Trump’s 11th-Hour Offensive to Secure America’s Southern Border - Matthew Vadum

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by Matthew Vadum

Why the president gave Schumer and Pelosi a well-deserved public dressing-down in the Oval Office.

As the clock runs out on Republican control of the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump is making an aggressive last stand to secure critical funding for a wall to protect the nation’s porous border with Mexico.

With Democrats poised to take over the House in early January, it’s now or never for the wall.

As the Washington Post’s David Nakamura –no Trump cheerleader— writes:

Since the day he announced his White House candidacy, President Trump has wielded calls for a border wall as a political cudgel, a bargaining chip and a rallying cry — a tangible symbol, if completed, of his nationalist aim to ‘Make America Great Again.’

The fight over the wall “has reached a moment of truth as he confronts the reality that, with Democrats poised to control the House in January, this could be his last chance to make good on a promise that has become an existential part of his presidency.”

Conservative writer Ann Coulter tweeted that the president holds “all the cards” in the negotiations but gave the odds at 50-50 that he would “cave.”

“If he doesn’t at least force a shutdown for some time, I don’t see how he can go into 2020 and blame Democrats” over the wall, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Everyone would say, ‘Of course, they are your opponents, but you didn’t really even try.’”

Trump’s drive to secure the border was highlighted in a dramatic Oval Office meeting this week with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

It was a fine example of political theater that, in Nakamura’s words, “stunned a Beltway political class that has grown accustomed to Trump’s daily bouts of showmanship.”

More importantly it was an important sighting by that rarest of birds – a Republican who doesn’t cave in the face of political opposition from the Left.

The most transparent president in modern American history unexpectedly asked reporters and camera crews into the room to witness the negotiations, which turned into an intense shouting match between Trump and the Democratic leaders.

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck,” Trump said.

Because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into this country. So I will take the mantle, I will be the one to shut it down. I won’t blame you for it.

Democrats still haven’t recovered from the shock of being humiliated and outmaneuvered live on nationwide television by someone they routinely deride as a dimwitted blowhard.

After the meeting Schumer urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to rein Trump in.

“It is difficult, if nearly impossible, to negotiate with a president in front of the press who peddles such blatant and dangerous falsehoods,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “And because Leader Pelosi and I simply didn't go along with him, President Trump threw a temper tantrum and promised to shut the government unless he got what he wanted.”

Pelosi, who is expected next month to return to her role as Speaker of the House when Democrats take control of that chamber, mocked Trump behind closed doors.

“It’s like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing,” she reportedly told members of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.

Pelosi also delighted in the fact that the president said he would “proudly” accept responsibility for a government shutdown.

“But the fact is we did get him to say, to fully own that the shutdown was his,” Pelosi said. “That was an accomplishment."

“It was so wild,” Pelosi told her colleagues. “It goes to show you: You get into a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you.”

But Trump’s door remains open.

"The president is still interested in trying to get a deal," House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are negotiating furiously to avoid partially shutting down the federal government on Dec. 21 when it runs out of funding. Democrats have agreed to include $1.6 billion for border security in the spending package, but Trump is holding out for the $5 billion he has long sought to build a wall on the nation’s multi-state border with Mexico.

The chances of a partial shutdown Dec. 21 are good, said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"I don't think it's inevitable. It's probably more than possible right now," Shelby said. "It'll shut down unless we resolve some things."

Matthew Vadum, formerly senior vice president at the investigative think tank Capital Research Center, is an award-winning investigative reporter and author of the book, "Subversion Inc.: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts Are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers."

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272248/trumps-11th-hour-offensive-secure-americas-matthew-vadum

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Germany: Merkel to be Succeeded by "Mini-Merkel" - Soeren Kern

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by Soeren Kern

Kramp-Karrenbauer's positions are virtually identical to those of Merkel.

• Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer promised to hold a "workshop discussion" (Werkstattgespräch) on immigration and security. On all major policy issues, however, Kramp-Karrenbauer's positions are virtually identical to those of Merkel.
• "Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer is the continuation of Merkel by other means. She has supported the refugee policy and will not correct it." — Alexander Gauland, Co-Chair, AfD party.
• "The CDU has not given convincing answers to the consequences of globalization and digitization.... The CDU lacks a clear vision of how prosperity and jobs are not only secured but expanded..." — The business newspaper Handelsblatt, in a commentary entitled, "CDU: The Divided People's Party."

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (left) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel react after Kramp-Karrenbauer was chosen to succeed Merkel as the next leader of the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) on December 7, 2018 in Hamburg. (Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a 56-year-old career politician committed to the status quo, has been chosen to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Kramp-Karrenbauer — often referred to as "Mini-Merkel" or "Merkel 2.0" because many view her as Merkel's clone — won by just 35 votes (517 to 482) in a second-round run-off against her main opponent, a conservative named Friedrich Merz, at a CDU conference in Hamburg on December 7. Kramp-Karrenbauer's extremely narrow victory (51.7% to 48.2%) revealed a party split down the middle.

Merz had pledged to pull the CDU back to its conservative roots, after two decades of leftward drift under Merkel's leadership resulted in a mass defection of angry CDU voters to the anti-mass migration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the third-largest in the German parliament.

