Why Trump’s Wall is a Must And why a “virtual fence” will stop no one. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272349/why-trumps-wall-must-michael-cutler

President Trump has demonstrated, once again, that he is a man of his word, opting to shut down the government rather than accede to the globalist Democrats who refuse to provide funding for the wall to be erected to help secure the dangerous and porous U.S./Mexican border.

Schumer, Pelosi and others, mostly Democrats, have opposed a wall and called for drones and other elements of a “virtual fence” along the southern border insisting that a wall would be too expensive and not needed.

As I noted in an earlier article, America Needs A Border Wall Like Houses Need Insulation, just as the cost of insulating houses ultimately saves money, by keeping warm air from escaping the house in the winter, insulating America against contraband (including deadly, dangerous narcotics), illegals and the criminals and terrorists among them, would protect America and Americans; and help staunch the flow of tens of billions of dollars annually sent out of the United States by illegal alien workers and criminals.

The cost of a secure border wall should be considered an investment in national security, public safety and the livelihoods of American workers. This is one investment that would not only pay for itself and, indeed pay dividends, but save many, many innocent lives.

For years, drones–also known as UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)–have been deployed along that border at great expense and with little or nothing to show for the costly effort.

The deployment of the U.S. military’s Predator UAV’s to support the Border Patrol’s efforts to secure our borders provided many Americans with a sense of security. After all, the military relies on those drones and we all know the U.S. military’s prowess at achieving national security goals and objectives.

In reality, for the most part, that sense of security provided by the drones has been false security. False security is worse than no security.

Save the Children, Build a Wall Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272368/save-children-build-wall-daniel-greenfield

Since the Democrats went to war against what they called, “family separation”, two migrant children have died. They did not die, as the media would have you believe, because border security is cruel, but because encouraging migrants to cross the desert with their children, as the media has done, is evil.

The outrage, the tears and fury over the policy of deterring illegal migrants from using children to force their way into this country was not compassionate. It did not help migrant children. It killed them.

The 8-year-old boy from Guatemala and the 7-year-old girl from Guatemala, who died earlier this month, are the casualties of their false compassion for children. The media would have its viewers, readers and listeners believe that its outrage was meant to save children. It was not. It was meant to take their lives.

The dead children are not the victims of an overworked Border Patrol that has been deliberately starved of the resources to do its job, because its job would limit the ability of Democrats to steal elections. They are the victims of abusive parents or caretakers, who are willing to use the lives of their children as tickets to get inside the United States, not to escape persecution, but to double or triple their incomes.

The migrants are not refugees fleeing totalitarian regimes that are persecuting them for their beliefs. They are economic migrants who are willing to kill their children to earn more and get more free stuff. And they are every bit as guilty as the parents who leave their children to die in hot cars while they play slot machines. Any sane society would treat their murderous abuse of their children the same way.

Unfortunately we are not a sane society.

Michael Griffin for Secretary of Defense By David P. Goldman

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/michael-griffin-for-secretary-of-defense/

President Trump should promote Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, to the top job at the Pentagon. Outgoing SecDef James Mattis is a deservedly honored soldier and an American patriot, but he was not necessarily the best man for the job. Mattis is a light infantry commander, and there are very few opportunities today for light infantry to solve America’s strategic problems. The overriding strategic risk to the United States is the loss of our technological edge, and the Defense Department needs a leader with the vision and expertise to restore it. Michael Griffin would be an excellent choice. A first-rate physicist, Dr. Griffin headed NASA under the Bush 41 administration.

Undersecretary Griffin set forth his strategic vision in an April 2018 interview with Rebeccah Heinrichs of the Hudson Institute. It is sobering and tough-minded. He understands the problem and has a clear idea of the solution. It bears close reading. Here are a few key extracts:

Jihad: Islam’s Engine By Amil Imani

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/12/jihad_islams_engine.html

Right from the start, violent jihad served as the engine of Islam under the command and supervision of Muhammad himself. To understand how quickly Islam spread around the world, we must see the timeline of Islam.

After Muhammad’s death in 632 A.D., his friend Abu Bakr was named caliph and ruler of the Islamic community, or Ummah. Muhammad’s followers in a short time occupied a vast geographic area; conversion to Islam was heightened by Islamic missionaries, who intermingled with local populations to promulgate the Islamic teachings. It resulted in Islam’s spread outward from Mecca toward both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the creation of the Muslim world.

In no time at all, Islam spread like a pandemic. Once it attacked the mind of its victims, this debilitating disease was capable of transforming them into helpless pawns that had no choice but to execute what they were directed to do.

Here is the truth, as bitter as it may be. Islam is the culprit. Islam is anything but a religion of peace. Violence is at the core of Islam. Violence is institutionalized in the Muslim’s holy book, the Qur’an, in many verses:

Qur’an: 9:5: “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”

Qur’an: 9:112: “The Believers fight in Allah’s cause; they slay and are slain, kill and are killed.”

