Are You A US Citizen?

From 1820 until 1950, census takers asked every single person "Are you a citizen of the USA?"  From 1960 until 2000, the same question was asked of the 20% of those questioned who got the extended questionnaire in the census.  (The census bureau has a fuller questionnaire for twenty percent of those interviewed in order to get a statistically valid picture of the entire nation.)  From 2005 onward, the census bureau asked the citizenship question to those who get interviewed in the annual updates undertaken by the government.  In the 2010 national census, however, no citizenship question was asked.  Now, the Commerce Department has decided to put the citizenship question back into the basic census questionnaire.

If the information listed above doesn't sound like a national crisis (because it isn't), you must not be a Democrat activist.  The uproar over the citizenship question has been extensive.  According to Democrats, the question is a racist attempt to lower the numbers of Hispanics responding to the census because they will be afraid of getting caught by ICE and deported.

Think about that argument for a moment.  No American citizen will be dissuaded from answering the question.  No one here legally will be dissuaded from answering the question.  The only ones who will be concerned at all will be those here illegally.  But here's the point:  the census doesn't follow up to ask if the person responding is here legally.  It just asks about citizenship.  An illegal alien who lies and says yes or tells the truth and says no to the citizenship question will just be lumped into either the group of citizens or of non-citizens and not separated out as an illegal.

Surely, it can't be improper for the government to determine how many US citizens there are. 

Despite the custom of asking in the past about citizenship, a group of Democrat city and state governments ran to a Court in New York City and got an order stopping the census bureau from using the question.  The judge ruled that it was "arbitrary and capricious" for the Secretary of Commerce to decide to reinstate the question.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a direct appeal of that matter on an expedited basis.  Oh, the horror!  Many in the media are treating this as some sort of incredible development.  It isn't.  For a federal district court to interfere with the census questionnaire is incredible.  For a judge to rule that using a question that has been in every census but one since 1820 is arbitrary and capricious is incredible.  The reality is that the judge doesn't agree with the decision of the Secretary of Commerce; we all understand that.  The rule of law, however, is that the Secretary is the one who decides, not the judge.  The judge can only step in if the Secretary has no rational basis for his or her decision.  Despite the ruling from a clearly biased judge, there's no way that the Supreme Court is going to find the Secretary's decision to be arbitrary and capricious.

By the end of June, this will all be decided.  The question will go back into the census questionnaire.  You can bank on it.

Jussie Smollett Isn't Looking Too Good

The actor from the show Empire who says he was attacked in Chicago by two white guys who yelled "this is MAGA country" while they poured bleach on him, called him anti-gay and racist slurs, beat him and put a noose around his neck has a major problem.  Jussie Smollett was very clear about his story, but now two men have been arrested for assault and battery for the attack.  The two guys arrested are two actors who also appeared on Empire as extras.  They are black immigrants from Nigeria.  To say the least, Smollett's claim that the attackers were white must be untrue.  These two guys from Nigeria are also not the sort of people who would be yelling about "MAGA country" or who would yell racial slurs at Smollett. 

The current story making the rounds is that Smollett may have arranged the attack with these two guys because he was concerned that he was about to be written off the show.  Smollett clearly knows the two "attackers"; among other things, he follows them on Instagram.

If this turns out to have been a hoax, I hope that the DA brings charges against Smollett.  He would truly deserve it.

Honesty On Parade

Today in Alexandria Ocasio - Cortez news:

The media's favorite far left congressman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been caught in a violation of the House ethics rules and has lied to cover it up.  AOC hired her boyfriend on the staff of her DC office.  When asked about it, AOC said that she had not done this.  The directory of House employees shows the boyfriend on the payroll in AOC's office.  So, not only did she violate ethics rules by hiring her boyfriend, she also lied about it when confronted with the violation.

She may claim to be different, but AOC seems to be just another corrupt politician from New York.

National Emergency -- What it IS and What It ISN'T

President Trump says he is going to declare a national emergency and then move money from other appropriations to build a border wall.  This has raised all sorts of arguments about what the effect of an emergency declaration is.  It's worth exploring.

