Troops To The Border, A Growing Crisis, Ratcheting Up The Rhetoric

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Troops To The Border
 
Mexico's defense minister announced yesterday that his country has deployed nearly 15,000 National Guard and Army troops to its northern border in order to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the United States.  This deployment is in addition to the 6,000 troops sent to Mexico's southern border.
 
If the news is accurate, it shows that President Trump's threat to impose tariffs is getting results.  It also proves the president's contention that the socialist Mexican government is doing more to help him secure the border than the progressives in Congress.  (See next item.)  
 
By the way, the Trump Administration has reportedly notified Mexican officials of intelligence indicating that three ISIS-affiliated individuals, two Egyptians and one Iraqi, had entered Central America in May and are currently working their way toward the U.S. border. 
 
Just another stark reminder that border security is national security.
 
 
 
A Growing Crisis
 
Months ago, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were all sounding the alarm about a massive surge in illegal immigration.  "More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high," reports the Times
 
That was early March, three months ago.  What have progressives in Congress done about it?  Absolutely nothing.  Since then, the crisis has only gotten worse, with nearly double the number of illegal border crossings in May. 
 
As a result, border detention facilities are swamped with sick adults and children, and left-wing politicians have the audacity to complain about the overcrowded conditions.  Liberals don't do anything to stop illegal immigration because they are all in on open borders.  Instead, they outrageously accuse our Border Patrol agents of running "concentration camps."
 
The House of Representatives is finally getting ready to debate an emergency funding bill, but Speaker Pelosi is facing a revolt from her left flank.  Progressives are loading up the bill with all kinds of poison pills that threaten to undermine border security. 
 
The White House is threatening a veto.  In a statement yesterday, the administration blasted the legislation as a "partisan bill that underfunds necessary accounts and seeks to take advantage of the current crisis by inserting policy provisions that would make our country less safe."
 
Sadly, the growing crisis of leadership in Congress has made the crisis at the border far more severe.  ICE Director Mark Morgan is right to say that Congress "has failed the American people."
 
 
 
Ratcheting Up The Rhetoric
 
Yesterday we reported that President Trump imposed new sanctions on Iran's supreme leader, who has a supreme amount of wealth stored all over the world.  The Iranian regime responded by saying that the White House is "afflicted by mental retardation" and that the new sanctions are "closing [the] channel of diplomacy forever."
 
One can almost have sympathy for the Shiite extremists who run Iran.  They were trained by American politicians who literally let them get away with murder. 
 
Obama cut a deal with the regime that gave it billions in sanctions relief even though Iran was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.  Obama also turned a blind eye to Hezbollah's drug trafficking.  Even after leaving public office, John Kerry is still trying to appease the Iranian regime, urging it to "wait out" the Trump presidency.
 
Now President Trump is having to retrain the Iranian leadership.  He responded this morning, tweeting:
 
"Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement . . . only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. . .  No more John Kerry & Obama!"
 
It is important that you do not allow your friends and family members to fall for the left's attempts to blame Trump for the current standoff with Iran. 
 
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been an avowed enemy of Israel and the United States for decades.  Iran's leaders called the United States the "great Satan" long before Donald Trump became president.
 
Iran's behavior AFTER the nuclear deal has gotten worse, not better, and that was clear almost immediately after it went into effect.  (Here and here.)
 
During a meeting with John Bolton this weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back on the notion that President Trump is in any way responsible for Iran's actions or that Obama's 2015 nuclear deal was the solution. 
 
Below are some excerpts of Netanyahu's remarks:
 
"I want to state this very clearly: The supporters of the [2015 nuclear deal with Iran] argued that the infusion of cash, massive cash into Iran's economy, would moderate Iran. They argued that Iran would become inward-focused, would start nation-building. And in fact, the opposite has happened. The very opposite has happened.
 
"Iran used those hundreds of billions of dollars to fund empire-building, not nation-building – that is the stamping of one state after the other, and the devouring of one state after another in the Middle East. . .
 
"We in Israel saw Iran's aggression in their increased efforts to establish Iranian military bases in Syria, in their increased efforts to provide sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah, in their increased financial support for terror proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  This increased right after the deal. . .
 
"Those who describe [Trump's] recent actions as somehow opening a hornet's nest are living on another planet.  In fact, the one thing that has changed for those of us who live in the Middle East is not that Iran is attacking its neighbors or brazenly perpetrating wanton aggression.
 
"What's new is that now, thanks to crippling American sanctions, Iran is facing unprecedented economic pressure as a result of its aggression. So I was pleased to hear President Trump make clear yesterday that pressure will continue and that pressure will increase."
 
 
 
Good News
 
I don't know if it qualifies as a record, but Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, deserves kudos for approving 17 Trump judicial nominees last Thursday!
 
This is good news, my friends.  This is about restoring balance to the courts and rolling back the left's judicial supremacy, which it has repeatedly relied on to impose policies it could not pass at the ballot box or through any legislature.