Harris is the absolute worst choice to lead this country

September 24, 2024

As the 2024 presidential election draws nearer, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat nominee, continues to avoid nearly every opportunity to tell voters about the specifics of her plan for what she will do, and how.

She has gained a reputation for some rather radical positions, including: wanting to abolish ICE, open the southern border, defund the police, release violent offenders, eliminate middle-class tax cuts, ban fracking and end fossil fuel use, confiscate guns from lawful owners, take away private health care plans, and provide taxpayer funded transgender surgeries for illegal aliens.

During a recent campaign stop in Moon Township, Pennsylvania, a reporter asked her: “And can you give us a sense of what other policies you want to unveil moving forward?"

In answering that question, she said, "Sure, well, I mean, you just look at it in terms of what we are talking about, for example, around children and the child tax credit and extending the EITC [Earned Income Tax Credit]." She did not answer the question. She then babbled on about the EITC, and in the process made false statements about it.

Late last month Harris told CNN's Dana Bash in her first sit-down interview since becoming the Democrat’s candidate through a non-democratic process that the Biden-Harris administration has done "good work" on the economy, but "there's more to do." She completely ignored the high level of inflation that developed during her tenure as VP.

Asked about her changing position on important issues, she said, "I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed." Again, she avoided answering the question and failed to explain why she changed positions after becoming a candidate.

On immigration, Harris noted her prosecutorial record as attorney general of California saying she has long cared about border security, even though under her watch as “border czar,” the border has effectively become wide open, allowing in roughly 10 million illegal aliens.

Her priority on day one if elected will be to "strengthen and support the middle class," she said. Again, she did not take the opportunity to explain exactly how she plans to do that.

Harris seems to be following the lead of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who famously said about a piece of legislation, “We have to pass it to find out what is in it.” Harris’ message: “Elect me to find out what I plan to do.”

Harris claims to be a Second Amendment advocate. She says she wants some “common sense” measures to keep everyone safe.

“I’m a gun owner,” she said in a friendly interview with Oprah Winfrey. “If someone breaks in my house, they’re getting shot.” Ooops! “Sorry. I probably should not have said that. [Cackling] My staff will deal with that later. [Cackling]” 

However, as a prosecutor in California in 2007, Harris outlined her view of why she could violate the Fourth Amendment. She said she would search the homes of gun owners. “Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean that we’re not going to walk into that home to check and see if you are being responsible and safe,” she said. 

And Harris said back in 2020: “These stand-your-ground laws … have often, often and frequently, been used as an excuse, if not a cover, for people motivated by race and racial profiling.” Seriously?

And even this year, while she claims she’s “not taking anybody’s guns away,” Harris still supports a mandatory buyback plan for so-called “assault rifles.” That is a disguise for what it really is: gun confiscation. “We need an assault weapons ban,” she said. 

While claiming that Bidenomics and other policies have been wonderfully successful these nearly four years, she says she will fix everything on day one. What needs to be fixed in this wonderfully successful administration? How will she fix it?

She cites words Trump used that are the same words Hitler used. So, Trump is like Hitler because they have sometimes used some of the same terms. But Harris isn’t like Hitler because some of her preferences are similar to Hitler’s?

So many of her supporters say they will vote for her because they “like her.” She refuses to give details on her plans if elected, but they will vote for her, anyway.

And let’s look at a broader picture: which side is more radical, the left or the right? Well, how many attempts to assassinate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have we seen?

If you like the high prices on most everything; the millions of illegal aliens, gotaways and terror watch-list persons running free and committing crimes; our once-great energy status that existed before Biden-Harris; the coming higher taxes and increased regulations; our constitutional republic being torn apart, then vote on November 5 for the woman who spurns interviews and tough questions, refuses to publish her positions and policies, and promises to fix all the things her present administration brought on the American people over the last four years.

She does not understand or care about America, and will take us down the road to socialism. 

How is Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan working out for the country?

