Tag Archives: Executive Order

It’s Past Time For This!

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On Tuesday, The Epoch Times posted the following headline:

The Time to Audit the Fed Is Here

A site called worldtraining.net explains some of the history of the Federal Reserve:

On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy’s order gave the Treasury the power “to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.” This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury’s vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous.

        With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York out of business. If enough of these silver certificates were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything. Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the government the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money. Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S. the ability to create its own money backed by silver.

        After Mr. Kennedy was assassinated just five months later, no more silver certificates were issued. The Final Call has learned that the Executive Order was never repealed by any U.S. President through an Executive Order and is still valid. Why then has no president utilized it? Virtually all of the nearly $6 trillion in debt has been created since 1963, and if a U.S. president had utilized Executive Order 11110 the debt would be nowhere near the current level. 

The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air and then loans it to the government at interest. It’s a great scheme.

The Epoch Times reports:

This week, Sen. Rand Paul is pushing an amendment to a major spending bill that would finally do what should have been done decades ago. It should have been an annual undertaking for the past 100 years. He wants a thorough and external audit of the Fed, using prevailing accounting standards to figure out where the billions and trillions are coming from and where they’re going.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This needs to be done.

A Non-Solution

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President Biden is again trying to limit gun ownership in America. He has announced a new Executive Order relating to guns (parts of which violate the U.S. Constitution).

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported:

White House officials summarized the order saying the move would push the U.S. closer to universal background checks without additional legislation, hold the gun industry “accountable,” and drive law enforcement efforts to identify and apprehend shooters.

Actually, the only part of that statement is true is the part that says the law will hold the gun industry “accountable,” a questionable concept. The problem is not the gun or the gun manufacturer any more than the problem with drunk driving is the car–the problem is the person holding the gun. Unfortunately, the law’s impact will actually be on legal gun owners–criminals do not follow laws.

The article continues:

“Too many lives have been taken by gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said. “You’ll hear him call on Congress to take action and not to stop … that we need to continue.”

The move comes after Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act last year, where he called on members of Congress to take additional steps to reduce gun violence. Lawmakers passed the legislation in an attempt to prevent mass shootings and incentivize states to pass more “red flag” laws and expand background checks for 18 to 21-year-olds looking to purchase a firearm.

“Again and again, he has called for Congress to act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all gun sales, requiring safe storage of firearms, closing the dating violence restraining order loophole, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” the statement reads.

Red flag laws are unconstitutional–you cannot take someone’s property without giving them a chance to defend themself. What qualifies as an assault weapon? Are certain guns assault weapons because they are scary looking? How many high-capacity magazines have actually been used to commit crimes (experienced gun handlers will tell you that high-capacity magazines are more likely to jam and therefore are not highly recommended)? This Executive Order is an example of a law written by someone who is interested in appearing to do something, but is short on actual knowledge of guns and crime statistics.

 

In Case You Wondered Why The January 6th Hearings Are Continuing

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On Sunday, The Western Journal posted an article that explains a lot of what the Democrat party is currently doing. The article is based on a report posted by Axios on Friday. The report states that if he is re-elected as President, President Trump plans to drain the swamp.

The article reports:

He (President Trump) issued an executive order in October 2020 that created a whole new class of federal employees, workers who were already on the federal payroll but would lose their civil service job protections, according to Axios.

Trump intended to use the new classification, called “Schedule F,” to take a meat cleaver to the deep state and get rid of tens of thousands of biased, and often useless, employees from nearly every part of the federal state.

…However, Axios noted Saturday, “Most Americans have never heard of Schedule F, let alone absorbed its vast implications.”

One reason for that is that President Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s Schedule F executive order three days after Biden was sworn in.

The article concludes:

Finally, this isn’t just some shadowy, behind-the-scenes, secret plan, either. Trump is already out in the open about “firing the swamp,” Breitbart News reported.

For his appearance at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit this weekend, according to Breitbart, Trump’s prepared remarks included the lines:

“To drain the swamp, we need to fire the swamp. With schedule F, I took executive action to make it possible to fire federal employees who are bypassing our democracy to advance wokeism and corruption.

“We now need Congress to institute historic reforms to permanently empower the president to root out the deep state, and ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent, or unnecessary can be told, ‘You’re fired.’”

Those could be magic words to millions of conservatives cheering the plan on as the country heads into the 2022 midterm elections, which will presumably strengthen the Republican Party and help set up the groundwork for Trump’s second run at the presidency.

Making these ideas public will endear President Trump to those Americans who are tired of the bloated government and unequal justice we have seen in recent years. Unfortunately, these ideas will also make him a bigger target for the political left. I can’t imagine the mid-terms being an honest election, and I really can’t imagine the Democrats not doing everything legal or illegal to prevent President Trump from being President again.

The Latest Executive Order

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On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent Executive Order issued by President Biden.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden’s Wednesday executive order on cryptocurrency outlines a range of new policy objectives and measures, including language on the climate-related effects of cryptocurrencies and on the potential for a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).

“We must take strong steps to reduce the risks that digital assets could pose to … climate change and pollution,” the executive order states; “climate change and pollution” come at the end of a long list of prospective dangers.

Section 5 of the EO, “Measures to Protect Consumers, Investors, and Businesses,” includes a subsection, (b) vii, telling the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to lead work on an interagency report examining climate and energy concerns around cryptocurrency.

The OSTP is currently led by Alondra Nelson, a social science professor at the Institute of Advanced Study with a doctorate in American studies, who has been a member of the World Economic Forum’s Network on AI, IoT, and The Future of Trust.

The article also reports:

Peter St Onge, a research fellow in economic policy at the Heritage Foundation who studies cryptocurrency, told The Epoch Times that the EO’s language on climate and energy use was less aggressive than many in the cryptocurrency community had feared.

“It looked almost like a throwaway line, given how many activists have been attacking on those vectors,” he said. “Overall, they’ve demoted that in their rank of concerns.”

He agreed that the Biden administration could be shifting its rhetoric or policy focus from climate in light of surging energy prices.

