Month: June 2018

Analysis: Donald Trump’s mainstream immigration policy

Perhaps no Trump policy has provoked more emotional reaction than the practice of separating illegal border crossers from the children they brought with them to the U.S. There’s no need to recount the number of times critics have called the president a Nazi, or a fascist, or just plain cruel. The administration has now stopped the separation policy. But it plans to continue prosecuting illegal border crossers and, when those crossers bring children illegally into the U.S., will “detain families together during the pendency of immigration proceedings,” according to an administration court filing in California. That of course will not satisfy the critics, and legal challenges are sure to follow. But if a new poll is correct, it appears the Trump administration, after an enormously damaging few weeks, has ended up squarely on the side of the majority of American voters. The new survey is a Harvard-Harris poll, by former Clinton pollster and strategist Mark Penn. It was conducted June 24-25, with 1,448 registered voters. On the issue of separations, Penn began with a threshold question: “Do you think that people who make it across our border illegally should be allowed to stay in the country or sent home? Sixty-four percent (83 percent of Republicans, 47 percent of Democrats, and 66 percent of independents) said they should be sent home. Thirty-six percent said they should be allowed to stay. Then, Penn asked: “Do you think that parents with children who make it across our border illegally should be allowed to stay in the country or sent home?” The presence of children made little different in the result: 61 percent (81 percent of Republicans, 40 percent of Democrats, and 66 percent of independents) said they should be sent home, while 39 percent said they should be allowed to stay. The vast majority — 88 percent — opposed separating illegal immigrant families while they are in the U.S., and they blamed the Trump administration for the policy. On the other hand, 55 percent (76 percent of Republicans, 39 percent of Democrats, and 55 percent of independents) said illegal immigrant families should be held in custody “until a judge reviews their case” — essentially the new Trump family detention policy. The end result was that a substantial majority said illegal border crossers, and the children they brought, should be returned to their home countries. To that end, 80 percent (84 percent of Republicans, 79 percent of Democrats, and 78 percent of independents) favored hiring more immigration judges “to process people in custody faster.” “They [poll respondents] rejected family separation while narrowly favoring family detention,” Penn told me in an email exchange. “Mostly they want people who cross the border illegally to be turned around and returned home efficiently.” Penn’s polling found other results broadly favorable to the Trump approach to immigration.

To see what those other results are, and to read the rest of the article, click on the text above.  Thanks to veteran D.C. journalist Byron York for putting this outstanding piece together.  Please consider this your “Read of the Day.”  If you read only one article here today (who would do such a think?!), then READ THIS!!  Then, pass it on to all of your friends and family members…especially those who tend to watch CNN or MSNBC.  Excellent!!    🙂

Ex-CNN producer blasts Jim Acosta for ‘self-serving antics’

A former CNN producer took to Twitter on Friday to blast Jim Acosta, the network’s White House correspondent, for what he called Acosta’s “self-serving antics,” saying they “give all good journalists a bad name.” The posts by Steve Krakauer, a former senior digital producer for the network who is now is a top executive at Commerce House, a Dallas-based advertising firm, were prompted by a question that Acosta shouted to President Donald Trump on Friday during a White House event on the economy and tax cuts. Trump used the event as an opportunity to extend condolences to the victims and survivors of Thursday’s tragedy at the offices of the Capital Gazette, where five employees were slain by a gunman who was later taken into custody. Acosta tried to link the shooting to past criticisms that Trump had leveled toward members of the media, including calling them “the enemy of the people.” As the audience applauded at the end of the president’s speech, Acosta shouted from the back of the room: “Mr. President, will you stop calling us the enemy of the people, sir? Will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people, sir? Mr. President, will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people, sir?” The question drew no response from Trump. “Truly an embarrassment, on multiple levels,” Krakauer tweeted about Acosta’s performance. He continued in a subsequent tweet: “On a day journalists could honor the memory of fellow reporters tragically killed due to a deranged person with a vendetta going back years, Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump,” Krakauer wrote. After the White House event, Acosta tweeted about his own performance: “I tried to ask the president if he would stop calling us the enemy of the people. He did not respond,” Acosta wrote. He added: “We also had a few folks who shushed is in the audience. Of course we are not going to be shushed.” Acosta is no stranger to controversy. Earlier in the week, the reporter drew shouts of “Go home!,” and “Fake news, Jim!” at a Trump rally in South Carolina. One rallygoer, identified as Maria Rojas, personally confronted Acosta, telling him he doesn’t respect the country.