The Constant Spin Zone How one publication reported Trump’s trip to see troops in Iraq.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-constant-spin-zone-11545870180?cx_testId=0&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

President Trump and his wife Melania made a surprise visit to American soldiers in Iraq on Wednesday, and you would think that would be a straightforward event to write up. Report how and when he arrived, whom he visited, and what he and some of the soldiers said. These holiday trips have become a ritual for all Presidents, and the troops appreciate the Commander in Chief’s display of support.

Yet here are the first two paragraphs of the news dispatch on the Trump visit that the Washington Post published on its website Wednesday afternoon, Washington time:

“President Trump touched down Wednesday in Iraq in his first visit to a conflict zone as commander in chief, a week after announcing a victory over the Islamic State that his own Pentagon and State Department days earlier said remained incomplete.

“The president’s visit to Al Asad Air Base west of Baghdad, which was shrouded in secrecy, follows months of public pressure for him to spend time with troops deployed to conflicts in the Middle East and punctuates the biggest week of turmoil the Pentagon has faced during his presidency.”

We’ll admit we stopped reading there, so perhaps there was actual news later in the story. But can anyone reading those opening two sentences wonder why millions of Americans believe Donald Trump when he tells them that he can’t get a fair shake from the press?

Pelosi Admires Mattis—Now She Tells Us Politicians are known to be inconsistent, but they’re not always this transparent about it. By Michael Taube

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pelosi-admires-mattisnow-she-tells-us-11545868973

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was full of praise last week for departing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. “I’m shaken by the news because of the patriot that Secretary Mattis is,” the once and future speaker said at a Dec. 20 press conference, “for what it means to our country, for the message it sends to our troops, and for the indication of what his view is of the commander in chief.”

On Twitter , Mrs. Pelosi added: “General Mattis was a comfort to many who were concerned about the path the Trump Admin would choose to take. His resignation letter is defined by statements of principle—principles that drove him to leave the Administration.”

But if Mr. Mattis’s resignation leaves Mrs. Pelosi shaken, his career doesn’t seem to have stirred her much in the first place. I searched through Google, government documents and her political website for the period 2010-18—which includes then-Gen. Mattis’s tenure as head of U.S. Central Command before his removal by President Obama in 2013. Mrs. Pelosi seems to have had nary a kind word to say about him before last week.

Why the mourning for Mad Dog Mattis? Apparently American liberals are now big fans of Western militarism.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/12/21/why-the-mourning-for-mad-dog-mattis/

EXCERPT: ”

“But what is the excuse of those liberals, those one-time not-in-my-namers, those would-be pacifists now crying angry tears over ‘mad dog’ Mattis’s departure, as if the Trump administration lost a grand elder statesman rather than a hot and cold warmonger? Are they so blinded by their animus towards Trump that they can’t distinguish between militarism and pacifism? Is their anti-Trump myopia so severe that invasion and occupation look like progress and peacekeeping? It looks that way. Broadsheet op-eds, and right-thinking tweeters, on both sides of the Atlantic, are treating Trump’s troop decision, incredibly, as a blow to the world order. They call it ‘foolish’, ‘strategically stupid’, and ‘reckless’. They say it will cost thousands of lives, that it goes against the oh-so-wise consensus view of policymakers and the US and beyond.”

“Anti-Trumpism is dragging too many into absurd, not to mention dangerous, positions. The largely laudable decision to pull soldiers out of Syria and Afghanistan is being condemned,………all in the service of scoring a few points against Trump. There are plenty of good reasons to criticise the current US administration’s foreign policy, from its trade warring with China and Russia to its involvement in the catastrophe in Yemen. But withdrawing military forces from occupied countries? That’s one we should chalk up on Trump’s ‘plus’ column.”

The year of trans tyranny In 2018, trans activism became even more violent and censorious. Joanna Williams

https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/12/26/the-year-of-trans-tyranny/

Who could have guessed, even a decade ago, that in 2018 the word ‘woman’ would be treated as an expletive? It’s become a dangerous word, either erased from public life altogether or discussed in apologetic, hushed tones. Bizarrely, what ‘woman’ signifies now needs explanation. But anyone brave enough to define women in relation to biology, to make reference to ‘sex’ or ‘female’, risks vilification and public shaming. In a very short space of time we have moved from the premise that men and women exist as fundamentally distinct biological entities with tolerance shown to a small minority of people who chose to live differently, to transgenderism as an ideology that insists all aspects of public life must comply with its demands.

2018 was the year the government consulted over proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. The consultation was never intended to question the right of transgender people to exist, still less to threaten legal rights and protections women have won. It did, however, ask about the processes individuals should have to go through in order to be legally recognised as a member of the opposite sex. The proposed changes will do away with the necessity for medical diagnoses, surgery, or living as member of the preferred sex for a substantial period of time. Instead, self-identification, a simple declaration, will be enough for a man to become a woman in the eyes of the law. As many women have pointed out, this erodes all meaning from the concept of sex and permits biological males entry into women-only spaces, such as public toilets, refuges and prisons.