St Onge said he is both surprised and concerned by the EO’s discussion of a future digital dollar, subject of EO Section 4.

It states: “The Administration places the highest urgency on research and development efforts into the potential design and deployment options of a United States CBDC.”

There are a few things that concern me about this. The World Economic Forum (WEF) is not America’s friend. These are the one-world government people who want to take away America’s sovereignty. The fact that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is currently led by someone with ties to the  WEF is not comforting to me. At the present time, digital currency has enough anonymity to protect the holders of the currency. However, there is also the potential that a digital currency could be used to set up a social credits system similar to the one currently used in China. To sum it up, I really don’t like the direction in which this is going.

This Is Not The Path To Law And Order In America

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On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article detailing the next executive order dealing with police reform that President Biden is expected to sign in the near future.

The article reports:

Seven GOP senators, including Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, signed a letter to Biden on Friday that raised a series of concerns about the restrictions outlined in a leaked draft of the order.

…If implemented as written, the order would prevent police departments from purchasing flash or stun grenades, which are nonlethal tools used by law enforcement to disorient suspects in dangerous situations. The order also bans armored cars, which police use to navigate in active shooting situations, almost all drones, and long-range acoustic devices.

The group of Republicans also took issue with the draft order’s enforcement structure of denying local police departments access to money from the Community Oriented Policing Services grant program and the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance grant program if police departments don’t comply with many of the order’s provisions.

Those would include “supporting alternatives to arrest and incarceration” and implementing diversity recruiting and training programs.

The news of Biden’s expected implementation of the order, which could reportedly be as soon as next week, comes as Biden has faced growing pressure from activists to pursue liberal policies in the absence of legislative action.

The article concludes:

When reform talks fell apart in September, Scott said he opposed the idea of cutting police departments off from grants in some circumstances because doing so would amount to defunding the police.

The Biden administration requested a significant increase in COPS grant funding for fiscal year 2022 — asking for $537 million, up $300 million from the previous fiscal year.

While the White House is likely to tout that request as an effort to increase police funding, Republicans are likely to argue that the Biden administration is still effectively cutting police funding by tying the grants to liberal reforms that not all police departments may be willing or able to adopt.

Federal money always comes with strings. We can see how well liberal law enforcement policies have worked in cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to name a few. Law enforcement works best at the local level where elected officials can be held accountable for their successes and failures. Cities that continue to elect people who will not hold criminals responsible for their crimes will continue to see crime increase.

Irony At Its Best

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Remember the uproar when President Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord? Do you also remember that after that withdrawal America was successful in lowering its greenhouse gas emissions (part of that was due to the pandemic, and part of that was due to an increased reliance on natural gas)? Well, President Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office rejoining the Paris Climate Accord. So how is that working out?

On Monday, Just the News reported:

A new report finds U.S. carbon emissions increased at a faster rate than the overall U.S. economy in 2021 largely due to a jump in coal use.

Analysts anticipated a significant rebound in emissions in 2021, following the anomalous pandemic year that was 2020. However, according to the report from nonpartisan climate consulting firm the Rhodium Group, growth still managed to outpace expectations, which presents a challenge to the Biden administration’s oft-stated goal of cutting fossil fuel emissions, from 2005, in half by 2030.

Despite significant rebounds, U.S. emission rates in 2021 were still 5% below what they were during the pre-pandemic year of 2019. The report indicates that the single largest source of emissions was from the transportation sector, spurred primarily by an increase in demand for consumer goods that keep freight trucks on the roads.

The second leading cause of emissions, the electric power sector, saw a “sharp rise” in coal generation – the first annual increase since 2014.

The Rhodium Group explains that, in part, coal mounted a comeback because of market conditions. Natural gas prices doubled their 2020 rate because of lower production levels brought about by the pandemic. However, according to the report, for the first time, renewable energy sources comprised 20% of U.S. electricity generation in 2021.

Even the European Union is waking up to the fact that green energy is not the total solution to carbon emissions (see article here). Natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel and its increased use will definitely reduce carbon emissions. Nuclear energy with the proper safety precautions is also useful in lowering America’s carbon footprint.

It is ironic that the President who withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord was more successful in curbing America’s carbon emissions than the President who rejoined the Accord.

After All, It’s Only Taxpayers’ Money

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CNBC is reporting today that President Biden will issue an executive order to raise the minimum pay for federal contract workers to $15 an hour by March of next year. The current minimum is $10.95. Future increases will be tied to inflation. (Has it occurred to him that such a rapid increase in wages will fuel inflation?

The article reports:

President Joe Biden on Tuesday will continue his push for a national $15 minimum wage with an executive order that raises pay to at least that level for hundreds of thousands of federal contract workers, according to senior White House officials.

The move will increase the current minimum wage of $10.95 by nearly 37% by March of next year and continue to tie future increases to inflation.

It will apply to federal workers from cleaning and maintenance staff to food service contractors and laborers, sweeping in tipped workers who were previously left out of the last increase under former President Barack Obama.

White House officials insist it won’t increase costs for taxpayers because of benefits including increased worker productivity.

Biden has expressed his belief that strong unions and higher wages can resurrect America’s middle class while helping bridge economic and racial inequities, and the executive order is his latest step in support of the organized labor movement.

So what happens when the minimum wage is raised? First of all, it provides a bargaining chip for unions in their wage negotiations. This creates higher wages across the board which leads to inflation. There is no evidenced that increasing wages increases worker productivity. The people who will actually be financially impacted by this move in a negative way are senior citizens and those in the middle and lower economic classes–the inflation that will follow will be much more difficult to manage for those two groups than for the wealthy.

Getting a significant wage increase is useless if the price of everything you need also increases significantly.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

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Yesterday Breitbart reported that the Biden administration’s pause on the construction of the wall at America’s southern border is costing taxpayers about six million dollars per day. That does not include the cost of dealing with the refugees that are overrunning the border.

The article reports:

According to the source, the expenditures are required for materials orders placed before the pause and expenses for the cost of equipment sitting idle. When the issuance of a stop work order causes a contractor to idle equipment, they are entitled to be compensated for rental expenses or costs of ownership.

