Yes, Unvetted Illegal Caravans Threaten Public Health

by Michelle Malkin: We live in bizarro times. Suddenly, it is controversial to state obvious, neon-bright truths. This week, it has become newsworthy to observe that illegal border-crossers who circumvent required medical screenings are a threat to America’s public health and safety.

Just look at these hyperventilating headlines and tweets.

From Newsweek, which is supposed to, you know, report actual news of the week: “‘We don’t know what people have’: Laura Ingraham calls migrant caravan a health issue.”

And from The Daily Beast: “Fox & Friends Host Brian Kilmeade Fears ‘Diseases’ Brought By Migrant Caravan.”

This is not “news.” It’s propaganda recycled and regurgitated by lazy political operatives masquerading as journalists. At least the Newsweek writer gave credit to his zealous hitmen sources: “Ingraham’s comments,” he dutifully wrote, “were first highlighted by Media Matters for America.”

MMfA is a militant left-wing oppo research outfit funded by progressive billionaire George Soros. Somehow, not-really-Newsweek forgot to mention this fact. (Alas, mentioning Soros subsidies has also become a forbidden act this week, but that’s another story.) The determined intent of these “news” pieces is not to inform readers but to inflame them with the dog-whistle assumption that conservatives, Fox personalities and ordinary Americans who worry about diseases from immigration are de facto racists.

On cue, tennis star and celebrity leftist Martina Navratilova barked at Fox News’ Kilmeade on Twitter: “YOU ARE THE DISEASE! the migrants are not the problem, trump and his sycophants, like you, are the problem. Stop spewing fear and prejudice.”

Comedian John Henson tweeted: “Brian Kilmeade is spreading the disease of intolerance every single day…”

And former Clinton press flack-turned CNN hack Joe Lockhart wrote: “This is the disease Fox News spreads every day. They are complicit with Trump in trying to change the character of our country.”

Newsflash, fake newsers: It’s neither racist nor xenophobic nor hateful to discuss the impact of unfettered mass immigration and unvetted caravans of illegal border-crossers on our public health.

My parents, legal immigrants from the Philippines, were screened for a panoply of communicable and infectious diseases.

My husband’s great-great grandparents and their relatives from Ukraine underwent thorough medical and physical exams at Ellis Island immediately after disembarking from their arduous transatlantic journeys. A team of doctors checked for everything from eye disease and muscle weakness to heart conditions, ringworm and mental deficiencies. Those who failed were rejected and ejected. No appeals, no apologies, no amnesty.

I find it especially bizarre that some of the same outspoken, big government advocates for vaccinating every American citizen, young or old, against every possible condition, from the flu to chickenpox to HPV, are the same types now howling over the commonsense idea that we should protect ourselves from foreign diseases.

It wasn’t Trump’s idea to build a wall against microscopic invaders.

The Immigration and Nationality Act mandates medical screening exams for legal immigrants and refugees from around the world. The tests are performed by authorized physicians in either the applicants’ countries of origin or in the United States. The process includes “a physical examination, mental health evaluation, syphilis serologic testing… and chest radiography followed by acid-fast bacillus smears and sputum cultures if the chest radiograph is consistent with tuberculosis (TB).”

Legal immigrants and refugees must provide mandatory proof of vaccination for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcus, chicken pox, pneumonia and seasonal flu.

Moreover, the Centers for Disease Control, not Fox News or the Trump White House or any other evil conservatives, reports that “most experts agree that testing for TB, hepatitis B, and HIV should be performed for most new arrivals to the United States. Clinicians should also make a habit of ensuring that this screening has been done for every new non-US-born patient they see, regardless of time since the person’s arrival.”

Actual public health experts across the Southwest have reported rises in drug-resistant TB and dengue fever. In June, Australian public health researchers reported that “scabies, long considered a disease of the past in the developed world, is making its way back.” The scientists pointed to mass global migration as a leading factor, noting scabies outbreaks among refugees to the European Union and along America’s southern border.

And in Germany, federal epidemiologists reported that since opening the floodgates to migrants in 2015, data show “increased incidences in Germany of adenoviral conjunctivitis, botulism, chicken pox, cholera, cryptosporidiosis, dengue fever, echinococcosis, enterohemorrhagic E. coli, giardiasis, haemophilus influenza, Hantavirus, hepatitis, hemorrhagic fever, HIV/AIDS, leprosy, louse-borne relapsing fever, malaria, measles, meningococcal disease, meningoencephalitis, mumps, paratyphoid, rubella, shigellosis, syphilis, toxoplasmosis, trichinellosis, tuberculosis, tularemia, typhus and whooping cough.”

It’s simply insane to argue we should turn a blind eye to the health status of law-breaking aliens. And it’s treachery, yes, treachery, for so-called journalists to use their platforms to blithely smear those who dare to question open borders orthodoxy or report the highly inconvenient facts.
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Michelle Malkin is mother, wife, blogger, conservative syndicated columnist, and author. She shares many of her articles and thoughts at MichelleMalkin.com and at Townhall.com

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The Electronic Committee of Public Safety

Modern-day Robespierres send counterrevolutionaries to the virtual chopping block. They should recall his fate.

Megyn Kelly

by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson: Celebrities, politicians, and almost anyone of influence and wealth are always an incorrect or insensitive word away from the contemporary electronic guillotine. Regardless of the circumstances of their dilemmas, the beheaded rarely win sympathy from the mob. Coliseum-like roars of approval greet their abrupt change of fortune from their past exalted status.

So, for example, perhaps few feel sorry for anchor Megyn Kelly, recently all but fired by NBC and now walking away with most of her $69 million salary package as a severance payout.

Kelly was let go ostensibly for making a sloppy but not malicious morally equivalent comparison between whites at Halloween dressing up in costumes as blacks, and blacks likewise appearing as whites. But she sealed her fate by uttering the historically disparaging word “black face” as some sort of neutral bookend to her use of “white face.” Her fatal crime, then, was insensitive thought and speech and historical ignorance.

