PrairiePundit

Daniel Oliver: Racism: the first and final insult of losers In the same fortnight that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate for black workers was the lowest in the 45 years that data has been collected, a great gaggle of congressmen called President Trump a racist for, among other things, the comment he made about Haiti and some African countries. Exactly what the president said is in doubt, but it’s also irrelevant. It is irrelevant because previous presidents have done much worse things, yet are still revered by the liberal so-called intelligentsia. Lyndon Johnson used the “n” word more than a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, yet remains one of the stars in the liberal firmament. As does Franklin Roosevelt, who failed to press for an anti-lynching bill and who appointed an active member of the KKK to the Supreme Court. Liberal icon Woodrow Wilson, practically the inventor of progressivism, was an ardent racist, and long after such an attitude had ...

Washington Post Op-ed: A ‘bloody nose’ attack on North Korea is not happening anytime soon In my study of military history, I find signaling attacks usually fail and are counter-productive.  Democrats fought the Vietnam war with mainly signaling attack rather than taking decisive action to defeat the enemy.  Contrast that with Desert Storm where overwhelming force quickly achieved the objective. When it comes to messaging strike, a "bloody nose" attack is meant to convey seriousness, but it does teh opposite because if you were serious you would use overwhelming force.

NY Times: Memo Is Salvo in G.O.P. Plan to Move Focus Off Russia Republicans are pushing the narrative that biased officials set out to sabotage President Trump. At the same time, Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel running the Russia inquiry, is accelerating his work. There is certainly evidence of bias against Trump found in the FBI text messages, and there is also an acknowledgment that there is no evidence of Trump collusion with the Russians in those texts.  What the memo does is demonstrate how that bias led to FBI and DOJ officials abusing the FISA courts to spy on a domestic opposition party. Why many in the media think that is OK is another demonstration of their own anti-Trump bias.  Some in the media have become co-conspirators with those engaged in the abuses. The proof of the GOP narrative is found in the FBI text messages and in the actions before the FISA court.  It is also found in the statements of former Obama officia...

Houston Chronicle: Royal Dutch Shell said Wednesday it made a new discovery in the western Gulf of Mexico with Chevron. The new "Whale" well struck a potentially major oil payload while drilling to about 23,000 feet in the deepwater Gulf about 200 miles southwest of Houston, Shell said. The area is about 10 miles from Shell's massive Perdido platform so the hope is Shell can develop the area and save money while using existing by connecting it to the existing platform and pipelines. The discovery is within a block in the Alaminos Canyon portion of the Gulf. Shell owns 60 percent of the Whale well with Chevron holding the remaining 40 percent. It's located next to Shell's Silvertip field, which is one of the fields where the Perdido platform operates. While most of the oil focus is on the onshore shale boom, especially in West Texas, the so-called Big Oil giants are emphasizing that they haven't given up on the deepwater Gulf. The offshore sector is sho...

Media Research Center: CNN Laments Trump Using Patriotic Language in SOTU, Alienating Democrats and: CNN Discredits Own Poll Showing Overwhelming Positive Reaction to SOTU It was a bad night for their preferred narrative.

NY Times: Memo Is Salvo in G.O.P. Plan to Move Focus Off Russia Republicans are pushing the narrative that biased officials set out to sabotage President Trump. At the same time, Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel running the Russia inquiry, is accelerating his work. So far the only Russian collusion in the 2016 election was done by a team paid by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.  If there is any serious evidence of collusion by the Trump team Mueller has yet to disclose it.  That is likely because there is none. The memo is about serious abuses by the FBI and DOJ of the FISA courts to spy on a political opponent.  That is not a small thing or a distraction.  It is a serious abuse of power to use one candidate's opposition research so you can spy on the other.  If Trump did something like that the liberals would be up in arms and threaten impeachment. What I see is a media that is so locked into to something that isn't so, it sees r...

AP/Dallas Morning News: Union Pacific is building a new $550 million rail yard in Texas to help sort the growing number of freight cars it is hauling into trains. The Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad says the new Brazos rail yard will be able to switch up to 1,300 rail cars per day. The 1,875-acre facility is being built in Robertson County, about 125 miles south of Dallas. The project is designed to help Union Pacific handle future growth in freight traffic on the railroad. It is expected to be completed in 2020. The new rail yard will be built near where seven Union Pacific rail lines converge in Hearne. That makes it an ideal point to build the yard, which will break apart trains that come into the facility and reassemble cars into new trains headed to their destinations. ... Transportation expansion usually happens when there is business growth that creates demand for shipping of goods to an from manufacturing facilities.  It is a logical extension of the economic ...

