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Haiti Tag

You know, I'm really starting to see this as a power struggle. Nunes and Schiff are just trying to outdo each other. The memo wars have become more about who can come out on top rather than an effort to expose the truth. But I digress. House Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA) released his memo Sunday and claimed it refuted the memo released by  Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA). Of course, it took no time for Nunes to refute Schiff's memo, leading Schiff to release his own fact sheet. (See what I mean? They both want the last word.)

Tonight, President Trump will give his first State of the Union address; we'll have a live post on that later, so be sure to come back and share the fun.   In the meantime, the guest lists for both the president and the Democrats have been released. The contrast between those guests invited by the president and those invited by the tone-deaf Democrats is illuminating, speaking to the heart of the great political divide in our country.  President Trump's guests include law enforcement, first responders, and economists.  The Democrats are bringing a bunch of DREAMers and some representatives of the dwindling #MeToo movement.

Democrats and the media think they have the golden bullet to take down Trump, in the form of the "s--thole" comment during DACA negotiations behind closed doors. There are conflicting claims and reports as to whether the term was used, and to whom he was referring if it were used. Original reports said it was mentioned in relation to Haiti, but that has been walked back. Whether you agree with the comment or not, assuming it were used, it hardly merits the current obsession, with no sign of letting up. It's 24/7. Many Republicans are asking only "how high" they have to jump in condemning Trump.

The latest furor is over certain remarks that Trump is alleged to have uttered during a meeting about immigration with Dick Durbin, Lindsay Graham, and "other government officials." His alleged remarks (some of which he has disputed) were criticized variously for both form and content: that the words were vulgar, and that they were bigoted. The most salient thing on which accounts seem to agree is that Trump referred to some countries—perhaps in Africa, perhaps also Haiti—as "shitholes" or "shithole countries." Let's go with that, anyway, as a good possibility.

During immigration legislation negotiations, Trump singled out Haiti, El Salvador, and a handful of African countries, describing them as "shitholes," or so claimed the Washington Post. Their bombshell intel came from people who were not in the meeting but later briefed on the contents of said meeting, making their source on par with a game of telephone.

Last Thursday, the United Nations (UN) voted to condemn America's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and decision to move its embassy to the city. Professor Jacobson pointed out in a follow up post that the vote gave President Donald Trump to turn that loss into a win with money. The UN loves to crap on America, even though we host the UN and contribute a ton of money into the organization that has basically become useless. That is exactly what Trump has done: $285 million budget cut to the UN. There may be more cuts to come, too.

Okay, this story made me giggle.  A lot.  The very idea of Chelsea Clinton relegating herself to the boonies of Arkansas, a state her parents disdained and couldn't leave quickly enough, is hilarious to me.  Not so to Politico, however. The idea of the Clinton dynasty just will not die, and poor Chelsea is going to be sacrificed on its altar.  Remember when the media and left was pushing the idea of a Chelsea run for the U. S. House of Representatives in New York?  That fizzled out quickly.

I couldn't help but chuckle reading the latest Wall Street Journal report detailing Canada's lack of charity to incoming immigrants. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the progressive hero of the hour when a newly inaugurated Trump issued his first travel executive order, attempting to temporarily curb immigration from known state sponsors of terror.

At a time when smear campaigns against Israel often go unchallenged on college campuses and anti-Israel activists hijack protest movements across the U.S. to attack of the Jewish State, a newly published book tells the story of Israel's 69-year silent journey to impact the world and serve those in most need. "United Nation: The Humanitarian Spirit of Israel" written by the Israeli entrepreneur David Kramer, is a collection of 40 stories, each illustrating the benevolent and altruistic side of Israel that the mainstream media and the 24-hour news cycle don't care to show.

Though Israel is a small country, when disaster strikes it is among the first countries and most involved in rescue and recovery efforts. (I blogged about this nearly four years ago. The IDF published an updated article on Israel's aid in emergency situations last month.) While Israeli volunteers often go to places Nepal, Haiti, or the Philippines, Israel was again at the forefront of international rescue and recovery efforts in Houston.

Migrants who have either just arrived in America or been here for awhile have started to venture into Canada in record numbers by using the back roads to take advantage of loopholes in Canada's immigration system. The Associated Press reported:
Under the 2002 Safe Country Agreement between the United States and Canada, migrants seeking asylum must apply to the first country they arrive in. If they were to go to a legal port of entry, they would be returned to the United States and told to apply there. But, in a quirk in the application of the law, if migrants arrive in Canada at a location other than a port of entry, such as Roxham Road, they are allowed to request refugee status there.

So awful. The Associated Press has uncovered an internal UN investigation into a child sex ring in Haiti by UN peacekeepers. According to the AP report, one individual from Pakistan received jail time while a court in Uruguay convicted four of “private violence." Peacekeepers from places like Sri Lanka and Uruguay came to the island in the recent decades and should have provided help and security to the abandoned children. While the peacekeepers had food, the report stated they made the children pay for it....with sex.

After the 9th Circuit refused to vacate a TRO issued by a federal judge in Washington State as to Donald Trump's first executive order, I suggested that those judicial decisions not only were legally unjustified, they presented a threat to Trump's lawful executive powers and that dropping and reworking the executive order would be a mistake:
To accept the 9th Circuit ruling is to accept that the President does not have the powers vested in him by the Constitution and Congress.
And so it came to pass, with a narrowed and reworked second executive order being enjoined by district court judges in Hawaii and Maryland. There's an interesting article at the LawFare blog, written by Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic, The Revolt of the Judges: What Happens When the Judiciary Doesn’t Trust the President’s Oath. The central thesis of the post is that judicial aggressiveness towards the executive orders may reflect distrust of Trump by many in the federal judiciary. That distrust, in turn, may be leading judges to cast aside the legally required deference to the political branches that the Constitution, legislation, and Supreme Court precedent require.

Two big developments on judicial usurpation of presidential immigration and national security powers. The federal district court in Hawaii issued a TRO and the 9th Circuit denied en banc hearing of the first appeal. Both Orders are embedded in full at the bottom of this post. The net result is that Trump has been stripped of his constitutional and statutory powers to protect the nation through control of who is permitted to enter the country. I warned about this, and the danger of Trump not seeking Supreme Court review in the first case, President Trump must not back down on immigration Executive Order: