: our numbers will also be a show of protest against these internal enemies of America.

Conservatives rarely take to the streets to protest.  We have families to take care of, careers, and bills to pay.  However, when liberty is threatened and government overreaches, the signs and flags of conservatives will rise high in protest and in great numbers.  This Election Day is our time not only to redress government abuses at all levels, but also to protest the attempts of Marxist radicals (and their supporters in the Democrat party and mainstream media) who are trying to foment a civil war.

Why should you be worried about Joe Biden winning the presidency?  There are many reasons, but let’s focus specifically on his mental faculties.  It is quite obvious to a growing number of Americans that Biden’s shelf life has expired in the form of advancing senility.  He is simply not up to rigors of the presidency, and even half of Democrats polled don’t believe he will finish his term if elected.  Democrats will be voting for a figurehead, but it will be an unaccountable person or persons running things in a Biden administration who will not be subject to public scrutiny.  This will make a mockery of the term “representative government,” about which the donkey party could not care less. 

Just remember the deeds of the Democrats since March; their actions have shown they are more concerned with political expediency than serving their constituents.  When the Wuhan virus was growing into a major crisis, who told people in San Francisco and New York that it was safe to attend Chinese New Year celebrations and take public transportation?  Oh, yes, that would be Democrat speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.  Who called Trump’s plans of travel restrictions related to China xenophobic?  You guessed it: Joe Biden.  Who circumvented President Trump’s plans of a temporary shutdown to flatten the curve and applied even more drastic lockdowns to their citizens and economies?  Look no farther than Democrat governors like Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, J.B. Pritzker, Jay Inslee , Phil Murphy, Kate Brown, and Tom Wolf and Democrat mayors like Eric Garcetti, Bill de Blasio, Ted Wheeler, and Lori Lightfoot.  Just think — these examples of feckless and vindictive leadership are also the Democrat bench in upcoming national elections.  Can you imagine any of these incompetent tyrants in the White House?

Let us not also forget how these Democrat leaders pledged allegiance to the Marxist groups known as Black Lives Matter and Antifa and how these office holders allowed their cities to be looted, vandalized, and burned, all in the name of ”mostly peaceful protests.”  Coincidentally, Democrats have lately condemned the rioting after crashing poll numbers indicated that Americans were blaming Democrats for the violence.

Not a single selfless leader exists in the examples given above.  Each one of these leftist office-holders is a narcissist more in love with power and prestige than with the privilege of serving.  What else can be said about “leaders” who would allow suffering to their constituents in the form of destroyed livelihoods, violence, and racial division?   And let us not forget how some of these office-holders are defunding their police departments in the name of so-called rampant police brutality.  Talk about jumping on the bandwagon. These Democrat governors and mayors are not statesmen, but mere agents of sabotage in the left’s efforts to hurt the country so Biden can win.  If you are one of the gullible who think these mini-tyrants will temper their policies with a Biden victory, I have some prime real estate in Death Valley that I would like to sell to you.

While the rest of us live in the United States, the Democrats are united with the worldwide left in their hatred of President Trump, the people who voted for him and America as founded.  Democrats have an endgame strategy of pushing Biden over the finish line whether he wins or loses.  This strategy has been voiced by leftist stalwarts like Hillary Clinton, who urged Biden not to concede, and media platforms like Axios, which recently predicted that what looks like a Trump victory on election night will be overturned in the ensuing weeks with mail-in ballots.

And how about the latest Democrat talking point of using the military to remove Trump from the White House if he doesn’t concede?  Sure sounds like subversion to me with the seeds being planted for us to expect a Trump loss after a vote count that could take weeks. As is always their modus operandi, the Democrats use repetitive talking points to legitimize a sleazy political tactic they are planning.