For someone so familiar with the rules of our electronic French Revolution and the felonies of speech and thought, Kelly proved surprisingly naïve in a variety of ways.

First, she should have known that there are revolutionary canons surrounding victimization indemnities. And for all her success, she is actually protected by few of them, given that she is fabulously well paid, attractive, still young, white — and at one time conservative and a former Fox News anchor person.

So when Kelly said something historically dense and insensitive, she should have grasped that she, despite being an emancipated coastal female, was immediately (and ratings-wise) expendable, even if expensively expendable.

Had Kelly been unapologetically progressive (especially one deemed vital to the cause), like Elizabeth Warren, who fabricated and profited from an entire minority identity, then she might well have survived the incident. Perhaps had she been a minority, such as Sarah Jeong, and written (rather than spoken off the cuff) far more racially offensive things about whites, she would have kept her job — as did Jeong on the New York Times editorial board after her racist tweets surfaced, such as this, from 2014: “Dumbass f****** white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

Instead, Kelly was hauled to the electronic guillotine in a now familiar routine. An elite luminary (the mob has little concern with the thoughtcrimes of hoi polloi), sometimes even in sloppy and inadvertent rather than mean-spirited fashion, says something deemed illiberal or insensitive or even ideologically incorrect. Other elites in journalism, politics, and academia pounce and rush to social media to post their outrage in an endless internecine battle among (mostly white) virtue-signalers.

A competition ensues to prove who can play Robespierre best, by being either the most cleverly outraged or sincerely aggrieved, or the most vicariously victimized, or the most conniving to find advantage in the denunciation. A brief investigatory lull of a few minutes is often needed to sort out relative exemptions, much as Hébert and Danton, before heading to the guillotine, had their earlier revolutionary credentials nullified or recalibrated.

Millions of Internet sleuth volunteers play the 18th-century role of the shouting mob in the street, as they google the condemned person’s name in search of a prior quote from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or any random outlet that can prove a “pattern” of incorrect expression or counterrevolutionary behavior.

Within minutes, all sorts of earlier evidence of Kelly’s alleged illiberal or incorrect thought reappeared. In Kelly’s brief electronic trial, we were told in a nanosecond that she had once claimed that the Jewish Jesus was white and that St. Nicholas (the precursor to our cherubic Germanic Santa Claus) was as well — a mortal sin given that later Western representations of both as northern Europeans were cultural misappropriations of their Mediterranean Jewish and likely Greek identities. Thus, within an hour or so, a telltale fingerprint of Kelly’s supposedly longtime racism was discovered by the collective crime lab. At that point, the only suspense left was her small odds of escaping to some sort of victim refuge — at least beyond being a wealthy privileged white female in a wealthy white privileged male world of network news.

After the doomed wrongdoer is formally rounded up on the Internet, charged, and condemned, he or she begs the inquisitors for forgiveness. Tears and physical signs of real regret occasionally attest to weakness and are further proof of crimes to be punished; the contrition is never enough to earn forgiveness or magnanimity.

So Megyn Kelly confessed: “I realize now that such behavior is indeed wrong, and I am sorry. The history of blackface in our culture is abhorrent, the wounds too deep.”

A final reprieve is sometimes found in expressing a desire to enter revolutionary reeducation camp or at least correct-thought remediation. Next, Kelly threw herself on the mercy of her accusers by confessing her ignorance of the history of minstrel stereotyping: “I learned that, given the history of blackface being used in awful ways by racists in this country, it is not okay for that to be part of any costume, Halloween or otherwise.”

By contrast, recall the recent case of former astronaut Scott Kelly. When he tweeted admiration for Winston Churchill, exposing his felonious ignorance of Churchill’s crimes, he was almost virtually guillotined. He escaped the wrath of the Internet mob by swearing that he would reexamine the hitherto unknown dark side of Winston Churchill and thereby reeducate himself about Churchill’s mortal sins of colonialism and imperialism: “My apologies. I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views which I do not support.” And so he escaped the “national razor.” No doubt the twitter and Facebook mob posed a greater peril to Kelly’s well-being than having been strapped to a volatile, fuel-laden rocket and blasted into outer space.

At some point, an employer or high official, then, like a French revolutionary judge, weighs in with the condemnatory sentence, most fearful that ordering anything less than a trip to the ultimate barber is a window into his own dark and counterrevolutionary soul.

So the trick is for the boss or the corporation — in this case NBC chairman Andy Lack —to voice “shock” and “dismay” and to do so in such terms as to ensure to the revolutionary mob that the miscreant most certainly did not learn such racist, insensitive, sexist, or subversive views from his or her superiors. Often the key is to denounce the accused in even stronger terms than the initial accusers’ and thereby not be the next head to drop in the basket. Lack proved equal to the challenge, intoning: “There is no other way to put this, but I condemn those remarks. There is no place on our air or in this workplace for them. Very unfortunate.”

Once fired and humiliated, the person is erased for a time from our revolutionary memories (we suddenly could not easily buy Garrison Keillor’s books, and Paula Deen seemed to vanish from television). Megyn Kelly will probably go into opulent seclusion and find herself disinvited from ceremonial appearances and speaking events, guillotined as a racist, with no more sympathy than a once privileged, beheaded Bourbon.

We now fear the lethal wrath of the Internet’s Committee of Public Safety. But beware of fickle revolutionary temperament. Soon our 21st-century Robespierres may become so promiscuous and obnoxious in their beheading that they wear out even the mob — and find themselves next in line on a counterrevolutionary chopping block.
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Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) is a senior fellow, classicist and historian at the
and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where many of his articles are found; his focus is classics and military history. He first shared his article on National Review..

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Consoler-In-Chief, Bend The Arc, Criminals & Caravans

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Consoler-In-Chief - As we reported, President Trump and his family went to Pittsburgh yesterday. They visited the synagogue where anti-Semite Robert Bowers murdered eleven innocent Jewish worshippers and they visited the hospital where Jewish doctors and nurses treated the injured, including Bowers.

