Court Rules Trump Admin Can Withhold Federal Grants to NYC, Seven States over Sanctuary Policies By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/court-rules-trump-admin-can-withhold-federal-grants-to-nyc-seven-states-over-sanctuary-policies/

A federal court on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration could withhold grants to New York City, as well as seven states, due to their refusal to cooperate with the federal immigration enforcement efforts.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled that the federal government could withhold funds from New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, Massachusetts, Virginia and Rhode Island, over the states’ “sanctuary” laws. The states currently contain a number of cities, including New York City, with laws preventing local authorities from notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement when an illegal immigrant is about to be released from jail.

The seven states and New York City sued the Trump administration in 2017 after federal immigration authorities demanded access to jails and the creation of a system to notify agents of the impending release of an illegal immigrant. The 2nd Circuit court’s decision reverses lower court rulings in favor of the states.

“So-called ‘sanctuary’ policies make all of us less safe because they intentionally undermine our laws and protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes,” then-attorney general Jeff Sessions said in 2017 when the suit was filed.

 

Earlier this month current Attorney General William Barr announced the Justice Department would initiate a series of lawsuits against localities with “sanctuary” laws.

In Iran, an Electoral Flop By Ilan Berman

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/iran-election-low-turnout-shows-regimes-weakening-state/

The regime’s continued rogue behavior has left the country increasingly isolated.

What if you held a national election and no one turned out? That’s the situation currently confronting Iranian officials, who are grappling with the aftermath of a truly disastrous outcome in last week’s parliamentary elections.

According to the official Fars News Agency, just 42 percent of Iranians voted in the country’s latest parliamentary elections, which took place on Friday. That’s the lowest percentage ever recorded in the 41-year history of the Islamic Republic. (By way of comparison: The turnout for Iran’s last parliamentary elections, in 2016, was approximately 60 percent.) Yet there’s good reason to believe that even those official numbers are inflated, and perhaps significantly so. Outside reports, relying on internal Iranian media sources, indicate that actual voting tallies fell far below the official 42 percent figure, forcing the regime to keep polling stations open longer than planned to scrape together even a minimum number of legitimate votes.

If you’ve been paying attention to events in Iran, that lackluster showing shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Over the past two years, persistent protests in practically every major Iranian city — and at virtually every stratum of Iranian society — have showcased a population that has become profoundly disaffected with the country’s clerical regime. These protests have flared anew in recent weeks, following the Iranian government’s accidental January 8 downing of a Ukrainian airliner amid heightened tensions with the United States. That event helped to convince many Iranians that their government is dangerously incompetent, and a real hazard to their own safety.

The regime in Tehran responded in predictable fashion: by trying to tighten its hold on political power. Ahead of Friday’s parliamentary vote, Iran’s government disqualified more than 7,000 applicants from running. That in and of itself is hardly new; Iran’s religious institutions have long been used to weed out politicians deemed insufficiently loyal to the country’s governing religious ideology. But this time, the ranks of those disqualified included dozens of parliamentarians who had previously passed clerical muster and were now standing for reelection. Apparently, Iran’s ayatollahs are now unable to tolerate even a semblance of pluralism within the country’s secular institutions.

The United Nations Releases An Anti-Israel Blacklist By Melissa Langsam Braunstein

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/26/the-united-nations-releases-an-anti-israel-blacklist/

At bottom, this blacklist was created to harm Israel, not to help the Palestinians. Its publication benefits the Palestinians neither diplomatically nor economically.

If there’s one group you can count on, it’s the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Their members are not terribly concerned about human rights, particularly within their own borders, but they sure are consumed by hatred for Israel.

In March 2016, UNHRC decided the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights should release a blacklist of companies “conducting activities in or related to Israel’s settlements,” a move cheered on by supporters of the movement to boycott Israel. However, there were various delays, and that database did not materialize until this month.

In what certainly looks like a clap-back at the Trump administration’s Peace to Prosperity plan for Israelis and Palestinians timing-wise, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet released a list of 112 companies that operate beyond Israel’s Green Line. Not so coincidentally, 94 of the named companies are based in Israel. Six are American companies, including Airbnb and General Mills.

As with the Arab Boycott, this is about stigmatizing Israel and raising the cost of doing business with Israeli Jews. Eugene Kontorovich, director of the Center for International Law in the Middle East at George Mason University Scalia Law School, emailed, “Many of the American firms being targeted have no presence there, but simply do business with companies that do business there. They are simply being blacklisted for refusing to discriminate against Israeli Jews in the provision of their goods and services.”

Politics What I Saw When I Attended A Donald Trump Rally In Colorado Springs By J.C. Bourque

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/26/what-i-saw-when-i-attended-a-donald-trump-rally-in-colorado-springs/

It was inspiring to spend the day with my fellow citizens from all walks of life, united behind one idea: We are Americans first, before anything else. And we want our country back.

Following GPS directions, our Lyft driver turned into the parking lot at the Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado Springs, where we ran smack into a Secret Service blockade. A friendly, heavily armed agent greeted us. It turns out the taxi stand was cordoned off because President Donald Trump would be entering the stadium at that location.

