Welllll now, will you look at who just surrendered ... conceded the debate by "regressing" into the land of ad hominems. Is that the way you want to play, Perma? You prove my point all along by offering nothing but twisted platitudes, story lines, lies-too-often-repeated-by-Left-wing Media sources, character assassination, false premises and insults ... tie them all up in a bundle and call them "facts"? You are one sick puppy (my apologies to any TRUE canines)!! The more I challenge you, the less literate you appear.

Calling an accurate recitation of history that portrays Democrats in their rightful and true colors "hate-filled rhetoric"? Sounds like self-loathing on your part to me, considering it is Progressives, Liberals and Democrats who have bastardized the language and have been busy running from their own history, re-writing it to put themselves in a positive light and enable them to attract NEW members and PROJECTING all their personal guilt on Republicans. You guys must really hate yourselves!!

Between your anti-Christian mentality, your support of ANTIFA (which you attempt to sell as being anti-fascist while overlooking the fascist and anarchist tactics they employ that are destructive of the rule of law AND societal structure) and the incompatibility of your pet Socialist economic system with freedom and liberty -- Boy!! You've really got it goin' on!! And you try to sell US on how truly American you are? GMAFB!! You obviously have trouble with understanding reality because the truth confuses you so.

I love your take on this issue!!

I don't know what planet you live on but what you ARE speaks so loudly I can't hear a word you're saying. Take this bullshit from your quote, for example. It was Republicans who freed the slaves (Lincoln) and fought for equal Rights for blacks against the Southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats"), who were too busy organizing their military arm as the Ku Klux Klan during reconstruction in OPPOSITION to equal Rights for freed slaves.

Remember retired Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest who helped organize it? The terrorism wrought by your revered "Democratic" party with its intended destruction of free choice, self-determination and freedom was not only directed at the continued subjugation of freed slaves and Blacks, but against Southern Republicans and other whites who disagreed with their proposed policies and beliefs as well., Yes, TERRORISM in the form of nocturnal arson, lynchings, cross burnings, beatings and murder and NOT JUST OF BLACKS.

Look up the history of the NRA's founding in 1871 and you will find its leaders included Union General George Wingate and many leading Republicans of the day. Its founding was purposed in part because the National Guard was failing in its responsibility to provide public skill education in the use of arms, but also because of a need to counter the oppression by Southern Democrats through the KKK on the freedoms and Rights of ALL Americans. Republicans and Conservatives continue to support the NRA and the 2nd Amendment today while Democrats continue to try to limit individual choice in everything except abortion, and advocate for MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL over every aspect of our daily lives and the confiscatory taxes to support it ... kind of like the control they had over the slaves, their existence and their labor.

It was Republicans who continued the fight for equality with the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and 1964 (both of which were filibustered by Democrats) - achieved with NO or negligible support from Democrats, while the Democrats continued their association with the KKK into the 1950's. Woodrow Wilson? Klansman! Even Senator Robert Byrd (D- W Va) was a former klansman, and perhaps a local leader of the KKK. He never publicly disavowed his association with the Klan until on his death bed.

It is telling how the two political parties remain aligned on the same sides today, with Democrats advocating for Welfare and other social programs to keep Blacks enslaved to the government economically, with rules that contribute to the destruction of the Black family (as well as Whites) by discouraging the presence of fathers in the households of WIC and Welfare recipients, while Republicans argue for more individual responsibility which is the SOUL of Freedom, the freedom to make your own decisions and WorkFare to restore a work ethic, pride and self-image reclamation in those damaged by generational Welfare resulting from Democrat policies. FIFTY-THREE YEARS since the "Great Society" was launched by LBJ and only now are Blacks and Whites alike waking up to the damage the creeping socialism of YOUR Party has done to them, their families and their existence.

As far as Ocasio-Cortez support of equal rights and opportunity for all? You make her sound like a Capitalist because that is the ONLY way that can be achieved. Socialism AND the Democrat Party push equality of outcomes - where you are at the FINISH line. Republicans advocate equality of opportunity - where you are at the STARTING line. It's Liberals and Democrats who have given us the ridiculous notion of kids competing in sports where no one keeps score and everyone gets a trophy.

You may live "North of Minneapolis" but I'll wager it's not far North ... likely not as far as Mille Lacs. You fit in well with the Liberal and Socialist nonsense being taught at our Universities like the U of M and, contrary to your assertion that it is not, EVERYTHING of which you accuse Republicans is PROJECTION. You wouldn't be aware of that because it is a psychology term referring to your particular psychosis. If this all wasn't true, your party wouldn't spend so much time running from its own history and trying to re-write it.

Fans of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions were lamenting his resignation the day after the 2018 midterms. Many were bemoaning the fact that Sessions was the only member of Trump’s cabinet who was enforcing America’s immigration laws.

While this is significant, the more important point is that Sessions effectively hamstrung the Trump administration by recusing himself from the Russia fiasco.

As for the claim that Sessions was the “only one” enforcing immigration laws, is that true? Not if you look at the extremely short track record (so far) of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Matt is from Iowa and a personal friend of mine.

The day after Sessions turned in his resignation, Whitaker announced a dramatic course change that has effectively put an end to the so-called “migrant crisis.”

Under new guidelines from the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, illegal aliens can no longer pretend to be refugees and claim asylum in America.

Barack Obama’s creative interpretation of immigration laws was what caused the “migrant crisis” to become a crisis in the first place. Most Americans are shocked when you describe Obama’s shenanigans to them because they thought the laws would actually do something to get an illegal alien out of the country.