Unsurprisingly, women wanted to discuss the impact that the changes to the Gender Recognition Act might have on their lives. But even having this discussion, just the suggestion that ‘woman’ might mean more than a feeling (however apparently innate or supposedly genetically determined), was seen by activists as denying the right of trans people to exist. All hint of debate had to be wiped out. Women wanting to meet had to plan in secret, revealing venues only at the last minute and risking violent attack if they were discovered. Even then, public meetings, such as one planned to take place at a council building in Leeds, were cancelled following accusations of transphobia. A spokesman said the feminist group’s values were ‘not in line with Leeds City Council’s values and policies on equality and inclusion’.

At every point, public officials, members of the establishment, have acquiesced to the demands of the trans lobby without pause for reflection. When Maria Maclachlan appeared in court to give evidence against Tara Wolf, a young male trans activist who had physically assaulted her ahead of a meeting on the Gender Recognition Act, the judge stopped proceedings to insist Maclachlan refer to the defendant as ‘she’ throughout the trial.

Dow Industrials Leap More Than 1,000 Points Rout had Dow industrials, S&P 500 on brink of bear market

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stocks-poised-for-gains-11545827647

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 1,000 points for the first time in a single session Wednesday, rebounding after a bruising four-session selloff put the blue-chip index and the S&P 500 on the brink of a bear market.

All 30 stocks in the Dow industrials notched gains, as did each of the 11 sectors in the broader S&P. Shares of Amazon.com , Facebook and Netflix climbed more than 8%, while retailers rallied as early data on the crucial holiday shopping season appeared robust. And a nearly 9% rise in oil prices offered a respite for shares of beaten-down energy companies.

Worries about the Federal Reserve’s path of interest-rate increases, trade tensions with China and slumping oil prices have spooked investors for much of the fourth quarter, putting all three major U.S. indexes on track for annual declines for the first time since 2008. The blue chips lost more than 1,800 points, or nearly 8%, in the four trading sessions entering Wednesday.

U.S. stocks plunged on Monday, with most of the major indices booking their worst Christmas Eve declines ever. Photo: Wang Ying/Xinhua/Zuma Press

“Hopefully the relief in the markets holds this week,” said Eric Wiegand, portfolio manager at U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management, referring to brief relief rallies in stocks over the past month that faded. “A lot of Washington-centric worries are still present.”

The blue-chip index climbed 1,086 points, or 5%, to 22878, its largest one-day percentage gain since March 2009. The S&P 500 added 5%, led by the consumer-discretionary and technology groups that powered the index higher for much of the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 5.8%.

The Trump administration on Wednesday continued its bid to try to stem the recent volatility. Kevin Hassett, chairman of President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is “100%” secure in his position, despite Mr. Trump’s repeated criticism of the Fed and Mr. Powell.

Hopeless in Hong Kong: China’s Squeeze Triggers Talk of a New Exodus Amid Beijing’s political encroachment, some Hong Kongers are thinking it’s time to say goodbye By Natasha Khan and Paolo Bosonin

https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-long-hong-kong-chinas-

HONG KONG—In the years leading up to the city’s 1997 return to Chinese rule, Hong Kong citizens headed overseas by the hundreds of thousands, spooked by Beijing’s crushing of student protests in Tiananmen Square and fearful their freedoms would be trampled.

They moved to Canada, the U.S., Australia and elsewhere to start new lives, or obtain second passports as an insurance policy should they wish to flee. Many native Hong Kongers returned, as the transfer of sovereignty came and went with few signs that Beijing was flexing its muscles.

Now, there are early signals a new tide of migration could be looming, as concerns rise about civil liberties, living standards and quality of life. Since Beijing in 2014 faced down protesters calling for greater democracy in Hong Kong, the city’s leaders have stifled opposition in the former British colony. For all but the most ardent activists, resistance has come to feel futile.

The actual number leaving is difficult to track because so many residents obtained foreign passports two decades or more ago. But in a survey last year by a local university, a third of respondents—including close to half of college-educated participants and young people aged 18 to 30—said they would emigrate if they got the chance. Of those, 13% had made actual preparations to leave.

Immigration to Canada has doubled over the past decade. Relocation consultants report an uptick in business in the past few years. Dozens of YouTube videos are being circulated by Hong Kong emigrants touting closer, more affordable places to live, such as Malaysia and Taiwan, where migration has also doubled in the past year. Facebook groups on these topics have also proliferated.

“Before 1997 people were worried about the uncertainty before the handover. Now they are leaving because of the certainty,” said Paul Yip, an academic at the University of Hong Kong, who specializes in population studies. He said emigrants are feeling hopeless about an economic boom that has passed many by or frustrated with the city’s changing political climate.

China’s growing presence is everywhere. Bookstores are increasing