We Hear You: The President’s Border Standoff With Democrats
Ken McIntyre /
Editor’s note: The Daily Signal’s audience tends to be passionate about standing behind the president in his showdown with congressional Democrats over securing the southern border. We begin this week’s mailbag with that topic. Remember to write us at [email protected]—Ken McIntyre
Dear Daily Signal: Perhaps the left should back down on the partial government shutdown fight over the border wall? They’re dead wrong and too stubborn to admit it (“From Oval Office, Trump Says Border Wall Would Make Nation ‘Safer Than Ever Before’”).
Federal employees will get paid, and it is no thanks to the Democrats that it will be later rather than as it should be. Who do they think they’re kidding?—Fay Butler
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the two clowns in the rebuttal to President Trump’s speech, cried about government employees’ not being able to pay their bills or mortgages and feed their families.
What’s the commonsense policy my parents taught? Put one-third of each paycheck into the bank or savings for a rainy day.
Well, government employees, today is your rainy day. Just go and use your nest egg, cut back a little. You’ll survive.
Or maybe give Nancy a call, and she could lend you a few of her billions.—Marty Miller
One finds “good neighbor” fences throughout Pelosi’s state of California.
How would the liberals in California feel if all of their 6-foot fences along their property lines were removed? Exposed?—Jason Traxler
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The Democrats are trying again to do like they did with President Ronald Reagan (“Trump to Address Nation on Border Security as Pence Says Democrats Won’t Negotiate”).
Open the government back up, they say, and then we will dangle the border fence at you. But it will be soon shoved aside, as we have work to do.
President Trump won’t let them, and now the whole shutdown is flat in the Democrats’ faces, with them not knowing what to do. Funny thing, Democrats have never had to deal with our president before.
All the other Republicans would have folded and gone home by now. Good for Donald Trump.
And both Schumer and Pelosi asked for money for a border wall a few years back.—Jeff Pearson
From Oval Office, Trump Says Border Wall Would Make Nation 'Safer Than Ever Before'
— Tim Gradous (@tgradous) January 9, 2019
“Some have suggested a barrier is immoral. Then why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences, and gates around their home?”
via ?@FredLucasWH? @DailySignal https://t.co/s87qC9uc1m
Pelosi and Schumer are complete fools. They have in their hands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and they are too flippin’ blind with Trump Derangement Syndrome to see it.
Trump wants a wall—a wall that, in the big picture, is innocuous. Dems want control of the political agenda for the nation.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has missed days at work for the first time in 25 years, and at 85 years old she might not make too many more. Give Trump his $5 billion wall in exchange for Ruth’s seat on the Supreme Court.
The Dems can continue to poo-poo the ineffectiveness of the wall and maintain their loathing position, Trump gets the wall, and the Supreme Court remains “balanced” with a leftist replacing a leftist.—Brian Ulmen
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In the olden days when Parliament and the king were at loggerheads, the former had the slogan “Grievances before supply.”
That is, the king had to acknowledge the grievances of the people before Parliament would agree to give him the supply of money he needed to run the government. Trump should adopt the slogan.
Now, however, Trump would be demanding that Congress pass legislation to enforce his “grievances” before he will agree to sign authorizations that Democrats want for running the government.
The problem, of course, is that one Washington party wants unlimited illegal immigration to provide it with voters in the near future, while the other Washington party, in obedience to big business donors, wants unlimited illegal immigration to provide them with cheap labor.
Trump should make this last point day in and day out, pointing out how Obama’s dream of fundamentally transforming America severely limits the wages of poor blacks and Hispanics.—William Westchester
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If Trump offers permanent residency to the 1.8 million people who’ve been living here since they were children under DACA, then the Democrats might listen.
As it is, all Trump has offered is to make it a fence instead of a wall, as if that’s a real concession (watch OMB Director Mick Mulvaney say exactly that on a recent “Meet the Press”), or $800 million in funding to “restore, in some form, Obama-era programs” that Trump also took away.
In any event, all this is backfiring on immigration hawks. Even they don’t believe that the wall is the most important way to stop illegal immigration, or even a terrorist threat. They know that most illegal immigration happens through our airports, not the southern border. That’s where we should be concentrating our effort and money.