Not under Obama’s interpretation.

The way that Obama suddenly had federal agencies “interpreting” the law worked like this…

Suppose an illegal alien sneaks into the country and gets a job as a dishwasher in Boise, Idaho in 2005. Then, ICE catches the illegal, who has stolen an entry-level job and parked on it for several years, denying American youths their chance at their “first job” for several years.

Under Obama’s interpretation of the law, that illegal alien can then claim asylum as a refugee. He's given a court date at which he'll never appear and then goes right back to doing what he was doing before.

And that’s just assuming the illegal is not here to live a life of crime – dealing drugs, stealing, being a serial rapist or murderer in your neighborhood and so forth. (Those could claim asylum as refugees, too.)

This makes an absolute mockery of the law. A “refugee” is someone who has to leave their home country due to warfare or persecution due to race, religion, etc., who has a fear of imminent death.

Basically, they have to be running for their lives to qualify as a “refugee.” If you come to America because you can get a better job at a meatpacking plant in Arkansas than you can back home, that is not “fleeing persecution.”

That is why, to this day, no one in the federal government knows how many people were granted asylum as refugees in the United States. We know where the federal caps were set by the Obama administration, but none of the illegal aliens who claimed to be refugees counted toward the caps.

Conservative activists in California filmed busloads of Somalis being transported in DHS vehicles to be processed as “refugees” after they were caught a hundred miles inside the border. Our immigration laws basically became a farce under Obama. Somali conclaves of illegals have sprung up in the North as far as Fargo, ND, and one lady shopper in St. Cloud, MN was stabbed repeatedly by one such illegal wacko.

Acting AG Whitaker’s first act was to put a stop to this ridiculous interpretation of the law. It’s something that Jeff Sessions could have done back in 2017, but he failed to do so.

Now, if an illegal alien sneaks across the border, they have automatically surrendered the ability to claim they are a refugee.

Refugees don’t sneak in, sign up for welfare under false identities, steal jobs and then one day suddenly remember to contact the government and ask for asylum. They turn themselves in at the border and make their asylum claim. Actually, they are required to turn themselves in and seek asylum in the FIRST country whose border they cross.

Ironically, this is the way the law was interpreted before Obama showed up. Illegal aliens were never classified as refugees before the reign of B. Hussein Obama.

Many Democrats would have scoffed at the idea a few years ago. It was only after Obama “reinterpreted” the law that these massive “migrant caravans” started showing up.

The only thing that will put an end to the problem once and for all is if the wall, which Americans have been asking for since before World War I, is finally built.

In the meantime, it looks like acting AG Whitaker is off to a good start. We know he doesn’t have that creative reading disability that everyone in the Obama administration had, where the words “illegal alien” and “refugee” became interchangeable.

NOOoooooooo! Most on the Left DO NOT know how Impeachment is accomplished or what it means. That is why the major weapon in their political arsenals is a hissy fit that turns into a riot, complete with the destruction of private and public property. They get an idea in their weak minds, validated by partisan idiots in the media whose constant and relentless drumbeat of reinforcement misleads them even farther until they are incapable of reason or critical thinking on any level ... because they have allowed the media and the Radical Left to do their thinking FOR them.

And in truth, that is the very definition of Insanity: Doing the same things over and over and over, and expecting different results ...

Thank you for your service, Perm. But you keep proving how well blinders work on an old war horse. Everything of which you accuse Republicans (clearly distinguishable from Conservatives) is done through utilizing that tired old "projection" technique of which Democrats and the Left are so fond: Attacking the opponent with false charges of the exact things of which you yourself or your party structure is guilty. It has really gotten as old as moldy Swiss Cheese ... only with more holes in its substance.

About your last two posts ... it was a Democrat Congress that created Common Core, signed by Bush '43, much to the chagrin of Conservative aficionados of education. As bad as it is in practice, YOUR education likely would have been improved by it. Everyone in MN knows that the Southern limit of common sense in that state is Brainerd so you obviously are a resident of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, not-so-affectionately known as Minne Ha-Ha!!

Truth! Now if we could only raise his awareness level to "conscious" ... and alert to the lies he's being constantly fed by the LEFT-WING MEDIA. Maybe the latter is too much to ask for ...

Excellent series of posts and arguments, lindajoy! Perm should try chewing on this awhile ... or smoking it in place of whatever it is he's smoking!! (LOL) Did you notice ... this whole discussion thread was much friendlier and made more sense when Permafrost was napping?

We can only hope the next time Sean Penn and the other Hollywood elit(ists) promise to leave the USA for greener pastures "if Trump is elected" that they KEEP THEIR PROMISES and select Venezuela as their Valhalla.

Yes ... uninformed and misinformed. You may be surprised at the number of young and Millennials who are so ignorant economically, they believe all we have to do to create wealth in this Capitalist economy is print more money, and the government will have all the money it needs to pay for the freebies. 10 to 1 that is the belief of Ocasio-Cortez, too.

Aces!! Your last sentence lays out the only possible path to recapture educational superiority ... or even parity. The unionization of teachers has created a stranglehold on the curriculum and the system that will be hard to break, even if (when) education is returned to state control. But the lives and futures of our youth and, therefore, the future of our nation is at stake. What this nation was given at its founding is the most unique and precious gift ever bestowed on mankind, so it is only through the intentional 'dumbing-down' and institutional ignorance of the people that it will ever be replaced. Obviously, that is the goal and the Left is well on the way to achieving it.