Shortly after taking office, President Biden signed an executive order temporarily halting any further progress on the border wall so individual contracts could be evaluated. With the exception of “make-safe” activities at the worksites, construction projects immediately came to a standstill, Breitbart Texas reported. The end of the 60-day pause does not, however, signal an automatic restart of construction.

Early in the pause, a spokesperson for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) informed Breitbart Texas that contractors would be informed of a final decision sometime after the 60-day pause concludes. The time was to be used for evaluating each contract to reach a decision to terminate-for-cause or continue.

The Biden administration has not indicated which direction they will take regarding the end of the pause. Little information concerning the immigration crisis on the border has come from the leadership team within DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Senior officials within DHS reported being instructed not to speak to national media on the issues facing DHS at the border.  Information from other agencies within the new administration is equally elusive. USACE did not respond to a request for information concerning the end of the pause and the border wall contracts currently being evaluated.

The right thing to do would be to finish the wall. Under any circumstances, a secure border is an integral part of national security.  In a time of a national pandemic, a secure border is a public health issue. A country cannot remain a country without a secure border. I realize there are problems with our immigration laws, but let’s secure the border before we worry about the less urgent issues.

Beware Of Executive Orders That Sound Good

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Most Americans want everyone who is entitled to vote to be able to vote and have their vote counted. They also want to make sure that illegal votes are not counted. Somehow the rhetoric surrounding voting rights has overlooked the idea of registering and counting only legal votes. This is not overtly stated, but when you look closely, you find very little interest in maintaining accurate voting laws and making sure voters are who they say they are.

Townhall posted an article today about an Executive Order by President Biden.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden on Sunday signed an executive order aimed at expanding voting rights. It’s the Biden administration’s latest move to expand voting rights as they push the Senate to pass H.R. 1, the House Democrats’ bill to radically transform America’s election system, including prohibiting voter ID laws and mandating taxpayers fund political campaigns.

“It is the policy of my Administration to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections,” the executive order stated. “It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation, in order to enable all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.”

Article 1 Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of Chusing Senators.

Why are the Democrats in Congress trying to take this right away from the states?

Why is voter ID considered restrictive? You need an ID to do almost anything in America–receive medical treatment, open a bank account, board an airplane, buy liquor, take out a loan, etc.. Why not be required to show an ID to prove you are an eligible voter and that you are who you say you are?

Unintended Consequences

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Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about one of the unintended consequences of canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline. The cancellation is evidently having a large negative impact on at least one rural electric company.

The article reports:

MURDO, S.D.—For more than a decade, Jeff Birkeland had been waiting expectantly in the hope that the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline would finally materialize and bring with it a much-needed boost to his rural community. His dreams were dashed overnight.

Birkeland is the CEO of West Central Electric Cooperative, which is located in Murdo, a small city in South Dakota with a population of less than 1,000. TransCanada, now known as TC Energy, the firm that commissioned the KXL pipeline, first approached his company back in 2008.

In 2011, he signed a contract with TC Energy to build a transmission line and two substations that would serve power along the KXL route. West Central Electric was meant to start producing power for pump stations along the XL route as early as November 2011, before the pipeline was put on hold.

In March 2019, then-President Donald Trump granted TC Energy a presidential permit to construct and operate the XL pipeline. Biden revoked that permit via executive order in one of his first moves as president.

“It basically shut a lot of what we were doing down overnight,” Birkeland told The Epoch Times. “We’re out $90 million, that’s what that means to us.”

Electric co-ops are private companies that deliver electricity to their customers, also known as members. Rural electric cooperatives serve 56 percent of the nation and account for about 12 percent of total electricity sales in the United States, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

There are multiple co-ops in the area that range in size in terms of employees and areas they cover. West Central Electric has more than 3,671 members and covers more than 7,000 square miles, and Birkeland said the cancellation of the project hits small rural communities like Murdo especially hard.

The article concludes:

Keeping electricity rates down is key for co-ops, since these companies serve “92 percent of persistent-poverty counties in America,” according to the association. The opportunity that the pipeline would have provided would have been a “key pillar” to reducing the company’s electricity rates, Birkeland said.

“The larger revenue base you have, you get to spread your expenses out,” he said. “That’s just simple economics. It makes your rates lower. When the administration talks about wanting to create new jobs—here it is.”

There are also countless other local businesses in Murdo, as well as in nearby towns and cities, that had spent money to juice up their businesses in response to the construction of the KXL pipeline. Now, their money and their investments have gone down the drain, Birkeland said.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is not fair to American businesses that a new administration can come into power in Washington and simply shut down an ongoing construction project, particularly by Executive Order. I hope that some of the court cases against this Executive Order are successful.

Losing Our Rights As Communities

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On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about one of President Biden’s recent executive orders. The order removes the authority of states and local communities to reject the drop-off of refugees into their towns and communities.

The article explains why some people might want to drop-off refugees without the consent of the local community:

In essence, former President Donald Trump’s policy (Executive Order 13888 of September 2019) gave state and local governments a say in whether they have the capacity to provide refugees a pathway to become self-sufficient and successfully integrate into American society.

Biden’s new executive order (EO) indicated that the federal government would consult with American communities across the country about refugees’ resettlement.

The president’s “Executive Order on Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs to Resettle Refugees and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration” noted:

Through the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), the Federal Government, cooperating with private partners and American citizens in communities across the country, demonstrates the generosity and core values of our Nation, while benefiting from the many contributions that refugees make to our country.

However, with the stroke of a pen Thursday, Biden revoked Trump’s Executive Order 13888 that enhanced state and local involvement in refugees’ resettlement within their jurisdiction.

The article continues:

Breitbart’s Neil Munro pointed out that Trump’s refugee policy from September 2019 gave states, cities, counties, and towns the legal power to stop groups from dumping foreign refugees into their communities, adding:

The policy will allow residents to block the stealthy efforts by refugee resettlement groups to direct new refugees into communities which are selected by local elites. This refugee dumping is usually done at the request of local employers, such as slaughterhouses, that want new workers to replace ones who quit because of low wages, harsh conditions, and health hazards.