And ironically, because of the shutdown, we’re not paying our TSA security at airports, and they are calling in “sick” in record numbers due to not being paid. That is endangering our national security.
The only reason the wall exists as an issue now at all is because Trump is and was famously unable to stay on script, and his campaign advisers wanted him to focus on immigration. So they figured, let’s tell this builder guy to talk about the wall; he loves talking about building stuff, and that way he’ll stay on immigration.
It worked. Way too well. Now it’s all Trump can think about, and he’s shut down the government over it.
Those same immigration hawks are worried that Trump will end up giving away something important to the Democrats (which they really don’t want him to do) in order to get his wall (which they don’t consider a high priority).
If nothing else, if we’re going to talk about a southern border wall as a matter of national security, we also need a northern one.
Trump has identified terrorism as a key reason, but seven times as many terrorists have tried to cross the northern border as the southern border. It follows that we need a northern wall, but no one talks about that.
We’ll just have to see what happens next. This is what happens when you give the toddler a sparkler and tell him to go play in the fireworks factory.—Edward Buatois
Sorry to disappoint liberal media and Trump-hating Democrats, but his facts do check out on the crisis at the border. https://t.co/6WzH22bnNJ @dailysignal #BuildtheWall #WallsWork
— Jenny Beth Martin (@jennybethm) January 13, 2019
These federal government jobs pay double what most of us make, and come with an early retirement pension (“Fact-Checking 5 of Trump’s Claims in Border Speech”). I don’t see many of them walking away after a month or two.
Chuck Schumer says he will have an adult conversation after Trump approves the funds to keep the government open without the wall. Does anyone trust him?—Wayne Harmon
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The “Dreamer” deal has been on the table for two years from Trump, and no bites from Democrats. Used to be you could rely on self-interest to make the deal, but the only interest Dems have these days is “Get Trump.”
Dems who are derelict in their duty should be impeached. Is a Convention of States the answer? Could we move the function of state representatives back to the states? Seems like their constituents would be benefited by this.—Susan Sargent
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Can we find a way to boycott California until they send us a delegation to Congress that actually knows what their oath means, and will take it without conditions?—David Rumbaugh
.@JoeBiden called William Barr a “heck of an honorable guy” when he was George H.W. Bush's nominee for attorney general. https://t.co/av42R6cFII via @FredLucasWH @DailySignal
— CSM (@usacsmret) January 7, 2019
Democrats and Trump’s AG Nominee
Dear Daily Signal: Regarding Fred Lucas’s report on President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, how low the U.S. culture has fallen in just 28 years (“‘Heck of an Honorable Guy’: What Democrats Thought of Trump’s AG Nominee 28 Years Ago”)
As the Democrats and most liberals have been saying for decades: We cannot, we must not, go back to the ways we used to do things. We have to always be going forward from where we are now.
Every idea, thought, and position must be “going forward”—because conservatives and Republicans always try to take the nation back to the bad old days (of no abortions, or even slavery).
But that is always just a big lie to deceive the nation’s schoolchildren and all younger generations, because slavery and the later Jim Crow policies were from the history of the Democrat Party, especially the Southern Dixiecrats.
Under President Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, the military was integrated. But Democrat Woodrow Wilson resegregated the military, and it remained that way until after 1952, when President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, a Republican, reintegrated the military for the second time.
Most progressively educated children do not know any of that. And that is just the tip of the large iceberg of American historical knowledge that progressive education does not teach.
American historical ignorance has been carefully crafted over the years since World War II. It is the most expensive historical ignorance that liberal money can buy. That way, liberals and socialists can more easily deceive and lead future voters astray.
That is the reason the nation keeps sliding into the cultural wasteland of liberal leftism.—Herb Branch, Easton, Md.
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With the way the Democrats switch gears on a regular basis then say they always thought that way, it is scarier than just flat-out telling the truth: that no matter who our president selects, they will be against him.
If the Dems pull a Kavanaugh caveat on William Barr, it will be proof they care nothing about their oaths of office, the American people, the Constitution, and the future of America in general, and that they are senile, evil, or just plain disruptors.
