Tag Archives: Republicans

Why The Red Wave Was A Trickle

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On Friday, The American Thinker posted an article explaining the forces that blocked the overwhelming Republican victory that should have happened in the mid-term elections.

The first headwind that the red wave encountered was the Republican Elites who do not want to give up their power (despite the fact that they have not used their power to help average Americans in any way).

The article notes:

What response did the Republicans make to the Dems’ constant drumbeat about Republican fascism leading up to the election? As far as I can tell, it was mostly crickets. They were overconfident and complacent. They spent three weeks beating their chests about the “red wave” and talking big about what they’d do when they took control of Congress. While they were doing that, the Democrats and their media allies were scaring the bejesus out of their base and, as a result, they turned out in droves.

When I read that Mitch McConnell called Joe O’Dea, a Colorado Senate candidate, “the perfect candidate,” I shuddered because conservatives dislike McConnell almost as much as they dislike Nancy Pelosi. That statement probably cost O’Dea support among rural conservatives.

There was also the matter of denying money to candidates that McConnell knew would not support him as Senate majority or minority leader.

The second headwind was the garbage the media was constantly feeding Americans.

The article reports:

…Americans don’t see the threat to our freedoms that vaccine and mask mandates and lockdowns were and are. They also don’t understand that someone must pay the bill for government handouts, either directly as confiscatory taxes or indirectly as rampant inflation or hyperinflation.

As a result, they tend to vote for the person who promises them something for nothing. Many are mush-heads who will be gobsmacked with the business failures, job losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies, shortages, and other chaos that will inevitably result from the Biden administration’s policies.

The third headwind was early voting. It skews the results by letting those who engage in stuffing ballot boxes how many ballots they need to create.

The article notes:

Early voting is the sleeper contributor to last night’s losses. It gives both parties an advance detailed picture of how many people voted, who voted, who is likely to vote but hasn’t yet, and what party voters support or belong to. With all the massive databases out there and modern computers, they have a pretty good idea of how many votes they need to produce to win an election and where to go to get them, days before election day.

The Democrats have turned early voting and stuffing drop boxes into a science.

Please follow the link to the article to read the details. The Republicans who still believe in the Republican platform need to get their heads out of the sand and change their Washington leadership.

This Sounds Good, But It Is A Mistake

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If a camel’s nose gets under the tent, the rest of the camel will soon follow. That is actually a good warning. It’s a shame our Republican legislators in Washington have either not heard it or choose to ignore it. They are also choosing to ignore the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which states that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’

On Sunday, NewsMax reported the following:

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including enough Republicans to overcome the chamber’s “filibuster” rule, on Sunday announced an agreement on a framework for potential gun safety legislation.

The bill included support for state “red flag” laws, tougher background checks for firearms buyers under 21 and a crackdown on a practice called “straw purchases” but not other limits Democrats and President Joe Biden had advocated such as raising the age for buying semiautomatic rifles to 21 or new limits on assault-style rifles.

Ten Republicans signaled their support for the preliminary deal, indicating the measure potentially could advance to a vote on passage and overcome roadblocks by other Republicans who oppose most gun control measures.

The talks that led to the framework followed a series of high-profile mass shootings in the United States, including one at a school in Uvalde, Texas, last month that killed 19 young children and one also in May in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that killed 10 Black victims.

What the Senators do not seem to realize is that people who are intent on breaking the law (murder is, after all, against the law), do not follow gun laws. All that will happen as a result of this bill (assuming it will be passed) is that it will be more difficult for law-abiding citizens to get guns. That is the scenario the Second Amendment was passed to prevent. Red flag laws are unconstitutional because they do not allow for due process. They are also very easily abused. This is a bad bill.

The article continues:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, issued a statement calling the plan “a good first step” and one that would “limit the ability of potential mass shooters to quickly obtain assault rifles by establishing an enhanced background check process for gun purchasers under age 21.”

Schumer said that he wanted to move a bill quickly to a Senate vote once legislative details are worked out.

The United States has the highest rate of firearms deaths among the world’s wealthy nations. But it is a country where many cherish gun rights and its Constitution’s Second Amendment protects the right to “keep and bear arms.”

According to a Politifact post of March 20, 2018:

The main study of intentional homicides is performed by the United Nations’ Office of Drug Control. The UN warns against cross-national comparisons because of the differences in legal definitions of intentional homicides and recording practices.

Our count of the UN’s data placed the United States ninth in intentional homicides. We used the most up-to-date count for each country and territory, which included data anywhere from 2007 to 2015.

As the country with the third-highest population size, however, experts told us the number of people killed is not a very useful metric.

Controlling for population size, most criminologists use the per 100,000 metric. By that standard, we found the United States ranked 94th.

When we counted only the countries for which the UN had 2015 data, the United States ranked 73rd. That’s still far from the top ten.

Lied to again.

 

Our Southern Border

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On June 2nd, Breitbart reported the following:

U.S. border officials are quietly bussing a vast flood of wage-cutting, rent-spiking migrants into Americans’ towns and cities, despite the court-ordered preservation of the Title 42 barrier.

“It’s like 8,000 to 9,000 a day now,” and there are more on the way, migration monitor Todd Bensman told Breitbart News.

U.S. border chief Alejandro Mayorkas and his pro-migration deputies are using the Title 42 barrier to send some Central American single men and families back to Mexico. But Mayorkas is cutting loopholes in the barrier to place everyone else on government-funded buses to cities and towns around the United States, said Bensman, who works for the Center for Immigration Studies.

They’re [letting in] people from the Middle East, Asia, Africa — the extra-continentals — and also from Cuba and South America. They’re letting in Peruvians — about 500 a week now. They’re letting in Ecuadorians and tons and tons of Venezuelans.

The article describes the shelter system that has been set up in America for these illegal immigrants:

The U.S. shelter network is a northern mirror of the cartels’ southern network of camps, bus stations, and housing created to transport migrants up through Mexico to the U.S. border.

The northern-side network has been created by a variety of U.S. nonprofits that are funded by donations from pro-migration business elites, progressive charities, and government contracts. They form a nationwide catch-and-release network that helps the U.S. government and cartels smuggle the indebted migrants into Americans’ jobs without exposure from national TV broadcasters.

The number of illegal immigrants coming across the border has a detrimental impact on the wages of Americans:

The elite-delivered flood of migrant workers aids employers, investors, and wealthy professionals. But it imposes much damage on many millions of working-class Americans, who are forced to accept lower wages, higher rents, crowded schools, and lower political status in their own homeland.

