Republicans Must Rally Around Trump’s Judicial Picks

posted by Kurt Schlichter at Townhall 

If there’s anything that the last six months have taught us, it’s that appointing the right judges is critical, especially since the current version of Our Democracy we’re being sold holds that, “Yeah, it’s OK to elect a president and a Congress, but to actually do anything you need the approval of a herd of unelected swells in robes.” This is a sad state of affairs; when I was in the Persian Gulf, I don’t remember any of my troops telling me that they were very proud to be fighting to defend the ability of a bunch of Ivy Leaguers who largely couldn’t cut it actually litigating to rule over them based not on the law but on what was going to get them the happiest happy ending from the regime media and their cronies at the country club.

Donald Trump made his first round of judicial picks, and he’s hitting it out of the park with exactly the kind of nominees we need to help fix the broken bench. Let’s take Emil J. Bove, the president’s nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The federal Courts of Appeals are very crucial. They handle appeals from the district courts, which are the federal trial courts. The Courts of Appeals are the final stop for the vast majority of cases since the Supreme Court only picks about 50 or so cases a year out of the thousands of Courts of Appeals rulings. It’s a big deal, and because it involves lifetime tenure, you need to make sure you’ve got the right guy or gal.

You want somebody who has been there and done that. Look at Bove’s résumé. He clerked for two highly respected judges – that’s where a young lawyer helps a judge write his opinions, giving him an insight into how it’s done that you just don’t get anywhere else. Next, he spent about 10 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, which was then legendary for rooting out political corruption and mob influence in the Big Apple. He was a partner in a prominent law firm in private practice, but he gave up the big bucks to go back to the Department of Justice as the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Trump and sort out that mess. His credentials are impeccable. Prosecutor. Defense attorney. Department of Justice official. 

But, of course, the left hates him. It hates him in general because Trump picked him. It hates him in particular because he helped Donald Trump successfully beat the false lawfare charges against him. This is a guy with the character to put everything on the line to do his job as a lawyer. Conservative lawyers have been blackballed in the top tier legal industry over the last decade as part of a concerted effort to prevent Republicans from being able to obtain legal representation. Think of the character it took for Bove to be at the top of his game yet to put that all at risk because he was committed to doing his job of representing a client who was being railroaded while most of the legal industry cheered on that injustice. 

Emil Bove could have cashed in on the non-controversial clients beating down his door, gotten very rich, and never had to worry about SSRI goblins screaming in his face about “You’re literally defending literally Hitler!” while he tries to eat his dry-aged porterhouse at Peter Luger’s, but he chose to do his duty as an attorney instead. 

Every Republican senator should eagerly confirm him. Every Democrat senator should confirm him. The fact that you take on clients who are unpopular in your city is a qualifier, not a disqualifier. Remember, John Adams defended – successfully – the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. And then he went on to be one of the Founding Fathers. Emil Bove is firmly within that tradition; this is a solid gold, No. 1 home run judicial pick who, in a reasonable political climate, would sail through confirmation 100 to nothing.

Republicans, you need to make this happen because picking good judges is huge. 

I’m picky about judges for a couple of reasons. For one, my Mom was a judge, and she set the standard. She treated everybody the same – not badly, but with high expectations. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be rude. Be on time. Wear pants. On the rare occasion someone was dumb enough to appeal her ruling, it ended poorly for them. On the rare occasion someone was rude to her when she was on the bench, that also ended poorly for them. However, you could go before Judge Mom, and you could expect her to try to be fair and to figure out what the law says, then apply it. She was a former prosecutor but demanded that the district attorney’s office do its job properly – to the point that the office got so mad at her that it started using peremptory challenges to keep her off cases. She was for law and order, which meant law and order applied to the government accuser as well as the accused. Mom had her point of view, but she put it aside when she put on the robe. 

That’s the standard. By the way, she was a font of wisdom for aspiring lawyers, telling me to remember 1) to treat the court staff with respect and that 2) everybody lies.