December 27, 2022

President Joe Biden campaigned on the phrase “Build Back Better,” and as president has frequently used the phrase. The point he was trying to make was that things were really not so good under then-President Donald Trump, and if the country just had the good sense to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House, things would improve.

Nearly half-way through his term, how is he doing?

A column by Beth Whitehead on The Federalist website is titled “11 Of The Biden Administration’s Greatest Failures So Far.” Let’s take a look at a few of these failures.

** Facilitating a Deadly Border - The effects of Biden’s refusal to enforce U.S. border and immigration laws are devastating. Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, has said before a Congressional committee that the border is not open. He also said that the problems were inherited. And, he later denied having said the border is not open.

Putting some detail on that claim, Newsweek reported in September that “Data from the U.S. Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations compiled by Newsweek show that the average number of encounters under Biden reached totals of roughly 189,000 per month, compared to an average of just under 51,000 per month during the Trump presidency.” Sounds like an open border, doesn’t it?

Our southern border is controlled by cartels, which make millions of dollars smuggling men, women, and children across the border, which can be, and has been deadly for many of them. 

They also smuggle drugs, like fentanyl, which is deadly, along with other dangerous drugs. The number of Americans and others killed by fentanyl is in the thousands, and other drugs have taken thousands more lives. 

Roughly 3 million persons will have walked or waded across the border in Biden’s first two years, and we know little if anything about most of them. Some of them are criminals. Some of them probably were ill. Some of them were likely kidnapped.

** Shipping Illegals to a Community Near You - The president secretly shipped illegal aliens across state borders and into suburban cities and neighborhoods, without taking measures to deal with them, or even notifying these cities that the illegals would be coming.

** Holding Kids Hostage to Trans Radicalism - “In May, the Biden administration attempted to strong-arm public schools into letting males who identify as transgender use girls’ bathrooms by threatening to pull federal funding for school lunches if they didn’t,” Whitehead reported. “That’s 30 million lunch-program students Biden took hostage to push his party’s trans radicalism.”

** Tapping into Emergency Petroleum Reserves - So dedicated to the idea of killing the American fossil fuel industry, Biden decided that he would kill thousands of energy jobs, cancel fossil fuel projects, and gives up our energy independence, which we gained in the Trump presidency, and make up for that loss of oil by releasing oil from the national reserve, which exists for emergency use. 

He tries to cover his tracks by blaming our shortage on Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine war. But it doesn’t work. And Americans really enjoyed paying double for gasoline that now is only $1 or so per gallon higher than when he took office. He hasn’t told us how he plans to replenish the petroleum reserve’s oil, or if he knows he must. Perhaps he’ll buy the oil from Putin.

** Driving up Inflation - Biden’s brilliance has produced an economy that has chalked up 40-year high inflation of 7.9 percent. Trying again unsuccessfully to shift the blame to Putin, it is clearly Biden’s policies that have driven up the prices of everything Americans need and want, like gas, food, clothing, building materials and household items. 

He appointed Jerome Powell to be Federal Reserve chairman, and Powell printed money well after the “need” for it was over. That, along with the American Rescue Plan, set the stage for the current inflation cycle. So far there is nothing indicating an end to this misery.

“Under the Biden administration, consumer prices rose so much faster than wages that the average family lost $5,800 in real annual income,” reports the Heritage Foundation. “Skyrocketing interest rates account for another $1,300 in lost annual income,” for a total of $7,100.  

** Botching the Afghanistan Withdrawal - Moving American military out of Afghanistan was always something we knew we would do. But it was never intended to be the disaster that Biden created. We left too quickly, without giving the Afghan troops time to prepare, and abandoned Bagram Air Base. We left behind Americans and Afghan allies to fend for themselves. We also left billions of dollars in weapons and equipment, which are now in the hands of the Taliban.

No president is perfect, although some have done wonderful things. Biden, on the other hand, has set a new standard for imperfection. There is an ongoing debate as to whether these horrible ideas are his, or whether he is just doing as someone or some group is telling him. Regardless, the buck stops with him.