That wage loss has been lauded by business interests, such as Goldman Sachs, and is acknowledged by many business groups and even by Biden’s White House advisors. The flood of cheap labor is expected to reinflate the post-1990 Cheap Labor Bubble that has suppressed wages for tens of millions of ordinary Americans. The Wall Street-boosting bubble was deflated by President Donald Trump’s low-migration/high-wage policies in 2020 and 2021.

Migration advocates also celebrate the displacement of Americans in their own country. “The phenomenon of [population] replacement, writ large, is America, and has been from the beginning, sometimes by force, mostly by choice,” said a May 17 op-ed in the New York Times. “What the far right calls “replacement” is better described as renewal.”

Progressives claim that the migrants will offset the economic damage to ordinary Americans by buying food and services from Americans — despite the evidence of minimal wage growth since 1990. ‘The average effect, at all skill levels, is nothing in the short term,” said Michael Clemens, a migration expert at the Center for Global Development.

Please follow the link to read the entire article.

This is not a problem created by one political party–the Republicans are as guilty as the Democrats. The Chamber-of-Commerce Republicans love the cheap labor that the illegal immigrants provide. Open borders is a policy supported by people in both political parties who are part of the Washington swamp. The Republicans (and the Democrats) have had multiple opportunities to solve the crisis at the southern border AND the illegal immigration crisis. Both parties have chosen not to solve the problem.

Questions About The Laptop

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One of the problems with the age of electronics is that there is a digital record of everything you say or do. If that digital record has questionable information on it and falls into the wrong hands, your life could become complicated.

On Wednesday, The New York Post posted an article detailing the avenues that the Republicans in Congress want to investigate regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The article reports:

The minority members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform are laying the groundwork for a probe that would get underway if the GOP gains subpoena power by wresting control from Democrats in the November elections, as many political experts expect.

Topping the list are the first son’s controversial overseas business dealings — some of which involved the state-controlled Bank of China and other companies tied to the Chinese government — and their potential impact on national security, a spokesperson said.

These are the items:

These are legitimate questions that need to be answered.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, in a Wednesday letter, the House committee’s ranking member, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), and 14 colleagues asked former Rosemont Seneca Partners president Eric Schwerin to hand over records of all his all communications involving President Biden and Hunter Biden since 2009 — when Joe Biden became vice president — and a list of Schwerin’s positions in Biden family companies.

The move came after The Post exclusively revealed this past weekend that Schwerin visited the White House at least 19 times between 2009 and 2015 — and even sat down with then-Vice President Biden in the West Wing.

 

Subsequent reporting uncovered at least eight more Schwerin visits, including two meetings with Steve Ricchetti, who at the time was Joe Biden’s chief of staff and is now his White House counselor.

The House Republicans’ letter signals that if Schwerin doesn’t comply voluntarily, he could get slapped with a subpoena next year.

“We expect Eric Schwerin to provide us with answers to our questions,” a GOP committee aide told The Post.

“If Americans entrust Republicans with the majority in 2023, we will use tools at our disposal to ensure we get to the truth about whether Joe Biden has financially benefited and helped facilitate Hunter Biden’s business dealings.”

The letter cites a June 10, 2010, email that Schwerin sent Hunter Biden regarding Joe Biden’s Delaware state tax refund check, which Schwerin said he was “depositing…in his account and writing a check in that amount back to you since he owes it to you.”

“This email shows an intertwined financial relationship between President Biden and his son, the latter of whom has profited from America’s losses to foreign adversaries,” Comer and the other Republicans wrote.

” If President Biden and Hunter are sharing funds or if President Biden is in debt to his son — the American people deserve to know it especially in light of the millions of dollars Hunter’s businesses have received from countries adversarial to U.S. interests.”

Neither Schwerin nor the White House responded to requests for comment.

If the Republicans become the majority after the November election, there will be a serious investigation into the finances of the Biden family. You can expect the Democrats to do anything and everything to prevent that from happening.

Please remember Journalist Matt Stiller’s report on Hillary Clinton’s reaction on election night 2016:

Journalist Matt Stiller shared in a recent report that during the 2016 presidential election Hillary Clinton was unhinged, and that various NBC insiders can substantiate his account.

According to Still, during last year’s presidential campaign at the Commander-In-Chief Forum on September 7, 2016, moderator Matt Lauer went “off script” and asked Hillary about her using an illegal, private email-server when she was secretary of state.

According to Bill Still’s source — an unnamed “NBC associate producer of the forum” — Hillary was so enraged that, after the forum, she went into a ballistic melt-down, screaming at her staff, including a racist rant at Donna Brazile, calling Brazile a “buffalo” and “janitor”. Brazile recently turned against Hillary — now we know why.

…She screamed she’d get that f**king Lauer fired for this. Referring to Donald Trump, Clinton said, ‘If that f**king b***ard wins, we all hang from nooses! Lauer’s finished, and if I lose, it’s all on your heads for screwing this up.’

You don’t normally hang from a noose when you lose an election. What was she referring to?

It’s Time To Bring Back The Tea Party

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The Conservative Treehouse is reporting today that the House Republicans have voted to reinstate earmarks. An earmark is defined as a provision inserted into a discretionary spending appropriations bill that directs funds to a specific recipient while circumventing the merit-based or competitive funds allocation process. In plain English, it is a bribe inserted in a bill to get the vote of a specific member of Congress. Earmarks are one of the things that are responsible for the bloated federal spending that characterizes Washington. Instead of crafting bills that everyone in Congress can support, Congress resorts to earmarks to buy the votes of their members. Eliminating earmarks was one of the goals of the Tea Party.

The article reports:

When earmarks exist, the crap legislation passes because individual votes can be purchased through the earmark process.  Remember: “The Cornhusker Kickback”; “The Louisiana Purchase”; or “Gator-Aide”; those were legislative earmarks to get Obamacare passed in the Senate.

Obamacare was the sh!t sandwich the American people were forced to eat, the earmarks just gave senators some justification for their votes.

Bottom line.. it is the earmark process that makes crap legislation pass.  Confront any politician and they will admit this.

The most brutally honest answer to the question of earmarks is this: If the legislation sucks and will not pass on its own (hence the need for earmarks), then why would adding some expensive ice-cream make the sh!t sandwich better?

Remember, the originating legislation doesn’t come from inside congress.  The K-Street lobbyists are the ones writing the legislation; the earmark process only arms congressional leadership with an enhanced tool to sell the K-Street construct. {Go Deep}

Every Republican Congressman who voted to bring back earmarks needs to be voted out of office as soon as possible.