And I spent 30 years in front of judges, including federal district and appellate court judges. Some were very, very smart. Some were the opposite of very, very smart. Most tried to take the law and apply it to the facts fairly. I wasn’t always happy with their final rulings – remember that in every case, 50 percent of the parties are going to be unhappy about the verdict – but I usually got a fair hearing.

Not always. I appeared in front of some famous judges, including one allegedly conservative Court of Appeals judge who got driven off the bench in disgrace, who were just terrible. Sometimes, judges are unfair, results-driven, and/or annoying, but that’s kind of the way it is in every aspect of life. A significant percentage of people are terrible, and this is true in any endeavor.

But, for the most part, I was not litigating political cases. I sometimes did, but most of my work was regular business litigation, whether on the plaintiff’s or the defense side. Here’s something you need to understand about what’s happening with all these temporary restraining orders and injunctions and ex parte motions to stay the stay and all that. It’s completely crazy. It is totally unrelated to the law as practiced for hundreds of years and as is currently practiced in 99.99 percent of cases. You look at this stuff and think it can’t be right, and you are absolutely correct. It is not right. The idea of some federal judge issuing a class certification and temporary restraining order without allowing opposition based on unsupported allegations in a motion at 1 a.m. on a Saturday morning is so utterly alien to how law is generally practiced that it might as well be bursting out of John Hurt’s chest.

The judiciary is broken, and it will be broken until Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court stop letting their subordinates saw off the judicial branch while they’re sitting on the end of it. But, in the meantime, Donald Trump must appoint, and Republican senators must confirm, judges like Emil Bove. We need judges like Bove who will follow the law instead of treating it like a legal Mad Libs. We do not need judges who get their opinions by consulting such renowned legal authorities as the uniformly dumb resistance bar on Twitter, MSNBC panels full of attorneys with weird hair and weak minds, and their own feelz.

You want someone with experience and someone with common sense. You don’t want anyone approved by the American Bar Association – a group that has no legal authority and is just a club for law nerds who are the legal industry’s equivalent of incels. You also want to be careful about nominees who are too wrapped up with the Federalist Society. There are a lot of good potential judges there, but also some who think the highest and best purpose of a judge is to find a case where he/she can show off his/her commitment to the law by ruling in favor of some kind of leftist nonsense. 

You want people with street smarts. You want people with experience. You want judges like Emil Bove. If Judge Mom was still here, she’d approve.

Republicans, make it happen.

X22, And we Know, and more- June 19

 

Work Americans (Especially American Men) Won’t Do

posted by Chris Boland at American Thinker 

Heraclitus once stated, “a man never steps into the same river twice,” which implies that both the river and the man are continuously changing. The United States, and we as its citizens, are also constantly changing, but change can be managed and directed towards improvement and away from chaos. Among the most important decisions facing us is that of illegal immigration and who is going to do our work.

Over the past decade, several political luminaries such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chuck Schumer, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have declared that we need illegal immigrants to do the work that Americans won’t do. In an obtuse way, they are correct. Americans will not do the work for wages that have been eroded and diminished by thirty years of unabated illegal immigration and 30 million illegal immigrants. They will not do the work that has been remuneratively devalued and culturally denigrated.

Continuing with our river analogy, this statement by Democrat politicians regarding what work Americans won’t do overlooks a more important change in cultural currents. For two generations, young Americans have been encouraged to pursue college degrees and white-collar jobs and to eschew career paths that require any form of muscle work. The river of our culture persuaded young people that their futures were in air-conditioned offices and comfortable cubicles, and to look with disdain on those who toiled in the elements or on factory floors. As the river rolled on, it changed who we are.

Parents, too, were influenced by the currents, encouraging their children to avoid hard work that required physical strength and grit. They wanted “better” for their children and spent tens of thousands on prep schools, universities, and graduate programs, and billions more were spent by the government through grants and loans.