The Democrats have amassed an army of lawyers dedicated to litigating the results of the 2020 presidential election until Biden is the winner.  This can only be pulled off if the race is close.  However, they can’t cheat if it is not close and one way of insuring this is to have lines of Trump voters around the block in every state. Our numbers have to be so large that the media will not be able to ignore us and an added benefit will be screwing up the exit polls that news outlets love to use to discourage Republican turnout.

Unprecedented and historic are two words that have come to annoy me because of overuse in the media. Yet we, as a nation of patriots from every skin color, every religion and every creed, have an opportunity to take to the polls and vote in person in unprecedented and historic numbers on November 3. Plug your ears to the echo chamber of the propaganda media telling you to stay home.  Tell your like-minded friends, neighbors and family to get out and save America by voting to reelect President Trump, take back the House and hold the Senate. If you are worried about your health and safety, wear a mask or travel in numbers. You could even wear Biden t-shirts and other Democrat paraphernalia if you want to vote undercover. Be creative, but make sure you have boots and shoes on the ground at your local polling place.  

Let us make this the election where the sleeping giant awakens and makes its presence known.  This scenario gives the left nightmares which is why it is so invested in keeping you scared and at home come Election Day. Don’t fall for the threats, punch the Democrats in the mouth… with your vote that is.

Dex Bahr is the author of the book No Christian Man is an Island.  He is also a freelance writer and lecturer.

Photo credit: Tom Arthur, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

With Democrat threats to further undermine the presidential election process, the best thing average patriotic Americans can do to combat this is to vote in person.  We need to have overwhelming numbers of Americans in line to fill out their ballots on Election Day.  Crowds of Trump-supporters are the only force that can surpass the Democrats’ plans to cheat through mail–in voting.  And guess what: our numbers will also be a show of protest against these internal enemies of America.

Conservatives rarely take to the streets to protest.  We have families to take care of, careers, and bills to pay.  However, when liberty is threatened and government overreaches, the signs and flags of conservatives will rise high in protest and in great numbers.  This Election Day is our time not only to redress government abuses at all levels, but also to protest the attempts of Marxist radicals (and their supporters in the Democrat party and mainstream media) who are trying to foment a civil war.

Why should you be worried about Joe Biden winning the presidency?  There are many reasons, but let’s focus specifically on his mental faculties.  It is quite obvious to a growing number of Americans that Biden’s shelf life has expired in the form of advancing senility.  He is simply not up to rigors of the presidency, and even half of Democrats polled don’t believe he will finish his term if elected.  Democrats will be voting for a figurehead, but it will be an unaccountable person or persons running things in a Biden administration who will not be subject to public scrutiny.  This will make a mockery of the term “representative government,” about which the donkey party could not care less. 

Just remember the deeds of the Democrats since March; their actions have shown they are more concerned with political expediency than serving their constituents.  When the Wuhan virus was growing into a major crisis, who told people in San Francisco and New York that it was safe to attend Chinese New Year celebrations and take public transportation?  Oh, yes, that would be Democrat speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.  Who called Trump’s plans of travel restrictions related to China xenophobic?  You guessed it: Joe Biden.  Who circumvented President Trump’s plans of a temporary shutdown to flatten the curve and applied even more drastic lockdowns to their citizens and economies?  Look no farther than Democrat governors like Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, J.B. Pritzker, Jay Inslee , Phil Murphy, Kate Brown, and Tom Wolf and Democrat mayors like Eric Garcetti, Bill de Blasio, Ted Wheeler, and Lori Lightfoot.  Just think — these examples of feckless and vindictive leadership are also the Democrat bench in upcoming national elections.  Can you imagine any of these incompetent tyrants in the White House?

Let us not also forget how these Democrat leaders pledged allegiance to the Marxist groups known as Black Lives Matter and Antifa and how these office holders allowed their cities to be looted, vandalized, and burned, all in the name of ”mostly peaceful protests.”  Coincidentally, Democrats have lately condemned the rioting after crashing poll numbers indicated that Americans were blaming Democrats for the violence.

