By opening our southern border to endless streams of illegal aliens, and planting them throughout the United States, President Biden has effectively nullified a vast swath of U.S. law. In July the Supreme Court upheld an injunction against Biden’s lawless policy, in a case to be argued there in December.
While that case entitled U.S. v. Texas was percolating through the lower courts, some 2.2 million encounters with illegal aliens were reported in the last nine months. This surpasses the record set by the entire first fiscal year of the Biden regime and “is the worst it’s ever been,” according to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district includes part of the border.
Meanwhile, Biden blocked lawful visitors like tennis star Novak Djokovic from playing in the U.S. Open, merely for declining the Covid vaccine. Yet Biden allows millions of unvaccinated illegal aliens to pour over our southern border because they are presumed to be future Democrat voters.
A Republican delegation visited the problem firsthand in August after hearing complaints by the sanctuary New York City Democrat mayor, Eric Adams, about how Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has bused 1,500 of the migrants to the big city. “That’s but a small taste of everyday life on the border and they’re starting to realize it is overwhelming,” said Rep. Gonzales.
Overwhelming indeed. Crime statistics from Texas show in the last year 259,000 illegal aliens were charged with more than 433,000 criminal offenses, among which there were 800 arrests for murder and more than 10,000 charges for sexual offenses.
Texas border cities were initially reluctant to join Gov. Abbott’s bold busing of migrants to liberal northeast cities. But the continued lack of attention by the Biden administration to this crisis has prompted El Paso and others to give illegals showing up in their cities a long- distance ride on Gov. Abbott’s buses, too.
The Republicans visiting the southern border included two candidates for Congress from New York. They point out how their state’s Democrats have exacerbated the problem of illegal immigration by giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, along with welfare, housing, and other benefits.
Many of the illegal migrants hop off the bus in more desirable conservative regions along the way, like Tennessee, if they get a chance. But officials there do not want the illegals either, and ask Abbott to keep the migrants on the buses until their final destination in the Big Apple.
Chad Wolf, the former acting Homeland Security Secretary, pointed out that Biden’s catch-and-release approach to illegal aliens is illegal. Wolf observes that Biden destroys incentives for lawful immigration now that one “can simply walk across the border in the middle of the desert and be allowed to stay in the United States.”
As declared by 19 state attorneys general in their amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Texas, “In the last 17 months, the volume of unlawful immigration has soared to levels unseen in the United States in decades – and, quite likely, ever. So too have the resulting burdens placed on the States.”
The AGs add that “the current situation at the U.S.- Mexico border is an unmitigated disaster. The number of illegal crossings per month is at levels unseen in at least a generation.”
When referring to Republicans, Democrats talk about how no one is above law, yet Biden has acted unlawfully in letting illegal aliens in. He improperly set aside Trump Guidelines that blocked the unlawful border crossings by migrants.
New York City’s “Adams talked the talk about being a sanctuary city, welcoming illegal immigrants into the Big Apple with warm hospitality,” Texas Gov. Abbott points out. “Talk is cheap. When pressed into fulfilling such ill- considered policies, he wants to condemn anyone who is pressing him to walk the walk.”
“I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief,” Gov. Abbott adds with a touch of humor. El Paso, a predominantly Democrat city on the Mexican border that used to call itself the Ellis Island of the southwest, is fully on board with Abbott now.
New York City is flush with wealthy companies, many of the world’s richest people, and pompous politicians who promote its status as a sanctuary city. Yet it is reportedly straining under the influx of merely a tiny percentage of the illegals whom Biden is allowing to flood Texas, Arizona, and elsewhere.
Javier Villalobos, the Republican mayor of McAllen, Texas, observes about managing the illegals: “If we can do that, they can too. I know they can do it,” referring to New York City as it receives a relatively small handful of the overall total.
Biden halted work on President Trump’s border wall, and repealed Trump’s good “Remain in Mexico” policy. Biden deserves all the blame for this crisis.
Court Should Halt Anti-GOP Prosecutions
Liberal county prosecutors in heavily Democrat Fulton County, Georgia, have been terrorizing a U.S. Senator, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and the former U.S. Attorney and Time Man of the Year, Rudy Giuliani. The ultimate target of this politicized investigation is, of course, Donald Trump.
This harassment is occurring within 90 days of the midterm elections, when U.S. Department of Justice policy prohibits this kind of political mischief by federal prosecutors. Unhinged county prosecutors tracked down another Trump attorney, Jenna Ellis who resides in Colorado, and are forcing her to testify as they try to get at Trump.
To liberals, criticizing election fraud is a crime, and the heavily Democrat grand jury will recommend any indictments requested by the Democrat district attorney. Every Republican connected with Donald Trump who criticized the last election is at risk of being indicted by partisan Democrats, in violation of their constitutional right to speak out.
For a year-and-a-half no evidence of any crimes by these Republicans has surfaced, but as the midterm elections approach liberals rush for indictments. The news was that Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Law and Order himself, is a target of the investigation.
The goal of this weaponized prosecution is two-fold. First, Democrats want something to swing the polls in order to hold onto their bare majority in the U.S. House, and second, Democrats want to make sure that no one dares question their fraud-prone elections ever again.