The End To Honest Elections

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The Democrats in the House of Representatives have passed HR1. There were no Republican votes for the bill. That is the bill that will fundamentally change American elections to the point where honest elections will become a thing of the past.

The Federalist posted an article yesterday listing fifteen of the major problems with the bill.

This is the list. Please read the entire article for details:

1. Openly Breaks the Constitution

2. Set Up Star Chambers to Intimidate Judges

3. Mandate Mail-in Ballots, 10-Day Delay in Results

4. Eliminate Voter ID Election Security

5. Register Millions Of Criminally Present Foreign Citizens to Vote

6. Explode Opportunities for Election Cheating

7. Prevent Cleaning Up Voter Rolls

8. Unleash Mobs on Political Donors

9. Gerrymander Districts to Favor Democrats

10. Make Vote Hacking Easier

11. Let Former Felons Vote Before They’ve Completed Their Sentences

12. Help 16- and 17-Year-Olds Vote Illegally

13. Bans Keeping the Records Necessary for an Election Audit or Recount

14. Mandates Ballot Drop Boxes

15. Giving U.S. Territories Extra Democrat Seats in Congress and the Electoral College

I honestly don’t know if the Republicans can stop this disaster from passing in the Senate. If it becomes law (and survives the court challenges that will follow because it is unconstitutional–states control their own elections), we will have lost our republic.

About That Unity Thing

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Yesterday Bloomberg posted a very interesting article about bipartisanship. Despite President Biden’s claim that he seeks unity, there seems to be very little unity in Washington these days. I should mention that bipartisanship is not a requirement. The Democrats control the White House and the House of Representatives and essentially the Senate. There is no requirement that they work with Republicans. However, the article points out that the Republicans are not solely responsible for the lack of bipartisanship.

The article notes:

During the Obama years, Democrats cited incidents like this one to cast Republicans in a bad light. Obama and several other Democrats also complained bitterly that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had announced at the start of his first term that his top priority was preventing a second one. Democrats said they tried again and again to meet Republicans halfway on health care, too, and were rebuffed.

With President Joe Biden in the White House, Democrats are saying that the Republicans’ behavior then justifies ignoring them now: There’s no point wasting time trying to negotiate with them.

The incidents didn’t actually happen, though, or at least didn’t happen the way Obama related them. Before he met with House Republicans in January 2009, House Democrats had already introduced a stimulus bill without any of their input, and Republicans had already made public statements of opposition. In his meeting with the Republicans, Obama reportedly said he was open to changing the bill; the Republicans then voted against the unchanged bill; and Boehner issued a statement saying he would still like to work with Obama on the issue.

McConnell’s remark, meanwhile, was made well into Obama’s term, right before the midterm elections of 2010. He said in the same breath that he would work with Obama if he moderated the way the previous Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had: “I don’t want the president to fail; I want him to change.”

Part of the problem right not is that we really don’t know who is making the decisions in the White House.

The article concludes:

Republicans and Democrats worked together to pass a large Covid-relief bill last spring, and did it again just a few weeks ago. The second one was passed after Biden had won the election and the Electoral College had met. Republicans knew that any positive effect it had would buoy Biden politically, and did it anyway.

There’s no moral or constitutional obligation for Democrats to bargain with the Republicans. Obama came into office with large Democratic majorities in Congress, and had the votes he needed to pass the stimulus and his health-care bill without Republicans.

Maybe they will have the votes they need in Congress this time, too. It would be nice, though, if they would stop pretending that they have no other choice.

If you are going to talk about unity, it would be nice if you did something to promote it.

Two Patriotic Democrat Senators Helped Save The Republic

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One America News is reporting today that at least for now, the filibuster will remain in the Senate.

The article reports:

Top senators from both sides of the aisle are laying down their arms and moving forward with talks over sharing power.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled an end to the fight over the Senate filibuster. He credited the truce to Democrat lawmakers Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who McConnell said sided with the GOP.

“Senator Manchin, yesterday, made it clear he was not going to support getting rid of the legislative filibuster under any circumstances for the duration of this Congress,” McConnell stated. “I talked to Senator Sinema last night, she said the same thing, so the issue as far as I’m concerned is resolved.”

On Monday, McConnell said he would drop his push to get official confirmation that the upper chamber would keep the filibuster. He indicated the flipping of Sinema and Manchin waned Democrats’ power to kill the controversial practice.

There is another aspect to this. Historically Republicans are quite happy to be the minority in Congress. They don’t seem to know how to lead when they actually have power. Possibly because they don’t seem to be able to work as a team–even with each other. There were many opportunities for doing good things for the country while President Trump was in office that were lost because some Republicans didn’t like his tweets, or his hair, or his tie, or some other foolishness. The Republicans as they are currently in Congress do not deserve to be in leadership. They don’t know how to lead, and they have lost touch with the average American. There are a few exceptions to that, but only a few.

Actions Have Consequences

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Unfortunately it appears that the Democrat’s definition of unity is to silence any dissenting views on their policies. The idea of compromise and debate seems to have vanished somewhere in the recent election. This is not the way our country was set up, and many Americans are unhappy with the direction the Democrats are already taking us.

Just the News posted an article yesterday about the approval ratings of some of our Congressional leaders.

The article includes the following screenshot:

The article concludes:

Less than a majority of Republican voters (45%) expressed approval for McConnell, showing a growing divide within the Republican party. Meanwhile, a majority of Democrats (67%) still approve of Pelosi, who was recently elected Speaker of the House by a slender margin.

This survey polled 1,200 registered voters and was conducted by Scott Rasmussen from Jan 7-9, 2021.

The poll’s cross-demographic tabulations can be found here and here.To see the poll’s methodology and sample demographics, click here.

The Republican Party does not easily unify. It is made up of people who do not naturally fall into lock step. There are many Republicans (myself included) who would like to see the Republican Party actually lead instead of sitting back and playing the victim. Mitch McConnell has done a good job of confirming judges, but he has not always been on the President’s team. That is unfortunate because the President is the highest elected official in the Republican Party–he should be considered its leader. It is unfortunate that the Party has not been willing to unite behind him to get things done. Had the members of the Party been willing to take a strong stand, they might have been able to work out an infrastructure bill and get it passed despite the Democrats’ objections. Had the party stuck together instead of playing their ‘never Trump’ games, they might have been able to overcome Democrat resistance to policies that would have moved our country forward. I believe the approval ratings above reflect the frustration of the American people that the two parties have not been able to work together for the good of the country. Based on their actions so far, I don’t see that changing under a new Congress and administration.