Now, in the time of Trump, it is all crashing down. For decades, Democrat politicians, including Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, decried illegal immigration as an attack by the Republicans on their working-class voter base. As the DNC shifted to a party of the elite and Trump scooped up the working-class remnants, the Democrat Party was forced to import a new working class and do so in a hurry, confident that the popular media and the lockstep elite would have more empathy for third world newcomers than the remnants of the detestable blue collar deplorables.

If Trump and subsequent administrations are successful in the structural changes required to preserve an American working class, it will create the conditions necessary to change both the river and the man. The river is the culture, and it takes time to change.

There are signs that the river is changing. We are beginning to hear complaints from men that the younger generations are soft, that they lack drive, ambition, and “toughness.” Young men have been accustomed to rolling out of bed at perhaps 9 am to attend a 10 am class instead of jumping out of the rack at 5:30 to be on the jobsite by 7 am. Young men are accustomed to having a relaxing mid-day latte at Starbucks or the student union before an afternoon class instead of gulping down a quart of lukewarm water as the leadman yells to get the sheathing loaded on the second floor.

Another benefit to a thriving working class is the acculturation of young men. Today, young men are acculturated in classrooms and offices with other young men and women, which is not beneficial to either. In his book, Tools for Conviviality, published in 1973, Ivan Illich suggests that education reform should include young men being educated by working alongside older men to shape them to the needs and expectations of the local society. This, shockingly, proves that a Jesuit Maoist can have a good idea from time to time.

On a larger scale, we need to think about the media products we consume and how to influence them. Consider how the media landscape changed after the George Floyd riots and BLM movement. Whole channels of streaming services were devoted to African American content, and woke themes were wall-to-wall, beginning to end. For a film to be nominated for an Academy Award, it has to meet defined inclusivity goals, but what’s not included in these requirements are depictions of working-class Americans doing the work that “Americans won’t do”.

Thanks to Trump, the river (culture) is beginning to change, and as the currents shift, the man (Americans) will change too. However, this change will take time and sacrifice. It will take decades to repair the damage, and labor costs will rise. The rise in labor costs might be stressful for some, but it will find an equilibrium between supply and demand without the distortion of unlimited supply created by floods of illegal immigrants.

While it might be true that there are jobs that Americans won’t do today, they might do them tomorrow, and in the future, they must do them, or neither the river nor the man will be recognizable as American.

Unequal Application Of Immigration Law Is Neither Just Nor Merciful

posted by Anony Mee at American Thinker 

An unequal application of immigration law to illegal aliens is neither just nor merciful. And it certainly isn’t prudent, as it is facially a violation of the equal protection clause. Such a violation would open the Trump administration up to never-ending lawsuits. We witnessed what happened during President Trump’s first term in office. We do not need a repeat, especially given all the lawfare the federal government is dealing with today.

We’ve got two sets of aliens who should not be here. The first is the 20 million (my estimate) that were here prior to the Biden administration. Two-thirds of them came legally and simply overstayed. The rest snuck across the border. Every one of them is a criminal for being here without a currently valid admission. Every job they’ve done without permission is a violation of the law.

Every time they used a name or social security number not their own was the crime of identity theft. And boy howdy, that can sure mess up one’s records for a long time. Also, every time Social Security, Medicare, and federal income taxes were not paid to the federal government was a crime. They should not be allowed to continue to live criminal lives.

Every male alien between the ages of 18 and 25, inclusive, who did not register with the Selective Service committed a crime (50 USC 3802). That crime has a statute of limitations of five years, and a potential penalty of a $250,000 fine and 5 years in prison. Talk about a dormant law! That will send them running to self-deport faster than the $1,000 fine and 6 months for not having been registered and fingerprinted after the age of 14 (8 USC 1306a). Indeed, such failures, i.e., crimes, could call into question whether the alien is of good moral character when later applying for immigration benefits.