It is beyond mind-boggling that Jim still has a job at CNN.  But, then again, it’s CNN which has no journalistic credibility.  To see that tool actually making an ass of himself, click on the text above.

What ICE is really doing on the US-Mexico border

As a border patrol agent based near Mexico, Hector Garza holds his job in high esteem: He tries to do the job with dignity, he said, even in the face of mass protests aimed at the Trump administration’s policy of forcibly separating immigrant children from their parents. “We’re treating people with respect at the border,” he said during an interview with FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto. “Our agents go out there every single day and save these illegal immigrants who crossed, kids were abandoned by their parents, abandoned by the smugglers.” The furor began on Monday, after the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency began forcibly separating and detaining children from their parents who had entered the U.S. illegally. Although President Trump signed on Thursday an executive order that ended the policy by keeping families together when they’re detained, there are reportedly still hundreds of children separated from their parents. Garza said some of the separations are likely to continue, despite the executive order, because some of the children aren’t related to the adults purporting to be their parents. Some cartels, he said, will sneak across the border by pretending to be families. “Many times they don’t have any kind of information,” he said. “They have their names confused. The kid won’t even recognize who the adult is.” Garza did not have specific numbers about how many children may have been recruited by drug cartels. Protesters have targeted border patrol agents and administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. But, Garza said, many people aren’t aware of what it really entails to be a border patrol agent, or what the job is comprised of. And while he said the waves of hatred toward the agency has affected some of the agents, they will continue to go out there and protect the country, he said. Each day, agents confiscate mass amounts of drugs along the border — drugs that could kill people in the U.S., he said. “They’re focusing on this issue with families, but they’re not focusing on the fentanyl, the cocaine and all these dangerous drugs that are killing our kids in this country,” he said. “Those are the drugs we need to stop.”

Agreed..  THIS is the story that MSNBC, CNN, and the rest of the dominantly liberal mainstream media, as well as Democrat politicians, don’t want you to know.  For them, they don’t care at all about the illegal alien kids.  They just want to use this issue to whip up their base in a frenzy to oppose Trump and use it as an election issue in the November midterms.  That’s all.  The FACT that this policy of separating illegal kids from illegal adults that cross has been around for a long time spanning previous presidential administrations.  That’s a FACT.  These self-righteous Dems and liberal media personalities on MSNBC and CNN never hounded Obama or his administration when they had the same exact policy.  What hypocrites!  Another FACT..  Trump penned an executive action stopping most of these separations recently.  So, really…The issue is no more.  BUT, the liberal media, idiot liberal celebs in HollyWEIRD and Dems still are parading it around and keeping the “issue” alive for pure self-righteous, hypocritical reasons; again to keep it as a campaign issue in November.  FAKE NEWS!!    Remember that next time you find yourself having a brain fart and actually turning on CNN or MSNBC.

Trump predicts electoral doom for Democrats with ‘abolish ICE’ push: ‘They’re going to get beaten so badly’

President Trump is predicting that Democrats will be “beaten so badly” if they campaign on the policy of abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — just as the once-fringe call to scrap the agency is going mainstream among the left. In an interview to be aired Sunday with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump was asked what he thinks about more Democrats lining up to call for the agency’s abolition. “Well I hope they keep thinking about it. Because they’re going to get beaten so badly,” he said. “You know ICE, these are the guys that go in and take MS-13, and they take them out. Because they’re much tougher than MS-13, like by a factor of 10. And these are the ones – you get rid of ICE you’re going to have a country that you’re going to be afraid to walk out of your house.” “I love that issue if they’re going to actually do that,” he added. Calls to “abolish ICE,” once limited to the far-left parts of the Democratic Party base, have shifted into the mainstream mostly in response to the Trump administration’s tough policies on illegal immigration — particularly the “zero tolerance” policy on detaining all illegal border crossers. In New York, far-left primary challenger and ICE opponent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s shocked the party’s establishment by beating Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y. In the days after, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Mayor Bill de Blasio have added their support to the cause. “I believe that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has become a deportation force … and that’s why I believe you should get rid of it, start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works,” Gillibrand said in a CNN interview Thursday night. “We should abolish ICE,” de Blasio said Friday morning on WNYC radio. His Democratic colleague in Albany, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is also facing pressure to back such calls after primary challenger Cynthia Nixon has called ICE a “terrorist organization.” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif has said that the U.S. should consider “starting from scratch” while Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., announced on Monday that he would be introducing a bill to abolish the agency. But, while it was unlikely to gain much traction on the right, Trump also tweeted on Saturday that he was backing ICE agents and that there was “zero chance” of ICE being abolished. “To the great and brave men and women of ICE, do not worry or lose your spirit. You are doing a fantastic job of keeping us safe by eradicating the worst criminal elements,” he said. “So brave! The radical left Dems want you out. Next it will be all police. Zero chance, It will never happen!” Trump is joining a number of Republicans and immigration hardliners who are welcoming the Democratic shift on the issue, believing that it spells electoral victory for the GOP outside of Democratic enclaves like New York and California. “Based on the last week, Democrats apparently want to campaign on open borders, mass migration, & abolishing ICE,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., tweeted this week. “Give them points for honesty. Let’s vote.”