 

And The Games Continue

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The Democrats are quietly trying to blunt the impact of the Republican National Convention on voters. Unfortunately, the people who put the Republic convention together had a better understanding of television production than the people who put the Democrat convention together. The latest effort by the Democrats was putting out a list of Republicans voting for Joe Biden. That was almost impressive until you looked at the list.

The Daily Caller posted the following today:

Nothing says “authentic” like a list of “Republican” supporters who aren’t Republicans.
That’s the sleight of hand Joe Biden just tried to pull. On Monday afternoon, his presidential campaign blasted out a “[h]uge list of Arizona Republicans … endorsing @JoeBiden today,” in an attempt to paint the Democratic ticket as bipartisan. We in Arizona were a little confused, though, because most of the endorsees on the list aren’t exactly what you’d call Republicans.
Right at the top of the list (you guessed it) is former senator Jeff Flake, who suddenly dropped out of his reelection race in 2017 after realizing that Republican primary voters didn’t like him — and neither did anybody else. Most of the time, the former senator is out of sight (and out of mind). But every now and then he’ll pop his head above ground to remind the media how woke he is and get a sniff of that “Strange New Respect.”
This week’s endorsement is just another example of that. In 2016, Flake announced that he wasn’t voting for President Trump. In 2019, he bragged that “I would support a Democrat” for president, adding: “… obviously Joe Biden comes to mind.” Finally, in early 2020, he reiterated that November “won’t be the first time I’ve voted for a Democrat.”

…Following Flake on Biden’s list is Jim Kolbe, who left Congress while George W. Bush was still in office. The former congressman soon after became an Obama appointee and subsequently crossed “Republican” off of his voter registration.
Following him is Grant Woods. You might be asking: “Who is that?” So are we.
Woods, a politician from the 1990s, gained a reputation as a liberal Republican before disappearing from the political world for a decade while working as a trial lawyer. He came out of the woodwork in 2010 to endorse Felecia Rotellini (now the Arizona Democratic Party’s chairwoman) for state attorney general and again in 2014 to endorse Democrat Fred DuVal for governor. Woods then endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 — he called her “one of the most qualified nominees to ever run” — and endorsed Democrats Hiral Tipirneni and Kyrsten Sinema in 2018 before formally changing his own voter registration to Democrat.
But, yes, definitely a Republican.

You get the picture. After a while you begin to wonder why President Trump is such a threat to the Washington establishment. Remember the statement by Hillary Clinton, “If That F-ing B*stard Trump Wins, We All Hang From Nooses.”

A video of the incident is posted at YouTube. Also here.

People who lose elections in America do not generally hang from nooses. This statement has always made me wonder what she was guilty of that put that thought in her mind.

As we continue through the political silly season, be aware that most of what you read from the mainstream media is simply not true or simply incomplete information. Be your own best fact-checker.

An Insurance Policy Against Shenanigans

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Breitbart posted an article today about one of the rules that will apply in the impeachment trial of President Trump in the Senate.

The article reports:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is as of now including in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial rules a “kill switch” that effectively allows for the president’s legal team to seek an immediate verdict or dismissal of the case should Democrats engage in any shenanigans like they did in the House process.

The revelation comes after the House finally late last week formally sent the Articles of Impeachment it adopted before Christmas—after holding them for more than a month without transmission—to the U.S. Senate, thereby triggering the start of a Senate trial. The Senate will formally commence its trial procedures in votes this coming week, and while some Republicans want to outright dismiss the charges altogether from the outset, others believe a trial should take place.

The article explains:

In other words, the big picture here is that it seems as though the Senate will move forward with an actual trial—details on a number of fronts on that as of yet to be determined—but that there will be one thing that is clear: If Schiff or the Democrats try anything untoward like they did in the House, the president and the Senate have the option to shut the whole thing down and blow it all up on them. That means Republicans hold the upper hand, and should things get crazy—while there are not currently enough votes to dismiss the trial or outright off the bat acquit Trump—after Democrat partisan gamesmanship there likely would be enough votes to dismiss the whole thing. Bad behavior, in a partisan way, from people such as Schiff and Nadler and other Democrats could drive more Republicans toward the motion to dismiss—the kill switch—if that ever becomes necessary.

The article concludes:

A former White House official added that including this “kill switch” in the resolution gives Senate Republicans the tools they need to help McConnell keep the trial on the straight and narrow.

“McConnell has proven time and time again he is a more effective Leader than Pelosi is Speaker,” the former Trump White House official told Breitbart News. “This resolution ensures the President and his team has every tool at their disposal.”

The even bigger picture here is that when it comes to the Senate trial, GOP senators—in particular McConnell—are taking an active role in ensuring it will be fair. They are leading the way in framing this.

Vice President Mike Pence, in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News late last week, made it clear that “when it comes to the Senate trial, it’ll be for the senators to decide [on witnesses and process], but I think the fact that you hear people talking about witnesses in the Senate just proves how weak the case underpinning the Articles of Impeachment really is.”

“The fact that we’ve heard they had an open-and-shut case, that despite the fact the American people can read the transcript, see the fact the president did nothing wrong, no quid pro quo, the military aid was released,” Pence added. “The American people have the facts. We heard that Congress did what the facts demanded, and now suddenly we hear Democrats saying they need more facts and they need more witnesses. My view on this is the American people see through all of this—the sham investigation followed by a partisan impeachment. They’re saying ‘enough is enough.’”

Hopefully the Senators will act with more decorum than the members of the House of Representatives.

Addressing A Politically-Created Problem

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Breitbart reported the following yesterday:

The New Hampshire House Education Committee will hold a public hearing on Tuesday on HB 1251, legislation to protect female athletic programs from men, or transgender women, who want to compete in girls’ and women’s sporting events.

The bill — sponsored by New Hampshire Republicans Mark Pearson, Judy Aron, Regina Birdsell, Linda Camarota, Linda Gould, Kathleen Hoelzel, Alicia Lekas, Jeanine Notter, Katherine Prudhomme-O’Brien, Kim Rice, and Ruth Ward — states it is about “Discrimination Protection in Public Schools.”

The article reports the reaction to the bill:

Organizations for and against the bill are mobilizing the public. Save Women’s Sports and Cornerstone are hoping for the legislation to become law.

Cornerstone wrote in a notice about the public hearing:

Female athletes deserve a level playing field. They should not have to compete against biological males for a spot on the podium, even if those males claim a female gender identity. Biological males are already starting to dominate women’s competitive sports.

The Citizens Count website is reaching out to people who support transgender sports.

If the bill becomes law it would be effective 60 days after its passage.