The presence of illegal aliens is not a victimless crime. The hiring of illegals and the failure to deduct mandatory taxes are federal crimes. Anyone housing, feeding, transporting, or assisting them in any way breaks the law, too. So do their friends and relatives who allow them to use their medical insurance or identity to receive care, obtain bank loans, apply for any local, state, or federal benefits, or enter into contracts. This is all fraud.

The presence of illegal aliens is a corrupting influence on the soul of our nation. Eating cheap strawberries at the cost of paying a worker essentially slave wages wounds our society.

The second set is the 20 million (again my estimate) that “surged” to the United States at President Biden’s invitation came in a variety of ways. They crossed the border, some seen and others not. Those who registered at the land border were allowed to apply for asylum, even though they had obviously entered from a country that was not a source of refugees (Canada or Mexico).

The Bidenites also allowed in aliens who, if they truly were asylees, should have applied for refugee status in their country of first asylum. Some came because Temporary Protected Status kept getting extended, not just for initial beneficiaries but for all who were present, illegal or not. Others came because the CPB-1 program accorded them a sort of humanitarian parole that the law was never designed to support.

Except for those with nefarious or terroristic aims, all of these were economic migrants, just wanting a better life than they could acquire at home. We can all understand the impulse; we must decry the method.

To get here, most of them had to pay human traffickers significant sums of money to be transported. Many died along the way, especially in the Darien Gap. Thousands of women and children were abused and sexually assaulted by their traffickers. To the left, this was acceptable as a means to acquire more pocket money. They even managed to lose 350,000 children in their supervision after they arrived.

What shall we do about illegal agricultural workers? The H2A visa program has two basic parts: (1) a petition from the employer demonstrating a lack of currently available workers and the employer's willingness to provide the benefits (housing, transportation, etc.) and meet the obligations required of him. (2) a legally identified alien with a passport who makes an application abroad in accordance with the petition that has been filed and is then vetted for compliance with applicable law.

The difficulty comes with petitioning for undocumented laborers already in the country who are using a false identity, have never been registered, fingerprinted, or vetted for criminal history, and who are working in areas that legal residents might want to work, for an employer who pays slave wages under the table, who fails to remit federal taxes, and who does not provide all the benefits required.

So, let’s start fresh. An illegal ag worker can be given a couple of months to get his identity and documents in order. At the same time, his employer must meet workplace and housing requirements and file the appropriate petition. The worker then goes abroad, most likely to Mexico, to process his application for legal entry.

Having lived here illegally will raise questions regarding the necessity of having a home to which he intends to return after the job is finished, but that can be addressed through the interview process. USCIS, the Department of Labor, and embassies and consulates abroad must put into place a fast-tracking of these petitions and applications without skipping any steps. Put D.O.G.E. to work on streamlining the process.

It would be just to demand that the employer pay taxes retroactively, once the worker is properly identified and has a proper Social Security number. I heard one employer complain that he had executed the I-9 process on every worker. That system is old and needs fixing, but that’s a topic for another day.

It would be merciful to draw a line and say that coming into compliance, perhaps paying a small fine, and being subject to inspections more often than usual will suffice. Workers and their work will be normalized, We the People will pay more for our strawberries until the work becomes more mechanized, and we begin to heal our country of some of its last vestiges of slave labor. That’s a very good thing.

This can all be accomplished with minor changes to existing procedures.  No new laws have to be passed. That lets the 119th off the hook on this issue.

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Kraft Heinz, General Mills Join List Of Companies Removing Artificial Dyes From Their Products Amid MAHA Efforts

Kennedy has argued that the removal of artificial coloring is a crucial step in improving the health of American children.

Areil McDowel reporting for The Federalist

Major food companies Kraft Heinz and General Mills announced on Tuesday their plans to eliminate artificial colors from their products following Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy’s efforts to crack down on synthetic dyes.