During the Trump-era, Munro noted, refugee resettlement groups were forced to lay off workers amid the reduced inflow of refugees and federal funding.

Those groups denounced the former president’s refugee policy.

There is another part of this story that is often overlooked.

In March 2020, Breitbart reported:

Research by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) finds that each refugee resettled in the U.S. cost American taxpayers anywhere on average between $60,000 and $133,000 over the course of a lifetime.

…Refugee resettlement costs American taxpayers nearly $9 billion every five years, according to the latest research. Over the course of five years, an estimated 16 percent of all refugees admitted will need housing assistance paid for by taxpayers.

At a time when Americans are reeling from the economic impact of the coronavirus, we cannot afford to stretch our resources any further. It is time to focus on those people living in America who are here legally and have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus. Unfortunately this latest executive order from President Biden will result in more Americans losing their jobs to lower-paid workers. This executive order is another attack on the working class of America.

Let The Lawsuits Begin

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Sara Carter reported yesterday that the Texas attorney general has filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the Biden administration over its order to freeze most deportations for the next 100 days.

The article reports:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) argues that DHS is breaking immigration law by ordering the deportation freeze in the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. His statement also claims that the new orders violate the U.S. Constitution, federal immigration and administrative law, and a contractual agreement between Texas and the DHS.

“In one of its first of dozens of steps that harm Texas and the nation as a whole, the Biden administration directed DHS to violate federal immigration law and breach an agreement to consult and cooperate with Texas on that law,” Paxton said in a statement. “Our state defends the largest section of the southern border in the nation. Failure to properly enforce the law will directly and immediately endanger our citizens and law enforcement personnel.”

Moreover, Paxton’s lawsuit asserts that the DHS’s authority does not extend to such a policy.

“If left unchallenged, DHS could re-assert this suspension power for a longer period or even indefinitely, effectively granting a blanket amnesty to illegal aliens that Congress has refused to pass time and time again,” the filing says. “The Constitution, controlling statutes, and prior Executive pledges prevent a seismic change to this country’s immigration laws merely by memorandum.”

Deportation is a necessary part of immigration policy. A person who is in America illegally who commits a crime needs to be deported before his actions endanger the lives of Americans. There are no promises that this case will actually get heard, but the Attorney General is right to pursue it. Congress is supposed to make immigration laws–they are not supposed to be made by Executive Order.

A Much Needed Executive Order

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There are a lot of reasons why people strongly dislike President Trump. A lot of the dislike is the result of the lies told about him in the mainstream media. If you believe President Trump is a racist, you might want to look into his history and the awards he has received for not being racist. Among other things, President Trump literally fought city hall to allow African-Americans and Jews to join Mar-a-lago. I suspect you won’t find a report of that on the mainstream media. Aside from the horrific picture the mainstream media has painted of this man, there are a lot of status quo financial interests that his presidency threatens. Corruption and payoffs in Washington have been part of the game for a long time, and obviously President Trump is not playing. A recent Executive Order is one example of why the Washington insiders hate President Trump.

The Epoch Times posted an article today with the headline, “US Invested Billions Into Companies With Ties to Chinese Military.”

The article reports:

President Donald Trump’s latest executive order bars U.S. investors from holding ownership stakes in a list of 31 Chinese companies designated to have ties with various Chinese Communist Party (CCP) military apparatuses.

This order, while somewhat limited in scope, ensnares several well-known Chinese companies including non-public companies such as Huawei and publicly traded companies such as China Mobile and Hangzhou Hikvision. The 31 companies were previously designated by the Pentagon as being “owned or controlled” by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the official name of the Chinese military. (The list of companies can be found here and here.)

The action could be a sign of things to come for Chinese companies with close ties to the CCP; U.S. capital could prove increasingly hard to come by. In addition, examining the foreign ownership base of these companies reveals that a number of them are partially owned by prominent U.S. investment firms, insurance companies, and pension funds.

Four more years of President Trump will not be kind to these investments. A Joe Biden presidency will allow business as usual to continue despite the threat to national security.

The article reports:

An analysis by The Epoch Times of ownership of these 31 Chinese companies reveals that billions of U.S. capital have already flowed into shares of these companies, all of which allegedly have ties to the CCP military or intelligence agencies.

Of the 16 publicly-traded firms either on the list or are subsidiaries and related parties of companies on the list, U.S. entities currently hold shares worth approximately $14.9 billion, based on closing prices as of Nov. 20 and latest available public filings data compiled by Bloomberg.

The vast majority of the $15 billion is invested in two of China’s biggest telecommunications giants. The first is China Mobile Ltd. with $8.1 billion invested via both the New York-listed ADR shares as well as the Hong Kong-listed shares. The company with the second-largest amount of U.S. capital is New York-listed China Telecom Corp with $2.3 billion of investments. Both firms are believed to have links to the PLA, according to the U.S. defense department.

Third on the list is surveillance equipment manufacturer Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd., with $1.7 billion of investments from U.S.-domiciled sources. Hikvision has been criticized in the West for producing equipment used to monitor Uighur Muslims in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Unsurprisingly, investment advisors and fund management firms are the biggest single group investing into these Chinese companies—with $13.5 billion invested—by way of their actively managed mutual funds or passively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). They are followed by government and pension funds with $466 million invested, and hedge funds with $406 million invested. Other investor classes with large stakes include insurance companies (for their own accounts) and banks and brokers (likely on behalf of client accounts).

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It really makes you wonder about the loyalty to America of some of our financial people.

This Is Needed

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Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line Blog reported that President Trump has signed an Executive Order establishing the 1776 to study the teaching of American history in America.

The article reports the purpose of the Executive Order:

…empowers the 1776 Commission to produce and publicly disseminate a report within a year. That report shall discuss “the core principles of the American founding and how these principles may be understood to further enjoyment of ‘the blessings of liberty’ and to promote our striving ‘to form a more perfect union.” In other words, says Kurtz, “the 1776 Commission, likely to be populated by some of America’s finest historians and scholars, will produce a report on the meaning of the Founding, on how American history can be understood as a struggle to realize our founding principles, and on how best to teach all this to the rising generation.”