Athletic scholarships are one ticket to college for athletic high school girls. In recent years many of these girls have lost scholarship opportunities because of losing to high school boys transitioning or claiming to identify as girls. Anyone who understands basic biology understands that this is simply unfair. I don’t have an answer to a transgender high school student who wants to complete athletically. Do we need a transgender athletic program? I don’t know. What I do know is that letting boys compete in girls’ sports is simply unfair to girls.

Trying To Track All Of The Moving Parts

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the timelines involved in the respective strategies of the Democrats and Republicans in the impeachment saga. It is a very complex article, and I suggest that you follow the link above to read the entire article. However, I will try to list a few highlights here.

The article reports:

Today we have some new background to help see the narrative race and legal race. Pelosi and Schiff are not only racing the impeachment vote against the IG report, they are also racing against the Judicial branch wiping out all prior “impeachment inquiry” validity.

Effective at the end of business today the House is now in recess for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The article explains the calendar:

On December 9th the IG report on FISA abuse and DOJ/FBI corruption will be released. On December 11th Michael Horowitz will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

So there are two races.

♦ One race within the Trump impeachment is for the narrative: Trump Impeachment -vs- DOJ/FISA corruption against Trump. This is the race everyone is discussing.

♦ The second race within the Trump impeachment is legal: Pelosi, Schiff and ultimately Nadler -vs- the Judicial branch. This is the race few are watching, but actually could be far more consequential because it could invalidate the entire HPSCI process.

The aforementioned mid-December House Impeachment Vote is not a vote to impeach President Trump. It is a vote at the end of their “inquiry”; and a vote to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to begin their “official” impeachment hearings.

The mid-December vote will be to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to begin the “official” impeachment hearings. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff need this vote fast; they need this vote before they lose any court case that could make the “impeachment inquiry” invalid.

Additionally, Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler need this full House authorization vote to gain the authority to penetrate the constitutional firewall that protects the separation of power in the “official” impeachment investigation. And they are hoping that any loss in the three pending cases will not undermine the validity of the prior impeachment inquiry…. that’s an issue.

That’s why Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler need to get that mid-December House vote before they lose any SCOTUS ruling. There are three cases, each of them appears heading to the Supreme Court; one is already there.

Please follow the link to the article for the details on the three court cases. December is going to be a very interesting month. I suspect that the Democrats are hoping that people will be too busy with Christmas things to be paying attention. Meanwhile, we may actually get to the bottom of the Russian hoax.

 

Why Does The Establishment (Republicans and Democrats) Hate Donald Trump?

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Yesterday Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness titled, “Why Do They Hate Him So?” The article analyzes the reasons that President Trump is opposed by both the political left and the establishment right.

The article states:

Again, why the unadulterated hatred? For the small number of NeverTrumpers, of course, Trump’s crudity in speech and crassness in manner nullify his accomplishments: the unattractive messenger has fouled an otherwise tolerable message.

While they recognize in the abstract that the randy JFK, the repugnant LBJ, and the horny Bill Clinton during their White House tenures were far grosser in conduct than has been Donald Trump, they either assume presidential ethics should have evolved or they were not always around to know of past bad behavior first hand, or believe Trump’s crude language is worse than prior presidents’ crude behavior in office.

The article continues:

Had Donald Trump in his first month as president declared that he was a centrist Republican —as many suspicious Never Trumpers predicted that he would, true to past form—and promoted cap-and-trade and solar and wind federal subsidies, tabled pipeline construction and abated federal leasing for gas and oil production, stayed in the Iran nuclear deal and Paris Climate Accord, appointed judges in the tradition of John Paul Stevens and David Souter, praised the “responsible” Palestinian leaders, pursued “comprehensive immigration reform” as a euphemism for blanket amnesties, then Trump would be treated largely as a George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush: hated, of course, but not obsessively so.

More importantly, had Trump just collapsed or stagnated the economy, as predicted by the likes of Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, he would now be roundly denounced, but again not so vilified, given his political utility for the Left in 2020 as a perceived Herbert Hoover-esque scapegoat.

Had Trump kept within the media and cultural sidelines by giving interviews to “60 Minutes,” speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, bringing in a few old Republican hands to run the staff or handle media relations like a David Gergen or Andrew Card, Trump would have been written off as a nice enough dunce.

But Trump did none of that. So, the hatred of the media, the Left, the swamp, and the celebrity industry is predicated more on the successful Trump agenda. He is systematically undoing what Barack Obama wrought, in the manner Obama sought to undo with his eight years the prior eight years of George W. Bush.

But whereas the Obama economy stagnated and his foreign policy was seen by adversaries and rivals as a rare occasion to recalibrate the world order at American’s expense, Trump mostly did not fail—at least not yet. We are currently in an economic boom while most of the world economy abroad is inert. Had the economy just crashed as predicted, the Trump agenda would have been discredited and he would be written off a pitiful fool rather than an existential monster.

Again, hatred arises at what Trump did even more than what he says or how he says it.

The obvious conclusion:

The bipartisan Washington establishment? If an outsider Manhattan wheeler-dealer without military or political experience can at last call an appeased China to account, can avoid a Libyan fiasco, can acknowledge that America is tired of a 18-year slog in Afghanistan when others would not, or believes ISIS thrived as a result of prior arcane restrictive U.S. rules of engagement—and he is proven largely right—then what does that say about the credentialed experts who dreamed up the bipartisan conventional wisdom that with a few more concessions China would eventually become Palo Alto or that Libya would bloom at the heart of the Arab Spring?

The Left detests Trump for a lot of reasons besides winning the 2016 election and aborting the progressive project. But mostly they hate his guts because he is trying and often succeeding to restore a conservative America at a time when his opponents thought that the mere idea was not just impossible but unhinged.

And that is absolutely unforgivable.

Be prepared for a very nasty year before the election in 2020. There are a lot of very unhinged people in politics and in the media.

Is We Can Read The Transcript, Why Do We Need The Whistleblower?

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This entire news narrative about the ‘whistleblower’ has been a farce from the beginning. As usual, President Trump handled the situation beautifully by releasing the transcripts of his conversation with the Ukrainian President. He should not have had to do that, but because of all the accusations the Democrats are so freely throwing around, it was the best thing to do. It was also the thing that the Democrats hurling the accusations assumed that the President would not do. It blew a hole right in the middle of their little scheme. When the actual transcript was released, the ‘whistleblower’ became moot. He wasn’t needed anymore. In fact, he was a liability because it became obvious that his report had little to do with what actually happened. Now the story has a new twist.