Not a single selfless leader exists in the examples given above.  Each one of these leftist office-holders is a narcissist more in love with power and prestige than with the privilege of serving.  What else can be said about “leaders” who would allow suffering to their constituents in the form of destroyed livelihoods, violence, and racial division?   And let us not forget how some of these office-holders are defunding their police departments in the name of so-called rampant police brutality.  Talk about jumping on the bandwagon. These Democrat governors and mayors are not statesmen, but mere agents of sabotage in the left’s efforts to hurt the country so Biden can win.  If you are one of the gullible who think these mini-tyrants will temper their policies with a Biden victory, I have some prime real estate in Death Valley that I would like to sell to you.

While the rest of us live in the United States, the Democrats are united with the worldwide left in their hatred of President Trump, the people who voted for him and America as founded.  Democrats have an endgame strategy of pushing Biden over the finish line whether he wins or loses.  This strategy has been voiced by leftist stalwarts like Hillary Clinton, who urged Biden not to concede, and media platforms like Axios, which recently predicted that what looks like a Trump victory on election night will be overturned in the ensuing weeks with mail-in ballots.

And how about the latest Democrat talking point of using the military to remove Trump from the White House if he doesn’t concede?  Sure sounds like subversion to me with the seeds being planted for us to expect a Trump loss after a vote count that could take weeks. As is always their modus operandi, the Democrats use repetitive talking points to legitimize a sleazy political tactic they are planning.

The Democrats have amassed an army of lawyers dedicated to litigating the results of the 2020 presidential election until Biden is the winner.  This can only be pulled off if the race is close.  However, they can’t cheat if it is not close and one way of insuring this is to have lines of Trump voters around the block in every state. Our numbers have to be so large that the media will not be able to ignore us and an added benefit will be screwing up the exit polls that news outlets love to use to discourage Republican turnout.

Unprecedented and historic are two words that have come to annoy me because of overuse in the media. Yet we, as a nation of patriots from every skin color, every religion and every creed, have an opportunity to take to the polls and vote in person in unprecedented and historic numbers on November 3. Plug your ears to the echo chamber of the propaganda media telling you to stay home.  Tell your like-minded friends, neighbors and family to get out and save America by voting to reelect President Trump, take back the House and hold the Senate. If you are worried about your health and safety, wear a mask or travel in numbers. You could even wear Biden t-shirts and other Democrat paraphernalia if you want to vote undercover. Be creative, but make sure you have boots and shoes on the ground at your local polling place.  

Let us make this the election where the sleeping giant awakens and makes its presence known.  This scenario gives the left nightmares which is why it is so invested in keeping you scared and at home come Election Day. Don’t fall for the threats, punch the Democrats in the mouth… with your vote that is.

Dex Bahr is the author of the book No Christian Man is an Island.  He is also a freelance writer and lecturer.

Photo credit: Tom Arthur, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

In case you haven’t heard, there is a concerted effort in this country today to discredit, defund, and de-humanize members of law enforcement.  While local police have been the primary target as of late, the effort extends even more forcefully against federal immigration officers.  This does more than just endanger community safety; it is an existential threat to our Constitution and sets the stage for armed conflict among different branches of law enforcement.

Central to the war against immigration law enforcement has been the effort to portray them as the bad guys.  In the last several years, rhetoric from the radical left has depicted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as the worst kind of Nazis, who cruelly target illegal aliens because of their skin color and lock them up in cages for amusement.

When your enemy is painted as the modern-day Gestapo, they are pure evil, therefore any tactics to stop them are justified.  The foot soldiers on the street have received the message.  In addition to protesting and blocking entrances to ICE facilities, the left-wing rage mob has even harassed food truck–operators for setting up shop outside ICE buildings.  Mayors in deep blue cities have tipped off illegal aliens to help them escape ICE raids and deportation.  

