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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

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The March to Nowhere By Joan Swirsky

By on January 31st, 2017

A day or two before the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump on January 20th, 2017, I watched a reporter interviewing five attractive, intelligent, articulate women from California, who were all making the long cross-country trip to the Women’s March on Washington on January 21st.

Amazingly, not one woman was able to express a persuasive or even rational reason for the trip, but instead resorted to time-worn platitudes, bromides, and leftist talking points about “unity” and “solidarity” and “getting the message out.” Um… what message?

At the March itself, I was struck by the fact that women who pride themselves on their intelligence resorted to reading their statements, never veering a syllable off the scripts that were clearly written for them—scripts, by the way, that were not only boilerplate and banal, but shockingly blasphemous.

Madonna, punctuating her statement with foul-mouthed obscenities, looked down at her script, then lifted her head to speak into the microphone. “I’m angry.” Pause. Again, she looked at her script, then read: “I’m outraged.” (Very difficult lines to memorize, to be sure). Pause. Again, back to the script where she read about her fantasy of “blowing up the White House.”

Gloria Steinem read from her script. America Ferrara read from her script. Ashley Judd both read and acted out her script. “We’re here to be respected,” she snarled, oblivious to the irony that her ghastly performance evoked the exact opposite.

On and on and on they intoned and screeched and railed, sounding remarkably like barnyard creatures and giving the rest of America the distinct impression that the conceit these women harbor of their superior intellects and evolved moral sensibilities are fantasies borne more of delusions of grandeur than of either objective IQ numbers or developed moral compasses.

But to be fair, they had genuine passion that inspired them to spend thousands of dollars to drive, bus or fly across the country, pay for lodging and food, and then travel back to their homes.

Just kidding. We all know that leftwing activists are notoriously cheap, believers as they are that either government or other benefactors should pay their way.

And sure enough, according to Matthew Vadum’s stunning article, “Soros’s Women’s March of Hate,” billionaire radical George Soros—the same man “who says Communist China’s system of government is superior to our own and that the United States is the number one obstacle to world peace”—was directly involved in funding at least 56 of the March’s ‘partners.’”

Vadum listed a good number of the radical-left and anti-American groups attending the March: Planned Parenthood, the National Resource Defense Council, MoveOn, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, Advancement Project; American Constitution Society; America’s Voice; Arab American Association of New York; Asian Americans Advancing Justice; Center for Reproductive Rights; Color of Change; Communities United for Police Reform; Demos; Economic Policy Institute; Every Voice; Green for All; League of Women Voters; Make the Road New York; MPower Change; NAACP; NARAL Pro-Choice America Fund; National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum; National Council of Jewish Women; National Domestic Workers Alliance; National Network for Arab American Communities; National Council of La Raza; PEN America; Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Public Citizen; United We Dream; and Voter Participation Center,” et al.

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Rachel Neuwirth & John Landau : Trump’s Enemies

By on January 31st, 2017

No previous President of the United States has been so hated by America’s political, journalistic, and cultural elites as has Donald Trump. None has been the target of as much verbal abuse, vilification and demonization, and false and biased reporting emanating from these elites as has Trump-with the only possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.

No previous candidate for President of a major political party has been subjected to such systematic and widespread harassment on the campaign trail as has Trump. None before him has met with such widespread and well-organized attempts, often violent, to disrupt his campaign rallies, to prevent him from speaking, to prevent citizens from attending his rallies, harassing and even assault them if they did insist on attending them.

No President-elect has been targeted by so many hostile and often violent protest after he was elected in an election whose outcome was not even seriously in dispute.

Never before have the members of the Electoral College, chosen by the people in accordance with a provision in our constitution going back 230 years, been subjected to such massive pressure, even threats, to vote contrary to the wishes of the citizens who elected them, and thereby “deselecting” a President-elect.

No previous President has been subjected to so many hostile, large, extremely well organized and often violent protest demonstrations nationwide, including several in the nation’s capital, on the very day of his inauguration and for nearly every day since then, in an attempt to create sufficient disruption and chaos that he would be unable to govern.

To sum up: never before in American history have so many people belonging to our nation’s power structures and established institutions resorted to such unethical, undemocratic, underhanded, disruptive, and often violent methods-systematically and on a nationwide scale-in an effort first to deny a presidential candidate his election, to prevent him from taking office after he was elected, and to delegitimize him and render him unable to govern after he took the oath of office.