The Daily Caller posted an article today reporting that Representative Adam Schiff has stated that the House Intelligence Committee might not have to interview the ‘whistleblower.’  Oddly enough, Representative Schiff seemed to lose interest in interviewing the ‘whistleblower’ after it was learned that the person had contact with a Schiff aide prior to filing the complaint Aug. 12. Wow. What a coincidence.

The article concludes:

House Democrats have given indications that they were shifting away from pushing for the whistleblower’s testimony.

House Democrats were considering disguising the whistleblower during any potential interview in order to prevent Republicans from leaking the whistleblower’s identity, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

A Republican source familiar with the matter told the Daily Caller News Foundation in response to that report that it appeared Schiff was “laying the groundwork” to announce the whistleblower will not testify, “and to blame that on Republicans.”

“Schiff may not want the whistleblower to testify anymore because the whistleblower would have to reveal more details about this cooperation with Schiff,” the Republican source told the DCNF.

I wonder how many Americans realize how totally contrived and dishonest this ‘impeachment investigation’ is. The President’s civil rights are being violated, and the Republicans are being as quiet as mice. Does anyone in Washington have enough backbone to stand up for the Constitution?

Fiscal Insanity

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The Daily Wire posted an article today about the latest proposal by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The article reports:

The 29-year-old former bartender has unveiled a new six-bill package of legislation titled “A Just Society.”

“A just society provides a living wage, safe working conditions, and healthcare. A just society acknowledges the value of immigrants to our communities. A just society guarantees safe, comfortable, and affordable housing,” says a page on her House website dedicated to the package. “By strengthening our social and economic foundations, we are preparing ourselves to embark on the journey to save our planet by rebuilding our economy and cultivate a just society.”

The package has six parts:

  • “The Place to Prosper Act” would prevent year-over-year rent increases of more than 3%.
  • “The Uplift Workers Act” would mandate that the Department of Labor to create a “worker-friendly score” considering factors such as paid-family leave, a $15 minimum wage and union membership.
  • “The Mercy in Re-entry Act” would grant public benefits to those convicted of criminal offenses.
  • The “Guarantees the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for All” Act does, well, just that.
  • “The Recognizing Poverty Act” orders the Department of Health and Human Services “to adjust the federal poverty line” based on location.
  • “The Embrace Act” would allow illegal aliens to claim the same welfare benefits as all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.

How about a “just society” where everyone gets to keep what they earn, and those who feel the need to help others are free to do that.

A New York Times article from November 3, 2018, reported the following:

Charitable contributions may be lower in Democratic-leaning counties, but residents support the social safety net through higher taxes.

Note to those who support government programs over private charity–in general private charities are run much more efficiently than government programs. Private charities also have a handle on who genuinely needs help and who has learned how to game the system.

Generally speaking it is never a good idea to take money from people that earn it and give it to people who did not–at best it is de-motivational, at worst it is simple theft.

When The Rules Don’t Work For You, You Simply Change Them

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This article is based on two recent posts from The Conservative Treehouse, one posted today and one posted yesterday.

Today’s post has to do with a House of Representatives rule change the Democrats made when they took over.

The article reports:

Back in December 2018 CTH noted the significant House rule changes constructed by Nancy Pelosi for the 116th congress seemed specifically geared toward impeachment. {Go Deep} With the House going into a scheduled calendar recess, those rules are now being used to subvert historic processes and construct the articles of impeachment.

A formal vote to initiate an “impeachment inquiry” is not technically required; however, there has always been a full house vote until now.  The reason not to have a House vote is simple: if the formal process was followed the minority (republicans) would have enforceable rights within it.  Without a vote to initiate, the articles of impeachment can be drawn up without any participation by the minority; and without any input from the executive.  This was always the plan that was visible in Pelosi’s changed House rules.

Keep in mind Speaker Pelosi selected former insider DOJ official Douglas Letter to be the Chief Legal Counsel for the House.  That becomes important when we get to the part about the official full house impeachment vote. The Lawfare group and DNC far-left activists were ecstatic at the selection.  Doug Letter was a deep political operative within the institution of the DOJ who worked diligently to promote the weaponized political values of former democrat administrations.

Speaker Pelosi has authorized the House committees to work together under the umbrella of an “official impeachment inquiry.”  The House Intelligence (Schiff) and Judiciary Committees (Nadler) are currently working together leading this process.

From recent events we can see the framework of Schiff compiling Trump-Ukraine articles and Nadler compiling Trump-Russia articles.  Trump-Ukraine via Schiff will likely focus on a corruption angle; Trump-Russia via Nadler will likely focus on an obstruction angle.

How many articles of impeachment are finally assembled is unknown, but it is possible to see the background construct as described above.  Unlike historic examples of committee impeachment assembly, and in combination with the lack of an initiation vote, Pelosi’s earlier House Rule changes now appear intentionally designed to block republicans during the article assembly process.  The minority will have no voice.  This is quite a design.

This is simply ugly. It should be unconstitutional, but the House is allowed to set its own rules.

The second article reports another significant rule change in the rules regarding whistleblowers.

The article reports:

Folks, this “Ukraine Whistleblower” event was a pre-planned event.  As we begin to understand the general outline of how the Schiff Dossier was assembled, we are now starting to get into the specifics.  First discovered by researcher Stephen McIntyre, there is now evidence surfacing showing the ICIG recently created an entirely new ‘whistleblower complaint form’ that specifically allowed for the filing of complaints “heard from others“.

Keep in mind that the phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky took place on July 25, 2019.

If this does not make you furious, you are not paying attention. When President Trump was elected (if not before), the Democrats began planning his impeachment. It didn’t matter what he did, he was going to be impeached. Impeachment, contrary to the wishes of our Founding Fathers, was going to be a political weapon used to remove a political opponent from office.

There are two purposes to this move–the first is the hope that it will prevent President Trump from being re-elected. Barring a serious financial decline, President Trump will be re-elected. The Democrats know this and are trying to prevent it. The second purpose is even worse. If President Trump is re-elected and there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the cry of the Democrats will be, “A President under the shadow of impeachment should not be allowed to appoint a Supreme Court Justice.”

We could debate whether or not the actions of the Democrat party in this matter are technically legal. However, they are not in line with their Oath of Office which says they will defend the Constitution. This is a total undermining of the Constitution. I hope voters are awake enough to see what is going on. If not, we will lose our Republic.

A Few Notes On A Previous Post

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Yesterday I posted an article about the latest attack on Justice Kavanaugh published in The New York Times. As more information comes out, it becomes even more obvious that this is a political hit job. Below are a few sources and quotes.

From The Daily Caller today:

The Washington Post passed on a thinly sourced, unproven allegation about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh before the New York Times published it in a misleading article in Sunday’s paper that has since been corrected.