Kramp-Karrenbauer, by contrast, promised only cosmetic changes to the status quo, apparently out of fear that substantive changes would alienate the Social Democrats (SPD), who currently form part of Merkel's "grand coalition" government.

The failure to make a clear break with "Merkelism" means that not only might the CDU be unable to win back disaffected voters, but that even more CDU voters could be tempted to defect to the AfD in the next general election, due by October 2021.

In her inaugural speech as CDU leader, Kramp-Karrenbauer — also known as AKK because her full name is a mouthful to pronounce — confirmed her intention to follow along the liberal path established by Merkel. Kramp-Karrenbauer said that she does not want the party to undergo a "conservative revolution" and instead wants the CDU to occupy the "very broad center." Merkel has long insisted that the CDU must be the "People's Party of the Center," and under Merkel's watch, the party has often used the slogan, "The Center" (Die Mitte).

After disgruntled conservatives threatened to form a new party, Kramp-Karrenbauer swiftly pledged to emancipate herself from Merkel by "occasionally contradicting" the chancellor "where it is necessary" in the interest of the CDU. Kramp-Karrenbauer also promised to hold a "workshop discussion" (Werkstattgespräch) on immigration and security.

On all major policy issues, however, Kramp-Karrenbauer's positions are virtually identical to those of Merkel. The German government's basic positions (Grundsatzprogramm) on European integration, open borders, multiculturalism are unlikely to change without Merkel's permission.

"Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer is the continuation of Merkel by other means," said AfD co-chair Alexander Gauland, paraphrasing the Prussian general and military strategist Carl von Clausewitz. "She has supported the refugee policy and will not correct it."

AfD MP Alice Weidel predicted that Kramp-Karrenbauer will benefit the AfD more than the CDU:

"Mrs. Kramp-Karrenbauer is Merkel's desired successor. Kramp-Karrenbauer means: Continuity! She is Merkel 2.0. With her, the leftward course of the CDU will continue, and thus the last conservative Christian Democrats have lost their fight and no longer have a political home in the CDU."

One of the CDU's best-known conservatives, Wolfgang Bosbach, observed:

"First, a narrow majority of the party wants a consistent continuation of the course of recent years — no course correction. Second, while values-conservatives and economic liberals continue to be needed to represent a broad political spectrum within the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on the outside, internally they will not have a significant impact on the party's agenda and policies."

CDU Vice President and Merkel confidant Volker Bouffier, in an interview with Rheinische Post, warned Kramp-Karrenbauer not to revisit migration policy:

"We do not win the future by looking back. It may be wise to simply openly discuss the migration issue and take stock of it. But that cannot and should not be the central object of the party's work. That's not what we need now."

Commentator Hugo Müller-Vogg, writing for Tichys Einblick, noted that Merkel is still the chancellor and that Kramp-Karrenbauer will remain in her shadow:

"Merkel remains the benchmark for voters. The new CDU leader can make the party more effective for the upcoming election campaigns, push ahead with the debate on the new basic program, take a more proactive approach toward the AfD. In the eyes of the population, however, all this is rather secondary. Crucial for the reputation of the CDU and its approval is the 'performance' of the chancellor. If people are not satisfied with the government's policies, they cannot be lured with a more modern, digitally pimped-out party image. Then they will stay away or withdraw from the CDU....
"Merkel will undoubtedly continue to justify her 2015 refugee policy. The new CDU chairman wants to have 'workshop discussions' to determine what went wrong in 2015, why Merkel's welcome policy has weakened the CDU and made the AfD really strong. Whatever will be written in the relevant papers, Merkel will not be willing publicly to concede her mistakes, not now or in the future. This means: Voters who left the CDU will not now make their peace with Merkel just because the CDU has a new chairwoman....
"If Kramp-Karrenbauer does not openly expel her predecessor from the Chancellery, she will only be able to act in Merkel's shadow. This is because Kramp-Karrenbauer, who has risen from the secretary-general to the party chairman, remains, from Merkel's point of view, what she has been all along: an assistant, not a partner at eye level."

The business newspaper Handelsblatt, in a commentary entitled, "CDU: The Divided People's Party," warned that Kramp-Karrenbauer must focus on reuniting the CDU and strengthening the German economy:

"Angela Merkel has prevailed again: Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, her favorite, has been chosen as the new chairperson of the CDU. The delegates at the congress voted for continuity and against experimenting with Friedrich Merz.
"But with just under 52% of support, AKK has received the worst result of all party leaders in the history of the CDU.... The party is as divided as perhaps never before. Whether AKK manages to create unity out of this tattered party is rather uncertain.
"The rupture in the CDU between those who fundamentally support a continuation of the previous Merkel policies, and those who demand a radical renewal of political orientation, is deeper than many in the party leadership had expected....
"The CDU has not given convincing answers to the consequences of globalization and digitization.... The CDU lacks a clear vision of how prosperity and jobs are not only secured but expanded. The economic boom is over, as is the phase of constantly increasing tax revenues.
"Ahead of the European elections in May 2019, and the parliamentary elections in Bremen, and then in autumn in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, the new CDU chairman must not only succeed in reuniting the torn party, but must also be able to strengthen its economic competence.
"Only then can she lead the CDU from the current historically low approval ratings. And only then will it be decided whether the new CDU leader could one day inherit Angela Merkel as chancellor."