Summarizing Biden’s performance, his three Bs are actually four Ds: Dereliction, Dangerous, Disastrous, and Disgraceful.

One political party is working very hard to change America

November 8, 2022

Candidate Joe Biden claimed all through the campaign that he would unite the country and that he would be president for all of America. Uniting the country at this time in its history, when it is so heavily divided, is a tall task. But that’s what he said he would do. And given his decades in political office, he surely knew that what he was promising was a very, very, very difficult task.

So how is he doing after nearly two years into his first, and hopefully last, term? Let us take a look at some of the Unifier-in-Chief’s comments.

“Equality and democracy are under assault,” Biden charged in one speech. Trump and his supporters are a menace to our system of government, its international standing, and our very way of life, because they “promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence.” They “are determined to take this country backwards,” he said.

Biden charged in a prime-time address that the “extreme ideology” of Donald Trump and his supporters “threatens the very foundation of our republic.”

“MAGA Republicans are semi-fascists,” he said. Interestingly, fascism is a product of the Left, the far Left, around the world, not the Right. 

Benito Mussolini was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. Mussolini defined fascism as: “Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” Centralized state power. There are private entities in fascists states, but they are subordinate to the power of the centralized state. This does not sound like Republicans.

Biden also stressed the need to “stand up against” political violence, saying, “we don’t settle our differences in America with a riot … or a hammer,” alluding to the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul.

Remember the violence following the killing of George Floyd in cities across the nation, with burning government buildings, and other things? That violence was not done by Republicans, and those in positions of authority, mayors and governors, who sat back and watched it happen were also not Republicans.

He condemned Republicans who deny the results of the 2020 election, saying “American democracy is under attack” because Trump believes the election was stolen. But, so did Hillary Clinton, of the 2016 election that she lost. And Stacey Abrams of the gubernatorial election in Georgia, which she lost, and never conceded. By the way, both women are Democrats.

Biden was pandering to a mostly black audience when he said they are going to “put y’all back in chains.” And, “you ain’t black” if you weren’t going to vote for him.

“We’re at a serious moment in our nation’s history. The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They are a threat to our very democracy,” Biden said. "They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy. This is why, in this moment, those of you who love this country, Democrats, independents, main-stream Republicans — we must be stronger, more determined and more committed to saving America, than the MAGA Republicans are to destroying America.”

This is an especially interesting comment, as it is the Democrats who want to destroy America by stacking or eliminating the Supreme Court; eliminating the Electoral College, the Constitutional method of electing the President; eliminating the Senate filibuster that protects the rights of the minority party. It is the Democrats who are working to achieve a federal takeover of presidential elections, now controlled by the states.

And, by the way, America is not a democracy. It is a republic that operates under democratic principles. No doubt that Biden would prefer a pure democracy, so that once Democrats gained control, they could change the government to guarantee their continued control.

Furthermore, Republicans are, by their opposition to the Left’s radical plans, working to protect and save our country as designed, our “democracy,” not destroy it.

Biden’s administration ignored the response to a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that corrected an error in the decades-old Roe v. Wade decision. He initially refused to condemn the leak of the draft opinion or protesters’ illegal targeting of constitutionally conservative justices’ homes. And, House Democrats stalled a recent bill to provide police protection to justices’ families.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot — a Democrat — tweeted after the leak: “To my friends in the LGBTQ+ community — the Supreme Court is coming for us next. This moment has to be a call to arms.” Then, there’s Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s, also a Democrat, warning in March 2020 about high-court abortion rulings: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.” 

In the last two years under Democrat — “progressive” — control, America has lost its energy independence, is suffering under the highest inflation in 40 years, has seen historic increases in crime and the coddling of criminals, and dangerous and deadly levels of illegal immigration at the uncontrolled southern border.

If everyone votes for Republicans in this election, our country will not be harmed, because it is the Democrats whose agenda is to fundamentally change the United States of America.

The infrastructure bill highlights what is wrong with Congress

The bill H.R. 3684, the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, known simply as the “infrastructure bill,” has been a controversial product from day one. 