As they say in infomercials, “But wait, there’s more!”  Sanctuary laws prevent ICE agents from taking custody of criminal aliens in the security of a jail facility, forcing them to take the far more dangerous route of going into homes and workplaces.  It had been a longstanding protocol that ICE could pick up aliens when they appear in a courthouse on criminal charges.  The anti-borders left has now seized upon this practice for its next line of attack.

Prosecutors in two of the largest counties in Massachusetts have sued ICE to outlaw the practice of courthouse arrests.  Last week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an injunction that a Massachusetts federal district judge had issued against arrests of aliens by ICE officers in courthouses in the Bay State.  While the case for courthouse arrests is rock-solid, the appellate court sent the case back down to the district court to consider an additional argument, and the fight will go on.

The plaintiffs relied on a supposed Massachusetts common law privilege against arrests at courthouses, an argument equivalent to a house built on sand.  As the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) wrote in its friend-of-the-court brief in the case, federal law is supreme over state law, not the other way around.  Applying a state common law privilege to block ICE arrests at courthouses — a course that might lead to armed confrontation between state and federal officers — would be repugnant to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

What would happen if state court officers tried to enforce that supposed privilege by forcibly preventing ICE officers from entering Massachusetts courthouses, or forcibly preventing ICE officers from taking custody of aliens once inside?  Armed confrontations between state and federal officers, or attempts by each to place the other under arrest, would be the inevitable result.

Against the current backdrop of the rampant lawlessness in our streets, the last thing our nation needs is different branches of law enforcement in armed conflict with each other.

There must be something in the water in Massachusetts, because even those sworn to uphold our nation’s laws at the highest levels are falling short.  Newton District Court judge Shelly Joseph recently lost her bid to dismiss obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges against her.  Joseph allegedly helped a twice-deported illegal alien escape her courtroom through a rear door and evade ICE agents who were told to wait in the lobby to take custody.

This is the foundational logic that the left’s view of immigration misses: if a nation has no borders, it is not a nation.  If certain laws are not to be enforced, then no laws have legitimacy.  As American citizens, we have every right to petition our government to have laws changed.  We do not have the right to an à la carte approach to our society, where we obey the laws we like and disregard those we do not.

If you do not like the current immigration laws, contact your representatives who wrote the laws and seek change.  Demonizing and obstructing those charged with enforcing the laws is a lazy, unconstitutional path that leads to the kind of chaos that this country can no longer afford.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Image credit: Rocky Mountain PBS via shareable YouTube, screen shot.

In case you haven’t heard, there is a concerted effort in this country today to discredit, defund, and de-humanize members of law enforcement.  While local police have been the primary target as of late, the effort extends even more forcefully against federal immigration officers.  This does more than just endanger community safety; it is an existential threat to our Constitution and sets the stage for armed conflict among different branches of law enforcement.

Central to the war against immigration law enforcement has been the effort to portray them as the bad guys.  In the last several years, rhetoric from the radical left has depicted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as the worst kind of Nazis, who cruelly target illegal aliens because of their skin color and lock them up in cages for amusement.

When your enemy is painted as the modern-day Gestapo, they are pure evil, therefore any tactics to stop them are justified.  The foot soldiers on the street have received the message.  In addition to protesting and blocking entrances to ICE facilities, the left-wing rage mob has even harassed food truck–operators for setting up shop outside ICE buildings.  Mayors in deep blue cities have tipped off illegal aliens to help them escape ICE raids and deportation.  

As they say in infomercials, “But wait, there’s more!”  Sanctuary laws prevent ICE agents from taking custody of criminal aliens in the security of a jail facility, forcing them to take the far more dangerous route of going into homes and workplaces.  It had been a longstanding protocol that ICE could pick up aliens when they appear in a courthouse on criminal charges.  The anti-borders left has now seized upon this practice for its next line of attack.

Prosecutors in two of the largest counties in Massachusetts have sued ICE to outlaw the practice of courthouse arrests.  Last week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an injunction that a Massachusetts federal district judge had issued against arrests of aliens by ICE officers in courthouses in the Bay State.  While the case for courthouse arrests is rock-solid, the appellate court sent the case back down to the district court to consider an additional argument, and the fight will go on.