After shuffling through the bus staging area, we were dropped off at public parking. Police and Secret Service agents were everywhere. It was 8:45 a.m., 9 degrees, 84 percent humidity, and winds at 3 mph. “Feels like” 1 degree, according to the weather app.

The staging area was roped off to form a long, snaking chute for people lining up for the Trump rally. These 30 rows or so, each the length of a city block, were considerably longer than the TSA line at Denver International Airport. Temple Grandin was obviously not consulted.

Waiting in Line

We got in line and were immediately introduced to our queue companions, with whom we would be spending the next five and a half hours. There were whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, young, old, straight, and gay people, decked out unapologetically in stars and stripes, celebrating freedom of expression they wouldn’t dare at the supermarket. There was no squabbling, line-cutting, or littering, just thousands of people happily standing in the cold, knowing they could be themselves without Antifa punching them in the face — also knowing they might not get in.

I made two key observations: 1) A Trump rally queue would be a good place to attempt a Guinness World Record for the most men with snow-white goatees ever assembled in one place, and 2) it would be an excellent place to compare clothing from Duluth Trading Company, especially if it’s 9 degrees outside.

Media Serves Up Comedy in Effort to Get Trump Roger Kimball

https://www.theepochtimes.com/media-serves-up-comedy-in-effort-to-get-trump_3248010.html

I don’t believe that President Donald Trump has ever deployed the Twitteresque acronym “ROFLMAO” (rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off). But I know that he appreciates the sentiment because of something he said in February 2018.

At that time, at the apex of Robert Mueller’s Excellent Adventure, Trump observed that people were “laughing their asses off in Moscow” at the malevolent Keystone Cops antics of the Get Trump Brigade.

“If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption, and chaos within the U.S.,” the president observed, “then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.”

That was—and is—exactly right, as was his follow-on observation: “I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said ‘it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400-pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.’ The Russian ‘hoax’ was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia—it never did!”

Period. Full stop. End of story.

But not, of course, the end of the comedy.

How Can Bernie Sanders Happen in America? By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/how-can-bernie-sanders-happen-in-america/

There are many good reasons not to normalize socialism here.

A number of pundits have recently argued that younger voters, especially those under 30, are less inclined to be bothered when they hear the word “socialism,” since they have no firsthand memory of the Cold War.

To some extent, this must be true. Those who weren’t alive during socialism’s cruelest catastrophes — or even its many banal failures — will be less put off by the idea. Then again, if a presidential candidate were praising the excellent public transportation system of the Third Reich or going on about the some alleged benefit to American slavery, they would rightly be chased from the public square forever even though the vast majority of voters have no firsthand knowledge of the Holocaust or slavery. Anti-Semitism and racism haven’t disappeared, and neither has Marx, sadly.

For that matter, many Americans — including Bernie — lived through Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao and they still champion the idea of socialism. It’s completely unsurprising that Bernie once defended the Viet Cong. Because many of us over 40 immediately recognize who Bernie is. I grew up with people like him. In those days, though, adults generally didn’t take their crazy disheveled Commie uncles who taught economics at the local commuter college very seriously. Maybe that’s the problem.

It’s true that Bernie’s fans aren’t acquainted with socialism (and, incidentally, this is true only if we ignore the existence of Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, etc.), but the fact is that most Bernie supporters don’t seem to have a rudimentary grasp of basic economics much less the “socialism” they think exists in Scandinavian nations. What they do have are lots of feelings. And, like millions of other saps over the past century-plus, they’ve been enticed by the collectivist “ethic” — its revolutionary appeal, its religiosity, and its quixotic promises.

“Fascism is remembered as a crime,” John Hayward correctly points out. “Communism is treated like a mistake.” I’d add that capitalism is judged by its few failures and socialism by its few successes. Sanders will never praise the “literary programs” of any non-tyranny. But if I’ve learned anything from Twitter — or perhaps, more accurately, if Twitter has solidified any of my existing suspicions — it’s that academia is teeming with hard-left apologists. There are plenty of fantastic historians out there, of course, but many of loudest academics, the ones media often relies on, are either apologists for socialism or socialists themselves.

After Sanders Snubs AIPAC, Bolton Asks if He’d Make Ilhan Omar His Secretary of State By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/trending/after-snubbing-aipac-conference-bolton-asks-sanders-if-hed-make-ilhan-omar-secretary-of-state/

Bernie Sanders refused an invitation to the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, accusing the group of giving a platform for “bigotry.” This set off John Bolton, who schooled the pro-Palestinian socialist.

Fox News:

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) late Sunday also called out  Sanders over his decision to skip its conference next month in Washington. Sanders cited his concern that the group provides a platform for leaders to “express bigotry” and oppose basic Palestinian rights.

Sanders, who is on the heels of a big win in the Nevada caucuses, took to Twitter on Sunday to voice his concern about the influential lobby. The Vermont senator vowed that if elected president he would work with both Israelis and Palestinians to bring peace and stability to the region.