The Democrat majority attempted to get a vote to pass the bill before it was even fully written. Yeah, what a wonderful idea: let’s vote to approve a bill before it’s written. What could possibly go wrong?

This situation is a serious contender for the dumbest idea dealing with pending legislation in our nation’s history.

Next, the bill is 2,702 pages long. Most books I read take many hours from start to finish, and most of them are not only a fraction of this bill’s length, usually 300 to 500 pages, but also have much smaller pages with fewer words.

The Christian Bible has about 1,300 pages and about 800,000 words. That makes this Democrat bill twice as long as the Bible. Another way of understanding how long this bill is: compare it to these weekly columns. Each weekly column word-count target is 858 words, give or take a few. Dividing 800,000 by 858 equals 932.4, or enough weekly columns to fill 17.9 years.

The International Christian College and Seminary tells us that it takes approximately 70 hours and 40 minutes to read the Bible. Extrapolating that to the infrastructure bill, someone who read the bill continuously from start to finish in one sitting would spend more than 140 hours, or six days, reading it. With time out to eat, sleep, visit the restroom, and other normal things, add more days. And experts tell us that reading federal legislation is a more difficult read than most books. It takes study time, in addition to reading time.

“These bills are not written for even the educated layperson, Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, said. “They are written for specialists.” His comment was made back in 2009 when the Affordable Care Act and the Health and Education Reconciliation Act were under consideration. Those two bills dwarfed the infrastructure bill, adding up to 10,516 pages in the Federal Register.

This bill is simply way too big, in both length and dollars spent. It’s a safe bet that few if any of our representatives and senators will have personally read and studied the entire bill. Much of the work will be done by staff, and some topics may simply be accepted as good and proper without anyone actually reading or studying them. Is that really the best way to do things?

Furthermore, there is no emergency demanding that one ridiculously long bill that spends more than a trillion dollars be created and voted on. Truly important measures will have bipartisan support, and can be easily passed individually, or in small groups of two or three closely related topics, and a few dozen pages. 

Within its 2,702 pages the bill contains 10 divisions, and most of those could easily be, and should be, addressed as separate bills to be debated and voted on over time, rather than crammed through all at once.

One part of the bill proposes spending $110 billion for roads, bridges, and major projects. That’s a bunch of money. Will it all be spent on really needed projects? Or will some of it be used for pet projects that benefit some special interests?

Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute addressed some specific features: “The bill also contains various faddish ideas like elements of the Green New Deal and ‘Buy American’ provisions, all of which will simply increase costs to American consumers for no discernible benefit. Many of my criticisms of the president’s infrastructure plan as being bloated and wasteful continue to apply to this bill.”

“Finally, several Democrats have made it clear that they view this as the first of a two-part package,” Murray’s evaluation continued, “the second being a budget reconciliation bill with $3.5 trillion of new spending and a variety of progressive wish-list items that would seek to turn the U.S. into a European-style social democracy, with a vastly expanded welfare state. Again, it appears that the plan is to rush this through on the back of the infrastructure bill without proper scrutiny.”

One feature of the $1.2 trillion bill that appears to breach President Joe Biden’s “red line” pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year is a “national motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot program,” which would affect most drivers. Calling it a “fee” instead of a “tax” will do little to soothe the pain that drivers will have to endure when they drive to and from work or on vacation to help fund this massive spending plan.

And then we must ask, will there be the need for a “Mileage Czar” with a bloated staff to keep track of these taxes?

There is a need to address real infrastructure issues in the country. But the most important, the most critical area of need today, is securing the southern border. Thousands of illegal aliens, many of whom are gang members, drug dealers, and Covid-infected, enter this country every week. This bill does not address that. Congress needs to address the criminal nature of the border crisis first.

America’s future is in doubt. It is under attack from within.

In past weeks this column has addressed the increasing weaknesses, outright failures, and attacks on once-stable components of our culture and our nation.