As long as they hold office, we are sunk. Get them out, build the wall (that one will frost their cookies), and leave our personal lives alone. Lawmakers need to do their jobs, which is protecting America. We need more protection from the left, socialists, and liberals than ever before.—Karin Callaway, Florida
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Just more evidence that the elites hate Trump because he threatens to expose and dismantle their world of privilege, power, graft, and corruption. They are terrified of him, and their fear causes an irrational reaction.—Steve Fowler
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The Constitution is pretty clear on what powers are granted to the three branches of the federal government and which are retained by the states and by the people.
Up until recently, federal law preempted state and local laws. Today, we have certain states defying federal laws with respect to immigration and drugs. This is absolutely something that needs to be set straight by the Supreme Court.
Further, powers of lower federal courts should be more clearly defined when it comes to determining the constitutionality of a presidential executive order.
Obama’s executive order creating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was unconstitutional. Trump issued an executive order rescinding Obama’s unconstitutional order, and guess which one the lower federal court upheld?
If you guessed the lower court upheld Trump’s order, you would be wrong. It chose instead to allow Obama’s unconstitutional order to stand.
Why shouldn’t a parent be allowed to kill his or her child at any point in the child’s life? It’s their kid, after all. Why should a state government, or any government, decide what should or should not be against the law?
What’s wrong with people deciding what is best? Just let citizens (and/or noncitizens, for that matter) decide what they want to do, regardless of what others think.
While that might close the issue for those who don’t like particular laws, I doubt it would close any debates.—Drew Page
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Immigration law defines who will be allowed to live under the blanket law of the union. Persons in the 50 states are first citizens of their state. The Civil War created the idea that once a part of the union, the state cannot disclaim membership.
Today we have California and New York attempting to give citizenship to foreign persons with no permission of the federal government. Technically, that should bring action from the federal government. It ain’t going to happen.
Next we send in the military and take over the government, as was done after the Civil War. Utah wasn’t even a state, but the federal government took over the state-to-be because citizens there practiced plural marriage, which, in fact, wasn’t against any law.
The USA isn’t completely governed by the Constitution. However, most of the amendments have the weight of law.—Rex Whitmer
https://twitter.com/steveveling/status/1080785136319430656
The New Democrat-Led House
Dear Daily Signal: Republicans are the minority because of hidebound GOP leadership (“House’s Biggest GOP Caucus Now ‘Counterweight’ to Democrats, New Leader Says”).
The GOP in the House has gone along to get along for so long that they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. They failed to legislate like there was no tomorrow. Instead, they fiddled while Washington only got worse.—Rich Vail
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I’ve been a voter for more than 50 years, never seen this BS, this much raw hate toward an individual politician like Trump “The New Congress Is Here. 4 Debates to Monitor.”).
Trump is seriously threatening the structure of the deep state, has all these Democrats running around like their hair is on fire, millions spent by a crew of Obama leftovers spending 24 hours a day trying to find “something” on him (nothing of course) for two years.
Yet at the same time, he has accomplished more than any other president before him for the people of the USA—despite 100 percent Democrat opposition, 95 percent negative media, and most RINO Republicans sabotaging his actions.—Silas Longshot, Newman, Ga.
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Congress should obey the Constitution, which states that the federal government should be paid for by taxes on the people—not by borrowing (“House Democratic Rules Package Could Mean More Spending, Higher Taxes”).
I believe that senators and representatives should be held to that method of financing, or else be discharged for failing to support the Constitution.—Henry Vance
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The Democrats really do want a revolt, so like their commie brethren they can use the military to squash and enslave the people.
And to the naysayers, yes, it can happen here. And no, the military will not all rise up and defend we the people.
The Founders knew how fragile what we have is. To paraphrase a great man, we are a single generation away from losing our liberty. Vigilance is the only hope.—Vance Robinson
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Don’t know why Pelosi and Schumer will not say what they really want: Change the rules so that Pelosi and Schumer make and pass the laws and take the rest of Congress and the president out of it.—Rockne Hughes
https://twitter.com/AIIAmericanGirI/status/1080612317266673666
Dear Daily Signal: The Democrats remind me of the mob years, when if you owned a business and did not want it trashed, burned, or robbed or your family threatened, you were told to pay up or take the consequences (“3 Things to Watch in Trump’s Shutdown Talks With Democrats”).