The online publication Deutschland Kurier wrote that the CDU was "committing suicide for fear of death" by abandoning its conservative values to hang onto power:

"At their surreal Hamburg party congress, during which one could at times have the impression that it had taken place in Pyongyang, the delegates bizarrely gave a ten-minute standing ovation to applaud their own decline in the guise of outgoing party leader Angela Merkel....
"The CDU is so permeated and corrupted by the 'Merkel System' that little or nothing will change in the party itself. If the election of the Merkel clone to CDU federal chairman means anything at all, then this may well be: Merkel is still holding the reins firmly in her hands....
"The close result [over Merkel's succession] shows that the CDU is undergoing a fundamental rupture. Merkel leaves after 18 years at the top of a party that is more deeply divided than ever before.
"Unlike Merz, who at the party congress gave a substantive lecture largely based on cool analysis, Merkel's clone gave an emotional hug speech that reached the hearts of the delegates and was greeted with standing ovations and shouts of 'AKK.' Kramp-Karrenbauer cleverly excluded the issue of immigration in her speech. In the end, the CDU functionary corps assembled in Hamburg followed the motto of Konrad Adenauer [Germany's first chancellor]: no experiments!
"A choice of Merz as CDU boss, so it was heard again and again, would have meant a high election risk. For many delegates, the shirt of their own parliamentary mandate was preferable to the skirt of inner-party renewal. They wanted something (apparently) new for the external effect, but no break with the Merkel era, so as not to give the Social Democrats (SPD) an excuse to exit from the Grand Coalition. The ominous legacy of Merkel should be preserved, not unwound.
"Thus, the new CDU boss is in no way in favor of a course correction. The CDU will pay a high price for Kramp-Karrenbauer's scarce success, which is mainly Merkel's victory. The prize is a deeply split party in two camps....
"Conclusion: After their Hamburg party congress, the CDU is following their former Italian sister party into political nirvana. The parallels are frightening. Like the CDU, Italy's 'Democrazia Cristiana' was for decades the most important state-sponsored post-war party. Like the CDU, the Italian Christian Democrats embarked on a left-wing course, which they carried out with strikingly similar arguments as the German Christian Democrats. The result is known: the 'Democrazia Cristiana' no longer exists.
"Seen in this light, Angela Merkel's farewell words as CDU chairwoman may have left a bitter aftertaste for many conservatives in the Union: 'It was a great pleasure for me. It was an honor for me.'
"The 31st CDU Party Congress applauded for ten minutes with a standing ovation to their own decline. It was a ghostly scene as in North Korea."

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Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13412/germany-merkel-kramp-karrenbauer

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The Flynn Investigation: McCabe's Personal Retaliation? - Daniel John Sobieski

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by Daniel John Sobieski

The unmasking of Flynn in the Russia probe may indeed be retaliation against Flynn for perceived political sins.

As I noted here on June 30, 2017 Michael Flynn and Andrew McCabe have a past that predates the Trump presidency, one that provides ample motivation for the perjury trap that McCabe and James Comey set up after Flynn’s illegal unmasking. McCabe had a personal grudge against Flynn and the perjury trap was his revenge.

It explains why McCabe would entrap Flynn in a seemingly harmless interview about contacts with Flynn’s Russian counterparts, advising Flynn he didn’t need to bring a lawyer along to complicate things:

The federal judge who will sentence Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn for lying to the FBI has ordered the FBI to give him, by today, the notes written by the two FBI agents who interviewed Flynn in January 2017.
Judge Emmet Sullivan also wants to see a January 24 memo that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe wrote about his own telephone conversation with Flynn, a conversation that happened just two hours before the FBI agents arrived at Flynn's West Wing office.
This follows information in Flynn's sentencing memo to the court, which suggests that Flynn was deliberately set up:
The sentencing memo says at 12:35 p.m. on January 24, 2017, McCabe called Flynn at his West Wing office to discuss a security training session the FBI had recently conducted at the white [sic] House. McCabe's written memo detailing that phone conversation says McCabe told Flynn "that we needed to have two of our agents sit down" with Flynn to talk about his communications with Russian officials.
McCabe wrote: "I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between [General Flynn] and the agents only. I further stated that if LTG Flynn wished to include anyone else in the meeting, like the White House Counsel for instance, that I would need to involve the Department of Justice. [General Flynn] stated that this would not be necessary and agreed to meet with the agents without any additional participants.”

To help cover up the setup, it also appears that multiple 302s, or FBI interview summaries, were created:

The sentencing memorandum reveals for the first time concrete evidence that the FBI created multiple 302 interview summaries of Flynn’s questioning by now-former FBI agent Peter Strzok and a second unnamed agent, reported to be FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka…
While Flynn’s sentencing memorandum methodically laid out the case for a low-level sentence of one-year probation, footnote 23 dropped a bomb, revealing that the agents’ 302 summary of his interview was dated August 22, 2017. As others have already noted, the August 22, 2017 date is a “striking detail” because that puts the 302 report “nearly seven months after the Flynn interview.” When added to facts already known, this revelation takes on a much greater significance.

Indeed, the existence of multiple 302s and the seven-month gap lends credence that the Flynn investigation was a setup motivated in large part by Andrew McCabe’s desire for personal revenge for Flynn’s past actions impacting McCabe at a personal level.