President Trump did exactly what a president should do. He was America's consoler-in-chief. According to Jewish burial tradition, the president left a stone on each of the markers representing the 11 people who were brutally murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue.

It was particularly poignant to watch because this was not only the First Family of America, but half of the First Family members there to mourn this anti-Semitic atrocity are Jews themselves.

At the hospital, President Trump met privately with doctors and first responders. There were no cameras. While there, he spent nearly an hour with Peg Gottfried, widow of Dr. Richard Gottfried.

That is how the president, who is constantly smeared as intolerant, handled this atrocity caused by a killer who hated Jews and Donald Trump.

What About The "Tolerant" Crowd? - So what was the "tolerant" crowd in Pittsburgh doing yesterday?

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers was on CNN recently and the host attempted to bait him into blaming Trump. Rabbi Myers didn't fall for it. Asked if Trump was welcome to visit the synagogue, Myers answered:

"The president of the United States is always welcome. I'm a citizen. He's my president. He is certainly welcome."

Yesterday, the rabbi sounded as if he was retreating from that generous statement, and he was clear as to why. He said he received terrible backlash. The really sad thing is that the backlash was filled with hate -- the very thing we're trying to fight.

So this progressive rabbi got a taste of what anyone who dares to defend normal values regularly receives, and it nearly caused him to fold.

Meanwhile, thousands of "tolerant" people demonstrated against the president's visit, while he was doing exactly what any president should be doing.

Bend the Arc, a radical left-wing group, issued a statement saying President Trump was not welcome in Pittsburgh. (More on this group below.)

The Democrat mayor of Pittsburgh and the Democrat governor of Pennsylvania refused to join the president and the rabbi at the synagogue. To them it was more important to be seen "resisting" Trump than standing with the president of the United States in this time of crisis in their community.

Consider this: President Obama regularly smeared law enforcement and supported the Black Lives Matter movement, which engaged in anti-police rhetoric.

After a hate-filled killer opened fire on police during an anti-police demonstration in Dallas, killing five police officers and wounding nine others, there was a memorial service for the slain officers.

Barack Obama spoke at the service. Texas is a conservative state. But there were no demonstrations against Obama's visit, and no leading Republican in Texas refused to attend the service.

The contrast couldn't be more stark.

Bend The Arc - This group says it is a Jewish group, but it is actually just another left-wing group. Commentator Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, wrote this about the organization:

"So, is Bend The Arc really a group of 'Jewish leaders'? Only in name. The group is merely a Leftist political action group with a Jewish label. Their stated mission is 'rising up in solidarity with everyone threatened by the Trump agenda. . .' Their missions include the election of 'progressive champions' and the implementation of 'progressive legislation and policies.'"

Shapiro goes on to explain who's behind the group:

"Who runs Bend The Arc? Alexander Soros, George Soros' son. When he started the PAC, Politico noted, 'Soros, who formed his own foundation in 2012 to promote social justice and human rights, has given $1.2 million to Democratic candidates and groups in the last three elections.' (It should be noted here that criticism of the political viewpoint of major Democratic donors is not anti-Semitism; it is normal politics.)"

Shapiro is correct. The right and the left have attacked big money billionaires by name forever. But suddenly any criticism of Soros' disproportionate influence is being held up as evidence of anti-Semitism.

Well, does that make Benjamin Netanyahu an anti-Semite? Israel's prime minister has regularly called out Soros (here and here) for promoting organizations with blatant anti-Israel agendas.

Criminals & Caravans - Yet another migrant caravan has formed in Central America. That makes a total of three now headed north toward our southern border.

The Democrat Party, their media allies and some #NeverTrumpers have condemned the president for stating the obvious -- that there are criminals in these caravans. Perhaps some enterprising journalists from the "mainstream media" should take a closer look at what is happening in these caravans.

There have been numerous violent clashes with authorities. So many, in fact, that Gonzalo Martinez preferred going back to Honduras over staying in the "unruly" caravan.

People in the migrant march have said that there are criminals among them.

Mexico's ambassador to the U.S. is warning that some of them are "very violent."

This marcher admitted that he was deported from the U.S. for attempted murder.

Two marchers were arrested for shooting at Mexican police officers.

A Mexican immigration office was firebombed.All of this proves that the president is right, and he is right to warn about our porous borders and our weak immigration laws, especially during an era of surging immigration levels.

We cannot tolerate this scam of a system which allows migrants to disappear into the country simply because they make a claim of asylum, especially when we know that the overwhelming majority of them are not legitimate refugees.

We also know that the vast majority of marchers are not women and children.

On another note, President Trump "triggered" progressives everywhere with his call to end birthright citizenship. Well, let's play a little game. Who said this:

"If making it easy to be an illegal alien isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides."

If you guessed Donald Trump, try again.

Ted Cruz? Wrong.

Rush Limbaugh? Nope.

That was former Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid.

By the way, that well-known immigration hard-liner Senator Lindsey Graham (SARCASM ALERT!) is on board with President Trump's desire to restore some common sense to our immigration policies.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Tags: Consoler-In-Chief, Bend The Arc, Criminals & Caravans, Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Trump Connects The Dots On Dangers Of Illegal Immigration

. . . But the Left attacks him for the picture it creates.

by Michael Cutler: President Trump has publicly expressed concerns about the nature and nationality of the individuals heading towards the U.S. in the supposed “Caravan of Migrants.” Consequently he ordered that the military provide active duty members of the Army to assist with efforts to secure the U.S./Mexican border.

Trump warned that embedded within that organized mob of foreign nationals are members of transnational gangs such as MS-13 and individuals from the Middle East who may be involved in terrorism.

The talking heads on the supposed “journalists” from the mainstream media, and such brilliant television personalities as the panel on the television program “The View” have derided the president, claiming that he had no justification for making those statements and, essentially accused him of lying to fire up his base of right wing conservatives.

In reality, President Trump is connecting the dots, but the globalists and the radical Left don’t like the picture that the connected dots create, so they attack him.