In April, RFK disclosed his intentions to phase out eight synthetic food dyes using a series of strategic negotiations with food companies, in addition to revoking authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B. In response on June 17, Kraft Heinz and General Mills announced plans to reduce or eliminate their usage of artificial dyes. Heinz says it currently uses artificial dyes in 10 percent of their products, and Mills claims to do so in 15 percent of its products.

General Mills says its changes, which entail removing artificial colors from its U.S. cereal and K-12 foods, will be complete by the summer of 2026. The company claims to be “the leading provider of whole grains to Americans,” and changes to its cereals will doubtlessly collide with the everyday lives of U.S. consumers. Jeff Harmening, General Mills CEO and chairman, stated in the press release, “Knowing the trust families place in us, we are leading the way on removing certified colors in cereals and K-12 foods by next summer. We’re committed to continuing to make food that tastes great and is accessible to all.”

Similarly, Kraft Heinz has stated its U.S. products will be entirely rid of artificial coloring by the end of 2027, saying the company is “dedicated to making a sustainable, ethical impact while helping feed the world in healthy, responsible ways.”

Kennedy met with several large companies in March, asking them to remove all artificial dyes by the end of Trump’s term. While it’s been noted by ABC News that his plan to enforce this request is unclear, he has been met with encouraging compliance. Kraft Heinz and General Mills are two of the most notable examples. Kennedy tweeted an announcement of Kraft Heinz’s cooperation, noting that the administration’s actions are proving effective in changing the behavior of large corporations.

Kennedy made clear his strong stance on artificial food dyes in April when he announced, “Today, the FDA is taking action to remove petroleum-based food dyes from the U.S. food supply and from medications. For the last 50 years, American children have increasingly been living in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals.”

He has been met with some resistance, however. The International Association of Color Manufacturers released a statement expressing frustration with RFK’s timeline: “Requiring reformulation by the end of 2026 ignores scientific evidence and underestimates the complexity of food production. This process is neither simple nor immediate, and the resulting supply disruptions will limit access to familiar, affordable grocery items.” But most companies are taking a more compliant stance than that articulated by the IACM.

In response to Kennedy’s efforts, the Consumer Brands Association, a United States-wide trade association for manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, sent a memo back in April to the Health and Human Services Department on behalf of its members indicating support for the administration’s plan, according to ABC News. CBA constituents include brands like Nestlé, The Campbell’s Company, and Coca-Cola. Melissa Hockstad announced on behalf of the CBA, “Consumer Brands has long asked HHS and FDA to reestablish themselves as the country’s leading regulatory authority and we appreciate that the administration has reasserted their leadership in response to the myriad of state activity in the food regulation space.”

Kennedy’s measures have primarily included working with the food companies and corporations directly. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary says the goal is to achieve policy aims through the willing participation of companies without the force of legislation or regulation if possible, according to Reuters. In addition to restricting the future use of dyes, the FDA approved the usage of two new natural colorings and expanded the legal usage of a third in early May. This gives companies a means of replacing artificial additives.

Secretary Kennedy has been a key player in President Donald Trump’s interagency commission to “Make America Healthy Again,” which Trump established shortly after Kennedy was sworn in. Kennedy has consistently and publicly criticized the systemic ways Americans are kept sick by poor nutrition and overmedication, and he has argued that the removal of artificial coloring is a crucial step in improving the health of American children.

Obama Wants to See More ‘Pushback,’ Warns America Is Teetering on the Edge of Autocracy

Rusty Weiss reporting for RedState 

Former President Barack Obama, who authorized drone strikes on American citizens without judicial process, harassed journalists by naming them as criminal co-conspirators to gain access to their emails and phone records, and weaponized the IRS against his political opponents, is super-concerned that the Trump administration is leading the United States down a path toward autocracy.

Obama, speaking at The Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford on Tuesday evening, told an admiring crowd that democracy as we have known it in this country is under attack.