AIPAC wasted little time to respond to the public rebuke and called his comments an ill-informed and “odious attack.” The pro-Israel lobby said Sanders never attended a conference, which is “evident in the outrageous comment.”

“Senator Sanders is insulting his very own colleagues and the millions of Americans who stand with Israel,” the statement read. “Truly shameful.” Somehow, I don’t think the Bern feels much shame at all.

Radical leftists have been after AIPAC for years.

Last year, liberal groups like MoveOn called on Democratic candidates to sidestep the annual conference.  The groups claimed that the lobby tried to thwart the Iran nuclear deal and backed Israel’s unfair settlement policies, according to reports.  A candidate’s decision to shun the conference could bolster his progressive support.

Ilhan Omar’s appalling ‘collusion’ with Turkey’s tyrant By Benjamin Weingarten

https://nypost.com/2020/02/25/ilhan-omars-appalling-collusion-with-turkeys-tyrant/

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s mandate defined “collusion” as “links and/or coordination” with foreign powers. Democrats and their media allies tried and failed to hang the charge around President Trump’s neck. But one of their own darlings, Rep. Ilhan Omar, has inarguably colluded with an unsavory Islamist regime: Turkey’s.

In fall 2017, Omar, then a state representative, attended a closed meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. According to a report since deleted from a Somali-language periodical, Omar and the Islamist strongman discussed “issues involving Omar’s native Somalia and issues for Somalis in Minnesota. … The meeting ended with Erdogan asking Omar to voice her support for Turkey.”

A month later, Omar would take to Twitter to praise Turkey for providing airlifts for Somalis injured in a Mogadishu truck bombing.

Given recent concerns over foreign influence, one might ask: Why was this state representative meeting with the leader of an increasingly anti-American regime? With what authority was she negotiating Turkish-Somali relations or any foreign-relations matters?

Sweden’s Victimized Children by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15558/sweden-victimized-children

“The suspects are also victims in some sense, but this is still something we have to deal with, that children also commit crimes”. — Police Chief Carin Götblad, Expressen, February 5, 2020.

Parents are afraid to report the crimes committed by other children against their children… In August 2019, 13-year-old Filip and his family had no other choice than to move from the city of Uppsala after a gang of minors made his life there unbearable. He was abused, robbed and his life was threatened by gangs, with Swedish authorities telling him not to report it to the police as this would make things “worse” for him.

Last year there were 257 reports of explosions — including attempted explosions — an increase of 59% compared to 2018, according to SVT Nyheter. Yet, only seven people have been convicted for any of those 257 crimes.

“For the first time now, more crimes — in absolute terms — are committed by persons of foreign background than by persons of Swedish origin… The most crime-prone population subgroup are people born [in Sweden] to two foreign-born parents”. — Report by Det Goda Samhället (“The Good Society”), summer of 2019.

The number of children who rob other children has increased by 100% in only four years, according to a new study by Swedish police about reported violent crimes in which children under the age of 15 are both the victims and the perpetrators. In 2016, there were 1,178 robberies against children under 18 years of age. In 2019, the number had increased to 2,484. The number of violent crimes where the suspect is a child under 15 years of age has also gone up dramatically: In 2015, there were 6,359 reported violent crimes where the suspect was a child under 15. In 2019, that number had increased to 8,719 reported violent crimes.

The crimes involve “Violence to the head, kicks, gun threats, burning with lighters, threats to kill, threats to bomb the school, stabbings with food knives, bites and children who have been scratched, dragged, thrown and locked up by other children”.

The lowest age of a suspected perpetrator was seven. There has also been an increasing number of girl gangs. One girl was violently assaulted by a gang of five girls who kicked her, beat her and spat at her. The girl said she thought she was going to die.

Speaking Clearly about the ‘Deal of the Century’ by Naomi Linder Kahn

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15637/deal-of-the-century

Israel’s and America’s upcoming elections are fateful for both countries and will determine who will conduct the negotiations moving forward. If no clear message is conveyed by Israel — immediately — negotiations after the elections could take this silence as tacit agreement.

The political situation in the United States is no less crucial a factor. American presidents are elected to protect American interests — and these often shift. It is therefore important that Israel not do a deal based on oral understandings of how Israel will be at liberty to respond if and when the Palestinians violate the terms of the agreement (right now, oral understandings are all that exist), as we do not know how those oral understandings will be transmitted or accepted by the next US Congress and administration.

There is a world of difference between the approaches of the candidates from the two major US parties… Israel could easily find itself again having traded tangible facts on the ground for intangible, unenforceable promises.

If Trump is re-elected, the version of his plan eventually ratified by Israel will serve as the basis for negotiations. It is therefore crucial that the threats to Israel’s security are corrected before Israel embraces the “conceptual maps.” If, on the other hand, President Trump is not re-elected, the “Peace to Prosperity” vision may prove to be yet another Oslo Accord — a dangerous hole into which Israel will fall without a safety net. If Israel were to approve the plan now, essentially agreeing to the potential creation, at the end of four years, of a Palestinian state, the overwhelming temptation is for a future US president to begin the conversation from there, and not necessarily hold the Palestinian side to its obligations — which is precisely what happened under the Oslo framework.