The article points out one ray of hope in the Executive Order:

But President Trump’s order doesn’t entail imposing his vision of patriotic education on the nation. Instead, he calls on local communities to reassert control over the curriculum.

Isn’t it great to have a president who views America with pride, who is willing, unabashedly, to defend our founding, and who will contest the views of radicals seeking to enlist an all-too-complicit education establishment in tearing America down? If Joe Biden wins the election, we won’t have such a president.

The federal government has no business in education in the states (because of the Tenth Amendment). This may actually be a step toward regaining local control.

Waiting To See The Impact Of This

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For years Americans have subsidized research by pharmaceutical companies by paying higher prices for drugs than other countries. Yesterday The Epoch Times reported that President Trump has signed an Executive Order that requires drug companies to charge Americans the same price for druges that the companies charge other countries.

The article reports:

The latest step would replace a July 24 Trump executive order.

It extends the mandate to prescription drugs available at a pharmacy, which are covered under Medicare Part D. The July version focused on drugs typically administered in doctors’ offices and health clinics, covered by Medicare Part B.

Specifically, it would pay a price for a drug that matches the lowest price paid among wealthy foreign governments. Medicare, the government healthcare program for seniors, is currently prohibited from negotiating prices it pays to drugmakers.

…Trump took executive action in late July on drug prices, which included discounts on insulin and EpiPens for hospitals, which would be passed down to patients, allowing the United States to allow the legal importation of prescription drugs from Canada and other countries where prices are lower, and a Medicare program will be required to purchase drugs at the same price that other countries pay.

The article notes:

The orders received swift pushback from the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said in a statement that the move was “a reckless distraction that impedes our ability to respond to the current pandemic—and those we could face in the future.”

The pushback is not a surprise. The pharmaceutical industry pays very well.

For example according to Fierce Pharma:

Len Schleifer, Regeneron has a salary package of $41.97 million

Jeffrey Leiden, Vertex Pharmaceuticals has a salary package of $36.64 million

Brent Saunders, Allergan (formerly Actavis) has a salary package of $36.61 million

You get the picture. While I believe in the Free Market and don’t want to see the government interfere in anyone’s salary, I also believe that there is something askew here. It seems to me that as the President moves to bring drug prices into the rhelm of reality, the pharmaceutical companies might want to re-evaluate what they are paying their CEO’s. I am sure the President’s Executive Orders will impact the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies. The question will be how they choose to handle the revenue cuts.$

7 illion $41.million

 

 

Transparency Is Always A Good Idea

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Yesterday The Epoch Times reported that Judge Carl Nichols with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that the Trump administration can compel hospitals and insurers to publish negotiated costs for health care services that are normally kept secret from patients. This is wonderful news for patients in hospitals although I suspect that the medical community is not happy with the decision.

The article reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) introduced a rule in November 2019 that defined “standard charges,” laid out the publication requirements for hospitals and insurers, and the department’s enforcement plans.

At the time, hospital and insurer organizations and advocacy groups objected to the agency’s proposals, disputing that the Trump administration has the authority to require the disclosures, which they believe are trade secrets. The hospitals also disputed that the policy would benefit consumers and lead to lower costs, countering that compliance would instead be too burdensome and “get in the way” of providing services for patients.

The finalization of the rule, which goes into effect January 2021, prompted the American Hospital Association (AHA) to sue, arguing that the White House didn’t have the authority to make the directive, had violated the First Amendment in its creation, and had acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner.

The article concludes:

Trump’s executive order on improving transparency on health care prices and quality required the HHS secretary to propose a regulation to publicly post standard charge information “in an easy-to-understand, consumer-friendly, and machine-readable format using consensus-based data standards that will meaningfully inform patients’ decision making and allow patients to compare prices across hospitals.”

It also requires hospitals to regularly update the posted information.

David Mitchell, the founder of advocacy group Patients For Affordable Drugs, said in a statement to The Epoch Times in response to the ruling that he thinks “we have to get rid of our system in which prices are secret and hidden from those who must pay them.”

This is good news for the people who pay for hospital care.

Great News For America

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Energy independence is wonderful, but in today’s technology age, there are other important areas where America needs to be self-sustaining. One of the them is the rare earth minerals used in the manufacture of our technology. On Wednesday (updated yesterday) The Epoch Times posted an article about one step that has been taken in this direction.

The article reports:

Owners of the Wheat Ridge facility for processing rare earth elements and critical minerals have received an operating permit that will enable minerals critical to advanced technology manufacturing to be mined and processed in the United States.

USA Rare Earth, LLC, and Texas Mineral Resources Corp. announced on June 18 that their Wheat Ridge, Colorado, facility has received its operating permit, with its pilot plant now in the commissioning process.

Texas Mineral said in a press release that the plant “will have the ability to produce the full range of high purity, separated rare earths as well as other critical minerals … which are essential for modern manufacturing ranging from defense applications to wind turbines, electric vehicles, smart phones, advanced medical devices, and the physical backbone of emerging 5G networks.”

The company says its objective is “to build the first rare earth and critical minerals processing facility outside China.”

The CEO of USA Rare Earth, Pini Althaus, said in a press release that the establishment of an independent, robust, and domestic rare earth metal and critical mineral supply chain is vital for the United States, “overcoming reliance on China.”

Congress and President Trump have both recognized the need to produce these minerals in America.

The article notes:

Reps. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation (pdf) on May 28 to protect American mineral supply chains.

Gosar described critical minerals as the building blocks of our modern lives, as they are vitally important for special components in defense systems, health care applications, and energy generation technology.

“For years, our country has become increasingly dependent on China and other nations to fulfill our demand for minerals,” said Gosar. “The global pandemic has demonstrated the severe consequences of allowing this longstanding over-reliance on China to go unchecked.”

Waltz said that critical minerals are integral to our way of life.