“If you follow regularly what is said by those who are in charge of the federal government right now, there is a weak commitment to what we understood – and not just my generation, at least since World War II – our understanding of how a liberal democracy is supposed to work,” he said, accoridng to Connecticut Public Radio.

“There has to be a response and pushback from civil society, from various institutions and individuals outside of government, but there also have to be people in government in both parties who say, 'No, you can't do that,’” added Obama.

Obama then leveled some of his most direct remarks to date at the current President, saying America is "dangerously close" to moving into autocracy territory.

“It is consistent with autocracies. It is consistent with Hungary under Orbán. It’s consistent with places that hold elections but do not otherwise observe what we think of as a fair system in which everybody’s voice matters, people have a seat at the table, and nobody's above the law," Obama said. "We're not there yet completely, but I think that we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that.”

He says this roughly four years after his Vice President allegedly earned a record 81 million+ votes in an election in which Democrats said time and time again would see suppressed turnout due to the pandemic. He says that knowing that the same person pardoned his family members, assuring that they would be above the law.

Aside from being a Grade A hypocrite, Obama is also known for his narcissism, and that was clear in ensuing remarks in which he chastized people who claim Trump's inauguration crowd was bigger than his.

“In 2020, one person won the election, and it wasn’t the guy complaining about it,” he claimed. “And that's just a fact, just like my inauguration had more people. I say that, by the way, not because - I don’t care - but facts are important.”

Obama cares. And if not for frigid temperatures in Washington, D.C., during Trump's second inauguration, forcing planners to move it indoors, you can bet your bottom dollar the crowd in January would have far surpassed anything this nation has ever seen, including Obama's inauguration.

Since the former President is hung up on 'facts,' let's review a few behaviors during his time in the White House that some critics have viewed as autocratic behavior. We get that Obama thinks the biggest scandal of his time was wearing a tan suit, but reality suggests otherwise.

In his first week in office, Obama authorized a drone strike that killed nearly a dozen civilians, including a child. A 2013 drone strike in Yemen hit a wedding party and killed women and children.

He authorized drone strikes time and again, and even targeted and killed American citizens without charge or trial - like Anwar al-Awlaki and his 17-year-old American son, Abdulrahman.

The former President used his Department of Justice (DOJ) to try to shut down Fox News reporter James Rosen by spying on him and accusing him of being involved in criminal behavior.

A 2010 subpoena approved by Eric Holder implicated Rosen as a possible co-conspirator under the Espionage Act of 1917. As such, investigators gained access to his phone records and two days’ worth of Rosen’s emails.

The DOJ had mounted a severe attack on the First Amendment and Freedom of the Press by seizing the records of reporters at Fox News and the Associated Press (AP). The AP reporters – 20 of them – had their phone records subpoenaed through their providers, something they claimed at the time was a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations.

The Obama IRS compiled a “be on the lookout” list for organizations applying for tax-exempt status. Those lists included keywords and phrases such as “Tea Party,” “Israel,” and “Patriots.” 

Targeting political opponents through the power of one of the most feared arms of the federal government, Americans with military drones, and journalists as criminals, all happened on Barack's watch.

Why wasn't he as concerned about a slide toward autocracy back then?

L.A. Riots Are A Proxy War For The Ruling Class’s Fight Against Real America

The intifada in Los Angeles, Austin, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and even Omaha is the sequel to the summer of George Floyd.

posted by Nathan Stone at The Federalist

Two hundred and fifty years after the American Revolution began, we are again at war, and Los Angeles is ground zero.

We have been in the prequel of the conflict for some time. In 2019, the late political scientist Angelo Codevilla argued that the United States was in a “cold civil war” caused by the “country party” (Main Street Americans) and the “ruling class” (the bureaucracy, Hollywood, Wall Street, higher education, etc.) living in two separate worlds. Class and social divisions have always existed, but the difference this time is that the two Americas are as contradictory as night and day. Previously, a common American identity had usually been able to bridge the divides, but this time even that lowest common denominator was smashed thanks to leftist pieties and projects such as the 1619 Project and “land acknowledgements.” 