The unmasking of Flynn in the Russia probe may indeed be retaliation against Flynn for perceived political sins, but not for what and by whom you might think, if reports from investigative watchdog site Circa News are correct. As Sara A. Carter and John Solomon of Circa News report:

The FBI launched a criminal probe against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn two years after the retired Army general roiled the bureau’s leadership by intervening on behalf of a decorated counterterrorism agent who accused now-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other top officials of sexual discrimination, according to documents and interviews.
Flynn’s intervention on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz was highly unusual, and included a letter in 2014 on his official Pentagon stationary, a public interview in 2015 supporting Gritz’s case and an offer to testify on her behalf. His offer put him as a hostile witness in a case against McCabe, who was soaring through the bureau’s leadership ranks.
The FBI sought to block Flynn’s support for the agent, asking a federal administrative law judge in May 2014 to keep Flynn and others from becoming a witness in her Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) case, memos obtained by Circa show. Two years later, the FBI opened its inquiry of Flynn…
McCabe eventually became the bureau’s No. 2 executive and emerged as a central player in the FBI’s Russia election tampering investigation, putting him in a position to impact the criminal inquiry against Flynn.
Three FBI employees told Circa they personally witnessed McCabe make disparaging remarks about Flynn before and during the time the retired Army general emerged as a figure in the Russia case.

In legal circles, that’s called "motive". We have to factor in as well that McCabe and Flynn come from different ends of the political spectrum. Flynn became a key Trump supporter after accusing President Obama of facilitating the rise of ISIS through his policies and inaction. McCabe is a Democratic loyalist whose wife campaigned for state office in Virginia as a Democrat with heavy Democratic financial support. In fact, McCabe’s efforts on behalf of his wife became the subject of multiple federal probes:

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a central player in the Russia election case, is the focus of three separate federal administrative inquiries into allegations about his behavior as a senior bureau executive, according to documents and interviews.
The allegations being reviewed range from sexual discrimination to improper political activity, the documents show…
Circa reported Monday that former supervisory special agent Robyn Gritz, a decorated counterterrorism agent, has filed a sexual discrimination and retaliation complaint that names McCabe and other top FBI officials…
Gritz also filed a complaint against McCabe with the main federal whistleblower agency in April, alleging social media photos she found show he campaigned for his wife’s Virginia state senate race in violation of the Hatch Act…
In addition, the Justice Department Inspector General is investigating allegations from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that McCabe may not have properly disclosed campaign payments to his wife on his ethics report and should have recused himself from Hillary Clinton's email case.

McCabe certainly had no love lost on Michael Flynn, who was a potential witness on behalf of one of McCabe’s accusers. As PJ Media reports:

In 2014, Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, personally intervened on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz by writing a letter vouching for her on his official Pentagon stationary and offering to testify on her behalf. He also supported her case in a radio interview in 2015…
The FBI, for its part, claimed that Gritz had become "underperforming, tardy to work, insurbordinate, possibly mentally ill or emotional and deserving of a poor performance review."…
Flynn argued just the opposite in his May 9, 2014 letter: “SSA Gritz was well-known, liked and respected in the military counter-terrorism community for her energy, commitment and professional capacity, and over the years worked in several interagency groups on counter-terrorism targeting initiatives.”

McCabe did not disclose Democratic contributions to his wife’s campaign in Virginia in financial disclosure forms, donations that raised questions about both his integrity and objectivity. As Fox News Politics reports:

The records, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe left the box blank for wife Dr. Jill McCabe's salary, as a doctor with Commonwealth Emergency Physicians. And there is no documentation of the hundreds of thousands of campaign funds she received in her unsuccessful 2015 Virginia state Senate race.
As first reported by The Wall Street Journal, Clinton confidant and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe urged McCabe’s wife to run for statewide office shortly after news reports were published that Hillary Clinton used a private email server and address for all her government business while serving as secretary of State.
For the reporting period of October through November 2015, McCabe's campaign filings show she received $467,500 from Common Good VA, a political action committee controlled by McAuliffe, as well as an additional $292,500 from a second Democratic PAC.

Connect those dots, Democrats and others looking for Russians hiding under Republican beds. We have a former Deputy FBI Director, Andrew McCabe, campaigning for his wife who receives huge sums of money from the Democratic Party of Clinton political ally Terry McAuliffe. After Clinton blames Russia for her election loss, Flynn becomes a target of an FBI probe in which his identity is illegally unmasked. He was a character witness on behalf of one of McCabe’s accusers. Was the largesse to Mrs. McCabe a quid for a future quo? Is all this just the result of McCabe’s lust for personal revenge?


Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/12/the_flynn_investigation_mccabes_personal_retaliation.html

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Canada: Trudeau paying those who live near Quebec border up to $25,000 for disruptions caused by migrant influx - Christine Douglass-Williams

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by Christine Douglass-Williams

Life along the previously sleepy Roxham Road — has been disturbed, and residents deserve to be compensated, Border Security Minister Bill Blair said.

Beyond the immediate medical, living and housing costs for economic migrants who are flowing into Canada illegally over the Quebec border, Canadian taxpayers are also doling out significant amounts of cash for an unexpected expense:

Quebecers living by the Canada-United States border where thousands of migrants have crossed irregularly into the country since 2017 will be eligible for payments of up to $25,000, the federal government….Life along the previously sleepy Roxham Road — the main entry point for migrants entering the country on foot — has been disturbed, and residents deserve to be compensated, Border Security Minister Bill Blair said.

