Paul Bedard:

“…Federal arrests of noncitizens have jumped over 200% in the last 20 years and now account for 64% of those arrested, according to the Justice Department.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics said that federal arrests of non-Americans rose 234% from 1998-2018. For U.S. citizens, the percentage rose just 10% over those 20 years.

The newly released statistics feed the Trump administration’s narrative that an increase in immigration, especially illegal immigration, has fed a spike in crime…”

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VICTOR DAVIS HANSON:

“…Recessions, or at least chronic economic pessimism, sink incumbents. Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush were tagged with sluggish growth, high unemployment, and a sense of perceived stagnation — and were easily defeated.

The 2008 financial crisis likely ended any chance for John McCain to continue eight years of Republican rule. Barack Obama campaigned on the message that incumbent George W. Bush was to blame for the meltdown and that McCain, his potential Republican successor, would be even worse.

A once-unpopular incumbent Ronald Reagan fought recession for three years. Yet he soared to a landslide victory in 1984 only after the gross domestic product suddenly took off at an annualized clip of over 7 percent prior to the election.

President Donald Trump’s economy is still booming. But his opponents here and abroad are counting on a recession to derail him.

They hope that either the good times can’t last forever or that Trump’s trade war with China will scare investors and businesspeople into retrenchment. Or perhaps massive annual deficits and staggering debt will finally catch up to a financially reckless government.

China will do all it can to prompt a U.S. downturn before November 2020 in hopes that it can get a better deal from a new Democratic president…”

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Satire?

The Ghost Of John C. Calhoun Haunts Today’s American Left

I urge you to click over and read it.

GOP sets another 2020 money record, 1,900% increase in online fundraising.

“Of special note, said the party, the Republican National Committee has $46.6 million in the bank and no debt. . . . Officials said that much of the money is being used to build out the party’s organizations in 16-20 states seen as key to President Trump’s reelection.”

Related: Poll: 63% expect Trump reelection, up from 43%.

But see: New polls show that Trump should be afraid. Very afraid.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds who strung this together

Trump says thing that no other Republican will say. His statements often get at some underlying truth that is recognized by most reasonable people, Left or Right. It is the kernel of truth, and his willingness to express it, that drives the MSM and the Left to distraction. It is a beautiful thing to watch.

President Trump:

“…No. And you should see the horrible things that Tlaib has said about Israel, and “AOC plus three.” That’s what I call it. “AOC” – just take “AOC plus three.” And you should see the things that the four of them have said about Israel over the last couple of years.

I mean, Omar is a disaster for Jewish people. I can’t imagine, if she has any Jewish people in her district, that they could possibly vote for her. But what Omar has said, what Tlaib has said.

And then, yesterday, I noticed for the first time, Tlaib with the tears. All of a sudden, she starts with tears. Tears. And I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it for a second because I’ve seen her in a very vicious mood at campaign rallies – my campaign rallies – before she was a congresswoman. I said, “Who is that?” And I saw a woman that was violent and vicious and out of control.

And all of a sudden, I see this person who’s crying because she can’t see her grandmother. She can see her grandmother. They have her permission to see her grandmother, but she grandstanded and she didn’t want to do it.

So, that’s a decision of Israel. That’s not – a lot of people are saying that was my decision. That’s a decision of – of Israel. They can let them in if they want, but I don’t think they want to. When you read the things that they’ve said about Israel – how bad. And if you look at their itinerary before they found out – you take a look at their itinerary, that was all going to be a propaganda tour against Israel.

So, I don’t blame Israel for doing what they did. I have nothing to do with it. But I don’t blame them for doing what they did. I think it would’ve been very bad to let them in, including the four – I’m talking about all four – but these two that wanted to get in: Omar and Tlaib.

And I think it would be a very bad thing for Israel, but Israel has to do what they want to do. But I would not cut off aid to Israel. And I can’t even believe that we’re having this conversation.

Five years ago, the concept of even talking about this – even three years ago – of cutting off aid to Israel because of two people that hate Israel and hate Jewish people – I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Where has the Democratic Party gone? Where have they gone where they’re defending these two people over the State of Israel?

And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty…”

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CNN’s Wajahat Ali: White Supremacists Are “Coming For All Of Us,” Trump “Will Not Win”

Mentally ill

Gabbard is smart, pretty, aggressive, and I disagree with almost everything she says. I like her.

Michael Tracey:

“…Tulsi Gabbard is on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd.

Take, for instance, her poll standing in New Hampshire, which currently places Gabbard at 3.3% support, according to the RealClearPolitics average as of Aug. 20. One might suspect that such a figure would merit inclusion in the upcoming debates — especially considering she’s ahead of several candidates who have already been granted entry, including Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, and Andrew Yang. But the Democratic National Committee has decreed that the polls constituting this average are not sufficiently “qualifying.”