“As coronavirus has unfortunately demonstrated, if China can threaten to cut off our pharmaceutical supply, they can do the same with their supply of rare earth minerals,” said Waltz. “We need to bring this supply chain back to America—and this bill will be an important step to do that.”

…President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13817 in December 2017, titled “A Federal Strategy to Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals.” The order directed federal agencies to list critical minerals, develop strategies to reduce reliance on the minerals themselves and on foreign suppliers, and increase domestic production.

The positive impact of the coronavirus is that it reminded us that as a nation we need to be as self-sufficient as possible. It is encouraging to see steps being taken in this direction.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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Breitbart is reporting today that Governor Cuomo of New York has ordered election officials to automatically mail New Yorkers a postage-paid absentee ballot application during the coronavirus pandemic. These ballots are for the June primary, but if the idea is carried over to the presidential election, I can now guarantee that Governor Cuomo will be re-elected, Joe Biden will win New York State in the presidential election, and all Democrat members of the state legislature will be reelected by overwhelming majorities.

The article reports:

“I am issuing an Executive Order to ensure every New York voter automatically receives a postage-paid application for an absentee ballot because no New Yorker should have to choose between their health and their right to vote,” the governor continued.

Recently, Cuomo also issued an executive order allowing residents to vote absentee in the June 23 primary election, the announcement noted.

However, the New York GOP called the move an “illegal and unconstitutional political power grab that will severely undermine the integrity of our elections,” according to Breitbart News.

“The ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ mentality has permeated the Governor’s office and Cuomo is using this pandemic as a reason to expand his powers and force his political agenda through,” said chairman Nick Langworthy.

The article concludes:

Nearly 30 million mail-in ballots sent to registered voters went missing in the last four election cycles dating back to 2012, Breitbart News reported.

“In 2012, for instance, more than 33 million mail-in ballots were sent to registered voters. Of those, nearly four million went missing, more than 425,000 were undeliverable, and almost 260,000 were rejected,” the article read.

In a statement, Public Legal Interest Foundation (PILF) President J. Christian Adams called vote-by-mail a “disaster.”

“People who think it works haven’t studied the failures. The facts show mail voting doesn’t work,” he concluded.

This is not the path to an honest election. This is a dry run. If the Governor is successful in doing this, he will push for a mail-in presidential election. If he is successful, New York State will never again have an honest election.

The First Amendment

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The First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Yesterday The Blaze posted an article about a drive-in church service in Mississippi that resulted in those present receiving tickets for $500 for attending. Just for the record, the cars had their windows closed and were following social distancing guidelines.

The article reports:

Temple Baptist members were staying in their vehicles with the windows rolled up to listen to Pastor Arthur Scott’s sermon on the radio, the paper said.

Lee Gordon — a 23-year member of the church as well as a representative for the Washington County Board of Supervisors — told the Democrat-Times the church has been using a low-power FM frequency to broadcast sermons in the parking lot for the last three weeks.

“The preacher is in the church at the pulpit, and we are streaming the service live as well,” Gordon added to the paper. “But a lot of our membership is elderly and [lacks access to streaming technology].”

Gordon told the Democrat-Times he and his wife were among those gathered in the church parking lot — and figured they all were abiding by the coronavirus social distancing guidelines given they were in their cars with the windows rolled up.

But that wasn’t the case — and they paid for it.

Gordon told the paper he and his wife were both issued $500 tickets.

“I think somebody called the police,” he added to the Democrat-Times. “And we were just doing the same thing we’ve been doing the last three weeks.”

Gordon noted to the paper that the police “were respectful and just doing their job. They asked us to leave first, and those who stayed got a ticket.”

This is not acceptable behavior. I might be a little more forgiving if the people had been packed inside the church, but they were in their cars following social distancing guidelines. There is no way the city had the right to shut that down. Unfortunately, that may happen in my city tomorrow as some churches are planning to do drive-in services.

Again, if the people are in their cars with the windows rolled up, how is that a problem? This is an obvious violation of the First Amendment and it is good news that court cases will follow.

The article concludes:

And as it happens, First Liberty Institute — which is representing Hamilton and his church — sent a letter to Simmons (Democratic Mayor of Greenville Errick Simmons) urging him to withdraw his executive order, WJTV-TV reported.

“Protecting religious liberty is essential, even during a pandemic,” Jeremy Dys, special counsel for litigation and communications at First Liberty, told the station. “Americans can tolerate a lot, if it means demonstrating love for their fellow man, but they will not — nor should not — tolerate churchgoers being ticketed by the police for following CDC guidelines at church. This has to stop now.”

This is not acceptable. I wonder how long it will be before we get our First Amendment rights back.

About That Oft Repeated Concern For The Constitution…

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Yesterday PJMedia posted an article about constitutional violations under President Obama. Somehow I don’t remember the Democrats being very upset about those violations.

The article lists the violations:

5. Illegally firing an inspector general

In 2009, Barack Obama illegally fired Gerald Walpin, the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service,  without notice or providing the legally mandated explanation for the firing to Congress. Obama did this to protect Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, an ally of his, whom Walpin had been investigating for misusing federal funds Walpin had discovered a cover-up of sexual assault allegations by minors against Johnson.

4. Giving “green energy” loans to donor companies

If you want to talk about an abuse of power, Barack Obama and Joe Biden were both personally involved in the decision-making process to determine who got $80 billion for clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits for green energy companies, in a highly politicized process that favored companies that supported the Obama-Biden campaign over those that didn’t. It was no coincidence that the companies that got all the cash were donors to their campaign. In fact, DOE officials expressed concerned that Obama and Biden’s involvement was putting taxpayer dollars at risk. Not only did they give all this money to green energy companies that donated to their campaign, but the Obama administration also stole proprietary technology from companies that didn’t get the loans to the Obama cronies who got them. This scandal was much bigger than Solyndra, but the calls for Obama’s impeachment weren’t there.