From The Federalist today:

The New York Times has finally admitted that the premise of its much-hyped story about an alleged incident with United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was false, as the alleged victim says she has no recollection of the incident in question.

The admission undermines what was an already weak story of dubious credibility.

From PJ Media yesterday:

On Saturday, The New York Times ran a story repeating allegations that Brett Kavanaugh was drunk at a party in college and had his genitals thrust into a woman’s face. The allegation has not been confirmed, and friends of the alleged victim say she has no recollection of the events. The man telling the story, Max Stier, represented Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was accused of exposing himself to a woman in a hotel room.

The mainstream media used to do investigative reporting. The fact that they no longer investigate allegations against conservatives or Republicans is one of the reasons the alternative media is flourishing. The New York Times story is a prime example of a political hit job disguised as a news article.

As I have previously stated, there should be a penalty for making unsubstantiated allegations against any public figure.

This Is How Sleight Of Hand Works

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We have all heard that the border crisis is continuing because Congress and President Trump are not capable of working together to solve any problems. We have also heard that Republicans and Democrats are not capable of working together. Well, while the media was hyping Russia, Russia, Russia, those in Congress did pass a bill relating to immigration. It is bill that will hurt America’s high-skilled workers. The Democrats and the Chamber-of-Commerce Republicans (aka swamp dwellers) worked together to suspend the rules and pass the bill. Isn’t that special?

The Congressional website has the details (there is no direct link because the links expire):

H.R.1044 – Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019

Passed House (07/10/2019)

Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019

This bill increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7% of the total number of such visas available that year to 15%, and eliminates the 7% cap for employment-based immigrant visas. It also removes an offset that reduced the number of visas for individuals from China.

The bill also establishes transition rules for employment-based visas from FY2020-FY2022, by reserving a percentage of EB-2 (workers with advanced degrees or exceptional ability), EB-3 (skilled and other workers), and EB-5 (investors) visas for individuals not from the two countries with the largest number of recipients of such visas. Of the unreserved visas, not more than 85% shall be allotted to immigrants from any single country.

This is the timeline on the bill:

Date Chamber All Actions
07/11/2019 Senate Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
07/10/2019-4:58pm House Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
07/10/2019-4:58pm House On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 365 – 65 (Roll no. 437). (text: CR H5323-5324)
07/10/2019-4:48pm House Considered as unfinished business. (consideration: CR H5336)
07/10/2019-3:24pm House At the conclusion of debate, the Yeas and Nays were demanded and ordered. Pursuant to the provisions of clause 8, rule XX, the Chair announced that further proceedings on the motion would be postponed.
07/10/2019-2:51pm House DEBATE – The House proceeded with forty minutes of debate on H.R. 1044.
07/10/2019-2:51pm House Considered under suspension of the rules. (consideration: CR H5323-5328)
07/10/2019-2:51pm House Ms. Lofgren moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended.
06/18/2019 House Motion to place bill on Consensus Calendar filed by Ms. Lofgren.
03/22/2019 House Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship.
Action By: Committee on the Judiciary
02/07/2019 House Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
02/07/2019 House Introduced in House

This is the vote:

Understand that the Chamber of Commerce supports many Republican candidates. Their members support lower wages because it keeps corporate expenses down. The Democrats like the bill because it increases chain migration and theoretically provides future Democrat voters. Republicans and Democrats can agree when it is to their benefit. Unfortunately this agreement works against working Americans.

All t his was going on while the media was screaming “Russia, Russia, Russia.”

 

Abetting Child Abuse

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On July 3, Real Clear Politics posted an article titled, “Lara Logan Reports: Cartels “Renting Kids To Fake Families” Then Sending Them Back To Be “Recycled”.” There are a few things that need to be considered when discussing the crisis at our southern border. The first is that if either the Democrats or the Republicans in Congress wanted to end the crisis, they could. The Democrats want future voters, the swamp-dwellers in the Republican party want cheap labor for their corporate sponsors. There are also rumors of payoffs to Congressmen by the cartels, but that isn’t yet proven. Second of all, the crisis at the border is being used as a political cudgel against a President the swamp does not like. As long as the crisis is useful, it will continue. Any mention of compassion is simply window dressing to cover actions that do not include compassion. I’m sorry if that sounds cynical, but it is honest. Congress makes the laws. If the laws are bad, Congress can change them. The same applies to any deportations this weekend. The deportations are in accordance with the laws currently in place. If Congress does not like the laws, it should change them—not scream hysterically when they are followed.

The article reports:

Lara Logan interviews incoming Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan about the uproar over conditions for children at some border facilities and broken laws that led to the migrant crisis.

Morgan said cartels are “renting” children to “fake families” who use the minors as a passport into the United States and then sends the kid back to Mexico or Central America to be “recycled.”

“With Mexican cartels controlling the human traffic, the innocent are paying the highest price,” Logan reported.

“The cartels are renting kids to fake families because they know, grab a kid, that’s like a US passport into the country,” Morgan said. “And then if they make it through, they’re actually taking the kid to a facilitator here in the US and recycling the kid, back to Mexico or the Northern Triangles to be recycled again. That’s horrible.”

“Now that we’ve been identifying these fake families, we’re starting to hear messages being told now, hey, look, you have to grab a kid. It’s your passport into the United States but you may want to make sure that it’s your kid now,” the acting commissioner said.

This is the video of the interview:

This is the consequence of the inaction of Congress to deal with this problem during the past fifty years.

Unbelievable Quote

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The video below was posted at Breitbart on Sunday. Yes, Elie Mystal actually said that.

In case you missed the quote:

In reference to questions from Donald Trump, Jr. about Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and her race, Mystal accused African-American voters that vote Republican of having their votes “colonized” by Republicans or Russia.

Wow.

An Obvious Conflict Of Interest

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Senator Mitch McConnell does not like tariffs. He does not like them on China where they are levied in an attempt to level the playing field on trade, and he does not like them on Mexico where they are being levied in an attempt to stop the flow of illegals and drugs over our southern border.

Unfortunately, the meme below is not a joke:

An article posted at Breitbart today explains the problem. Senator McConnell is married to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

In the article, Peter Schweizer explains why that is important:

Schweizer highlighted Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to McConnell, as illustrative of what he described as widespread political conflicts of interest between sitting American officials and foreign governments.

“The Chao family are deeply embedded commercially and financially with the Chinese government,” explained McConnell. “The Chinese government essentially set them up in the shipping business. Their ships — these are large cargo ships that transport a large amount of goods around the Pacific.”