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Peter Smith Trump’s Weaponised Narcissism

By on January 30th, 2017

His critics, especially in the media, just can’t understand why their lies, false dossiers and pejorative dismissals of the man haven’t ruined him. The tactic helped humble George W. Bush and, locally, Tony Abbott, but this president punches back twice as hard. There’s a lesson there.
When President Trump addressed CIA agents as one of his first acts he received generous ovations. I know. I listened to them. At one point he talked about his inaugural crowd size and (accompanied by engaged laughter) the dishonest press. His critics pounced. Wailing at his temerity at being off-point and self-indulgent in front of the Memorial Wall where stars honour the CIA fallen. They had a point, but deliberately overlooked the very positive result he achieved by reassuring the intelligence community of his support. His critics are in a permanent crouching mode.

His first week was active to say the least. He signed five Executive Orders and nine Memorandums, all in keeping with his campaign promises. And he found the time in his eighteen-hour working days to give at least three sit-down interviews, to meet with major manufacturers, with union leaders and with British PM Theresa May. But, into this overwhelmingly productive week, he also injected talk not only about the crowd size at his inauguration but also about the likelihood that millions of people voted illegally robbing him of the popular vote. His critics pounced again.

And many of his supporters, how do they respond? They say he would do better to avoid queering his own pitch. They want Trump without Trump; Father Christmas without soot on the carpet. They should understand that the soot is an integral part of the territory.

Apparently, Donald Trump doesn’t like the idea of coming second in anything. He likes to tell us, in various ways, that he was right or did an excellent job. To his critics, who include most of the media, the Democrats and many Republicans, he is a narcissistic braggart. Again, they have a point. But he is a lot of other things too. And his narcissism, in my view, is an armoured shield; the key to his unique ability to withstand the dark forces which have taken over American society — its media, schools, universities and public services — as they have all Western societies.

Have you noticed when someone in the public eye is labelled pejoratively that we are meant somehow to infer that the case is closed? That there is nothing more to be said; that he or she can be filed away under whatever is the pejorative label. It is ridiculous in the general case and in Trump’s case particularly ridiculous. Here we have a unique and talented human being

I have heard him described as a loving and supportive father and as a warm, caring and humorous friend. He is obviously a very good businessman, who can come back from the brink, and reality-TV-show entertainer extraordinaire. And, so far, judging by the quality of his appointments and his resolute action, he is showing distinct promise of being a formidable political leader. It is early days of course.

But, leave all this aside, he is impervious to criticism. The nervous Nellies in his own party must be quaking in their boots. He simply does what he says he will do and says what’s on his mind. This is beyond normal behaviour among the political class. Maybe Margaret Thatcher came closest but the dark forces are stronger now than then. Conservatives in power are used to bowing and scraping before the altar of political correctness and doing their best to hide themselves from the rapacious left-driven media. Trump simply takes the fight on in a way which before him was unimaginable.

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Trump’s Exclusion of Aliens from Specific Countries Is Legal Arguments to the contrary ignore the Constitution and misstate federal law. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on January 30th, 2017

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for heightened vetting of certain foreign nationals seeking entry into the United States. The order temporarily suspends entry by the nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. It is to last for 90 days, while heightened vetting procedures are developed.

The order has predictably prompted intense protest from critics of immigration restrictions (most of whom are also critics of Trump). At the New York Times, the Cato Institute’s David J. Bier claims the temporary suspension is illegal because, in his view, it flouts the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This contention is meritless, both constitutionally and as a matter of statutory law.

Let’s start with the Constitution, which vests all executive power in the president. Under the Constitution, as Thomas Jefferson wrote shortly after its adoption, “the transaction of business with foreign nations is Executive altogether. It belongs then to the head of that department, except as to such portions of it as are specifically submitted to the Senate. Exceptions are to be construed strictly.”

The rare exceptions Jefferson had in mind, obviously, were such matters as the approval of treaties, which Article II expressly vests in the Senate. There are also other textual bases for a congressional role in foreign affairs, such as Congress’s power over international commerce, to declare war, and to establish the qualifications for the naturalization of citizens. That said, when Congress legislates in this realm, it must do so mindful of what the Supreme Court, in United States v. Curtiss-Wright (1936), famously described as “the very delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations – a power which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress.”

In the international arena, then, if there is arguable conflict between a presidential policy and a congressional statute, the president’s policy will take precedence in the absence of some clear constitutional commitment of the subject matter to legislative resolution. And quite apart from the president’s presumptive supremacy in foreign affairs, we must also adhere to a settled doctrine of constitutional law: Where it is possible, congressional statutes should be construed in a manner that avoids constitutional conflicts.