What makes a poll “qualifying” in the eyes of the DNC? The answer is conspicuously inscrutable. Months ago, party chieftains issued a list of “approved sponsoring organizations/institutions” for polls that satisfy their criteria for debate admittance. Not appearing on that list is the Boston Globe, which sponsored a Suffolk University poll published Aug. 6 that placed Gabbard at 3%. The DNC had proclaimed that for admittance to the September and October debates, candidates must secure polling results of 2% or more in four separate “approved” polls — but a poll sponsored by the newspaper with the largest circulation in New Hampshire (the Globe recently surpassed the New Hampshire Union Leader there) does not count, per this cockamamie criteria. There has not been an officially qualifying poll in New Hampshire, Gabbard’s best state, in over a month.

The absurdity mounts. A South Carolina poll published Aug. 14 by the Post and Courier placed Gabbard at 2%. One might have again vainly assumed that the newspaper with the largest circulation in a critical early primary state would be an “approved” sponsor per the dictates of the DNC, but it is not. Curious.

To recap: Gabbard has polled at 2% or more in two polls sponsored by the two largest newspapers in two early primary states, but the DNC — through its mysteriously incoherent selection process — has determined that these surveys do not count toward her debate eligibility. Without these exclusions, Gabbard would have already qualified…”

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JOHN KASS:

“…What was the embittered left — Democratic presidential candidates and their media allies — supposed to do when their hopes of Russia-Trump collusion crashed on the boulevard of broken dreams?

Pivot.

They had invested so much in their fantasy that President Donald Trump was a treasonous agent of Russian boss Vladimir Putin. But when special counsel Robert Mueller’s report came out, and there was no collusion, no crime charged, their fantasy collapsed.

And so, after a brief spasm of despair, the left pivoted to their default position: race.

Race. Race. Race. Race. Race.

With Americans working and with money in their pockets again, with the 2020 election approaching, Democrats are reaching for the race card the way a sick man reaches for the waters of Lourdes. Desperately. Their allies in media followed suit, with Trump called everything from a white supremacist, to a Nazi, and on and on…”

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The Roddie Edmonds post below made me think of this Churchill quote

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Gail Heriot:

“…ON THIS DAY IN 1919, RODDIE EDMONDS WAS BORN NEAR KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE:  Almost a century later, in 2015, he was posthumously recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations,” Israel’s highest honor for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

He never told his story to his friends or family. His son learned about it only after his father’s death.

Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds’ unit was surrounded by the Nazis during the Battle of Bulge. While they held out as long as they could, they eventually surrendered on December 19, 1944. On January 27, 1945, Edmonds arrived at Stalag IX-A along with well over a thousand fellow POWs, all of them exhausted, dirty, half-starved, cold, and no doubt frightened. As the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer among them, he was in charge.

For reasons I cannot begin to understand, the camp commandant’s first priority was to separate the Jewish from the non-Jewish POWs. Germany’s defeat was all but certain by then; you’d think he’d have given it a rest. Nevertheless, as soon as Edmonds arrived with his men, the commandant ordered Edmonds to assemble all Jewish soldiers the next day so that they could be dealt with separately.

“We are not doing that. We are all falling out,” Edmonds’ men remember him saying to them. So instead, all of the American POWs assembled that morning. The irate commandant held a pistol to Edmond’s head and ordered him to identify the Jews: “They cannot all be Jews!”

“We are all Jews,” Edmonds replied.

Edmonds told him that if he wanted to kill the Jewish POWs, he was going to have to kill them all. He reminded him that there is such a thing as a war crime and that under the Geneva Conventions name, rank, and serial number are all you get, not religion.

Miraculously, the commandant relented.

The Jewish-American prisoners at the other camp—Stalag IX-B—were not as lucky. It’s not clear what the facts were there. By some accounts, Jewish prisoners were asked to identify themselves and the senior officers there urged cooperation. By other accounts, the Nazis picked out the prisoners who looked Jewish (along with prisoners who were identified as troublemakers). Both stories may be true. In any event, those selected were sent to a slave labor camp where the death rate was horrifically high, despite the fact that the war in Europe lasted only another 3 ½ months.

Jews were only about 2 or 3% of the American population at the time, but they were a higher percentage of the prisoners at Stalag IX-A.  Edmonds’ courage is thought to have saved about 200 lives that cold, winter morning. He was then, now, and forever an American hero…”

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RICH LOWRY:

“…Beto O’Rourke has taken the measure of America and found it wanting.

“This country, though we would like to think otherwise,” he intoned last weekend, “was founded on racism, has persisted through racism and is racist today.”

This is now a mainstream sentiment in the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders said earlier this year that the United States was “created” in large part “on racist principles.”

The New York Times has begun its so-called 1619 Project, marking the 400th anniversary of the importation of slaves from Africa.

The series seeks nothing less than “to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”…”

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