Energy Fix: Exxon Mobil said Tuesday it plans to triple its oil and gas production in west Texas' booming Permian Basin as part of its heightened emphasis on U.S. growth. The country's largest energy company said it aims to grow its Permian production to 600,000 barrels a day by 2025 and also spend more than $2 billion on transportation and terminal upgrades in west Texas, including expanding its crude oil terminal in Wink, Texas. Exxon Mobil is beginning to break out specifics of its spending plans after announcing Monday that it wants to invest $50 billion in the U.S. during the next five years, in part because of extra financial benefits gained from the new U.S. tax law. ... The production growth and transportation upgrades will help feed Exxon Mobil's expanding refineries and petrochemical plants in Baytown, Mont Belvieu, Beaumont and Baton Rouge, La. with much of the oil and natural gas liquids they need to churn out fuels and plastics. "With this production g...

Red States: During tonight’s State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump got some of his loudest applause of the evening so far — at least from the Republican side of the room, of course — with a line that said that American citizens were also “dreamers,” referring to a term popularized by Democrats for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. As part of a larger discussion about immigration reform, Trump introduced Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens, whose teenage daughters Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens were murdered while walking in their hometown of Long Island. Six members of the MS-13 gang have been charged with their murders. “Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors ‑- and wound up in Kayla and Nisa’s high school,” said Trump. The President then called for Congress to “finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-1...

Patricia McCarthy: It is difficult to imagine a more galling demonstration of incivility than the Democrats in the room for Trump's SOTU speech. They scowled, frowned, and sat on their hands throughout the speech. They could hardly be bothered to acknowledge the heroes in the audience when they were introduced. While the Dems brought illegal immigrants, Trump invited actual paragons of American character and the families of victims of illegal immigrant crimes, as well as a victim of North Korea. It was embarrassing, like watching the anti-Semites in the UN stomp out of the room when Benjamin Netanyahu speaks. How is it any different? Our Democrats behave exactly like the most racist, intolerant people on the planet, and in their own Capitol. ... There is much more. The surly conduct appeared planned.  At one point I saw Sen. Patty Murray looking like she wanted to stand an applause a line in the speech and she looked anxiously around at other Democrats and meekly stayed ...

CBS News:   The angry ones are likely Democrats.  In a speech where Trump gave a moving tribute to two black families whose daughters were killed by MSD_!# gang members Democrats still Called Trump a racist.  In a speech where he recognized a black welder who got a job at a small business The Democrats said he was racist.  When Trump talked about the black unemployment rate falling to an all-time low, the Democrats sat on their hands.  When he talked about the Hispanic unemployment rate falling to an all-time low, the Democrats sat on their hands.  When Republicans began cheering these results and shouting USA a Hispanic Congressman fled the chambers. If I were running against a Democrat this fall I would show the clip of the sour looks on the faces of Democrats at the statement that unemployment of blacks and Hispanics are at an all-time low.  and ask who is really rooting for them to get jobs and who is not.

President Trump's first State of the Union speech was aimed at everyone including the Democrats who sat on their hands and could not bring themselves to cheer the lowest black and Hispanic unemployment in history.  It was almost comical to see their surly crossed arms and sour looks on the face of what is clearly good news for those who now have jobs.  I think their response could actually hurt the Democrats with communities that have supported them in the past. I think the Republicans can put together some effective ads to run in those communities by just showing the indifference of Democrats to their improved circumstances. Trump was a salesman for the policies he has been successful on this past year and the ones he proposes for the coming year.  I think that if the Democrats reject these policies they face rejection of their party. Trump was also very effective at introducing guests in the audience to show his compassion for both heroes and victims....