The plaintiffs relied on a supposed Massachusetts common law privilege against arrests at courthouses, an argument equivalent to a house built on sand.  As the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) wrote in its friend-of-the-court brief in the case, federal law is supreme over state law, not the other way around.  Applying a state common law privilege to block ICE arrests at courthouses — a course that might lead to armed confrontation between state and federal officers — would be repugnant to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

What would happen if state court officers tried to enforce that supposed privilege by forcibly preventing ICE officers from entering Massachusetts courthouses, or forcibly preventing ICE officers from taking custody of aliens once inside?  Armed confrontations between state and federal officers, or attempts by each to place the other under arrest, would be the inevitable result.

Against the current backdrop of the rampant lawlessness in our streets, the last thing our nation needs is different branches of law enforcement in armed conflict with each other.

There must be something in the water in Massachusetts, because even those sworn to uphold our nation’s laws at the highest levels are falling short.  Newton District Court judge Shelly Joseph recently lost her bid to dismiss obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges against her.  Joseph allegedly helped a twice-deported illegal alien escape her courtroom through a rear door and evade ICE agents who were told to wait in the lobby to take custody.

This is the foundational logic that the left’s view of immigration misses: if a nation has no borders, it is not a nation.  If certain laws are not to be enforced, then no laws have legitimacy.  As American citizens, we have every right to petition our government to have laws changed.  We do not have the right to an à la carte approach to our society, where we obey the laws we like and disregard those we do not.

If you do not like the current immigration laws, contact your representatives who wrote the laws and seek change.  Demonizing and obstructing those charged with enforcing the laws is a lazy, unconstitutional path that leads to the kind of chaos that this country can no longer afford.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Image credit: Rocky Mountain PBS via shareable YouTube, screen shot.

The West Coast is aglow but not in a good way. Instead, fires are raging throughout California, Oregon, and Washington. The property damage is appalling, and ten people have already died. Leftists, predictably, have announced that their goddess, Mother Gaia, is again crying out from the horrors of anthropogenic climate change.

The reality is that there’s something bigger and more real going on, which is the actual climate. La Nina is afoot in the northern hemisphere, and she’s having some extra fun in the West because the environmentalists have prevented California from protecting against fires.

The data from the fires is appalling. In California, at least 2.5 million acres have burned. In Oregon, 900,000 acres have burned, with one of the worst fires being attributed to arson. In a nod to the cliché that everything that happens hits women and minorities the hardest, the Washington Post reports that “In a small Oregon town, a wildfire devastates a Latino community.” And in Washington state, 480,000 acres have burned.

Leftists know what’s to blame – it’s Anthropogenic Climate Change, which is the nearest thing they have to a religion. Religions are unfalsifiable because faith ties all events to a deity. In that vein, climate change is the answer to all weather and climate events. Whether it’s too hot or cold, too still or windy, too wet or dry, it doesn’t matter. The blame always falls on humans and their love affair with fossil fuel.

Therefore, it’s unsurprising that one of the high priests of leftism, Barack Obama, would weigh in on the admittedly disturbing orange sky in California. In his usual pompous way, he announced that humankind was at fault:

Others wiser than Obama have pointed out that climate change is not the problem. Instead, the problem is environmentalism.

Environmentalism is why California stopped grooming forests or doing controlled burns to get rid of deadwood (aka tinder). It was because of environmentalism that PG&E poured all of its money into building renewable energy facilities, such as the solar facilities that failed during California’s recent heatwave, and stopped repairing old power lines (some going back 90 years) or trimming back tinder around those power lines. And all this misbegotten environmentalism has controlled California even as more people have moved into fire zones over the past several decades.

Even those awful environmental policies, though, do not tell the entire story. There are two bigger things at play. First, there’s California’s actual climate. For all the hysteria about the epic heatwave this year, back in 1913 the hottest temperature ever recorded on earth was 134 degrees in California’s Death Valley.