Trudeau has a history of extravagance. He has tried to buy the media with a 600-million-dollar bailout package that has been described by many as “headline buying” or “media management.”  Now he’s trying to pacify residents or border areas whose lives have been disrupted by the migrant crossings that should have been stopped immediately after they began.

The Toronto Sun reported during the summer months, when migrants were pouring in by the hundreds each day:

Roxham Road, a narrow paved road lined by horse farms and marshes, has served as a path recently for Palestinians, Colombians, Ghanaians, Nigerians, Haitians, Zimbabweans and Pakistanis, among others.

Who is going to pay for the traumatized guests of the Radisson Toronto East hotel, where about 400 refugees from Africa occupied all but two floors of the hotel, turning the Radisson into a squalid migrant camp? We also hope that no one has forgotten Trudeau’s welcome of anyone and everyone, including Islamic State jihadis, into the country, with Canadians given no say in the matter. Trudeau thinks that Islamic State jihadis can be a “powerful voice” for deradicalization. He also thinks that questions about his mismanagement of Canada’s borders are “Islamophobic.”

Canadians can expect to dole out much more money, particularly in the upcoming election year, and given the unpopular UN Migration Pact. The simplest questions about the Pact, which is claimed to be non-binding, must be asked: why is such a Pact even needed? Has Canada now fully subscribed to the globalist vision of open borders? Who is footing the bill for the migrant influx and the integration and assimilation of the migrants? Canada is already at a four-decade low in its employment rate, and it’s are likely only to get worse.


“Residents near U.S. border in Quebec to be paid up to $25,000 for asylum seeker disruption: Bill Blair,” by Mylene Crete, Canadian Press, December 12, 2018:

OTTAWA — Quebecers living by the Canada-United States border where thousands of migrants have crossed irregularly into the country since 2017 will be eligible for payments of up to $25,000, the federal government announced Wednesday.
Life along the previously sleepy Roxham Road — the main entry point for migrants entering the country on foot — has been disturbed, and residents deserve to be compensated, Border Security Minister Bill Blair said.
“I’ve been there. I’ve spoken to the residents. I’ve seen the level of activity of the RCMP, the (Canada Border Services Agency) and other officials that has impacted what is otherwise a quiet, rural road,” Blair told reporters.
Roughly 96 per cent of all migrants who have crossed illegally into Canada since 2017 have done so at Roxham Road.
The federal Immigration Department says 16,000 people crossed the Canada-U.S. border illegally into Quebec through the end of October this year, and about 19,000 did last year.
Bureaucrats divided the Roxham Road area into three zones based on proximity to the border. People living in the closest zone are eligible to receive up to $25,000, those in the next closest $10,000, and those in the third zone $2,500….

Christine Douglass-Williams

Source: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/12/canada-trudeau-paying-those-who-live-near-quebec-border-up-to-25000-for-disruptions-caused-by-migrant-influx

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An 8-Year-Old Bride - Majid Rafizadeh

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by Majid Rafizadeh

The prevalence child marriage "still remains far too high" — World Bank.

• After the mullahs' party imposed Sharia law in Iran and made it the official unquestionable law of the land, the authorities immediately changed the age of legal marriage to 9 for girls and 13 for boys. After 40 years, the Sharia-based law has not changed.
• The prevalence child marriage "still remains far too high. In a set of 25 countries for which detailed analysis was conducted, at least one in three women marry before the age of 18, and one in five women have their first child before the age of 18." — World Bank.
• According to official Iranian statistics, 180,000 child marriages take place there each year. In addition, in 2013 in Iran, a law was passed that allows men to marry their adopted daughters.
• Facebook acted as an auction block for a child bride in South Sudan as recently as last month.
• Unless the international community steps in and, instead of appealing to the Islamist leaders of Iran, applies pressure to get these laws changed, more children will be at risk.

According to official Iranian statistics, 180,000 child marriages take place there each year. Besides the physical and sexual abuse endured by little girls forced into marriage, many also encounter emotional abuse.

"At eight years old my parents sat me down for a serious talk," said Noushin, during the interview. "I can still remember the tremble in my mother's voice. She told me that in two days I would be part of an Islamic religious blessing. My father insisted that I behave, and not cause a scene. I was confused, but I trusted them, that they were telling me the truth. I trusted them right up to the moment that the wedding ring went onto my finger and I became the bride of a 43 year old man." Noushin, now 19, is the mother of three.

You might assume that her parents, who so willingly gave their child to this man, were not educated or had never been exposed to modern ways of thinking. In fact, Noushin's father had been educated in Europe, and then came back to his country to work for the regime.

Noushin said the wedding was "a nightmare I could not wake up from. I understood that I was married, but I did not understand what that meant." She said was forced to have sexual intercourse before she reached puberty. "Each day was filled with new confusion, and new horrors," she said, as she tried to become accustomed to the role she was forced to endure.

"I thought the move into my husband's house was a punishment by my parents because I had not listened when they told me to stop playing a week before. I hoped that after that, it was torture, they would bring me back to my parents the next day. But it soon became clear that this was not a temporary punishment, it would last a lifetime."