Billionaire Leftist George Soros, who has invested heavily in supporting radical prosecutors nationwide, must be giggling with delight. He may have found a way to turn
the country blue with baseless prosecutions generating a stream of scandalous headlines against Republicans.
Lindsey Graham was doing his job when he made inquiries about the reported unusual election results in Georgia in 2020, where signatures were never verified on hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots. It is a constitutional right for all Americans to question and criticize elections, yet some liberals want to turn that into some kind of crime.
Sen. Graham should not have to answer intrusive questions under oath from a political opponent in a dusty county courtroom in Georgia, about legitimate inquiries he made concerning the election results more than a year-and- a-half ago. For liberals to spawn national biased headlines by making this an issue on the eve of the midterm elections is doubly wrong.
Graham appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to defend his senatorial privilege under the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause. Incredibly, that court is allowing Fulton County to continue harassing Trump supporters, although it temporarily delayed the process until the scope of questioning is narrowed.
Republicans should not have to answer questions by a partisan Democrat prosecutor about why and how they questioned a reported election result. No Republican is accused of fabricating votes, so there is no crime to be asked questions about.
The chilling of the First Amendment right to criticize election fraud is what Democrats want. Only a federal appellate court might stop their interference with the midterm elections.
Fulton County is overwhelmingly Democrat and it is impossible for a Republican to obtain a fair grand jury or trial there. The Georgia legislature recognized last year the likelihood of fraud in that county, and its election reform bill permits state intervention in county elections.
A retired federal judge is serving as the state election board chairman, and he said at its first board meeting that “accountability and knowing that there are people watching the processes and making sure that they are trustworthy … that’s what we want and what the citizens want.” But that cannot happen if any Republican who criticizes the process gets harassed before a Democrat grand jury.
A Georgia state court judge shut down an attempt by the partisan prosecutor to haul a state legislator before the grand jury for hostile questioning under oath, after the revelation that the prosecutor hosted a fundraiser for his opponent. The court order prohibits the county prosecutor, Fani Willis, from publicly claiming that the legislator is a subject of the grand jury’s investigation.
After the Eleventh Circuit paused the attempt to question Sen. Graham, the Obama-appointed district judge gave him until only 9 a.m. on August 24 to file a motion to explain how he wants the court to limit the scope of questioning. But no U.S. Senator should be subjected to any questioning by a county prosecutor of the opposing party on the eve of an election, or be put at risk of a politically motivated indictment.
The Supreme Court did not defer to a partisan recount of the 2000 presidential election in Florida, and unhinged Democrats in Georgia deserve no deference now. Their partisan attempt to interfere with the midterm elections should be stopped immediately by federal courts.
Stop Political Prosecutions
Weeks after the surprise raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, the Democrat-controlled Justice Department still had disclosed nothing to justify that unprecedented action against America’s leading presidential candidate. As a first step among many to come, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed Articles of Impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland, who admitted that he approved the raid.
“Attorney General Garland has taken measures to silence the voices of millions of citizens of the United States by persecuting the former duly elected and lawful President of the United States, and potential Presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump,” the first Article of Impeachment reads.
Refusing to take questions after making a brief statement, Garland continued to stonewall demands for an explanation of his egregious violation of the constitutional rights and dignity of a prominent U.S. citizen. On August 15, under Garland’s supervision, the Justice Department filed a motion asking a court to continue suppressing the affidavit that was submitted to obtain the search warrant, and the court heard that motion on August 18.
Garland’s conduct is an affront to our democratic republic, and it improperly disrupts our upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024. His armed raid on the home of the leading presidential candidate while refusing to disclose the basis for it cannot stand.
For once, major news networks sided with Trump supporters in asking the magistrate judge, whose legal career includes defending the pilots and others associated with the disgraced Jeffrey Epstein, to unseal the affidavit. Judge Bruce Reinhart, whom Trump has sought to recuse from this case, had concealed the supporting affidavit filed to obtain the search warrant.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits raiding anyone’s home except “upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” With those immortal words the Founders put this essential safeguard into the Bill of Rights against the abuse of federal power that just victimized Trump.
Political persecutions hide behind secrecy, and transparency would help stop them. There was no justification for federal agents to demand that Mar-a-Lago staff turn off the surveillance cameras so that the agents could violate limits on the scope of the warrant without accountability.
Despite the deliberate intimidation caused by more than 30 armed agents ransacking Trump’s home, his skeleton summer staff courageously refused the agents’ improper demand to turn off the cameras. Yet there remains no accountability for how federal agents tried to hide their own misconduct from surveillance.
“This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country,” Trump said on Truth Social about the raid. The following day Garland’s DOJ tracked down pro-Trump Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) while he was on a family vacation, so that three armed agents could make a surprise grab of his cell phone in front of his young children.
A personal cell phone contains much private and confidential information that the government has no right to see, and Trump pointed out that the FBI seized confidential documents during the raid on his home.
Rep. Perry is not genuinely suspected of any wrongdoing, and neither is Trump with respect to documents he lawfully kept as president and had the right to declassify and take with him.