That doesn’t even mean it was the hottest temperature ever. It was just the hottest temperature ever recorded. People have been recording temperatures in a consistent way only since the Victorian era. That means that, long before the last 150 years, the earth has almost certainly been setting all sorts of records about which we know nothing.

Second, the leftists are ignoring the most significant thing of all about California’s furnace-like conditions. This is a La Nina year, and it’s going to wreak havoc all over America:

La Nina — a phenomenon that occurs when the surface of the Pacific Ocean cools — has officially formed, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said Thursday. It triggers an atmospheric chain reaction that stands to roil weather around the globe, often turning the western U.S. into a tinder box, fueling more powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic and flooding parts of Australia and South America.

“We’re already in a bad position, and La Nina puts us in a situation where fire-weather conditions persist into November and possibly even December,” said Ryan Truchelut, president of Weather Tiger LLC. “It is exacerbating existing heat and drought issues.”

The effects are already evident. Rising temperatures and an extreme mega-drought across the U.S. West are fueling fires from Washington to Arizona. California is having its worst fire season on record, torching an unprecedented 2.5 million acres. And in the Atlantic, a record number tropical storms have formed by September, including Hurricane Laura, which killed more than a dozen people across the Caribbean and the U.S. last month.

No matter where you are, you’d better batten down the hatches, because anything that can go wild and dangerous with the weather will. These unusual weather phenomena will have nothing to do with the lefts’ favorite explanation of Gaia in crisis due to evil people. Instead, they will reflect normal weather patterns around the globe, including in California. The only unusual thing will have been the California greenies’ failure to take steps that could protect their state from predictable weather events.

Image: Forest fire, by Pixabay; free for commercial use.

The West Coast is aglow but not in a good way. Instead, fires are raging throughout California, Oregon, and Washington. The property damage is appalling, and ten people have already died. Leftists, predictably, have announced that their goddess, Mother Gaia, is again crying out from the horrors of anthropogenic climate change.

The reality is that there’s something bigger and more real going on, which is the actual climate. La Nina is afoot in the northern hemisphere, and she’s having some extra fun in the West because the environmentalists have prevented California from protecting against fires.

The data from the fires is appalling. In California, at least 2.5 million acres have burned. In Oregon, 900,000 acres have burned, with one of the worst fires being attributed to arson. In a nod to the cliché that everything that happens hits women and minorities the hardest, the Washington Post reports that “In a small Oregon town, a wildfire devastates a Latino community.” And in Washington state, 480,000 acres have burned.

Leftists know what’s to blame – it’s Anthropogenic Climate Change, which is the nearest thing they have to a religion. Religions are unfalsifiable because faith ties all events to a deity. In that vein, climate change is the answer to all weather and climate events. Whether it’s too hot or cold, too still or windy, too wet or dry, it doesn’t matter. The blame always falls on humans and their love affair with fossil fuel.

Therefore, it’s unsurprising that one of the high priests of leftism, Barack Obama, would weigh in on the admittedly disturbing orange sky in California. In his usual pompous way, he announced that humankind was at fault:

Others wiser than Obama have pointed out that climate change is not the problem. Instead, the problem is environmentalism.

Environmentalism is why California stopped grooming forests or doing controlled burns to get rid of deadwood (aka tinder). It was because of environmentalism that PG&E poured all of its money into building renewable energy facilities, such as the solar facilities that failed during California’s recent heatwave, and stopped repairing old power lines (some going back 90 years) or trimming back tinder around those power lines. And all this misbegotten environmentalism has controlled California even as more people have moved into fire zones over the past several decades.

Even those awful environmental policies, though, do not tell the entire story. There are two bigger things at play. First, there’s California’s actual climate. For all the hysteria about the epic heatwave this year, back in 1913 the hottest temperature ever recorded on earth was 134 degrees in California’s Death Valley.