The deteriorating education system, particularly at the college level, but increasingly at the K-12 levels, has resulted in millions who have not learned about their country and its history. Lots of them have instead been, and are being, indoctrinated with distinctly un-American political ideology. And some professors and teachers willingly abandon their professional integrity to do this.

The latest big push is to fight what some call the “systemic racism” of the United States by seeking to convince members of one race that they are inherently evil, and members of the other races that they are perpetual victims.

News journalism is becoming more and more agenda driven. Relevant and important stories are often not presented by many news sources. Some who play the part of journalists will pass items off as news that are manipulated to benefit a political agenda. Some items presented are misinformation and are not researched for accuracy, because they advance the political agenda, as written. 

In the political sphere, where dishonesty exists, loyalty to partisan agendas has replaced forthright service to the American people for many office holders. The “progressives” are working hard to change things so that they will be in power forever.

The broad benefits to our culture of the two-parent family, and its educational and stabilizing effects on children, have been seeping away over recent decades. In 1960, 87.7 percent of children under 18 lived with two parents. In 2020, was 70.4 percent, almost 20 percent lower.

Concerns for protecting people’s oversensitive feelings have replaced responsible behavior as the guidepost for living a good and productive life. Efforts to make everyone equal in terms of outcomes — equity — to protect feelings, defy nature. Some people are simply stronger than others, faster than others, smarter than others, etc. It’s part of being an adult to accept our strengths and deal with our weaknesses.

The rise in violent crime in many American cities reflects the lack of appreciation for life, and the failure of families and schools to teach basic humanity and life lessons to millions of young people. Lots of these under-educated people are now adults.

An example of what results when families and schools fail is this: An adult male recently brought a pregnant 12-year-old girl to a hospital in Tulsa, OK because she was in labor. He told the people there that he was the father of the baby-to-be. He had no apparent recognition that impregnating a child of 12 is a crime, not to mention its immorality. 

This situation of improperly trained youth has been made worse by enacting truly foolish ideas. The idea of defunding the police is responsible for much if not most of this new pandemic of criminality, as police officers retire, quit, or back off of doing their job because they no longer have the backing of the local government.

And soft-headed “progressive” prosecutors who do not prosecute the accused, and the equally silly idea of no bail and immediate release of persons arrested for serious crimes, invite those criminals to hit the streets and commit more crimes. Every day criminals released or not prosecuted are availing themselves of this foolishly provided opportunity.

The rising acceptance of socialist, communist, and Marxist ideals results from the failure of families, and the education system, which is increasingly shoving un-American ideals down the throats of the young people it is intended to help learn important subject matter, like English, math, science, geography, the arts, and real history.

Today, many without a solid background in American history say they prefer socialism, because they apparently don not understand how it has failed every time it has been tried, with Venezuela and Cuba as current shining examples.

The southern border crisis is dramatic evidence of what happens when goofy “progressive” ideals replace the sensible and successful design of our federal government. Each day tens of thousands of people enter the country illegally, with the permission and assistance of the government, and not just from Cuba or the Northern Triangle countries, but also from Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Haiti, Colombia, Turkey, Russia, and China.

As the government continues to strongly encourage vaccinations to fight Covid, and hint at renewed restrictions, thousands of illegal immigrants are ushered across the border and transported around the country with no concern about how many of them are infected with the virus.

A friend sent an email of a Facebook post, which read, in part: “I was born in 1942, almost at the midpoint of the 20th century – the American century. America’s prestige and influence were never greater. 

“Thanks to the ‘Greatest Generation,’ we won a World War fought throughout most of Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. We reduced Germany to rubble and put the rising sun to bed. It set the stage for almost half a century of unprecedented prosperity. We stopped the spread of communism in Europe and Asia and fought international terrorism.”

Today, America is a mere shadow of that great nation. And many of its people are working hard to change it further.

Potpourri: Some thoughts on a few topics currently in the news

Condé Nast’s liberal online publication Teen Vogue is in the news, and not for anything positive that has happened. Alexi McCammond was hired at the magazine on March 5th, scheduled to start as editor-in-chief on March 24th.