Fox News: Two senior FBI officials have now reviewed a controversial Republican staff memo alleging abuses of government surveillance programs during the 2016 presidential campaign, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News – adding that the officials “could not point to any factual inaccuracies.” The two officials – one from the bureau’s counterintelligence division and the other from the legal division – followed up after an initial review of the memo during a rare Sunday trip to Capitol Hill by FBI Director Christopher Wray. The House Intelligence Committee voted late Monday along party lines to release the memo, prompting a backlash from Democratic lawmakers. Top Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff called it a “very sad day.” President Trump has five working days to review the contents but is widely expected not to block its release. After the contentious committee vote Monday night, the source confirmed that House staffers physically took the memo over to the White House for...

Washington Post: The Justice Department's inspector general has been focused for months on why Andrew McCabe, as the No. 2 official at the FBI, appeared not to act for about three weeks on a request to examine a batch of Hillary Clinton-related emails found in the latter stages of the 2016 election campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. The inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, has been asking witnesses why FBI leadership seemed unwilling to move forward on the examination of emails found on the laptop of former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) until late October — about three weeks after first being alerted to the issue, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. A key question of the internal investigation is whether McCabe or anyone else at the FBI wanted to avoid taking action on the laptop findings until after the Nov. 8 election, these people said. It is unclear whether the inspector general ...

ESPN: The governor of Texas has called on the Texas Rangers to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct at the famed and recently shuttered Karolyi Ranch north of Houston. The ranch was until recently a training camp for the nation's top gymnasts. Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to the director of the state's public safety department Tuesday asking him to deploy the statewide law enforcement Rangers to provide a thorough investigation of the ranch. USA Gymnastics terminated its relationship with the Karolyi Ranch earlier this month during a sentencing hearing for former gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who was sentenced to up to 175 years in state prison for criminal sexual conduct. Several women who provided statements during that hearing say Nassar assaulted them while they were training at the ranch in Texas. "The public statements made by athletes who previously trained at the Karolyi Ranch are gutwrenching," Abbott wrote in his letter. "Those athletes, a...

Real Clear Politics: Mollie Hemingway: Media Is Missing "Something Huge" Happening At FBI ... What broke today with Andrew McCabe, the number two at FBI, stepping down, suggests that we have a pretty big situation on our hands. He's only the most recent person to be demoted, step down, or be reassigned after Congressional or other inquiries about some of what is happening at the FBI. You had Bruce Ohr, who was demoted twice. You had Peter Strzok, who had to be taken off the case. You had Baker, who is gone, and Rybicki, also. This is quite a collection of people, obviously, there is something huge going on. And I think a lot of people in the media are missing this very large story. Perhaps this memo will help us learn a little bit more about what it is that is causing these changes. There is a video at the link above.  She left off Lisa Page an attorney who was working with Strzok.  They are all implicated in an effort to abuse teh FISA court to spy on the T...

AP: Authorities say a semitrailer driver is in custody after he was found to be transporting 76 immigrants in Texas. The U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement Monday that the immigrants were discovered Friday at a checkpoint on U.S. 83, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Laredo in South Texas. The semitrailer stopped in the checkpoint's primary lane where the driver, a U.S. citizen, was questioned about his immigration status. His rig was kept for further inspection, and agents found the immigrants inside the trailer. The immigrants are from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Thirteen were unaccompanied minors. The Border Patrol says all of them are in good health. ... From this, we can see that DACA is not going to solve the problem.  It is likely to increase the number of unaccompanied minors being brought into the US. This is not a migration that can be stopped with a fence alone.  These trucks need to be inspected and X-rayed at the border.

Washington Post: Three business giants join forces to tackle employees’ health-care costs Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase plan to create a company that would focus on technology that could increase transparency and simplify care. This looks like a poor investment by people with a track record of good investments.  I suspect they will find that just like companies who hoped to save money by self-insurance for employees, there is no cheap way to do healthcare.

NY Times: Walmart’s Locking Up of Certain Beauty Products Is Racial Discrimination, Suit Claims A California woman says that products targeted at African-Americans are locked up in her neighborhood store. The practice is not limited to black beauty products.  It is used by retailers on any products that are subject to theft.  My Ace Hardware keeps many specialty tools such as drill bits and router bits behind a wire fence.  It is a practice that makes sense because otherwise, the prices of those products would be much higher if the retailer had to recover the costs of the thefts.  Hopefully, someday blacks will not blame every inconvenience and set back on their race.  It is really a poor response to a problem that exists because of the acts of others.  They should blame the thieves and not the store.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: In analyzing federal data for an in-depth examination of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, the AJC found that the six-year graduation rates at 20 schools were 20 percent or lower in 2015. This means that four of five beginning freshmen at those schools didn’t earn a degree within six years. ... “Yes, there are some HBCUs that have low graduation rates,” said Marybeth Gasman, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania who directs the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, in an email to the AJC. “And some that are in the single digits. . . . This is problematic and a school must do better by having summer bridge programs, peer-to-peer mentoring, student success centers — all focused on increasing retention and graduation rates.” ... I suspect the problem is not in the colleges, but in the preparatory education, the students got in public education inner city schools where standards are not enforced if...