That doesn’t even mean it was the hottest temperature ever. It was just the hottest temperature ever recorded. People have been recording temperatures in a consistent way only since the Victorian era. That means that, long before the last 150 years, the earth has almost certainly been setting all sorts of records about which we know nothing.

Second, the leftists are ignoring the most significant thing of all about California’s furnace-like conditions. This is a La Nina year, and it’s going to wreak havoc all over America:

La Nina — a phenomenon that occurs when the surface of the Pacific Ocean cools — has officially formed, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said Thursday. It triggers an atmospheric chain reaction that stands to roil weather around the globe, often turning the western U.S. into a tinder box, fueling more powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic and flooding parts of Australia and South America.

“We’re already in a bad position, and La Nina puts us in a situation where fire-weather conditions persist into November and possibly even December,” said Ryan Truchelut, president of Weather Tiger LLC. “It is exacerbating existing heat and drought issues.”

The effects are already evident. Rising temperatures and an extreme mega-drought across the U.S. West are fueling fires from Washington to Arizona. California is having its worst fire season on record, torching an unprecedented 2.5 million acres. And in the Atlantic, a record number tropical storms have formed by September, including Hurricane Laura, which killed more than a dozen people across the Caribbean and the U.S. last month.

No matter where you are, you’d better batten down the hatches, because anything that can go wild and dangerous with the weather will. These unusual weather phenomena will have nothing to do with the lefts’ favorite explanation of Gaia in crisis due to evil people. Instead, they will reflect normal weather patterns around the globe, including in California. The only unusual thing will have been the California greenies’ failure to take steps that could protect their state from predictable weather events.

Image: Forest fire, by Pixabay; free for commercial use.

The fake news media are so empty of imagination now that they have resorted to rerunning old fake news about President Trump.  Bob Woodward’s latest scoop is that Mr. Trump downplayed the virus scare scenarios this spring to prevent panic.

That struck me not as “news,” but “olds” — the same fake scandal the media furiously played up in early April about Peter Navarro’s worst-case scenario memos.  Trump addressed all this at the time, explaining that he got a lot of contradictory and scary information and wanted to avoid panic.  What else was he to do?

As it turned out, Navarro and others predicting over 1 million American dead were way off.  The latest count of excess deaths, our best measure of real virus-related deaths, is thankfully coming to a conclusion.  Total deaths by end of next month will be in the 200,000 range, and that number is largely the fault of idiot Democrat governors pushing infected patients into nursing homes.

What’s coming next week?  Trump and prostitutes urinating on a Moscow hotel bed?

TV rerun season used to be in late summer.  The new programs came in the fall, but maybe not anymore.  That may even give Joe Biden an idea — don’t show up to the debates, but just send the networks a VHS of him in 2008 with Sarah Palin. 

Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, Ky.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

The fake news media are so empty of imagination now that they have resorted to rerunning old fake news about President Trump.  Bob Woodward’s latest scoop is that Mr. Trump downplayed the virus scare scenarios this spring to prevent panic.

That struck me not as “news,” but “olds” — the same fake scandal the media furiously played up in early April about Peter Navarro’s worst-case scenario memos.  Trump addressed all this at the time, explaining that he got a lot of contradictory and scary information and wanted to avoid panic.  What else was he to do?

As it turned out, Navarro and others predicting over 1 million American dead were way off.  The latest count of excess deaths, our best measure of real virus-related deaths, is thankfully coming to a conclusion.  Total deaths by end of next month will be in the 200,000 range, and that number is largely the fault of idiot Democrat governors pushing infected patients into nursing homes.

What’s coming next week?  Trump and prostitutes urinating on a Moscow hotel bed?

TV rerun season used to be in late summer.  The new programs came in the fall, but maybe not anymore.  That may even give Joe Biden an idea — don’t show up to the debates, but just send the networks a VHS of him in 2008 with Sarah Palin. 

Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, Ky.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.