3. Unconstitutional recess appointments

When Obama made a number of controversial picks for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), he was unable to get them through the Senate. So, in January 2012, he declared his nominees appointed to the Senate via recess appointments. Except the Senate wasn’t even in recess at the time. Obama’s actions were such a blatant abuse of power that experts on both sides of the aisle blasted Obama for what he did and a federal appeals court overturned the appointments a few days after his second inauguration, declaring, “Allowing the president to define the scope of his own appointments power would eviscerate the Constitution’s separation of powers.” The United States Supreme Court ultimately took up the case, and unanimously agreed Obama abused his power.

2. Illegally reinterpreting Title IX

When Title IX was written, the goal was to protect people from discrimination based on sex in education. The notion of “gender identity” or “gender expression” wasn’t even a thing back in 1972 when it was passed. Nevertheless, Obama unilaterally decided that “sex” meant “gender identity” and threatened to enforce this bizarre idea. This was a huge violation of the rights and privacy of women and girls nationwide without so much as a national debate in Congress, where this issue needed to be worked out. Instead of going to Congress, Obama simply threatened educational institutions at all levels with the loss of Title IX funding if they didn’t comply and allow boys to share bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorm rooms with girls, as well as allow boys to play on girls sports teams. Obama’s going around Congress on this issue was a huge violation of power.

1. Changing immigration law via executive order

The truth is, Obama spent most of his presidency with a divided Congress or a GOP-controlled Congress. His radical left-wing agenda was mostly DOA because rather than work toward compromise legislation, his default position was to act on his own, assuming the executive authority to change laws via executive fiat. Anyone who’s familiar with the Constitution knows he had no such authority.

Still, when the DREAM Act failed to pass, Obama issued an executive order creating DACA, an executive-branch version of the DREAM Act. Obama literally bypassed Congress, changing U.S. immigration law via executive pen to appease his pro-open-borders base.

There seems to be something of a double standard here. The Democrats are not able to name one instance where President Trump abused his power or violated the Constitution, yet there was not a peep out of them when President Obama openly violated the Constitution.

Today At The Supreme Court

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Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments about DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). It is interesting that the case has taken so long to get to the Supreme Court.

In September 2017, the Heritage Foundation reminded us of the following statement by former President Obama:

Responding in October 2010 to demands that he implement immigration reforms unilaterally, Obama declared, “I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself.” In March 2011, he said that with “respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case.” In May 2011, he acknowledged that he couldn’t “just bypass Congress and change the (immigration) law myself. … That’s not how a democracy works.”

I guess he changed his mind. Also, just for the record, former President Obama was supposed to be a Constitutional Law Professor. We are not a democracy–we are a representative republic. Did he know that?

At any rate, DACA is now at the Supreme Court. Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the coming hearings.

The article notes:

The long-running battle over the Trump administration’s bid to end the Obama-era program for young undocumented immigrants known as “Dreamers” will land before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
***
“The administration has basically chalked up the fact that they are going to lose a lot of these cases in the lower courts,” said Thomas Dupree, a former top Bush Justice Department official and now an appellate attorney.

“But they’re playing the long game. I think that there are those in the White House and the Justice Department who have made a calculation saying, ‘Look we can absorb all these losses in the lower courts because we are going to win the endgame when this case gets into the Supreme Court.’”

It remains to be seen how the court will rule, however, on this complicated issue — which concerns the limits of one president trying to rescind the policies of his predecessor.

The article concludes:

I haven’t studied the briefs so as to be up to speed on the technical arguments that will be presented to the Court tomorrow. But at the end of the day, it is hard to see how the courts can hold that the president is legally barred from carrying out his constitutional duty to see that the laws–including the immigration laws–are faithfully executed.

Stay tuned.

Common Sense Comes To Montgomery County Maryland

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On Monday The Daily Caller posted an article about some recent changes to Montgomery County, Maryland, laws dealing with people who are in America illegally.

The article reports:

Following months of national media coverage over the handling of illegal aliens in his custody, Montgomery County, Maryland, Executive Marc Elrich has somewhat reversed a sanctuary policy he signed into law.

Elrich will allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents the ability to access certain areas of the Montgomery County jail in order to apprehend illegal aliens, according to ABC7 News. A county spokesman confirmed to the local news outlet on Nov. 1 that correctional officers have been ordered to give ICE agents clearance to “identified areas” of the jail to “ensure that transfers are conducted in a safe environment.”

News of the cooperation between Montgomery County and federal immigration authorities comes three months after Elrich signed an executive order that prohibited county officials from working with ICE.

After Marc Elrich signed the executive order, there were a number of illegal aliens arrested in Montgomery County who were charged with rape and other sexual assault crimes. The national news picked up the story, and the executive order became controversial.

The article concludes:

It’s not clear if Elrich’s rollback of his sanctuary rules are sufficient enough for federal immigration authorities. ICE did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

There are caveats to the renewed cooperation, however. Before arriving at the county jail, ICE must submit an immigration detainer and arrive before the wanted illegal alien is released. If, for some reason, ICE agents are not able to arrive on time, the individual is released into the public — even if the individual has been charged with murder, rape or other heinous crime.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

If President Trump Did Nothing Else, This Makes Him A Great President

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For years national security experts have been warning of the dangers of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. A nuclear warhead exploded at a precise altitude in the middle of America could totally disable our electric grid. Car engines with electronic fuel injection would no longer run (older cars could simply replace their spark plugs and a few other parts and carry on). One well-placed EMP attack could instantly bring Americans back to the early 19th Century. The phenomena of EMP was discovered in the 1940’s and 1950’s during the nuclear testing the United States did on Bikini Atoll. When an atomic bomb was set off on the Atoll, it scrambled all of the traffic lights in Hawaii. That was an early example of the impact of an EMP.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about a recent Presidential Executive Order.

The article reports:

In the first step of its kind, President Trump has signed an executive order calling for a government wide war on EMP, the types of electromagnetic pulses that can wipe out every computer, electric grid, and jet.

In joining the voices of those warning of EMP attacks, Trump called on his government to quickly generate a plan to detect EMP, protect critical infrastructure like water and electric sources, and also to recover if a hit lands.