Congress passed legislation that gives the president the power to declare an emergency.  Since the law went into effect, presidents have declared something like 40 different emergencies.  That declaration, however, does not give the president unlimited powers to do anything he wants.  One power it does give him, though, is the ability to move money already appropriated to handle projects designed to deal with the emergency.  In other words, President Trump could take money appropriated for something like road construction or maintenance in the National Parks and redesignate it for construction of the wall.  It's worth noting that president Obama declared emergencies and redesignated monies for different purposes six times during his term in office.

The people who are busy screaming about the "precedent" Trump will set by this declaration are, for the most part, wrong.  When Nancy Pelosi says that a future Democrat president could declare an emergency regarding school shootings and take action (like gun confiscation), that's wrong.  A president could move funds from one item to pay for guards at schools, but he couldn't just seize legally owned guns.  The same is true with the so called Green New Deal.  A president could not ban air travel or cows as called for by the Green New Deal.  He could add funds to the EPA budget, however.

It's important to add that in many appropriations bills, Congress actually includes language that says that the money being appropriated cannot be transferred except with the approval of Congress.  The Congress understands that it gave the president the power to move money in an emergency, so it protects some of the appropriations. 

There is no doubt that someone is going to challenge the declaration and the movement of the money.  There is, however, little doubt that the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the action by the President.

Perhaps The Most Amazing Story Regarding Fake News

You may know that three days ago, there were reports that the Senate committee investigating supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election has found no evidence of any such collusion.  The committee spent two years on the investigation and did exhaustive work.  The committee chair, senator Richard Burr of NC confirmed that it found no collusion and some of the Democrat senators on the committee confirmed this conclusion.

I started this by saying "you may know", however, because the mainstream network news shows have not bothered to mention the story.  According to the Media Research Council, since the start of 2017, the three network evening news shows (on CBS, ABC and NBC) have devoted over 2,200 minutes of coverage to supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the election.  Nevertheless, not even a single one of these shows bothered to mention that the investigation found that there was no such collusion.

If you ever wanted proof that the mainstream network "news" tailors its coverage to fit the desired narrative rather than reporting facts, this is it.  It is roughly the equivalent of the news programs covering the presidential election campaign but then not telling people the election results after election day.

Ocasio Cortez Celebrates the Loss of Amazon and its 25,000 Jobs

In the annals of STUPID, there are few people who have so many contributions as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.  The Dem congressman from New York is taking credit for Amazon abandoning its plans to build a second headquarters in Queens.  She actually thinks this is a good thing.  Instead of 25,000 new jobs and a major boost to the neighborhood, New York got a big fat NOTHING instead.  Ocasio Cortez thinks that's wonderful.

The woman is a total moron.  I often use the word moron, I admit it.  Never in the course of human history have so many people lost so much due to the idiocy of so few.

The National Emergency

It's going to be an interesting year on the wall front.  President Trump announced that he will sign the funding legislation for the rest of the year which includes funds for 55 more miles of wall on the southern border.  After that, he is going to declare a national emergency and use other funds to build the rest of the wall as needed. 

As you would expect, half of DC is melting down since the announcement.  Some of the comments have been amazingly stupid.  For example, Elizabeth Warren said that climate change or the opioid epidemic are crises, but the wall is not.  Of course, one of the main reasons for the wall is to help stem the flow of illegal drugs into the US from Mexico.  I guess it was too much for her to put the two together.  Nancy Pelosi is already telling the country that the next Democrat president will declare an emergency for climate change and then take steps that cannot pass Congress.  That may sound good, but think what it tells people around the country about the consequences of voting for a Democrat for President.  Most people paying attention will be less likely to vote for a Democrat as a result.

But let's go back to the basic question.  Should Trump have declared an emergency?  The Dems can call it a temper tantrum or a hoax or whatever they want.  Nevertheless, two things are totally clear:  1)  Trump made clear all through the campaign in 2016 that he would get the wall built, and he is just honoring his promise now.  2)  Trump also tried every way possible to get a deal with the Democrats that would adequately fund border security.  They refused.  He told them that if they refused he would do this.  Now that is exactly what he is doing.  It was the Democrats who were unreasonable, not the President.