Schweizer added, “The Chinese government is financing the building of these ships for the Chao family business. They provide crews for these chips, and they provide contracts to ship steel and other products around the Pacific.”

The Foremost Group is a shipping business founded by James Chao, Elaine Chao’s father. The Chao family business primarily revolves around China, necessitating “deep ties to the economic and political elite in China,” according to a Sunday-published New York Times report.

“[The Chao family’s shipping business] started out in the early 1990s with just a couple of vessels, a couple of large cargo ships,” said Schweizer. “They now have, by some estimates, 35 or 36, many of those built by the Chinese government. The estimates are that hundreds of millions of dollars in financing is done by the Chinese to build these ships, and that they give them preferential treatment.”

Schweizer explained, “Business in China is done with a political purpose. The China State Shipbuilding Corporation is controlled by the government, by the Communist Party, and they do business deals with people in the West with the expectation that they will get things in return.”

That is called a conflict of interest. So what is Senator McConnell’s problem with the Mexican tariffs? Many Republicans have aligned themselves with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which supports our porous southern border as a source of cheap labor. There has never been a border wall because Republican business men who contribute to political campaigns want cheap labor and Democrats want future voters.

Some Comments On Today’s Events

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The following interview is from Fox Business News:

We are watching the last of an attempted coup. The Deep State, which included the upper echelon of the Department of Justice, in collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign and aided by the mainstream media attempted (and is continuing to attempt) to unseat a duly-elected President because they don’t like him and they lost. Actually it’s more serious than that. President Trump represents a serious threat to the current status quo that has enriched Washington insiders for generations. Rather than lose the gravy train they are accustomed to, Democrats and some Republicans want him gone. They are not particularly fussy about following the Constitution in accomplishing their goal. Hopefully those who participated in this attempted coup with be dealt with appropriately.

 

The Trump Tax Cuts

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The following is a graph from a New York Times article of April 14th:

The article notes:

To a large degree, the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase.

That effort began in the fall of 2017, when Republicans prepared to introduce legislation that models by the independent Tax Policy Center predicted could raise taxes on nearly a third of middle-class taxpayers. It continued through Mr. Trump’s signing of the law, even though the group’s models showed that the revised bill would raise taxes on relatively few in the middle class in the 2018 tax year.

The only thing missing from the article is The New York Times taking some responsibility for what is illustrated by the chart.

It gets even more interesting. The article also includes this chart:

This might be a reflection of the news sources the Democrats choose versus the news sources the Republicans choose. It illustrates the fact that much of what is being reported in major news sources is simply not true. Much of the mainstream media is doing a disservice to the people who choose to watch it.

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Testimony

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An article posted at The Federalist on Thursday includes the testimony of Federalist senior correspondent John Daniel Davidson, delivered before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Some highlights of his testimony:

McAllen, a city of fewer than 150,000 residents, is now facing the prospect of thousands of migrants discharged from ICE custody, wandering the streets and sleeping in doorways and on park benches—the city’s mayor has said as much. What’s more, in February the city ordered Catholic Charities to vacate the former nursing home and find a new location within 90 days, citing complaints from neighbors about constant traffic and strangers wandering nearby streets where children play. By any measure, the situation in McAllen is an emergency.

This is just one border town in Texas. Something similar is playing out all up and down the U.S.-Mexico border. In El Paso, hundreds of migrant families are turning themselves in to Border Patrol every day, overwhelming federal facilities and personnel. In a five-minute stretch one day in late March, Border Patrol apprehended two different groups totaling 400 people. On the night of President Trump’s rally in El Paso in February, a group of 300 turned themselves in to the Santa Teresa Border Patrol station, which sits on an empty stretch of New Mexico scrubland 22 miles west of El Paso. Agents had to move all the ATVs out of the garage just so a hundred or so migrants would have someplace warm to sleep that night. Since then, things have been getting worse.

The testimony states:

If you spend enough time talking to migrants themselves, a pattern begins to emerge. Most of them have similar stories about why they left their home countries in Central America, and they report similar experiences of how they made their way through Mexico to the southern U.S. border. A few common characteristics stand out:

  • A majority of the “family units” are men traveling with one or more children;
  • Many of these men say they have a wife and other children back in their home country and that they intend to secure work in the U.S. and send money back to support them;
  • They are headed for all points across the U.S. and have family members or friends in those places. Many of them also have jobs already lined up;
  • Nearly all of them say they left their homes because it is dangerous, citing gang violence, threats, extortion, etc.; they are all claiming asylum.
  • At the same time, many of them will admit that they don’t plan to remain in the U.S. permanently, and in fact have a set amount of time they plan to live and work here before returning home;
  • All of them say they paid a smuggler to secure safe passage to the border (the amount varies from $2,000 to $6,000 per person, sometimes more). Generally, they say they took cars or buses for transit through Mexico.

The testimony concludes:

Without a doubt, there is a crisis at the southern border. But it’s a deeply misunderstood crisis that’s being driven by specific factors and disproportionately affecting specific regions of the border, primarily the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso. In general, the growing numbers of migrants now crossing the border are being driven by three major factors:

  • If you’re a minor or a family, it’s even easier to enter the U.S. now than it was during the Obama administration for the simple reason that there is no capacity at federal detention facilities and families can expect to be released soon after being detained by Border Patrol.
  • Smugglers are now marketing to people —women, families—who don’t want to undertake an arduous or dangerous journey. They have created a sophisticated and efficient busing package that has proven very popular with families, and word has gotten back to communities in Central America that, if they pay, the journey will be short, safe, and they will not be detained for long once inside the U.S.
  • Conditions in Central America have not improved enough to induce people to remain in their home countries. Persistent poverty, violence, and corruption, combined with the fear that it’s not going to be this easy to get into the U.S. forever, is prompting families to come now.

There is no easy solution to this crisis. Border security is part of the solution, but so is congressional action.

As long as Central American families know they can gain entry to the U.S. by initiating asylum proceedings upon crossing the border, the crisis will continue. As long as cartels and criminal networks know they can profit from trafficking migrant families to the border, they will do so. And as long as conditions in Central America continue to fester, families who can afford it will seek a better life for their children by traveling north.

The crisis on our southern border is not the result of anything President Trump has done. It is the result of years of inaction by Congress and previous administrations. As previously stated–Democrats see illegal immigrants as future Democrat voters; Republicans see illegal immigrants as cheap labor. Neither party sees them as desperate people. President Trump is at least trying to discourage them from making a long, dangerous trip. President Trump is also trying to protect America from being overwhelmed. If you doubt what this is about, look up the Cloward-Piven strategy. It explains what is currently happening (and illustrates why it must be stopped).