This is part of the Executive Order:

(b) The Secretary of Defense shall:

(i) in cooperation with the heads of relevant agencies and with United States allies, international partners, and private-sector entities as appropriate, improve and develop the ability to rapidly characterize, attribute, and provide warning of EMPs, including effects on space systems of interest to the United States;
***

(iii) conduct R&D and testing to understand the effects of EMPs on Department of Defense systems and infrastructure, improve capabilities to model and simulate the environments and effects of EMPs, and develop technologies to protect Department of Defense systems and infrastructure from the effects of EMPs to ensure the successful execution of Department of Defense missions;
***
(vi) incorporate attacks that include EMPs as a factor in defense planning scenarios; and

(vii) defend the Nation from adversarial EMPs originating outside of the United States through defense and deterrence, consistent with the mission and national security policy of the Department of Defense.

In 2014 Natural News reported:

Meanwhile Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., has been working to raise concern about the issue (EMP attack) for years. He said during the first panel testimony that “catastrophic civilian casualties” could occur unless Congress acts.

…Franks has introduced H.R. 3410, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which would enable the Department of Homeland Security to adopt measures necessary to protect the power grid.

Dr. Michael J. Frankel, a senior scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said Franks’ bill is a “necessary first step” for the defense of the electric grid, WFB reported. Currently, the measure has 19 co-sponsors.

Dr. Peter Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, said during testimony that the issue is urgent because an EMP event could wide out nine-tenths of the nation’s population.

“Natural EMP from a geomagnetic super-storm, like the1859 Carrington Event or 1921 Railroad Storm, and nuclear EMP attack from terrorists or rogue states, as practiced by North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2013, are both existential threats that could kill 9 of 10 Americans through starvation, disease, and societal collapse,” he said.

That was almost five years ago. It seems as if an Executive Order may be the only way to protect Americans–Congress does not seem capable of the job.

Good News–Temporary Good News, But Good News

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Breitbart is reporting today that a White House study released on Friday found that President Donald Trump’s Obamacare reforms will save Americans roughly $450 billion over the next ten years.

That is wonderful news, but it is only temporary wonderful news.

The article reports:

A White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) study released on Friday found that Americans will save $450 billion through Trump’s Obamacare reforms. The CEA suggested that Trump’s repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate and the expansion of short-term insurance plans and Association Health Plans (AHPs) will save Americans billions over the next ten years.

The White House also suggested that the benefits of Trump’s deregulatory actions saved Americans billions, increased access to more health insurance options, and did not amount to a “sabotage” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Unfortunately these savings are a result of Executive Orders, not legislative action. That means that the changes can theoretically be reversed by a future President. It would have been wonderful if Congress had stepped up to the plate and made the necessary changes.

The article concludes:

Many Americans have contended that because 80 percent of those who paid the Obamacare mandate made less than $50,000 a year, the individual mandate repeal serves as a significant middle-class tax break.

The CEA said about 87 percent of Obamacare exchange enrollees receive ACA subsidies and “only pay a fraction of their health insurance costs.”

Many Obamacare proponents suggested that the repeal of the individual mandate, as well as the expansion of short-term plans and AHPs, would lead to higher premiums on the Obamacare exchanges.

In contrast, the CEA contended that because more people will use AHPs and short-term plans and fewer people will use the ACA exchanges, the government will save $185 billion over the next ten years.

The CEA said that instead of sabotaging the ACA, the Trump administration offered millions of Americans more affordable health insurance options.

“The oft-expressed view that deregulation ‘sabotages the ACA’ by giving consumers more insurance-coverage options is misguided,” the CEA said.

The free market is always the best answer.

Taking A Stand For America

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about a successful policy President Trump has instituted to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants.

The article reports:

Sierra Leone for years had thumbed its nose at U.S. officials, slow-walking deportations so badly that it earned its way onto Homeland Security’s “recalcitrant country” naughty list. Over the last two years of the Obama administration, Sierra Leone took back just 21 deportees.

President Trump took office vowing action, and one of his first executive orders instructed his administration to stop issuing visas to the worst-offending countries. The Sierra Leone government was targeted with sanctions in August 2017, and the change came quickly, with 44 deportees sent back that year, and 79 shipped back in fiscal 2018.

While much of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda remains tied up in the federal courts or stalemated in Congress, he has made extraordinary progress on recalcitrant countries like Sierra Leone, cutting the number of deadbeat countries from a peak of 23 in 2015 down to just nine as of last month.

The number of countries on the at-risk list, or close to recalcitrant, also has been slashed, from 62 to just 24 as of May.

Long-time deadbeats such as Cuba, China and Vietnam are taking back hundreds more people, even though they remain on the naughty list.

Guinea earned its way off the list by increasing its acceptance of deportees by more than 1,200 percent from 2016 to 2018, while Eritrea went from 13 deportees in Mr. Obama’s final year to 62 last year. Myanmar rose from three to 40.

This is what protecting America looks like.

The article states:

Under Mr. Trump, six countries have already been slapped with deportee-related sanctions.

In each of those cases, the U.S. government said it would no longer issue business or tourist visas to government officials and their families — and warned that even broader sanctions could follow.

That got the attention of diplomats in the target countries, and elsewhere.

“Now these countries understand that the party is over and they — government officials in particular — will face consequences for blocking deportations,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. “The sanctions work.”

Even still, a massive backlog has built up of people waiting to be deported. China is the worst offender with more than 40,000 in the deportation queue, followed by Cuba with nearly 38,000.

More troubling is that almost all of them have been set free into U.S. communities, thanks to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling limiting detention to just six months in cases when the government doesn’t appear likely to be able to get the other countries to take them back.

That means convicted criminals are often released, including more than 30,000 of the Cubans, nearly 8,000 Vietnamese, nearly 4,000 Laotians and more than 2,000 Chinese.

Ms. Waldman called that a “remarkable public safety risk” that requires action by Congress.

Illegal aliens do not add to our country’s economy. We do need to change the immigration laws to make legal immigration to America more accessible to those people who want to come her and contribute to the American economy. We don’t need to have an open door for people who want to come here and take advantage of our generosity.