With that as background, let’s consider the claimed conflict between the president’s executive order and Congress’s statute. Mr. Bier asserts that Trump may not suspend the issuance of visas to nationals of specific countries because the 1965 immigration act “banned all discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin.” And, indeed, a section of that act, now codified in Section 1152(a) of Title 8, U.S. Code, states that (with exceptions not here relevant) “no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence” (emphasis added).

Even on its face, this provision is not as clearly in conflict with Trump’s executive order as Bier suggests. As he correctly points out, the purpose of the anti-discrimination provision (signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965) was to end the racially and ethnically discriminatory “national origins” immigration practice that was skewed in favor of Western Europe. Trump’s executive order, to the contrary, is in no way an effort to affect the racial or ethnic composition of the nation or its incoming immigrants. The directive is an effort to protect national security from a terrorist threat, which, as we shall see, Congress itself has found to have roots in specified Muslim-majority countries.

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Trump’s Order on Entry into the U.S.: Implementation Problems The president would’ve been wise to give government agencies and foreigners time to prepare. By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on January 30th, 2017

Yesterday, in explaining the lawfulness of President Trump’s executive order dealing with the entry of aliens into the United States, I opined that the question of legal authority was separate from that of policy wisdom. Whether something is good policy depends not only on whether its objectives are worthy but also on whether its implementation is sound. Poor implementation can undermine good policy objectives and create unforeseen, unnecessary legal problems.

There are three major implementation problems with the EO.

1. Lack of Notice

The overarching problem is that the Trump administration opted for immediate implementation rather than giving travelers a brief notice period (say, a week or even a few days), so that people who had done nothing wrong were sandbagged. Through no fault of their own, they were detained or denied entry and put on a plane back to the country from which they had come. This seems inexplicably unfair (and, as I’ll address in a bit, strategically foolish).

Even if you accept, as I do, that the inadequate vetting of aliens who come to our country is a serious security problem, surely the imposition of temporary restrictions (in anticipation of more refined restrictions to come) could have waited a few days. President Trump has been issuing orders since a few hours after he was sworn in; if the threat situation is such that he could afford to wait a week to issue this EO, then there’s no reason he couldn’t have waited another week to give government agencies time to prepare, and foreign travelers a chance to alter their plans.

2. Application to Lawful Permanent Resident Aliens

The second and most serious question, as David French, Dan McLaughlin, and Charlie Cooke have all discussed, is the application of the EO to green-card holders — i.e., lawful permanent resident aliens (LPRs). I agree that the EO should either have excluded them altogether or proposed a different procedure for them in the interim before the administration announced a more refined vetting plan. And, indeed, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus intimated in a Meet the Press appearance Sunday morning that the EO’s application to LPRs is being eased, if not rescinded.

Unlike some of my colleagues, I do not think there is any doubt that the order literally applies to LPRs. It states in pertinent part (italics are mine):

[P]ursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order[.]

LPRs are aliens who have immigrated to the U.S. — i.e., permanent settlers. When they travel internationally (as they are liberally permitted to do while maintaining their LPR status) and then return to the U.S., they seek an “immigrant entry” (as opposed to a “nonimmigrant entry,” which generally involves alien visitors whose presence is lawful but who do not seek to settle in the United States). The terms of the EO clearly make it applicable to entry by any immigrant alien. Consequently, it applies to LPRs who have traveled from the seven countries implicated by the suspension order.

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Trump’s Order on Refugees: Mostly Right on Substance, Wrong on Rollout By The Editors NRO

By on January 30th, 2017

On Friday, Donald Trump signed an executive order halting admission of refugees for 120 days and halting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries — Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia — for 90 days while the federal government undertakes a review of admission procedures. He has also imposed an annual cap of 50,000 refugees. The instant backlash, which has culminated in thousands of protesters creating chaos at the nation’s airports, is the result more of knee-jerk emotion than a sober assessment of Trump’s policy.

It’s a well-documented fact that would-be terrorists are posing as refugees to obtain admission into Europe, and visa screenings have routinely failed to identify foreign nationals who later committed terrorist attacks in the United States. As the Islamic State continues its reign of terror across a large swath of the Middle East, it should be a matter of common sense that the U.S. needs to evaluate and strengthen its vetting.