If business owners had a slow month and did not have the required amount, then their legs were broken or a family member was beaten. And if it happened again, the mob shot the owner. Do what I say, or die.
Schumer and Pelosi sound just like the thugs of those days, except they are threatening the entire nation. If supporters of the Dems think they can escape the ravages of the gangs from the south, the horrible cost of “taking care of” illegal immigrants, they are deaf, dumb, and blind.
At least back then we had the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department to fight them. But now they are in cahoots.
We have to get off our duffs and contact our representatives in Congress and tell them that we are onto their schemes. This will include Dems, independents, and Republicans. Because we the people certainly are not being represented.—Karin Callaway, Florida
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There is a legal way and an illegal way to enter this country. All we ask is that they come in legally.
If you believe otherwise, leave your doors and windows open and allow anyone at any time to come into your home and do whatever they wish. In addition, you must pay for all their living and educational expenses.
That is what some people want American taxpayers to do.—Cheryl Detar
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Think about how Trump must feel. He lived his life looking at situations where he had a goal in mind and directly marched through process, which allowed him to achieve the goal quickly and efficiently.
Schumer and Pelosi would have been subject to “you’re fired” after about two minutes if they worked for him. Trump’s head has to be spinning now that he actually sees how this country “works.”
I want to hear just one logical, fact-based reason why the Democrats want open borders. At least have the guts to tell the truth.—Ben Willard
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Illegal aliens voted in Florida, but their votes were, in the end, not counted. Other votes of citizens were hidden, but were “found” and counted.
I wish all citizens could be issued a voter card that couldn’t be used by anyone other than the designated owner of the card.—Mary Brumley
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Who stands against a physical barrier at the border? If a “physical barrier for physical security” where there is none has to be explained to Chuck Schumer, then he has already decided and will deliberately not understand, for his mind is already made up.
Nancy Pelosi’s interrupting of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s reporting of real-time statistics and parenthetical data at the White House meeting was a deliberate ploy to prevent the information form coming out. The White House should publish that statistical information for the public anyway (including on terrorists coming across the border).
The Democrats now have demonstrated for all to see that they care not about the physical security of this country, even when they supported it before.
Who is changing their minds for political purposes and ignoring reality for their own gain, to the detriment of national security and our safety?—Curtis Conway
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Washington politicians should dispense with the drama of shutting down the federal government over the issue of payment for a wall at the southern border. There is a very simple way to finance such a project.
Consider the process of civil forfeiture upon seizure of money, real property, and other assets from international drug cartels and American street gangs incident to their arrest. Let’s vest this money, and the money derived from the sale of these assets and properties, into a “dedicated fund” to pay for the wall.
By this approach, two things might happen: The wall could be paid for by 2020. More importantly, Schumer, Pelosi, and Trump conceivably could just calm down and, for once, cease and desist with their usual mutually offered back-biting, hyperbolic invective initiatives.—Earl Beal, Terre Haute, Ind.
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With the threat of a partial government shutdown and all the press on it, I am very disappointed that The Daily Signal is not writing more about the border wall, or walls.
You should be interviewing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjin Nielsen or Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, about it.
McAleenan was very impressive and persuasive in the hearings with Congress. He spoke at length about the importance of the walls for parts of the border, in conjunction with technology and other resources.
Trump has compromised many times, and lowered the amount of funds he wants.
Members of Congress: McAleenan, a dedicated and expert professional, supports walls for parts of the border. He knows the problem well and what is best for America. Please give him what he needs to protect us from dangerous illegal immigrants.—Pat Ellis, Clinton, Miss.
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I love The Daily Signal and plan to join The Heritage Foundation.
I am so for the wall. But I wish someone would do the math as to how many millions of dollars in drugs come over the border, how many precious souls die as a result each day, how many rapes, how many trafficked humans, and how many die in the desert just trying to get in.