By now this tactic of attacking the President is not a surprise. If President Trump were to say that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it is likely that the Radical Left would trot out a supposed astrophysicist who would find a way to claim that the President was wrong.

Each day the President is given a security briefing where he is provided with intelligence from the intelligence community. It is entirely likely that during those briefings the issue of the nature of the foreign nationals heading to the United States was a topic.

Of course I am only speculating about whether or not the President’s Daily Briefing has provided President Trump with information about the nature of the members of the caravan. What is not speculation is the fact that the Border Patrol has been encountering and arresting illegal aliens from countries from around the world who attempted to enter the United States without inspection when they were apprehended.

Additionally, my article, Congressional Hearing: Iranian Sleeper Cells Threaten U.S. addresses a hearing that was conducted on April 17, 2018 by the House Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee, on the topic, "State Sponsors Of Terrorism: An Examination Of Iran’s Global Terrorism Network."

Here is an excerpt of the testimony of one of the witnesses, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:In recent years, Hezbollah’s Latin American networks have also increasingly cooperated with violent drug cartels and criminal syndicates, often with the assistance of local corrupt political elites. Cooperation includes laundering of drug money; arranging multi-ton shipments of cocaine to the United States and Europe; and directly distributing and selling illicit substances to distant markets. Proceeds from these activities finance Hezbollah’s arms procurement; its terror activities overseas; its hold on Lebanon’s political system; and its efforts, both in Lebanon and overseas, to keep Shi’a communities loyal to its cause and complicit in its endeavors.

This toxic crime-terror nexus is fueling both the rising threat of global jihadism and the collapse of law and order across Latin America that is helping drive drugs and people northward into the United States. It is sustaining Hezbollah’s growing financial needs. It is helping Iran and Hezbollah consolidate a local constituency in multiple countries across Latin America. It is thus facilitating their efforts to build safe havens for terrorists and a continent-wide terror infrastructure that they could use to strike U.S. targets.My April 21, 2017 article, Border Security Is National Security referenced an April 12, 2017 Washington Times report, Sharafat Ali Khan smuggled terrorist-linked immigrants.

Khan is a citizen of Pakistan who had established himself as a permanent resident in Brazil and then smuggled numerous illegal aliens from the Middle East into the United States through Mexico. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) issued a press release about this case, Foreign national extradited and pleads guilty to human smuggling conspiracy.

On April 17, 2018 the Washington Free Beacon published a report with the unambiguous and disconcerting headline, Iranian-Backed ‘Sleeper Cell’ Militants Hibernating in U.S., Positioned for Attack.

On March 21, 2012 the House Committee on Homeland Security that was then chaired by New York Congressman Peter King, conducted a hearing on the topic, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Threat to the Homeland. The Huffington Post published a report on the hearing, Peter King: Iran May Have ‘Hundreds’ Of Hezbollah Agents In U.S.

On April 21, 2010 the Washington Times published a disturbing report predicated on a Pentagon report to Congress on Iran’s military operations in Latin America, Iran boosts Qods shock troops in Venezuela. Here is an excerpt:The report gives no details on the activities of the Iranians in Venezuela and Latin America. Iranian-backed terrorists have conducted few attacks in the region. However, U.S. intelligence officials say Qods operatives are developing networks of terrorists in the region who could be called to attack the United States in the event of a conflict over Iran’s nuclear program.On March 18, 2015, during the Obama administration, The United States Institute for Peace published a primer on Iran, Iran's Influence in Latin America, that began with the following excerpt:On March 18, the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa and the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere held a joint hearing about Iran and Hezbollah’s involvement in Central and South America. The committees discussed Iran's attempts to expand its influence in Latin America during the last 30 years, as well as the Islamic Republic's alleged involvement in attacks in Peru and Uruguay and the mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman. The following are excerpted statements from the subcommittee chairmen and testimony of the witnesses.

Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere Jeff Duncan

“Given the impending deadline for nuclear negotiations over Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program, I believe it is critical for the U.S. to re-examine Iran and Hezbollah’s activities in our own neighborhood. Congress has conducted sustained, rigorous oversight on this issue with multiple Committee hearings, classified briefings, and the passage of legislation I authored, the Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act, into law in 2012. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration continues to ignore this threat even while Iran and Hezbollah expand their reach. Following a September 2014 Government Accountability Office report that found the State Department failed to follow this law, the Administration has taken no concrete action to address these problems.”

Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

“Iran and Hezbollah’s history of involvement in the Western Hemisphere has long been a source of concern for the United States. Given the nature of transnational criminal networks existing in Latin America and the rise of terrorism ideology being exported worldwide from Middle East, it is disturbing that the State Department has failed to fully allocate necessary resources and attention to properly address this potential threat to our nation. It is well known that Iran poses a security threat to regional affairs and has expanded its ties in countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Ecuador. The United States needs a comprehensive understanding of Tehran’s efforts in Latin America in order to thwart any potential risk to our allies and U.S. national security.”While the thousands of aspiring illegal aliens who have become a part of the caravan now heading north have captured headlines and much attention as they make their way northward, in point of fact, each and every day, 24/7, illegal aliens enter the United States by evading the inspections process at ports of entry along the northern and southern borders of the United States, by stowing away on ships or finding other means to evade the inspections process conducted at ports of entry.

Other aliens enter the United States legally, through the inspections process as temporary (non-immigrant) visitors and then remain in the United States after their authorized period of admission expires and/or otherwise violate the terms of their admission.

No one really knows how many illegal aliens are actually present in the United States but as written in a recent article, Twice As Many Illegal Aliens In Us According To MIT.

I would compare the impact to the United States of the onslaught of the thousands of aspiring illegal aliens in the caravan to a person trying to shovel out his driveway during a blizzard getting hit by a snowball. That snowball may well get his/her attention, but the vast majority of the snow in his driveway is the result of hours of constant snowfall.