But in the interim, magazine staffers got wind of something McCammond had done, and raised enough cane that the up-coming EIC decided to resign the position she had not yet taken.

What horrendous deed had McCammond done? Had she committed murder, or armed robbery? Pedophilia? Did she vote for Donald Trump?

No. She had committed the unpardonable sin of making insensitive, some say racist remarks in tweets. In 2011. When she was 17 years-old. And has since apologized profusely for her transgressions.

But in this day of hypersensitivity, when anyone can be highly offended by anything or everything, even what one did years ago as a teenager is a hanging offense.

Interestingly, the delicate sensitivities of the staffers of this young women’s magazine were not sufficiently provoked by the sponsored content from the Saudi Arabian government, a country where women are routinely mistreated and subjected to male dominance. 

This is the essence of the cancel culture: ignorance and hypocrisy.

* * *

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., continues to amaze with her impudence, deviousness and heavy-handed partisanship.

When Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., who was recently declared the winner of a challenged election, asked to have her son, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, observe her being sworn in from the gallery above the House floor, Pelosi denied the request. 

“I guess he’s considered a risk,” Tenney said. No doubt. He’s the son of a Republican Representative, graduated from the Naval Academy and is now a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy. Who could be more of a threat to Pelosi than someone with such a positive record? And he never had a relationship with a female Chinese spy, either.

No, he’s not a risk. Pelosi; Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.; Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn.; Elizabeth (the filibuster is racist) Warren, D-MA, et al, are risks. They are working overtime to weaken the Constitution, nationalize our elections and increase the incidence of vote fraud, assist illegal aliens entering the country by the thousands, ignore the 2nd Amendment, raise taxes, increase unemployment, and the list goes on.

* * *

What is supremacy? Merriam-Webster defines it as “the quality or state of being supreme,” which is defined as “highest in rank or authority.” 

How does a group — perhaps an ethnic group — gain supremacy? In the case of a nation, supremacy would naturally go to a group that is much larger than the others, likely larger than all the others combined.

In Spain, for example, the World Atlas tells us that 89.9 percent of its population is Spanish, and just 10.1 percent is of a foreign ethnicity. 

Guess what? In Spain there is Spanish supremacy.

In the United States, even after decades of immigration, the Statistical Atlas tells us that white people still comprise the majority at 62 percent. The next closest group is that of Hispanics at 16.9 percent. Blacks make up 12.6 percent, Asians are 5.2 percent, and mixed ethnicities are 2.3 percent.

As you go back through time, the white majority was much larger. So, when the culture and norms of the United States were evolving, white people overwhelmingly set those standards. And they still exist.

So, the “white supremacy” we hear so much about is not an unusual thing, and it is not automatically a bad thing. 

* * *

Why will the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not allow the press to participate in ride-alongs with agents at the southern border? Since the news media are the source of the information we depend upon, that might make some think there is something being hidden down there.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that the department is preparing video to distribute to news media, but cited the pandemic among reasons for not allowing reporters, photographers and camera crews into the facilities housing illegal aliens.

“We are focused on our operations, executing our operations, in a crowded Border Patrol facility where hundreds of vulnerable migrant children are located,” Mayorkas said.

Wallace challenged the Secretary, saying his answer sounded like an “excuse,” and that one pool reporter and camera crew could enter one facility and record what’s happening, without endangering the children or the crew.

Mayorkas emphasized the department’s efforts to provide such a video. Apparently, he trusts the government to provide the best information to the public. Yeah, right!

* * *

If you don’t like Dr. Suess, don’t read those books. If you don’t like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson because they were Confederates, don’t try to have the carvings on Stone Mountain removed, just don’t go there. If someone you know of goes to an event sponsored by someone or something you dislike, just deal with the difference in opinion, don’t try to get them fired or otherwise punished. 

In America, small groups don’t get to decide what the rest of us can like.

Border officials and facilities overwhelmed by illegal entrants

The number of illegal aliens captured at the southern border has overloaded the facilities that hold them, and thousands have been released into the country.