Washington Free Beacon: The number of children fighting on behalf of ISIS has skyrocketed in the past years, with hundreds having been found on the battlefield and others being used as executioners for the radical terror group, according to a new report authored by the United Nations. U.N. officials have verified that hundreds of children kidnapped and recruited by ISIS have been found on the battlefield after being trained in fighting centers set up in war torn Syria and other locales, according to the latest report. In some cases, children as young as seven years old have been fighting on the battlefield, marking a "significant increase" over previous years, according to the U.N. report, which discloses evidence of video footage showing children executioners killing on ISIS's behalf. The report shines a spotlight on the growing exploitation of children by radical terror groups, including ISIS, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and others, as they wage war in hotspots acros...

Washington Examiner Op-ed: ... At the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on May 11, 1968, Reagan delivered "The History and Significance of the U.S. Role in the Pacific." Reagan laid the blame for America’s foreign policy ills — and especially for Tet — squarely at the foot of Robert F. Kennedy. Reagan began by lashing out at critics of the Vietnam War and specifically asked how the recent Tet offensive, which the U.S. and South Vietnam decisively had won militarily, could have been turned into such a loss at home? Reagan reviewed that media commentators had created the false impressions that we had lost. Reagan corrected the record: "It was the communist attackers who took the staggering losses..and who broke at the end and pulled back. Why did this message never get through to us? Why here at home have we suffered a smashing, catastrophic, psychological defeat? A defeat we imposed on ourselves. Why, with all the power and wealth and human resources at America's command have...

Washington Times: Border Patrol agents in San Diego arrested two illegal immigrant “Dreamers” last week over their purported roles in separate smuggling operations, with one 22-year-old admitting to having been part of a number of such smuggling attempts. The arrests are black eyes on the Obama-era DACA program, which is currently the subject of heated debate in Washington. In one incident Thursday, agents had just arrested two illegal immigrants and then spotted two suspicious vehicles in the area. They followed on and eventually conducted a stop at a border checkpoint. The 22-year-old driver admitted to being a scouter for a smuggling crew, and said he’d been informing the other car about Border Patrol operations in the area to help them with their smuggling. The man is currently under DACA protection, the government said. Agents said they determined the man had been part of successful smuggling operations “on multiple occasions.” Customs and Border Protection was shield...

The Hill: Several outside GOP groups raised record-setting numbers for the upcoming midterm elections, USA Today reported Monday. Republican groups allied with Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) amassed $31.6 million in 2017, the newspaper said, noting the record for an off-cycle year. The groups include the Senate Leadership Fund, One Nation, Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads. "We start this cycle better prepared than we ever have been," Steven Law, the CEO of American Crossroads, told the newspaper. The fundraising total comes as Republicans prepare to defend eight Senate seats in this year’s midterm elections. Historically, the president’s party typically loses seats in midterms. ... Republican fundraising is run well ahead of Democrats who are still struggling to pay off debts from the 2016 campaign.  The touted blue wave election looks like it may run out of money before it gets started.

Washington Examiner: Nancy Pelosi: House Republicans are trying to 'cover up' the Russia probe by releasing FISA memo Pelosi appears out of touch with reality.  It is already clear that there is no evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign and she should know that by now.  There is substantial evidence that people in federal law enforcement abused the FISA courts to spy on Democrats' political opponents.  That is one of the biggest scandals in history that she is crying to cover up rather than finding the facts.