The biggest issue where the caravan is concerned is that by surging at the border, the Border Patrol may well find itself overwhelmed. This is the most dangerous part of the problem, that the Border Patrol might not be able to deal with the huge numbers that suddenly confront them. The Adjudications Officers will also likely be overwhelmed when these aliens proclaim that they are seeking asylum. With limited resources to detain these asylum seekers and with limited resources to interview them and then conduct investigations into their claims for asylum, many of these aliens will either not be stopped or will have to ultimately be released.

It has been estimated that only about 2% of aliens who are released ever show up for their immigration court dates. 98% disappear into communities across America.

These aliens demonstrate little fear of repercussions for not appearing when ordered. In the game of “hide & seek” that they play with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), there are precious few ICE agents who are available to try to find them and take them into custody when they fail to show up. Furthermore, if they can make their way to the increasing number of supposed “Sanctuary Cities” that have been created around the United States by Democratic mayors and Sanctuary States created by Democratic governors, they know the their chances of escaping detection by ICE increases exponentially.

Of course the Republicans who refuse to provide funding for the Border Wall and for adequate numbers of ICE agents also adds to the immigration crisis, making certain that illegal aliens have no reason to fear the consequences of their violations of our borders and our laws.

John Adams was right, “Facts are stubborn things!”
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Michael Cutler is a retired Senior Special Agent of the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) whose career spanned some 30 years. He served as an Immigration Inspector, Immigration Adjudications Officer and spent 26 years as an agent with half of his career in the Drug Task Force. He has testified before well over a dozen congressional hearings, provided testimony to the 9/11 Commission. His website is michaelcutler.net. He also writes for FrontPage Mag a publication of theDavid Horowitz Freedom Center. David Horowitz is a Contributing Author of the ARRA News Service

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Tags: Michael Cutler, FrontPage Mag, President Trump, Connects The Dots, Dangers Of Illegal Immigration To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Military Must Be Part Of The Solution To The Border Crisis

by Tom Fitton: Thousands of aliens are making their way north through Mexico, aiming to cross the U.S. southern border. President Trump is right to call it an invasion.

These caravans are being organized in a region that is struggling with terrorist infiltration. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales confirmed this during a recent security conference attended by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well as the presidents of Honduras and El Salvador and other Latin American dignitaries.Morales said his administration has captured “close to 100 persons completely involved with terrorists, with ISIS, and we have not only detained them within our territory, but they have been deported to their country of origin.” Several of the terrorists were Syrians caught with fake documents, according to Guatemala’s head of intelligence. President Morales also revealed that Guatemalan authorities captured more than 1,000 gangsters, including members of MS-13, trying to enter the country.

The political left would like us to believe there is no national security or public safety threat from these caravans. Are the anti-Trump media vetting each and every member of the caravan in Mexico? Of course not.

The Department of Homeland Security strongly suggests that threats to public safety and our national security are among the thousands of people committed to challenging our borders. The DHS last week confirmed:

• There are individuals within the caravan who are gang members or have significant criminal histories.
• Citizens of countries outside Central America, including countries in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere, are currently traveling through Mexico toward the U.S.

In a positive development, the Trump administration announced that approximately 5,000 U.S. troops are being deployed to the southern border. President Trump followed through on his threat to use the military to interdict the caravans in Mexico and the new caravans forming at Guatemala’s southern borders with Honduras and El Salvador. The nations of the region appear unwilling or unable (in the case of Guatemala) to staunch the caravans of illegal aliens heading toward America.

Illegal aliens who make it across the border would be free, assuming they apply for asylum, to go anywhere in the United States. We simply do not have the capacity to detain all of them on this side of the border, so they would likely disappear into the U.S. after being briefly, if at all, detained.

Judicial Watch’s investigative team in Guatemala recently reported that the Guatemalan government is trying to staunch the flow.

The U.S., however, cannot outsource protecting our nation’s security to Guatemala. With the 5,000-strong troop deployment, President Trump is acting to protect our country.

President Trump should also consider asking Guatemala to allow us to deploy American troops to provide logistical and other support to Guatemala, so that country can deploy its resources to its own southern border to interdict the caravans from its south. Mexico also should be offered military assistance to interdict the caravans.

Such military deployments would both protect our nation and serve humanitarian needs.

Without decisive action, even with troops on our border, the U.S. could be facing an imminent catastrophe for its sovereignty, national security and public safety when the caravans arrive.
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Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch.

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A Bridge to Sell You

Bridge for sale!

by John Stossel: Libertarians believe that you should be as conservative or as liberal as you want to be as long as you don't want to force yourself on others," says Larry Sharpe, Libertarian candidate for governor of New York.

Sharpe is an unusual Libertarian candidate because he's doing well in some polls.

One found Sharpe getting 13 percent, and after people heard his campaign pitch, 25 percent. That would put him in second place, ahead of the Republican.

So of course the establishment shuts him out -- he and other third-party candidates weren't allowed in the one gubernatorial debate.

Sharpe wins fans by arguing that it would be good if individuals make their own decisions without government spending constantly getting in the way.

"What we understand as libertarians is at the end of every single law is a guy or gal with a gun who's going to put you in a cage; if you don't want to go in that cage, they're going to shoot you. What that means is you should only use the law when there is loss of life, health, limb, property, or liberty... Not because I don't like what you're doing."

That's refreshing to hear from a politician.

No new government programs under a Sharpe administration, then?

"No, no, no, no, no, no," he assures me.

At least one candidate doesn't want to make government bigger.

New York faces a $4.4 billion deficit. Current New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed raising taxes.

Sharpe has other ideas.

"Lease naming rights on our infrastructure," he says in my latest internet video. "The Triborough Bridge could be called the Staples Bridge, or the Apple Bridge."

My staff asked some New Yorkers what they thought about leasing naming rights to bridges and tunnels. "Bad idea!" said one woman. "It's commercializing!" Most people were opposed.

I said that to Sharpe.

"You know what she should do?" he responded. "Start a nonprofit, raise $30 million, she can name it whatever she wants."

One man said he didn't "want to rename something after some sort of corporation!"