Illegal entry has been routinely called a non-crisis by much of the media and Congressional Democrats, and recently Jeh Johnson, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, called it that. Appearing on CBS last month, Johnson said: "So here are the facts: the facts are that illegal migration on our southern border is a fraction of what it used to be." He added, "But a security crisis per se? No. I would not characterize it that way. I think there is some fear-mongering going on."

However, Saturday Johnson said on Fox News’ “Cavuto LIVE,” “By anyone's definition, by any measure, right now we have a crisis at our southern border.” He added, “According to the commissioner of [Customs and Border Protection], there were 4,000 apprehensions in one day alone this past week, and we're on pace for 100,000 apprehensions on our southern border this month.”

Perhaps Congress will finally get the message. Had Congress taken administration warnings seriously and acted to relieve the situation months ago, this crisis could have been resolved.

Representative Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, noted that in the heat of summer “it’s going to be very, very dangerous in this part of the country to have young kids, women and other folks to come in.”

Cuellar said, after speaking to Customs and Border Patrol agents, he had discovered a disturbing trend of adults “renting” children in Central America in order to increase their chances of being able to stay in the U.S. once they cross over.

Chris Farrell of Judicial Watch visited Guatemala earlier this year to get a first-hand look at the first of several caravans headed toward our southern border.

Contrary to reports in the media and those who support unfettered immigration that the migrants were mostly women and children, Farrell observed that while there were women and children in the caravan, he estimated that between 90 and 95 percent of them were men 15 to 45 years old. The children, he said, were “recovered from a human smuggling operation using the caravan as ‘cover.’”

He said that it’s “A highly organized, very elaborate and sophisticated orchestration,” not a sudden movement of thousands of people who just happened to all decide to travel north at the same time. It’s an “organized group of people pushing a certain political agenda by a group calledPueblos Sin Fronterasbeing aided by hundreds of that organization’s workers.”

This effort, he estimated, cost several millions of dollars for food, water, transportation, medical equipment, mobile hospitals and child services, which reminded Farrell of a complex military operation. And while they did walk portions of the tremendous distance through Mexico, they primarily traveled on chartered tour buses, dozens of them.

The media reports of the plight of the migrants say that “they are trying to escape daily violence and daily threats. People are dying left and right. The conditions are extraordinarily dangerous.”

Farrell interviewed some of the marchers. He started every interview with, “Why are you coming to America?”

“They all said that their reason for joining the ‘caravan’ was economic,” he said. “It was job driven. And then, someone would say, ‘Oh, yeah, … we’re also fleeing violence’ as an after-thought.”

And then, Farrell asked the obvious question: “Well, if things are so bad, why did you leave your family back home? Of course, they couldn’t answer that question,” he said. 

Perhaps the growing recognition of the crisis at the southern border will bring a realistic attitude about the nature of the numerous migrant caravans headed our way and get Congress to do its job, and take action to address this crisis.

President Donald Trump has threatened to completely shut down the border this week if Mexico doesn’t take steps to stop the caravans from traveling through to the border. He has already cut funding to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras because they have not taken action to halt the flow of migrants. 

Shutting down the border has some serious problems for Mexico and the U.S., so Congress must act quickly. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said yesterday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” that his state cannot deal with the number of illegals entering it, and the same situation exists for other border states.

The Los Angeles Timesaddressed the border shutdown in February: “Fortunately for Trump, the law on immigration and related matters favors the president. Legal precedents have traditionally accorded the chief executive complete and nearly unchecked power to deny foreigners permission to enter the United States.”

"The exclusion of aliens is a fundamental act of sovereignty … inherent in the executive power," the Supreme Court said in 1950. And the Timesadded, “Congress adopted a provision in 1952 saying the president ‘may by proclamation … suspend the entry of all aliens and any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants’ whenever he thinks it ‘would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.’”

That does not, however, preclude a block by an activist liberal judge.