You might believe that these things happen only rarely; that is not so. Noushin is not an exception. Islamic leaders claim that child marriages are now less frequent in their countries, but even if that is true, the incidence of it is still high enough to have drawn a fairly recent voice of alarm from the UN.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, for example, where I am from, is run by Sharia law; child marriage is still prevalent. According to the latest statistics, confirmed by the Managing Director and Member of the Board of Directors of the Association for the Protection of the Rights of Children, Farshid Yazdani, 24 percent of all marriages in Iran are child marriages. Perhaps you might think, according to all the claims of Islamist leaders, that this is an improvement, right? Wrong. In previous years, child marriages – at least the ones that were registered -- were below 10 percent. So there has actually been an increase in young girls being forced into marriage.

These numbers mean that in Iran, tens of thousands of children are still being forced into marriages. In fact, according to official Iranian statistics, 180,000 child marriages take place there each year. As many marriages can be performed by a Shia Sheikh without the need to register them with the government, the unofficial number is doubtless higher; in this way, many marriages of girls under 10 years old take place.

Before the Islamist party of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, the legal age of marriage was 18 for girls and 20 for boys. After the mullahs' party imposed Sharia law in Iran and made it the official unquestionable law of the land, the authorities immediately changed the age of legal marriage to 9 for girls and 13 for boys. After 40 years, the Sharia-based law has not changed. If they truly wanted to deter child marriage would that not be the place to start?

In addition, in 2013 in Iran, a law was passed that allows men to marry their adopted daughters.

Besides the physical and sexual abuse that these little girls endure, many also encounter emotional abuse. Under Sharia law, these young girls must completely comply with their husbands wishes. The husbands have the right to divorce their wives at any time, but the wives do not have such a law. According to the head of the Social Work Association in Iran, Hassan Moussavi Chelak, there are more than 24,000 child widows in the country. These girls have been through marriage, trauma, and then are abandoned, left alone to fend for themselves.

Some of the grooms in these marriages are middle aged or older men. Some of the grooms try to say that the reason for so many child marriages is the economy: that the need for money is what drives these parents to arrange marriages for their children to older men. There are many countries, however, where poverty is a problem, but child marriages do not exist, or not to such an extent. The reason this plague continues to occur is because it is sanctioned and even encouraged by the Sharia-based law. While other countries forbid such abuse, it does not happen; but the Islamist law of Iran embraces it.

The Sharia law in Iran provides the platform, the legal language and the judicial legitimization, for adults to marry girls younger than ten, and for the parents of these children to profit from it, both financially and religiously.

Noushin has suffered more than most people could ever comprehend. She is determined to get a divorce and find a way to raise and provide for her three children. She never had a choice at the age of eight, when her childhood was sold. She never had a choice when she became pregnant. Now, she is willing to risk everything to be free.

This is not simply a problem only in Islamist countries. Children in other countries vulnerable as well.

Facebook acted as an auction block for a child bride in South Sudan as recently as last month.

Sweden has also apparently been seeing an "increase in reports of forced and child marriages."

The World Bank assessed last year that the prevalence child marriage "still remains far too high. In a set of 25 countries for which detailed analysis was conducted, at least one in three women marry before the age of 18, and one in five women have their first child before the age of 18."

Child marriage is also, it seems, prevalent in the United States. Only this year, Delaware became the first state to ban marriage under the age of 18.

You may find it hard to believe that it could be legal for a 70 year old man to marry a girl as young as 5 but it happens, and will continue to happen. Unless the international community steps in and, instead of appealing to Islamist leaders, applies pressure to get these laws changed, more children will be at risk.

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Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated scholar, businessman, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13413/child-brides

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Suspected Honduran Terrorist Attempts Shakedown at U.S. Consulate - Joseph Klein

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by Joseph Klein

A case for a border wall or Israel-style fence.

Approximately 100 Central American migrants marched to the U.S. consulate in Tijuana on Tuesday delivering a letter with a 72-hour ultimatum: either “allow free entry to all members” of the caravan into the United States or pay them $50,000 each to return to their “homeland.” Organizer Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa of Honduras, a suspected terrorist allegedly involved in a 1987 bombing that wounded six American soldiers in Honduras, claimed that $50,000 was “a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.” The money, he said, could be used to return home and start a small business. So much for any fear of persecution in their “homeland” that would give these migrants a legitimate basis for seeking asylum! Simply pay each of the migrants $50,000 and they will be happy to go home. A second group of about 50 caravan members delivered on Tuesday their own letter to the U.S. consulate, claiming that slow processing of asylum requests violated U.S. and international law. This letter did not contain any demand for money but pressed for an increase in the daily number of asylum-seekers admitted at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to as many as 300. The current rate is between 40 and 100.  

Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa, the migrant group organizer pushing the alternative free entry or pay shakedown demands, is not a migrant himself. After denying involvement in the 1987 bombing in Honduras, Mexico granted him asylum. He has been living there since 1987. Whatever the truth of his denial of involvement in the bomb attack, Ulloa was by his own admission a member of a now defunct left-wing group known as the Popular Revolutionary Forces-Lorenzo Zelayaas.  A report published by the U.S. government in April 1990 described the Popular Revolutionary Forces-Lorenzo Zelayaas as one of several “leftist guerrilla groups [in Honduras] that have resorted to terrorist tactics in the past.” Now posing as an organizer on behalf of Central American migrants even though he was not part of the caravans himself, Ulloa has taken contempt for the rule of law to a new level. The demand he delivered for free entry into the United States or payment of money should be placed in the circular file. If this alleged terrorist, who already has asylum protection in Mexico, ever makes his way illegally into the United States, he should be immediately arrested and deported back to Honduras to stand trial. 