Trump’s executive order is an attempt — albeit, an ill-conceived attempt in several ways, about which more momentarily — to address this problem. Rhetoric about “open arms” aside, the United States. has been modest in its approach to refugees for the past two decades. During the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. regularly admitted fewer than 50,000 refugees. Barack Obama’s tenure was little different — he increased the refugee cap to 70,000 at the beginning of his second term but normally admitted numbers on par with Bush’s — until he dramatically expanded the cap (to 110,000) for 2017. Trump’s order is, to this extent, a return to recent norms.

Similar myths have dominated the public understanding of the Syrian-refugee program. Until ratcheting up the program in 2016, the Obama administration admitted fewer than 2,000 Syrian refugees between 2011 and 2015 — this at the time that the former president was dithering over his “red line.” The 13,000 Syrian refugees admitted during 2016, pursuant to President Obama’s expansion, still constitute an infinitesimal fraction of the refugee population, which is in the several millions, of that war-torn country. Trump has suspended that program temporarily, pending review.

When that program comes back on-line, it will include a directive to prioritize Christians, Yazidis, and other persecuted religious minorities — against which the Obama administration effectively discriminated at the same time that it was declaring Christians to be victims of “genocide” at the hands of ISIS. Given the unique threats these groups face, moving them to the front of the line should be an obvious measure, and contrary to outraged claims otherwise, prioritizing religious minorities is in accordance with law; religion is already used as a criterion for evaluating refugee-status claims.

Finally, there is recent precedent for Trump’s order. In 2011, the Obama administration halted refugee-processing from Iraq for six months in order to do exactly what the Trump administration is doing now: ensure that terrorists were not exploiting the program to enter the country. No one rushed to JFK International to protest. Also, the seven countries to which the order applies are taken from Obama-era precedents.

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Obama-Appointed Judge vs. Trump’s Immigration Changes George Soros groups try to block Trump’s time-limited executive order to protect U.S. security. Matthew Vadum

By on January 30th, 2017

A day after President Trump’s executive order suspending immigration from terrorism-producing countries was signed, an Obama-appointed judge on Saturday night followed the advice of George Soros-funded groups seeking to blunt it.

It is yet another searing reminder that the Left doesn’t believe in American democracy. To the Left, elections only have consequences when their side wins. And when they lose, mobocracy, intimidation, and street violence take over. The chant “this is what democracy looks like” is the hallmark of left-wing authoritarianism.

These leftist temper tantrums are becoming a regular thing in the week-and-a-half-old Trump era. When President Trump honors a campaign promise he made to the American people, on cue the Left explodes in a fireball of anger and hatred, much of it underwritten by radical billionaire George Soros.

The Hungarian-born billionaire two dozen times over is a radical open-borders advocate committed to dissolving national boundaries. He has said Communist China’s system of government is superior to our own and that the United States is the number one obstacle to world peace. In the U.S. he has financed the violent, politically destabilizing Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements. He also funds many of the groups that participated in the various anti-Trump women’s marches across America on Jan. 21.

Before the narrowly drawn restraining order was issued Saturday evening, near-riots broke out as leftist freak shows descended on airports across America. Demonstrators were horrified that some individuals were actually being detained at ports-of-entry as required by the president’s 100 percent legal and constitutional executive order. The left-wing hissy-fit consisted of radicals trespassing and endangering airport security by staging disruptive in-your-face protests at airports around the country.

Those who hate America have increasingly been expressing themselves politically at the nation’s airports. On Jan. 6 suspected jihadist Esteban Santiago gunned down innocent people at the baggage check at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

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ISIS wannabe shouts, ‘there’s going to be more of us,’ as he’s sentenced to 20 years for New Year’s Eve machete plot

By on January 28th, 2017

An ex-convict who plotted a foiled New Year’s Eve machete attack at an upstate New York restaurant in the name of the Islamic State group was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison, provoking a courtroom outburst in which he shouted “there’s going to be more of us.”

Emanuel Lutchman, 26, wrote before the sentencing that he had moved on from a “radical Islamic ideology,” but after drawing a sentence twice as long as his lawyer had sought, became agitated.

“You think because I’m going to be incarcerated there aren’t going to be more of us that rise up?” he said while shouting and swearing at U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci.

In response, Geraci increased Lutchman’s supervised release after serving his time from 30 years to 50 years.

Father of Rochester man says his son is sick, not ISIS

Lutchman pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

At the direction of a now-deceased recruiter for the Islamic State group in Syria, Lutchman planned a knife and machete attack inside Merchants Grill in Rochester on Dec. 31, 2015, according to the plea agreement. The attack never happened.