The summer of 2020 was the first real warming of Codevilla’s cold conflict. Postmodern Mongols burned our cities, inflicted $2 billion in damages, and were responsible for at least 25 people dying. All to ostensibly “fight racism.” But so-called “autonomous zones” — the most infamous being Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupation Protest (“Chop”), where armed thugs guarded their “borders,” complete with signs saying “Leaving the United States”), and honest-to-God warlords ruled the roosts — exposed the truth: This was not about racism, police brutality, or George Floyd. It was about waging war against the United States. 

The intifada in Los Angeles, Austin, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and even Omaha is the sequel to the summer of Floyd. And, once again, to paraphrase the late David Horowitz, the supposed issue is not the issue. You don’t change hearts and minds by throwing concrete blocks, Molotov cocktails, and industrial fireworks at law enforcement, or, by burning cars and defacing public buildings. You do those things as a show of force — to intimidate and make your enemies accept your demands. Which, not coincidentally, is exactly how Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th-century German military officer, defined war: an act of violence intended to compel an opponent to fulfill your will. In this case, the demand is the death of American sovereignty.

The ultimate proof is the flags. Protestors are flying foreign flags while burning American flags. Many have pointed out the illogic of illegal aliens and their comrades burning the flag of the country they ostensibly want to stay in while waving the flags of the countries to which they refuse to return, or have never even entered. On that surface level, it is illogical. But beneath the surface, it makes a terrible sense. Flags are symbols — shortcuts to realities. They are symbols of a country, her people, history, and beliefs.

Think of a baseball game where thousands of people, most of them strangers, all stand, remove hats, and pay respect to the flag. Thugs waving the Mexican flag is not just a case of ethnic Mexicans expressing pride at being Mexicans. It is a declaration of war — physical and metaphysical — against our country and everything she is and stands for. The fact that these people are monied and organized — some by China — just compounds this conclusion. 

Americans Must Respond

What can the average American do besides Facebook posts and sharing memes on Twitter? 

First, call a spade a spade. Too many on the right are leery of calling what we are in a war because we understand what crossing that Rubicon means. It means that the time for talk and persuasion is over, just like it was after Pearl Harbor, or when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter, or when George III refused to even glance at the Olive Branch Petition. It means the time has come for do or die, conquer or be conquered. But our discomfort will not change the left’s hatred for us or the fact that we and they can no longer live together, our beliefs and worldviews being as wide as those between Americans and Britons in 1776 and Northerners and Southerners in 1861. The truth will set us free and give us access to the right tools for this job. Comforting lies will only hogtie us.

Second, we will have to prepare for war in the right way. Unlike the Soviet Union or the Confederacy or the British Empire, the left today is less a giant and more of a bubonic plague, jumping from host to host, infecting society. To beat that will require two things. First is legislation, both at the federal and state level. Make wearing masks illegal at public places except theatres and costume parties. Challenge and reverse Texas v. Johnson, which made burning our flag a form of “free speech.” Punish the businesses that hire illegal aliens. Put a 90 percent tax on the money illegal immigrants wire back to their countries of origin. Make the nongovernmental organizations and billionaires funding insurrections accountable for their destruction.

Next, go after the left’s centers of gravity, the wells from which they draw their power. DOGE has already started this process, but when every school board can be a hive for the left’s mind rot, related spending cuts must be accelerated and intensified. School boards and districts that promote the 1619 Project have to be taken over. Libraries that push DEI and the LGBT agenda will have to be purged. Local chapters of charities working for the destruction of the country will have to be ripped out. Churches that put illegal aliens ahead of the Gospel will have to be pushed to demographic death.