Fuel Fix: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is joining with critics of Russia's Nordstream 2 pipeline project, saying it would undermine energy security in Europe. "Like Poland, the United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We see it as undermining Europe's overall energy security and stability," Tillerson said Saturday at a joint news conference with the Polish foreign minister in Warsaw, according to Reuters. The more than 750-mile long Nordstream 2 pipeline would run beneath the Baltic Sea, delivering natural gas from Russia to Western Europe, which has become increasingly reliant on its neighbor to the east for energy in recent decades. ... The story goes on to make the claim that the Obama administration wanted to reduce dependency too, but that claimed is belied by that administration's hostility to LNG facilities that would be used ship US gas to Europe.  The anti-energy left in that adminsitration choked the LNG busieness with regulatory foo...

Observer: For all its management and security shortcomings , the National Security Agency remains the world’s most important spy service. Its signals intelligence reach is truly global, and its highly classified SIGINT, year in and year out, accounts for something like 80 percent of the actionable intelligence in our Intelligence Community. NSA, which recently celebrated its 65th birthday, remains the backbone of Western security, our top-secret shield against spies and terrorists. No small part of that success can be attributed to NSA’s effective leveraging of foreign partnerships. Its spy links with the Anglosphere date to World War II and are termed Five Eyes (for the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom). Inside NSA, this alliance is called Second Party. This partnership is so close that it’s best to view the Five Eyes SIGINT arrangement as really one integrated espionage effort that covers the globe. However, those are hardly NSA’s only foreign partnership...

The Hill: ... The Wall Street Journal asked 68 business, financial and academic economists who was responsible for the strengthening of the economy, and most “suggested Mr. Trump’s election deserves at least some credit” for the upturn. A majority said the president had been “somewhat” or “strongly” positive for job creation, gross domestic product growth and the rising stock market. The pros cite the White House’s push for lighter regulation and the recent tax bill as critical to a pro-growth environment; more than 90 percent of the group thought the tax bill would boost GDP expansion over the next two years. A year ago in the same survey, economists awarded President Obama mixed grades. Most saw his policies as positive for financial stability, but neutral-to-negative for GDP growth and negative for long-term growth. By contrast, Trump was seen as neutral to positive for long-term gains. Why would Trump rate higher than Obama with this group? Economists point to the upt...

Willis L. Krumholz: ... ... Many are so invested in the collusion narrative that a severe-enough blowback — where it is found that Hillary colluded with Russia, not Trump, for example — could destroy American institutions that wield enormous amounts of power. Those at risk include the Democrat Party’s media appendages, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, Business Insider, The Hill, and Vox . Even the Democrat Party, at least the uber-corporatist manifestation that we see today, faces an existential crisis. In other words, it will get much worse before it gets any better. In the meantime, to cut through all the media’s horse manure, here are five things we’ve learned about the so-called Russia investigation in the last week (and, at the end, what you can do about it). 1. The FISA Abuse Memo ... 3. What We Do Know from the Strzok-Page Texts ... 4. The ‘Secret Society’ Runs a Distraction Campaign The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway correct...

CNBC: Exxon Mobil to invest $50 billion in US over 5 years, citing tax reform Exxon Mobil on Monday said it plans to invest $50 billion in the United States over the next five years, saying its decision is partly due to corporate tax cuts. The investment will go towards increasing production in the Permian basin in western Texas and eastern New Mexico. Exxon announced $20 billion in spending for U.S. Gulf Coast manufacturing in March. ... As part of the investment, Exxon plans to increase production in the Permian basin, a shale oil region in western Texas and eastern New Mexico where the low cost of production has attracted drillers. Exxon said it will expand its operations, make improvements to infrastructure and construct manufacturing sites, activities that it expects will generate thousands of new jobs. ... It would be smart to ivnest in refiniang capacity for the light crude being produced in the Permian Basin.  Such a move would be another step toward energy ind...

Washington Examiner: The Republican-led House Intelligence Committee voted Monday to invoke a obscure congressional rule to force the release a classified memo written by Republicans that outlines what they say are abuses of federal surveillance authorities. Ranking Member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters that the Republican majority voted Monday night to make the four-page GOP memo public, but voted against the idea of releasing a counter memo written by the Democratic minority. The four-page memo put together by Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., allegedly details how Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein sought the renewal of a federal court-authorized surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page. Also reportedly named in the memo are outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former FBI Director James Comey. By invoking House Rules 10 — which the Congressional Research Service has said has never been invoked before...