"Shake your fist and say, 'This doesn't sound good,'" replied Sharpe. "You're going to wind up in a place where the tax burden is insanely high."

Under our current system, many bridges and other public structures advertise anyway -- but they promote politicians. Gov. Cuomo just named a bridge after his father.

"An imperial bridge named after our royal family!" said Sharpe with a laugh. "I'm embarrassed."

We libertarians don't think politicians deserve monuments just because they got elected.

"Tell you what I'll do," said Sharpe. "(Governor Cuomo's) got $30 million a year? He can keep his name on that bridge and take care of the maintenance."

Sharpe applies similar thinking to New York's decrepit subway system.

"We have lines on the MTA right now not being used at night. Home Depot or Google or Amazon or whomever -- they can use these lines... move their freight... They'll pay. Win-win."

Sharpe's campaign is attracting new people. His rallies draw bigger crowds than minor party candidates normally get.

"If you're unhappy with the system, you've got to change it," he said on Joe Rogan's podcast.

For a libertarian, Sharpe surprised me by saying he wouldn't dream of proposing cuts to existing welfare programs. "Pull the rug out from somebody, somebody's going to be afraid," he explains. If voters fear you, they don't vote for you.

I assume he'd shrink those programs eventually, maybe after other parts of government were reduced and the economy improves as a result.

He also sounds friendlier to labor unions than most libertarians. "Collective bargaining is fine. My issue with the unions has always been: Are you forcing me?... I have a problem with (union shop laws). But you're voluntarily doing it? I don't have a problem at all."

Listening to Sharpe is very different from hearing most Republicans and Democrats.

"Because no one has any new ideas," he says. "No ideas how to fix anything or do anything right. ... I'm a third party. I have to have ideas or no one will listen to me."
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John Stossel is author of "No They Can't! Why Government Fails -- But Individuals Succeed." Article shared by Rassmussen Reports 

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House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer - October 2018 Porker of the Month

U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
October 2018 Porker of the Month
Wants to bring back earmarks.

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) its October 2018 Porker of the Month for expressing his support for bringing back pork-barrel earmarks if his party retakes control of the House of Representatives.

In a speech on September 12, 2018, Whip Hoyer called the elimination of earmarks, “an abdication of Congress’ power of the purse,” and pledged that if the House Democrats win a majority in November’s midterm elections, his caucus would support a resurrection of the wasteful and corruptive practice. He even claimed that the return of earmarks would help “fix government.”

Whip Hoyer must have quite a short memory. Before earmarks were put under a moratorium in 2011, the preceding decade was chock full of high-profile boondoggles such as the Bridge to Nowhere, and scandals that resulted in jail terms for Reps. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) and Bob Ney (R-Ohio), and lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The late Sen. John McCain slammed those who argued for the return of earmarks, saying, “the problem with all their arguments is: the more powerful you are, the more likely it is you get the earmark in. Therefore, it is a corrupt system.”

As for the congressional power of the purse, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said it best: “Earmarking was not the innocuous exercise of Congress' constitutional spending power; it was the tool lobbyists and leadership used to compel members to vote for bills that their constituents — and sometimes their conscience — opposed.”
CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Whip Hoyer’s full-throated endorsement of earmarks as a way to ‘fix government’ is laughable and absurd. Earmarks are corrupt, inequitable, wasteful, and the antithesis of good government. Congress should be voting to permanently ban earmarks instead of debating whether to bring them back.”

For pushing pork-barrel earmarks on American taxpayers, CAGW names House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer its October 2018 Porker of the Month.
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Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

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Rosensteins Monster . . .

. . . Rosenstein’s Monster, the Mueller investigation, continues to haunt America with no end and no evidence the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the presidential election.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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The Financial State of the 3 Largest U.S. Cities

by Truth in Accounting: On Oct. 30, Truth in Accounting released its annual reports for New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The analyses show the financial condition of the nation's three largest cities at the end of the 2017 fiscal year. Click on the name of the city to download its report.

1. New York City - Mayor Bill de Blasio (Democrat)

• Taxpayer Burden: -$64,100
• Money needed to pay bills: $185.5 billion
• Grade: F

2. Los Angeles - Mayor Eric Garcetti (Democrat)

• Taxpayer Burden: -$6,000
• Money needed to pay bills: $7.7 billion
• Grade: D

3. Chicago - Mayor Rahm Emanuel (Democrat)

• Taxpayer Burden: -$36,000
• Money needed to pay bills: $32.5 billion
• Grade: F

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Source: Truth in Accounting

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US Treasury to Borrow More Than $1.3 Trillion in 2018

by Michael Rainey: The U.S. Treasury said Monday it expects to issue about $425 billion in debt this quarter, raising its 2018 borrowing to more than $1.3 trillion, a 145 percent increase from the $546 billion issued in 2017.

The 2018 total would be the largest annual total since 2010, when the Treasury issued $1.586 trillion in debt.

“The debt binge is extraordinary by historical standards,” says The Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham. “In only two years has the government borrowed more money, in nominal terms — 2009 and 2010, when the country was grappling with the effects of the Great Recession.”

Bloomberg’s Randy Woods summed up the current fiscal situation this way: “The Treasury is boosting sales of bills, notes and bonds in part to help finance a budget gap that’s widening after President Donald Trump signed $1.5 trillion in tax cuts late last year and the Republican-controlled Congress approved a roughly $300 billion spending increase. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is shrinking its balance sheet and choosing not to replace its holdings of some Treasuries as they mature, and an aging population is boosting costs of federal programs such as Medicare.”

The Congressional Budget Office projects a $973 billion deficit for the current fiscal year, rising to more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2020.

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Michael Rainey writes for TheFiscalTimes.com.

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Genocide

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author : hat does it take for normal people to start slaughtering others? A commentary in the Jerusalem Post with the title “The Genocide Mechanism” showed how demonization could lead to genocide. The writer talked about “a very specific kind of demonization.” The example he used was Rwanda.

In 1994, the majority of the Hutu population was able to massacre some 800,000 Tutsis. The violence was unimaginable: neighbors slaughtering neighbors, mostly with machetes. The estimates are about 9,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered every day. How does something so awful happen?