Democrats re-take the House: It is just as bad as we expected

She’s baaa-aaak! Imagining herself suddenly somehow equal to the President of the United States, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, basked in the glory of getting the gavel returned, after Democrats won back control of the House in the mid-term election.

Anxious to get back control of the House and wallowing in the glory of things to come, prior to the opening of the 2019 Congress caucusing Democrats, led by Maxine Waters, D-CA were overheard singing: “Investigate! Salivate! Dance to the music!”

And right on cue, the political foolishness began. The bad ideas Democrats had been discussing and preparing to unleash were officially unleashed.

Barely after members were sworn in and the election of the Speaker was completed, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-CA, rushed forth to introduce articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump as his first order of business.

Not long after that, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-TN, introduced a few new bills, one of which proposes the elimination of the Electoral College.

They also introduced a bill that many people would support to fund government agencies affected by the shutdown. Too good to be true, however, the bill also contained a hidden element that would provide more than a half-billion dollars in pro-abortion funding, including repealing a provision implemented by the Trump administration that would not fund NGOs that engaged in pro-abortion activities.

On the matter of impeachment, freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, wasted no time in calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump just hours after being sworn in.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters Thursday night, Tlaib said: "People love you and you win. And when your son looks at you and says, 'Momma, look you won. Bullies don't win.' And I said, 'Baby, they don't, because we’re gonna go in there and we’re gonna impeach the [vulgarity deleted].'”

Where the comment immediately placed her high in the running for the “2019 Classless Congressional Comment” award, it also garnered her much attention, but also a little welcome Democrat criticism.

Defensively, Tlaib pointed out that her “colorful” language should not overshadow her message. Well, if your message is really important to you, don’t use colorful language that interferes with it.

While we are on the topic of newbies, the freshman Democrat Darling and self-described socialist and radical, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has danced and talked her way into the limelight.

Her dancing may well be the strongest of her talents, with economic understanding bringing up the rear. The 29 year-old Representative has displayed a great lack of understanding of her country’s Constitution and government organization, characteristic of many others of her age.

She has expressed strong support for raising taxes on the highest wage earners to as much as 70 percent to pay for her list of socialistic freebies. As ridiculous an idea as this is, it wouldn’t make a dent in the costs of the programs she favors.

A 70 percent tax is punitive, and would shift a great deal of money to government use rather than use by those who earned it, and has very little support. It heaps unjust obligations on the top earners, who already shoulder a hugely disproportionate share of America’s tax bill.

Democrats apparently have been forbidden from discussing the death of Police Officer Ronil Singh, the most recent American to be killed by an illegal alien. Nancy Pelosi reportedly responded to a question about this senseless crime, “No comment.”

The ban on discussion is apparently complete, prohibiting even the expression of sympathy to Singh’s family and fellow officers, lest they admit indirectly that we have a true and serious illegal alien problem that includes sanctuary cities/fugitive cities. They didn’t even allow the automatic reaction to a gun death: the call for gun control.

As the 18^th partial shutdown of the federal government since 1976 continues into its second week, there is no agreement between Congressional Democrats and President Trump to end it, as this is written.

Ranging from a few days to more than a month, under six presidents, both Democrat and Republican – Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, G.H.W. Bush and Obama – government shutdowns are not uncommon. The longest one lasted 32 days under Bill Clinton.

The responsibility for the security of the United States and its citizens falls upon the shoulders of the Executive Branch: the President, not the Speaker of the House or the Senate Minority Leader.

Following the advice – the sincere and desperation-prompted pleas – of the people who are on the border trying to secure it, Trump wants an impenetrable barrier along sections of the border.

Under those conditions, Congressional Democrats, who voted to fund a wall previously, are instead acting to support the status quo, which includes the horrible things illegal aliens have done and will do, while Trump is working to secure the border and improve the immigration process.

In 1986, Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million people in exchange for the promise of border security. But border security was not achieved. Reagan said that was his biggest mistake. Trump does not want to make that same mistake.

In other news, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, introduced a Congressional term limits bill.