Justin  Haskins: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the possibility the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials appears to have morphed into an investigation into alleged “obstruction of justice.” On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported Mueller has requested to question President Trump directly about his decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey, as well as the departure of Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. It is believed Mueller is looking for evidence that shows Trump’s motive for firing Comey was to end the FBI’s investigation into Flynn and Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although liberal pundits and many congressional Democrats have long argued Trump’s decision to fire Comey was, in effect, a move to cover up other potential crimes, there is an ongoing debate among legal scholars over whether a president, the nation’s chief executive, can be charged with obstructing justice after firing a law enforcement o...

Patricia McCarthy: It is becoming clearer by the day, after over a year of investigations, that the Obama administration did indeed weaponize the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the ATF, the IRS and the NSA. Over those eight years, each of the above agencies was transformed into an arm of the Democratic Party tasked with crippling the opposition and abrogating the Constitution. Since all of the mainstream media already were arms of the DNC, it is well and truly a miracle that Donald Trump prevailed throughout his campaign to win the election, as the entire DC bureaucracy and media were aligned against him. Most of them still are. Those law enforcement institutions in which Americans have put their trust and faith for many decades have been thoroughly compromised by a group of bad actors at the top, self-appointed arbiters of electoral politics. Besides sullying the reputations of their institutions, this "secret society" of persons who believe themselves to be above the law...

Sara Carter: FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was forced to resign Monday, just as the House Intelligence Committee is expected to vote on the public release of a classified memo this afternoon revealing extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse under the Obama administration, sources told this reporter. McCabe apparently lashed out to his colleagues when he was told he would be asked to resign, according to sources. FBI Director Christopher Wray viewed the four-page memo on Sunday, sources familiar with the discussions said. McCabe, who is facing three federal inquiries for conflicts-of-interest during his time at the FBI, is one of the numerous names mentioned in the classified memo detailing FISA abuse, according to sources who reviewed the memo. The federal inquiries into allegations against McCabe, who was expected to resign in March, are based on documents and interviews conducted by this reporter over the past year and range from sexual discrimination to imp...

Washington Times: Homeland Security will demand more information from applicants from high-risk countries before accepting them as refugees, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced Monday as she defended President Trump’s steps on immigration and visitor screening. Ms. Nielsen also highlighted a recent report that found the government weeds out an average of seven travelers each day — 50 a week — who are on the terrorist watch-list yet still try to enter the U.S. Speaking at the Wilson Center, the new secretary also asked for support for Mr. Trump’s border wall and his broader immigration plans, as part of ongoing discussions on Capitol Hill on a deal to legalize illegal immigrant “Dreamers.” “We cannot let this moment slip away. Now is the time,” she said. “We cannot afford to kick the can down the road any farther.” Ms. Nielsen said past administrations had not been as strenuous in attempting to weed out would-be terrorists as the current one, and pointed to a string of attack...

Washington Post: Lawmakers, wary of forestalling a deal, urge Trump to scale back immigration demands Members of both parties said the president should narrow the focus of the debate to legalizing the “dreamers” and beefing up border security rather than slashing legal immigration levels. Democrats want to keep the current flawed system rather than move to a merit-based colorblind system.  The current system has very little political support among voters, but Democrats like it because they see it as a vehicle for importing future Democrats rather than helping the country with more able immigrants.  The GOP does not like the broader group of people covered by the dreamer proposal.  Black men especially oppose the current system which they see as bringing in people who compete with them for jobs.  Republicans would be wise to help these Americans that Democrats are taking for granted.

NY Times: Secret Memo Hints at a New Republican Target: Rod Rosenstein The memo, raising doubts about the Russia inquiry, includes an account of Mr. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, approving surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide. An investigation that was supposed to be about Russian collusion with the Trump campaign has morphed into a gotcha operation aimed at trapping the President and giving Democrats an excuse for an impeachment.  It has lost its legitimacy. The stench of the handling of the investigation of Clinton's mishandling of classified material still hangs over the DOJ and the FBI.  All Muller has done so far is get an unrelated indictment against Paul Manafort and one of his associates and a couple of process crimes against two people who lied when the truth would serve them better. The use of a Clinton bought opposition research paper as an excuse to spy on a political opponent also taints the operations of the investigator...