Every American should be frightened by this outrageous infringement on constitutional rights for political gain. It may be impossible to seat 12 jurors who are not themselves scared by these tactics of the Biden Administration, in a future criminal trial or grand jury deliberations against a Trump supporter or even Trump himself.
Frightening his political opponents, as Biden is doing, is a threat to the survival of our Republic. Other than Rep. Greene’s valiant effort to impeach Garland, little has yet been done to bring accountability to Democrats’ one-sided persecution of Trump supporters.
One reason for this unjustified federal raid may be to goad Georgia prosecutors into indicting Trump or his supporters, and on August 15 they informed Rudy Giuliani that he is a target of their witch hunt. An Obama-appointed federal judge ordered Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to testify in Georgia before a grand jury assembled there in an effort to indict Trump supporters.
Graham has appealed the Obama judge’s impertinent demand, citing the constitutional provision that members of Congress “shall not be questioned in any other place” for their statements. Political issues are to be presented to American voters to resolve at the ballot box, not by hauling members of one political party before a state grand jury.
Representative government does not work when the party in power can terrorize its political rivals with surprise raids on their homes and intrusive demands to testify in one-sided investigations. The next Congress, convening in January, must act quickly to rein in liberals’ unhinged persecutions of their political rivals.
Big Weed Steals our Water and our Health
“Big Weed” is the $33 billion-dollar marijuana industry that prefers to go by its euphemistic term cannabis. It is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to pass ballot initiatives in 5 states, defeat Republican candidates for office this November, and bring a pot store close to you.
For the first time in history more Americans smoke pot than tobacco. The Gallup poll reports that 15% of Americans use marijuana, while only 11% smoke tobacco.
Big Weed is far worse now than the pot of a generation ago. Each year it becomes more potent and harmful, with its average delta‐9‐tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) level rising by 28.5 percent in the last half-century.
The medical journal Lancet Psychiatry has just reported on a new study showing that the higher the potency of the marijuana, the higher the risk of developing a psychotic illness known as cannabis use disorder. Despite this danger, recreational marijuana is lawful in 19 states and Washington, D.C.
The increased use of marijuana is linked to upticks in homicides and suicides, a rise in medical problems, and an increase in pot-related fatal traffic accidents. Legalizing pot does not end the black market for it, as proven on September 2 by the bust of an illegal pot operation in the California Bay Area where $4 million-worth of plants were seized.
The Cannabis Research Center at the University of California in Berkeley reported last year that there are still more illegal cannabis farms than lawful ones, a half-decade after California legalized pot under the pretext of ending the illegality. Its governor recently signed into law many new pro-cannabis bills, including legalizing marijuana use for animals, and prohibiting employers from firing workers for off-job pot-smoking.
Voters in Missouri, Arkansas, Maryland, North Dakota, and South Dakota should not want to become more like California where advertisements to buy and smoke pot are everywhere. The pungent stench of marijuana crops extends for more than a mile, and the odor from smoking the weed reeks far worse than tobacco.
The marijuana ballot initiative in Missouri is a confusing 38 pages of single-spaced fine print, which should not have been allowed on the ballot. This bill would never pass the Missouri legislature, and should not be approved by voters.
Marijuana became legal in New Mexico in April, and almost immediately 478 licensed retailers of pot littered that state. That is more than two-thirds the number of pot retailers in Colorado, which has a much larger population.
Big Weed is causing a big water problem in areas of the country suffering from drought. Marijuana plants soak up huge amounts of water, and often the pot growers steal that water from neighbors who need it.
Deer Creek in Oregon has run dry because of the theft of its water by marijuana growers. Cannabis needs the most water during dry summer months when water shortages have worsened for everyone else.
In Humboldt County, California, cannabis plants have been diverting so much water that the wells of neighbors are running dry. A settlement in 2019 to address this has not been successful, and people are being asked to create their own ponds to try to maintain enough water for themselves.
Estimates are that cannabis requires 100 to 200 gallons of water to grow merely one pound of it. That translates to 10 or more gallons of water wasted for every tiny ounce of pot.
Legalizing pot a decade ago in Colorado caused an explosion in pot-growing there, both legal and illegal, draining water from the Colorado River on which Arizona and Nevada depend. Water-wasteful marijuana farming is surging at a 16% annual increase, and will triple in size in the next eight years.
On top of that, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit just ruled that states may be prohibited by the Constitution from limiting the importation of marijuana into their states. Already vans are illegally selling marijuana on the streets of New York City, which has become so troublesome there that the mayor instituted a task force to crack down against it.
Cannabis has a devastating effect on the soil, as pot- growers often deplete the nutrients of land and leave it barren while they move on to harm more soil elsewhere. Traditional agriculture rotates crops so the soil remains viable indefinitely.
On July 21, Senators from the East and West Coasts introduced the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act in the U.S. Senate to try to expand marijuana nationwide. The cannabis industry is complaining that it is not making enough money, but opportunity for that industry means harm for others.
Senators in the Midwest and flyover country should reject special legislation for the cannabis industry. Water in the Midwest is plentiful and let’s keep it that way for our legitimate crops and comfortable living.