‘Idol’ Star Jax Defies Left-Wing Hate over White House Independence Day Concert

American Idol finalist Jax, sees her upcoming White House performance on Independence Day as a chance to honor “our troops,” and celebrate “the birthday of our country.” The New Jersey-born singer also says she won’t let any amount of backlash change her mind. “I think it’s kinda a really unfortunate thing people can’t separate politics and patriotism,” the singer told TMZ on Thursday. The Season 14 American Idol finalist explained that her appearance is more about honoring her family, and other families that have sacrificed for our country. Jax’s younger brother is a Marine and her father was a 9/11 first responder. “I think it’s about honoring our troops and celebrating the birthday of our country,” the singer said. According to TMZ, “Jax will join fellow ‘AI’ alum Jonny Brenns and country music singer Sara Evans for a July 4 evening concert on the south lawn of the White House, with the Prez and First Lady Melania Trump in the crowd.” “I’m delighted to welcome this new addition to the annual White House July 4th celebration. Americans will be able to tune in from their homes and be part of the festivities,” Melania Trump said in a statement. The concert will be televised Wednesday on the Hallmark Channel.

Sessions’ reversals on four Obama positions validated by Supreme Court

It seems the Trump administration knows the law better than the Obama administration. The Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed positions of the Obama administration in four cases decided by the Supreme Court this year — and won all four of them. They included constitutional technicalities, such as whether a certain set of appointments needed Senate confirmation, and politically charged cases over cutting names from voter lists and labor unions charging dues to unwilling workers. “In four cases, after careful review, we changed the department’s position in order to follow the law,” Mr. Sessions said Wednesday as the court closed out its term. “The favorable Supreme Court decisions in all four cases reflect that we took the proper course of action. The decisions speak for themselves.” Reversals of position at the department are a big deal and set tongues wagging in legal circles. That was the case last year when the Trump administration said it was backing an Illinois state employee who objected to being forced to pay dues to a labor union he didn’t belong to, and which took stances he disagreed with. The Obama administration sided with the unions — and a 1977 Supreme Court precedent — in saying the state could make the dues mandatory. The court overturned that precedent this week, sided with the administration and ruled 5-4 in favor of the employee. Yet another reversal came in the voter registration case out of Ohio, where the state has a policy of removing names of people who don’t vote in several consecutive elections and don’t respond to notices. During oral argument in the court this year, Justice Sonia Sotomayor chided Solicitor General Noel Francisco on the department’s new position, saying it contradicted decades of Justice Department stances under both Republican and Democratic administrations. “After that many presidents, that many solicitor generals, this many years … how did the solicitor general change its mind?” She demanded. Mr. Francisco said the law changed in 2002 and that his office was recognizing the new standard. The court agreed with him, ruling 5-4 in favor of Ohio. The justices also sided with the administration in a case over forced arbitration clauses in labor contracts, another 5-4 ruling, and in a case over appointments to the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which the Trump administration position prevailed 7-2. Lawyers said the Justice Department reversals amounted to a housecleaning. “It seems like wiping everything Obama did from the books,” Lucas A. Powe Jr., a law professor at the University of Texas, said…

It’s a beautiful thing!   For more, click on the text above.    🙂

Comcast outage brings down internet, TV service across US

Comcast said Friday it was restoring cable services after a widespread outage impacted customers across the U.S. The outage, triggered by cut fiber lines, brought down internet, television and phone service for Comcast XFINITY customers in markets including New York and Philadelphia. DownDetector.com Opens a New Window. , a website that follows outages, also tracked large outages in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Dallas, Denver and Seattle. In a statement, Comcast said its engineers were restoring service to residential and business customers. “We identified two, separate and unrelated fiber cuts to our network backbone providers,” the Philadelphia-based company said. “Our engineers worked to address the issue immediately and services are now being restored to business and residential internet, video and voice customers. We again apologize to anyone who was impacted.” Comcast directed customers on Twitter to contact the company if they continued to experience service disruptions.