Third, we must create relentless pressure on the left in our own towns and cities. This is exactly what the left has done in entertainment, where men are always portrayed as idiots, nearly every couple is bi-racial, and gay pairs outnumber straight couples. The point was to crush all opposition to the left by making everyone who dissented feel like he was alone. Because the right, at this time, does not have control over the culture, how this strategy manifests will be markedly different from how the left does it. Regardless of how it takes shape, the goal is to make the left so uncomfortable in our towns and cities and counties that they will pack up and move. The process will then repeat itself until the left has no space left. And when that happens, it will be easier to make the left acknowledge defeat from the bottom of their hearts, which is what Miyamoto Musashi said victory looked like.

Finally, we will have to have the willpower for the long fight. As L.A. and the other cities make clear, the left is not going to go gently into its good night. Not only because they want power above all else but because they are betting on us tiring of the conflict and throwing in the towel before they do. It took us 100 years to reach this point and we will not dig ourselves out over a weekend or even an administration. Prepare for the long haul. And want to win.

Jerry Nadler Waddles Into an ICE Court and Is Denied Entry, Threatens Legal Action: ‘Why Can’t We Go In?’

Rusty Weiss reporting for RedState 

The parade of clowns on the left, performing like circus monkeys for their base, continued Wednesday, when Reps. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman, both Democrats from New York, were denied access to an ICE Court in lower Manhattan.

The building, located at 26 Federal Plaza, is the same facility in which New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested 24 hours earlier.

The ambiguously stray duo, as is the game plan these days, reminded people of their legal right and duty to inspect ICE detention facilities. They take this duty very seriously these days, although we don't recall any similar inspection efforts between January 20, 2021, and January 20, 2025.

They note that they could inspect a detention center unannounced, if they so choose, but wrote in advance to let authorities know they'd be popping in. And hence, they gave the game away.

Officials informed them they would be denied entry head of time. But they attempted the stunt anyway.

"To be clear, we, by law, we have the right to show up unannounced and to inspect any detention facilities within ICE," Goldman told a handful of reporters in the building. "But in order to give them advance notice, we sent a request to allow us to view it, giving them notice that we were coming."

"They wrote back to us denying our request."

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Dem Rep Fumes as DHS Detains Staffers Accused of Harboring Rioters

Maxine Waters Tries to Get Into ANOTHER Federal Building, Fails This Time Too

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Undeterred, Nadler and Goldman headed to the 10th floor, where the court is located, and were met by ICE Deputy Field Director Bill Joyce.

Nadler, who very recently saw an aide in his office temporarily placed in handcuffs for attempting to obstruct efforts to track down pro-illegal alien rioters in that same building, stomped his foot and demanded that he and his congressional colleague be treated with respect.

"There is no legal reason to say no to us," he said. "As congresspeople, we have the absolute right to inspect any federal facility, including a detention center. You have no right to say no to us."

Joyce calmly said no to them and let the Democrat lawmaker know essentially that, 'Sir, this is a Wendy's.'

Video shows Joyce staring for a moment, a bit bewildered at the spectacle before him, and explains that they are in a “processing center" that does not fall under their oversight purview, and not a detention center.

Further adding to the notion that Nadler and Goldman were both well aware that they would be denied access before showing up, their colleagues, Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Adriano Espaillat, also New York Democratic House members, were turned away less than two weeks ago.

You have to admire their tenacity.

“They said this is not a ‘detention facility,’ even though the statute very clearly says that we are allowed into any facility that is being used ‘to detain or otherwise house aliens,'" Goldman told reporters after being rejected by Joyce.

“The question is: Why can’t we go in? What are they hiding?”

He and Nadler, who apparently threw on his best pair of clown shoes for the event, were spotted outside still stewing about the situation.

So distraught was Nadler that, according to Gothamist, he is threatening legal action if Democrats continue to be denied access to the ICE court.

But then, that would put an end to their virtue-signaling stunts.