Is America willing to struggle against $5 billion to start saving lives with a wall? How much does it cost to kill one American with drugs? I wish I could talk to my president. How precious are the lives that will be saved.—LaRena Davis, Otis, Ore.
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Ask President Trump to use tariff money or other budget money if he has to, but to build the wall, please. If he has to shut down the government, he can lay off the people who process the phony refugees and illegal immigrants.
I wrote the president saying that one way to fund the wall is to call for volunteers to help work on it. The cost breakdowns are known and I’m sure a large part of it is labor. He also should start a wall fund so people can donate.—Robert Albanese
Weather Forecasters Warn of Impending Danger as US Climate Skeptics Upend UN Climate Summit https://t.co/3akdMUPMBL via @KevinMooneyDC @DailySignal Keep drinking the #kool-ad that is climate change
— Harley Riding Patriot (@bgoum) December 28, 2018
Dear Daily Signal: Regarding Kevin Mooney’s report from Poland on the U.N. conference on climate change, China and India are not controlled by Donald Trump or the U.S. government (“Weather Forecasters Warn of Impending Danger as US Climate Skeptics Upend UN Climate Summit”). If the United Nations wants to clean up air pollution from coal burning, let them take it up with China and India.
Let China and India pick up the tab to reduce global warming, which the U.N. was hoping to lay on the USA. Let China and India pass cap-and-trade legislation in their own countries and have their citizens and businesses purchase “carbon credits” from the U.N. to pay for the privilege of burning coal.
The U.N. has been successful in playing past U.S. presidents for suckers. The U.N. sees the USA as a bottomless money bucket, a bunch of liberal suckers who can be shamed, or blackmailed, into paying for anything the U.N. deems to be important.
The USA has reduced pollution levels and cleaned up our air and water. Let India and China do the same. Those in France got a taste of what “global warming” was going to cost them personally, when their liberal “cool guy,” President Emmanuel Macron, decided to raise gasoline prices to $7 a gallon. The people in the yellow vests told Macron in no uncertain terms where he could stick his $7-a-gallon gas.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. In this case, the “grease” is media attention. The politicians who want cap and trade don’t give a hoot in hell what it will cost average American taxpayers. They see cap and trade as a way to grab more power and enrich themselves. They have been able to convince their lemming followers that Armageddon is only a year away unless we empty our pockets and pay whatever is necessary to save the planet.
According to Al Gore, Florida should be completely under water by now, and all plant life should have shriveled in the fields. Gore has grown rich investing in “green energy” companies that have done well on the basis of government loans, before they went bankrupt. (Al knew when to get in and when to get out.) The media sees this issue as a way to make money from the controversy.
Let all those who really believe that the Earth is withering and will turn into a dust bowl within the next 12 months give up the use of fossil fuels, or energy generated from the use of fossil fuels, to heat, cool, and light their homes and operate their vehicles. Let them refuse to purchase goods and services created and transported to markets by vehicles powered by fossil fuels (ships, planes, trains, and trucks). It’s easy to be an “eco-warrior” when all you have to do is talk; talk is cheap.—Drew Page
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“TV weather presenters are seen as a trusted source,” Mooney quotes Jill Peeters, a Belgian weather presenter, as saying.
They can’t even get the predictions right a day or two in advance. You aren’t a trusted source, you morons, you are a laughingstock.—Trevor Fortune
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Nothing shows your sincere belief in anthropogenic global warming like flying a private plane to a conference to talk about how the little people can be taxed into reducing their carbon footprint. Except, maybe, doing it 24 times.—Anna Clare
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If anyone bothered to research, they would find that the climate has been cooling worldwide for the past 10-plus years. Climate change is a cycle. Mankind has very little to do with it.
However, mankind should clean up its pollution, which is not climate change (aka global warming). Once again, just like Al Gore in the past, more politicians are looking for another way to steal money.
Shortly after the latest “Chicken Little” climate change report was published, I saw on the news that one reason so many hundreds of scientists are persuaded that the sky is falling is that they are paid handsomely to do so.—Richard Orberson, Phoenix
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The earth’s climate is constantly changing, and has done so for eons. There have been ice ages, or glacial eras, during which large portions of the planet were covered with ice. These ice ages were followed by warmer, interglacial eras.