The answer is demonization. The Hutus were taught that the Tutsis were “cockroaches and snakes. Tutsi women were portrayed as cunning seductresses who used beauty and sexual powers to conquer the Hutus.” There were also warnings on the radio that the Tutsis were about the attack them. So they needed to attack first to protect themselves.

Step one was to dehumanize the enemy with all sorts of false statements. Step two was to present a clear danger. Then you merely need to convince people that they need to act in their own self-defense. The commentary explains about how this type of demonization has been used by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that describe Jews “as loathsome and dangerous animals.”

Could something like this happen in this country? We would hope not. But you do see some similarities.

Look at how the Left portrays President Trump, Republican members of Congress, and even conservative speakers on college campuses. They are the equivalent of Hitler. They are not worthy of any respect, and represent a clear and present danger to various sectors of society. They want to put people in detainment camps or even march them off to gas chambers.

This is a reminder that hateful words and demonization can lead to horrific acts against other human beings.

Additional articles on Genocide.
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Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service. 

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Spoiler Season

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: “Libertarians poll high enough to tip key races,” informs The Washington Times — citing contests for governorships and both houses of Congress.*

Libertarian Lucy Brenton is one example, running for U.S. Senate in Indiana. She grabbed 7 percent in a recent poll, greater than the margin between incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who had 44 percent, and Republican challenger Mike Braun with 40 percent. The Times says Brenton is just one of “a number of Libertarians whose poll numbers are high enough to more than account for the difference between Republicans and Democrats in key midterm races.”

She had garnered 5.5 percent in 2016, when she sought the state’s other U.S. Senate seat.

There is disagreement over whether Libertarians help or hurt Republicans. Most folks suspect that Libertarians take votes away from Republicans, but polling appears to show Libertarians snagging more otherwise Democrat-inclined voters.

No matter. As often discussed here, enacting Ranked Choice Voting is the rational institutional solution to the so-called spoiler effect Libertarians present. It’s a win-win for both so-called major and minor political parties.

“Libertarians bristle at the term ‘spoiler,’” the newspaper notes, “saying it’s a belittling term for a party that presents a viable option to voters.”

Which brings me to a second solution to Libertarians luring away your voters. Steal their issues. Take them and make them your own.

There’s no law against it.

No reform required.

“Libertarians are running against President Trump’s tariffs, immigration policy and record on spending . . .” explains The Times, and “are embracing . . . less taxation as well as marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform and ending the war on drugs.”

Fresh elections. Happy voting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* It won’t change the outcome, but on Monday the Boston Globe endorsed Libertarian Dan Fishman for state auditor, writing: “An auditor without any partisan axes to grind could shake up the state.” That’s a different kind of spoiler.
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Paul Jacob is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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Forget The Blue Wave, Nov. 6 Could Be The Closest Race For The House Ever

by Robert Romano: Don’t look now, but the 2018 race for the House of Representatives could be one of the closest in U.S. electoral history.

Currently, the House is broken down 235 to 193 with 7 empty seats. As of this writing, the Real Clear Politics average of polls in the House predicts Democrats will pick up about 25 seats on Nov. 6.

If that happens, Democrats would have 218 seats, and Republicans 217 seats.

That would be the closest majority in U.S. history and since 1916, when Republicans won 216 seats to Democrats’ 214.

Any less than 25 seats picked up by Democrats, and Republicans will retain the majority.

Midterms are traditionally not favorable to the President’s party, particularly in the House. 9 times out of 10, seats are lost, and when they do, losses have averaged about 35 over the past century.

On the Senate side, things look a bit more solid for Republicans, with the Real Clear Politics average of polls predicting Republicans pick up two seats, bringing their majority potentially up to 53 seats if not greater.

Usually, incumbent parties give up on average 6 seats, 71 percent of the time. Any pick up of seats in the Senate and President Donald Trump becomes an exception to the usual rule. It means he has coattails.

Forget the blue wave. What we’re seeing here is the peaceful, political equivalent of trench warfare. No districts, no states can be spared.

Interestingly, despite their importance, turnout is usually much lower in midterm Congressional elections than in presidential elections. According to Electproject.org of the University of Florida, midterm turnout has not exceeded presidential turnout since 1838. In the early days of the republic, there was actually more voting for members of Congress than for the president. The first time it flipped was 1828 when Andrew Jackson was elected to president.

So, if you had any doubt about whether your vote counts in this election, it sure does.

It will determine whether the southern border wall is ever built.

Whether the tax cuts get made permanent or if there’s another round to boost the economy.

Whether bills like the MERIT Act, expediting the firing of bad federal employees, passes.

Whether Republicans or Democrats will get to write the President’s infrastructure bill in the House.

Whether the House under Democratic leadership will pursue Trump as a suspect in the 2016 Russian election interference affair.

In short, the outcome is really, really important.

And believe it or not, voting in this midterm election could prove to be critical to the outcome. It doesn’t get any closer than this.
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Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

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Andrew Gillum Doesn't Get Gun Facts Right

Zealous Gun Banner Andrew Gillum

by A1F Staff: Gun owners in Florida have a choice to make on Election Day, one that will determine who will spend the next several years in the governor’s mansion.

And the choice is one of the easiest they’ve faced. Ron DeSantis, who received an “A” rating from NRA-PVF, faces perhaps the most anti-gun candidate ever in F-rated Democrat Andrew Gillum.

The fact is, Gillum hasn’t seen a restrictive gun control proposal that he doesn’t fully support. Consider remarks he made during a televised debate earlier this year, which show what firearms he would willingly target as governor.

On April 18, the moderator asked Gillum how he would define the sorts of “assault weapons” he would like to see banned. Gillum’s answer not only showed his lack of understanding about firearms, but it also indicated he would like to see a wide range of guns outlawed.