Breitbart: Black Americans are the most supportive group in the United States of dramatically lower legal immigration levels, down from where the U.S. currently admits more than 1 million legal immigrants a year, a new poll reveals. According to a detailed Harvard-Harris poll, black Americans are more likely than any other demographic group to support lower yearly legal immigration levels, down to a fourth of current immigration levels. When asked, “In your opinion, about how many legal immigrants should be admitted to the U.S. each year,” 48 percent of black Americans said they would like to see between only one and 250,000 legal immigrants brought to the U.S. a year. ... Black men see themselves in direct competition with the immigrant laborers.  I think this probably really scares the Democrats who can't afford to lose any black votes and there does appear to be some movement of black men toward Trump.

Kurt Schlichter: Shoving Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Right Back in the Left’s Ugly Face The Left is getting massively out-Alinskyed, and the hilarious thing is that this band of withered hippies, unemployable millennial safe-space cases, and unlovable + unshaven libfeminists don’t even know it. Oh, their masters sure know it. Soros is bitterly having to ramp up his infusions of blood money to keep his community-organized “grassroots” movements afloat. The less dumb ones among the lying dinosaur media are panicking as their influence fades, and Chuck Schumer is enduring such a non-stop parade of serial humiliations that if the Senate were a penitentiary, he’d be McConnell’s prison Mitch. ... I am not sure Trump knows he is following the Rules for Radicals approach, but he is certainly flummoxing the opposition that is desperate to depose him.  This is a fun read for those who like to see the Democrats in disarray.

Sultan Knish: This is a civil war. There aren’t any soldiers marching on Charleston… or Myrtle Beach. Nobody’s getting shot in the streets. Except in Chicago… and Baltimore, Detroit and Washington D.C. But that’s not a civil war. It’s just what happens when Democrats run a city into the ground. And then they dig a hole in the ground so they can bury it even deeper. If you look deep enough into that great big Democrat hole, you might even see where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. But it’s not guns that make a civil war. It’s politics. Guns are how a civil war ends. Politics is how it begins. How do civil wars happen? Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge. That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results...

NY Post Editorial: Iranian military boats have quietly ended years of harassment of US Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf, and it looks like another welcome sign of a new cop on the beat. For years, armed Iranian “fast boats” would charge at US ships in a dangerous game of chicken, rising to a level the Navy deemed “unsafe or unprofessional” at least twice a month. It was a clear signal of disrespect, and a test of what Washington would put up with. But the game stopped last summer, The Wall Street Journal reports . Officially, the Navy doesn’t know why. US Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel says, “I hope it’s because we have messaged our readiness . . . and that it isn’t tolerable or how professional militaries operate.” But Tehran surely takes that “isn’t tolerable” message a lot more seriously now that President Barack Obama is out of office. Obama, after all, had shown he wouldn’t enforce his own red lines, infamously blinking rather than live up to his own vow that use of che...

Washington Times: The nation’s highest military court has thrown out the 2012 rape conviction of a Coast Guard enlisted man because admirals and prosecutors packed the seven-member jury with five women, four of whom held jobs as advocates for victims of sexual assault. In a 5-0 ruling that could change how the military conducts sex abuse trials, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces unleashed caustic criticism of all involved. From the Coast Guard commandant down to an appellate court to the original trial judge, the high court said all contributed to a “stain on the military justice system.” The military has been under intense pressure to wipe out sexual harassment and assault, the five civilian judges noted. SEE ALSO: Opinion of the Court: U.S. v. John C. Riesbeck The opinion, delivered by Judge Margaret A. Ryan , said the four admirals who played a role in assembling the officer and enlisted jury pool produced an illegal “gender-based court stacking.” She suggested that t...

Fuel Fix: Wind is expected to surpass hydroelectric power in 2018 as the largest source of renewable power in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Hydro power was one of the first technologies used to generate electricity, and has remained the nation's dominant source of renewable power even as wind and solar power have grown rapidly in the past few years. RELATED: Wind power blows past coal in Texas The Energy Department expects wind power capacity to grow significantly in 2018 and 2019, as fewer hydro-electric plant will come online. Wind power capacity in the U.S. is expected to grow by 9 percent in 2018 and 8 percent in 2019. ... Wind is still a fraction of the total energy picture.  It has the advantage of solar of producing electricity when the sun does not shine, but it is at its strongest in the hot afternoons of summer when power consumption is usually at its peak.  It has been successful in Texas because the state built the transmission lines...