While the glacial and interglacial eras each last tens of thousands of years, the Earth also has had a very long history of periodic warming and cooling periods, each complete cycle lasting 1,000 to 1,500 years. The last complete cycle began with the Medieval Warm Period, lasting from about 900 AD to around 1350, followed by the Little Ice Age, lasting until about 1900.
The temperature cycles are the result of cycles of the sun’s heat output. A Solar Maximum produces warm periods on Earth and Solar Minimums result in cold periods. These cycles create the temperature cycles. The blips and dips in temperature are caused by shorter-term solar cycles.
The important thing to understand is that the cycles are affecting the amount of solar energy that reaches the Earth’s surface, which determines our planet’s temperature. Carbon dioxide and mankind have an insignificant effect on climate. The Earth’s atmosphere contains about 400 ppm of carbon dioxide and 10,000 ppm of water vapor, both of which are “greenhouse gases.”.
Why do activists target only the smaller one? Probably because they can blame the rest of us for destroying the planet.—Randy Leyendecker, Kerrville, Texas
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The fact is, Al Gore is the head of the newest cult of climate change and has no actual evidence that climate change isn’t a natural occurrence that’s been going on for thousands of years .
Now, like the Comet Hale-Bopp cult of the 1990s, they believe Gore and his high priests, who say the sky is falling. They believe these unfounded predictions with no scientific way to prove, test, or repeat the test to back up their cult belief. It’s so far in the future that pretty much most people today will be dead and the cult belief will live on.
But we also know that Gore said the poles would melt in 2014 and we’d all be under water. And the cultists give every excuse but the truth: Gore is a fraud just like all those who profess his false religion of climate change.—Bob Shoemaker
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The impending danger is that climate change and its proponents will be exposed for the gigantic frauds they are.—Martina Vaslovik
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On the bright side, 2018 was the first year on record with no violent tornadoes in the U.S. Leftists want to fight the benefits of global warming and have us all killed by violent storms.—Alan McIntire
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The problem I have with Al Gore and the climate alarmism movement is that their theories and forecasts simply aren’t being realized. This has more to do with politics than it does with the weather.—Wes Potts
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Climate change is a complex issue with numerous aspects. There is zero consensus on all of or even most of the aspects. While most agree that there is warming, that man plays a part, and this may lead to a negative outcome, beyond this there is little agreement.
Questions that are still unanswered are: How much has man added to the warming? Can we really reduce the warming when only half of the world is taking steps? Will a small improvement be worth the pain that those of modest means will suffer, as fuel prices soar?
Will the damage to economies, leading to more poverty and a lower standard of living, be worth the trade-off? And will the rapid increases in technology find solutions that render draconian change as fruitless?—Anthony Alafero
How Are We Doing?
Dear Daily Signal: I recently read and enjoyed my first edition of The Daily Signal. I am a supporter of The Heritage Foundation, and have been for years. It came as a surprise to me that The Daily Signal is part of Heritage, which is also a great reason to subscribe.
Keep the news and commentary coming, and may your circulation greatly increase. Maybe leftists with a brain will read The Daily Signal and see the other side of the story.—Edward F. Conley, Dennis Port, Mass.
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Enough with the “my new book” people, who write an article for you to sell their book. Then you write an article to sell their book. Then someone else writes an article. Do you see this circle?
Everyone has a new book about our president. Opinions are a dime a dozen. Please, enough. Just get back to the real news and not a lot of pandering opinions.—Tonie Dalton, Ivanhoe, Va.
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I love the job you’re doing with The Daily Signal. It is refreshing to read some opinions that align with mine. I have completely given up on the mainstream media. I won’t watch them anymore, unless it’s a non-news program.
They should quit calling themselves news organizations and instead call themselves opinion organizations. At times I really agree with the president that they are the “enemy of the people.”
It’s scary to think that there are people out there who can watch only the mainstream media due to location or money.—Dan Burgess, Caledonia, Mich.
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You all are great. The daily insights you provide are not found anywhere else.—Charles T. Cleaver II, Dallas
Sarah Sleem and Joshua Nelson helped to compile this edition of “We Hear You.”