“Yeah, well I’ll tell you, any gun that can fire off 45 rounds of artillery in less than 60 seconds and snuff out the lives of 20 kids or 49 adults or 17 individuals is a gun that I believe is a weapon of war and does not belong on our city streets,” he said.

Of course, artillery is, by definition, military-grade heavy weaponry, so he got that much right. But it is not common on the streets of America and is already very closely regulated by the u.s. government, as are the shells used in artillery pieces.

However, small arms that can “fire off 45 rounds” in “less than 60 seconds” include essentially all modern, magazine-fed semi-automatic rifles and pistols. Gillum’s 45-rounds-per-minute limit could even extend to revolvers and some magazine-fed bolt-action rifles.

What Gillum is proposing, in other words, is a ban on tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of firearms owned by law-abiding Americans. He uses terms like “assault weapons,” “artillery,” and “weapons of war” to describe his gun control proposals. But Gillum’s own definition of those terms would reach into nearly every gun safe in America and encompass a large percentage of the handguns over 17 million concealed-carry permit holders use to protect themselves and their families. And there’s nothing “reasonable” or “common sense” about that.

Gillum also has repeatedly lied about “taking on the NRA, and winning.”

Here’s the truth. In 2014, Mayor John Marks and Commissioners Nancy Miller, Andrew Gillum and Gil Ziffer were sued by an organization called Florida Carry Inc. and the Second Amendment Foundation. While the NRA supported the lawsuit—which targeted the city’s refusal to repeal ordinances restricting the use of firearms in defiance of Florida’s firearms pre-emption law—it was not a party to the litigation.

As former NRA President Marion Hammer detailed in a Jan. 2017 Tallahassee Democrat op-ed, “Mayor Andrew Gillum’s attack on NRA is like stomping his feet for attention. He wants you to believe the NRA is bullying him. That makes big news, but Mayor Gillum is not being honest with you.

Hammer concluded: “Mayor Gillum knows the NRA is not suing him, but he also knows he wouldn’t get much attention by crying out that a small Florida group and another from Bellevue, Wash., have taken him to court. Getting media attention by trying to make voters think he is being sued and bullied by the NRA is an orchestrated falsehood and is shameful.”

Hammer now has an even simpler message for Gillum: “The bottom line is that in addition to being a zealous gun banner, Andrew Gillum has a hard time telling the truth. Ron DeSantis is the only candidate for governor we can trust to uphold the Second Amendment and protect our firearms and self-defense rights.”

Unless Florida gun owners want to see Gillum’s anti-gun, anti-NRA schemes come to fruition, they need to send him packing at the ballot box on Nov. 6.
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A1F Staff shared this article originally in NRA's America's 1st Freedom magazine.

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Media Should Examine Itself Before Blaming Trump for ‘Climate of Hate’

CNN's alter ego!
While not the author's image - it is truthful!

by Jarrett Stepman: Members of the media and their allies on the left should look in the mirror—or at least take a moment for the country to mourn tragedy—before blaming violence and incivility on President Donald Trump and conservatives in general.

They certainly haven’t done that in the last few weeks.

First, authorities arrested a seemingly disturbed man in connection to pipe bombs that were mailed to CNN and prominent Democratic politicians.

Then, last weekend, a Jewish congregation was attacked by a raving anti-Semite, who killed 11 people and wounded six others before police apprehended him.

The media was quick to blame these incidents on the president, saying that he has created a climate of hate and fear that is producing these kinds of incidents.

Progressive columnist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times: “All of these hate crimes seem clearly linked to the climate of paranoia and racism deliberately fostered by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress and the media.”

He then blamed “hate peddling” on “one side of the political spectrum,” meaning conservatives.

Krugman was hardly alone in making this point, and a few in the media made claims that are even more absurd.

GQ columnist Julia Ioffe actually compared Trump to ISIS.

“I think this president, one of the things that he really launched his presidential run on is talking about Islamic radicalization. And this president has radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did,” Ioffe said in a segment on CNN.

On CNN, @juliaioffe just said "this president has radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did.”

Insane. pic.twitter.com/zlV8jLpQRn

— Michael Ahrens (@michael_ahrens) October 29, 2018

loffe later apologized, but then went right back to blaming the Trump administration for anti-Semitic attacks.

I clarified and apologized on air, but I’ll say it again here. This has been a very emotional and painful time, but I absolutely should not have gone with such hyperbole on the air. I apologize.

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) October 29, 2018

Yet, after all these accusations that conservatives are to blame for violence in America, the media suddenly clams up when a hate-filled person on the left engages in violence.

Think of last year, when a crazed gunman and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., supporter shot Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and attempted to kill many more Republicans at a congressional baseball game.

In an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said that the shooter shouted, “This is for health care!” as he opened fire, a fact that received little media attention.

Of course, progressives in the media have been unwilling to make a connection between this shooter and Sanders and his left-wing advocates.

CNN host Don Lemon appeared offended that a guest on his show even brought this up, and then replied, “You don’t see Democrats killing people.”

Scalise had the perfect response on Twitter.

👀 https://t.co/2yaXglIOlx

— Rep. Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) October 30, 2018

And the Scalise shooting was hardly the only attack on Republican politicians and Trump administration officials.

Alas, the media ensures that prominent members of the left never have to account for what they say—or don’t say.

Perhaps this explains why many of Trump’s supporters continue to back him so strongly.

Vicious and hateful attacks on Republican presidents and conservatives go back for years, as do excuses for open anti-Semites in left-wing ranks—but Trump has been far more effective at cutting through media attacks and turning them back on his political opponents.

One shouldn’t forget that while former President George W. Bush rarely, if ever, lambasted the media, he was relentlessly blasted for “lying” to get the United States into the Iraq War, labeled an enemy of the media, and frequently compared to Hitler, among numerous other attacks.

Instead of again using a tragedy as a bludgeon against their political opponents, the media should consider their own real power to lower the temperature of our national discourse, to stem the “climate of hate.”

They have considerable power to do just that—but I’m not holding my breath.
-------------------------
Jarrett Stepman (@JarrettStepman) is an editor of The Daily Signal. 

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