The U.S. consulate staff in Tijuana went far beyond the call of duty in allowing Ulloa and the migrants into the consulate to present their demands and giving them what one of the migrants described as a “warm welcome.” Such a show of compassion is misplaced. It will only encourage more migrants to try the same ploy or to up the ante with staged encounters for the cameras. It is not a stretch to envision migrants, some with babies in their arms and holding the hands of small children, entering the U.S. consulate the next time and refusing to leave the premises until their demands are acted upon. Hunger strikes that have taken place near the consulate may move inside to gain more attention. More caravans of migrants from Central America will follow, demanding open borders. 

Last March, a group calling itself Refugee Caravan 2018, together with the open borders activist organization Pueblo Sin Fronteras that has been involved in organizing the caravans, issued a press release declaring “that by uniting we can abolish borders.” They demanded Mexico and the United States “to open the borders to us because we are as much citizens as the people of the countries where we are and/or travel.” Of course, the United States is their real target since many of the caravan migrants have refused offers of asylum in Mexico. 

If the United States is to preserve its sovereign right to control its own borders, the Trump administration must continue to pursue a maximum border security policy. President Trump’s threat to allow the government to shut down if he does not receive the $5 billion he is seeking to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico shows he means business. After President Trump’s televised clash at the White House on Tuesday with the Democrat House Minority Leader (and presumed next speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Pelosi derisively referred to President Trump’s focus on the “wall thing” as “like a manhood thing with him.” In her December 6^th press conference, she shot down the idea of supporting some degree of wall funding if she got in return a permanent bona fide solution on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). She called the wall “immoral, ineffective and expensive.” Even if Mexico were to pay for the wall, Pelosi said, “it's immoral still.”

Pelosi and Schumer claim they support border security. However, they and their open borders friends are acting immorally when they oppose a life-saving solution to the increasing surge of illegal immigrants into the United States. They cannot explain how forcing border agents to risk their lives in confronting thousands of illegal aliens, who could have been stopped from entering the country in the first place by an impassable wall, is a morally superior option. As Terence P. Jeffrey, the editor in chief of CNSnews.com, succinctly wrote, “More wall means less confrontation.” I would add that less confrontation means a lower possibility of deaths and injuries to both the border agents and the migrants themselves. Yet Pelosi, Schumer and their progressive Democrat base prefer the status quo in which thousands of illegal aliens (in their minds, future Democrat voters) who make it into the country are caught and then released. They are even willing to hold the DACA migrants hostage to their obstinacy on the wall issue.

Perhaps President Trump could compromise by proposing to build the kind of large sensor-rigged, razor wire-lined border fence that Israel has with Egypt. This fence has substantially cut the number of illegal immigrants entering Israel. According to a 2017 Majority Staff Report of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the construction began in 2010. Most of the construction took two years to complete. “In 2010, Israel saw 13,807 illegal entries at its border with Egypt, largely from sub-Saharan Africans looking for work,” the report said. During those two years, “16,514 illegal entries were recorded in 2011 and 10,042 were recorded in 2012,” the report added.  “Illegal entries fell substantially after the completion of the security fence—to 43 in 2013 and 12 in 2014.” After Israel discovered that ladders were being used by illegal immigrants, causing the number of illegal entries in 2015 to rise to 213, “Israel increased the height of the fence, rendering the ladders ineffective. In 2016, illegal crossers dropped to 11.” This represented a 99 percent decrease from 2011. 

Given the turnover of majority control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats next year, President Trump has a narrow window during the remainder of this year’s lame duck session to have any chance of securing the full $5 billion he is seeking to build an effective barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, whether a concrete wall or the kind of border fence that Israel has successfully constructed. So far, Senate Democrats appear willing to filibuster anything approaching the $5 billion figure. The president needs to stick with his pledge to shut down the parts of the government not already funded to push the Democrats in his direction, although they may be perfectly willing to let him take the political heat for a government shutdown.

If President Trump does not get his way with Congress this year, he should consider as his first order of business in January declaring a state of emergency in accordance with the National Emergencies Act.  Such a presidential declaration may allow the Secretary of Defense to terminate or defer the construction, operation, maintenance, or repair of any Department of the Army civil works project that he deems not essential to the national defense. He can then repurpose the resources, including funds, to the construction, operation, maintenance, and repair of authorized civil works, military construction, and civil defense projects that are essential to the national defense. There is already some limited legislative authority for construction and repair of a border barrier, to which President Trump could direct the Defense Secretary to add the repurposed funds under the presidential emergency declaration. There are requirements for regular reporting to Congress. Moreover, Congress can enact into law a joint resolution terminating the president’s emergency declaration, which. however, would be unlikely to succeed in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Litigation, most likely brought by open borders advocates in the liberal 9^th Circuit, is certain to follow the president’s declaration of a national emergency. The usual cast of left-wing activists can be expected to challenge the president’s authority in court to declare the illegal immigration crisis a legitimate national emergency and to challenge his authority to order the diversion of funds from their current purposes to pay for a border wall or Israel-style fence. The 9^th Circuit judges will likely side with the plaintiffs challenging the president’s constitutional and legislative authority to act forcefully for the security and well-being of the American people, as these judges invariably do. That will be a fight worth having. The open borders leftists must be stopped from putting Americans at risk and obliterating U.S. national sovereignty. 

Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272236/suspected-honduran-terrorist-attempts-shakedown-us-joseph-klein

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Christophobia in Egypt - Jack Kerwick

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by Jack Kerwick

But don’t expect to hear about it from the establishment media.

“Islamophobia” and “anti-Semitism” are terms deeply ensconced within the left’s catalogue of unpardonable transgressions. 

As to who is guilty of these infirmities, that will depend almost entirely upon which side of the ideological divide the suspect lands. For example, despite the incendiary anti-Jewish rhetoric that they’ve repeatedly espoused, the likes of Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan are not only spared all criticism by their fellow ideologues; they are legitimized and sometimes even celebrated.

At the same time, someone like, say, Donald Trump, who is among the most pro-Jewish of American presidents, a man with a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren and who is the first American president to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, isn’t just blasted as an anti-Semite (and an “Islamophobe”); his leftist opponents have tried implicating him in the mass shooting of a Jewish temple in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   

The point here, though, is that while the left at least pretends to be concerned about the well-being of Muslims and Jews, the self-appointed guardians of Virtue never utter a word about the victimization of…Christians.  Much less do they dare to note two other facts, namely, that Christianity is the single most persecuted religious group on the planet and that in 80% of these instances of persecution, it is Muslims who are the persecutors.

Just last month, in Egypt, at least seven Christians were murdered and 15 injured.  The Christian pilgrims were on two busses in route to a desert monastery when masked gunmen stopped their vehicles and unloaded gunfire on the passengers.  Reportedly, one of the busses managed to escape, while the smaller of the two met with a different fate.

One of the injured is said to have been a child.

Unsurprisingly, the Islamic State, which publicly declared its intention to slaughter Egypt’s Coptic Christians, took “credit” for the attack.

And according to Open Doors, ISIS claims to have murdered 13 people and wounded 18 others.

This organization whose mission it is to “serve persecuted Christians around the world,” reminds us that this latest attack against Egypt’s Coptic Christian population comes just one year after Islamic gunmen murdered a minimum of 28 Christians who were on their way to the same monastery.

In the wake of this most recent attack, “Hanaa,” an Egyptian Christian, expressed her incredulity that a mass murder of the kind that occurred last year could occur again just one year later. Through tears, Hanaa asks: “How is it possible that this happened again?”  She added: “Heaven received yet another group of martyrs.”

Emad Nasif is a deacon of a church in Minya, which is located near the monastery that was the destination of the victims.  He poses a simple question: “Why were they [the victims] not protected?” Yet no sooner than he launches his inquiry does the deacon himself answer it: “There seems to be indifference to the safety of the Christian minority.”

The Coptic Christian community in Egypt traces its roots back to the Gospel author, Mark.  But despite its 2,000 year presence in Egypt, this community has been under siege for quite some time by the Muslim majority.  According to Open Doors, an organization devoted to serving persecuted Christians, Egypt ranks 17^th on its “World Watch” list of the planet’s persecutors of Christians.

Nine out of ten Egyptians are Islamic.  Open Doors informs us that Christians “have been treated as second-class citizens since the advent of Islam in the region.”  The following commentary on Christian persecution is worth quoting at length:

“Egyptian Christians suffer from persecution in various ways.  Those with Muslim backgrounds face enormous pressure from immediate and extended families to return to Islam.  Severe restrictions on building or securing places for communal worship prevent Egyptian Christians from gathering together, in addition to hostility and violence towards believers who do manage to gather.

“Egyptian Christians, particularly women, also face discrimination and abuse in their workplaces and the public square.”

More telling is that these attacks are to a significant degree being incited by Islamic clerics:
“Radical imams regularly incite hostility and violence towards Christians, resulting in the deaths and injuries of many believers in the past year alone.”

Open Doors provides some examples of the sorts of attacks to which the Christian minority in Egypt has been subjected.  In addition to the latest attack mentioned above and the mass murder of monastery-bound Christians that occurred last year, visitors to Open Doors’ website discover such ugly truths as the following:

“For five years, more than 1,600 Egyptian Christians in the village of Kom El-Loufy have been unable to reopen their church due to fierce hostility from local Muslims and a refusal from authorities to grant the necessary license.

“On Palm Sunday 2017, two suicide bomb attacks on churches killed 45 and injured 100 others in the cities of Tanta and Alexandria. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.

“In July of 2017, an Egyptian Christian soldier was beaten to death for refusing to remove tattoos of a cross and Christian saints.”   

If we had media figures who were interested in supplying the public with an informed, truthful picture of religious oppression, then “Christophobia,” or something along these lines, would be a term springing from their lips exponentially more often than that of “Islamophobia.”


Jack Kerwick received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Temple University. His area of specialization is ethics and political philosophy. He is a professor of philosophy at several colleges and universities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272194/christophobia-egypt-jack-kerwick

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