The goal was to give the terror group an attack to claim and prove Lutchman worthy of joining the organization when he traveled overseas, court documents said.

“Viewed in this context, it would be hard to overstate the danger that Lutchman presented,” Acting United States Attorney James Kennedy, Jr. said Thursday.

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Pro-Life Youth Group Attacked by Thugs Yelling Racial Slurs in Southeast D.C. By Debra Heine

By on January 28th, 2017

Several members of a pro-life youth ministry group visiting D.C. for Friday’s March for Life rally were attacked by a group of street thugs yelling racial epithets on Wednesday night near the Metro, Fox 5 DC reported. The violent attack began after the two adult chaperones and 22 teens had gotten off the Metro in SE D.C., and were starting the mile walk back to the church where they were staying.

When one of the adult chaperones in the back of the group was attacked, several of the teens attempted to help him. They were met with fists and racial slurs, threatened with a knife, and told to hand over their belongings. The victims ran to a nearby firehouse, where they received help.

The savage attack only lasted about 20 seconds, but that was enough time for the thugs to seriously hurt several of the pro-lifers.

Injuries included a broken nose and fractured eye socket, according to a member of the group. He told Fox 5 that the adult leader who was attacked had “some type of concussion,” adding that “he just remembers having dinner — details are fuzzy after that.”

The youth group visiting from Fort Worth, Texas says they are familiar with where they are staying in Southeast, D.C., because they have stayed at the Assumption Catholic Church for the past three years. But it wasn’t until Wednesday night that they’ve ever had an issue.

The violent encounter was enough to make the ministry group reconsider their routine while staying at the church.

They won’t be walking from the metro stop back to church past sunset, Fox 5 reported. But despite the violent incident, they said they’d still attend the rally at the National Mall for the March for Life on Friday.

“Nobody’s going to rob us of that joy, the true meaning of why we’re here — to celebrate life,” the group member said. “Even when something horrible like that happens — we’re still going to be joyful,” he said.

There have been no arrests in the case.

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Huge, Diverse Crowd Marches for Life in the Nation’s Capital Tens of thousands from all walks of life descended on the National Mall to rally against abortion today. By Alexandra DeSanctis

By on January 28th, 2017

‘We are the pro-life generation,” the crowd chanted, voices building to an overwhelming crescendo with each repetition of the line. Packed onto the National Mall across the street from the White House Friday, the revelers deafened one another with their joyful shouts, tens of thousands gathered just across the street from President Donald Trump’s new home, smiling and laughing and breaking into spontaneous cheers.

Such was the scene at the 44th annual March for Life, first held here on January 22, 1974, one year to the day after the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide. In good weather and in bad — given Washington’s bitter Januaries, it’s usually the latter — crowds swarm the Mall every year to protest against the country’s abortion laws and to advocate for the protection of unborn life.

This year’s March had particular historic significance, as it followed on the heels of a Republican sweep of November’s elections and, with it, the chance to enact pro-life policies at the federal level for the first time in years. The crowd never cheered louder than when Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the morning’s rally, becoming the first member of a presidential administration to ever address the event.

“President Trump actually asked me to be here with you today,” Pence said. “He asked me to thank you for your support — to thank you for your stand for life and for your compassion for the women and children of America. . . . Compassion is overcoming convenience and hope is defeating despair. In a word: Life is winning in America because of all of you.”

Every year the March makes evident just how phenomenally young and vibrant the pro-life movement is, bolstered by students who travel from hundreds of colleges, universities, and high schools all across the country, often sleeping on buses overnight or driving for two days straight to be here. This year was no different.

Take, for example, twelve-year-old Tommy Steines, who was attending his very first March for Life. “I’m here to stand up for life and for support,” he told National Review, smiling from under his knit cap. Steines and his family drove eight hours from Ohio to attend the event. Steines’s mother, Donna, said that there are smaller, satellite marches for life in Ohio, “but none of them have half a million people.”

Even though young faces dominated the crowd, people of all ages and genders and races were well represented at the March, as they always are. The Mall this year held a truly heterogeneous mixture of Americans, united in the belief that this country’s women and children and families deserve better than a regime of abortion-on-demand.

Dozens of pro-life public figures and movement leaders gathered behind the rally stage, speaking most frequently of the hope embodied by the new administration. One of those activists was David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress, which recorded and released the undercover videos that exposed the vast fetal-tissue-trafficking industry profiting off of the body parts of aborted babies.

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