How Buzz Aldrin wants to make Mars habitable

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, has pushed for humanity to expand its presence in space, making Mars habitable for mankind. But for a planet whose atmosphere is almost entirely made up of carbon dioxide, how will humans do something as simple as breathe, much less live? Speaking with Fox News, Aldrin said there may be feasibility to ideas put forth by tech luminaries such as Elon Musk (a friend of Aldrin’s), including detonating nuclear weapons as a way to ‘terraform’ the Red Planet or transforming Mars so it can support human life. “Well, he’s not the only one who’s pioneered ideas like that,” Aldrin said in an interview with Fox News. “He’s a little more flowery with things he does, but there’s also Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, the latter of whom I have great admiration for and the slow steady way he’s limiting himself to lunar industry that will then enable the same for thousands and millions of people.” The 88-year-old Aldrin went on to say that much of humanity knows we need to get to space to survive, even if the cost for expansion into space is currently, pun intended, astronomical. “There’s this thing up there called the moon, and it’s caught our fancy,” the former astronaut and Command Pilot in the United States Air Force said. “And it’s time to begin to exercise what we’ve learned in a way that we can do at the moon, and share the cost – very important. The U.S. can’t pay for all of this, we’ve got to share the costs and share the benefits so that we directly contribute to just what we are able to do.” He continued: “And its gonna be much greater than two guys for one day, there months later, something like that. We’re gonna occupy the moon, and we’re going to think about occupying but, I think we’re going to settle Mars.”

For more, click on the text above.

American Workers Thank Trump as Manufacturing Plant Breaks Ground: ‘Me and My Family Are Grateful’

American workers thanked President Trump as a new Foxconn manufacturing plant broke ground in Wisconsin on Thursday. During the groundbreaking ceremony, Trump welcomed three American workers onstage who will be working at the manufacturing plant or are working on building the facility. The workers thanked Trump and Foxconn for giving them new opportunities in the president’s “Hire American” economy. “I started in 2005 as an operating engineer and Hoffman Construction gave me my first job in a hall truck,” Celia Griffin, a mother of three told the crowd at the ceremony. “Me and my family are grateful and very pleased to be at home again,” Griffin said. “Thank you, everyone. Thank you.” Dawn Wallace, a mother of three, says she re-entered the workforce after being a stay-at-home mom for years due to the job opportunities that have come to Wisconsin. “I would just like to thank Hoffman [Construction] for giving me the opportunity to start something new,” Wallace said. “What a perfect way than Foxconn. I was super excited when I heard it was coming in our area.” Chris Coski, who is one of the project managers on the site, said he “appreciated the opportunity” to get to do a job that he says he’s been doing since he was a child. “Foxconn is probably one of the best things that’s ever happened to Hoffman Construction … and I appreciate the opportunity, President Trump,” Coski said. “Thank you very much.” Trump said Foxconn has already contracted more than 25 local Wisconsin construction companies to help build their main facility. Foxconn executives say they will build the factory with American made steel and concrete. Earlier this week, American workers at Harley-Davidson praised Trump’s fair trade policies, crediting the populist president for “just trying to save American industry”..

Virginia ranked America’s most patriotic state

WalletHub has ranked all 50 states, from sea to shining sea, and has determined that Virginia is the most patriotic of them all. While ranking the states, WalletHub used two main metrics, military engagement and civic engagement. Those were broken down into more specific weighted metrics, including average military enlistees per capita, veterans per capita, voter turnout and volunteer hours per resident. Virginia came in fifth overall for military engagement and 10th overall for civic engagement. Nearby Maryland came in 16th on the list, ranking 26th in military engagement and 12th in civic engagement. Click here to see the top 10 most patriotic states:

And see where your state ranks..    🙂