Washington Post: In Congress, GOP splits on protecting Mueller from firing The party discord came days after the revelation that President Trump sought to oust Robert Mueller III in June, prompting Democrats to make a renewed pitch for Congress to shore up the special counsel’s standing. This seems to be the latest meme in the liberal media as it becomes more clear that Mueller has nothing.  There was no Russian collusion and he is getting to the end of his investigation without even a hint of any.  He has mainly focused on a couple of process crimes and an unrelated case against Paul Manafort.  Those desperate to remove Trump are hoping he can trick him into an obstruction of justice case, but there is zero evidence that his investigation has been obstructed at all. This looks like a bad faith case being pushed by the media and liberals to try to overturn the results of the election.  Based on what the Congress has uncovered it appears to be blowing up in the...

NY Times: Oil Boom Gives the U.S. a New Edge in Energy and Diplomacy Having survived a slump, shale drilling is surging as prices recover, limiting market upheaval and providing Washington with strategic leeway. The success has come in the face of efforts by Saudi Arabia and its oil allies to undercut a U.S. drilling spree. One of the biggest mistakes in OPEC history was their attempt to kill off the shale producers by engaging in predatory pricing.  Instead of folding teh US producers got lean and more efficient and by the time OPEC backed off, the shale producers break even was actually lower than most of the OPEC countries.  The shale producers continue to refine their methods to cut cost. The biggest mistake the US has made since the shale revolution is its failure to gear its refinery capacity to match the light crude being produced in teh shale fields.  That is the main reason the US is still importing heavy crude and export much of its ligh...

NY Times: Gridlock Deepens Under Trump. Is Our Democracy at Risk? The gloom is bipartisan as Republicans warn of a dark plot to overthrow the Trump government and Democrats talk of a creeping authoritarianism unchecked by Congress. It turns out the Russian collusion in the 2016 election was by operatives hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC and they co-opted the FBI and DOJ to spy on their political opponents.  That looks more like galloping authoritarianism by the left in this country.  While Trump has a propensity for bluster on occasion if he were really an authoritarian half of the (th Circuit and the district judges within it would be in jail for their abuse of the courts to thwart executive authority.  Instead, he has used the appeal process to support his executive authority.  He is using due process to deal with liberals' attempts to thwart US immigration laws.  These open rebellions against the US  are more a reflection of...

Michael Goodwin: Not that they needed one, but progressive wing nuts and their fellow travelers are getting another reason to hate President Trump. He’s proving that capitalism works. The president’s policies of cutting high taxes and excessive regulations are sparking a stock market surge and soaring economic confidence. Each day brings announcements from companies ranging from Apple to Walmart that they are giving bonuses and pay hikes, adding new jobs and increasing their investments in America. Millions of workers will get the bonuses, most of which are for $1,000, and untold others will get new or higher-paying jobs. Most of those workers also will see their take-home pay increase because they will get personal income tax cuts and a doubling of the standard deduction. Those changes will become apparent in a week or so when the new lower rates are applied to payrolls. The cash-in-the-pocket benefits are great news to many families, but the boom is doing something else too: It’s ...

The Hill: President Trump broke with top officials at the Justice Department and called for the release of a classified memo purported to list Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by the U.S. government, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Despite warnings from top officials at the agency, Trump reportedly told Attorney General Jeff Sessions through Chief of Staff John Kelly that he wants to see the memo released, believing that it will shed light on the special counsel investigation. Trump “is inclined to have that released just because it will shed light,” a senior administration official told the Post. “Apparently all the rumors are that it will shed light, it will help the investigators come to a conclusion," the official added. The decision to release the memo rests with the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes. Earlier this week, the Justice Department warned the committee it would be "extremely reck...

Victoria Toensing: What alleged illegality is Mueller investigating? Trump exercising lawful presidential authority? Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to interview President Trump. We know that is true because the areas of inquiry that Mueller is interested in have been leaked. But the questions Mueller is looking at are not about the issue the special counsel was supposed to examine: collusion with Russians to fix the 2016 presidential election. Rather, the Washington Post reports that Mueller “is seeking to question President Trump in the coming weeks about his decisions to oust national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with his plans.” The two acts, according to the Post, are related to “efforts by the president or others to hamper the special counsel’s probe.” How can that be? Flynn had nothing to do with the special counsel’s probe. And firing the head of the FBI does not thwart what all the people under ...