Wednesday, August 14, 2019

AMERICA'S CIVIL WAR - MEXICO'S INVASION, OCCUPATION AND LOOTING OR AMERICA FIRST???

Leftist attack on ICE office in San Antonio may be a portent of worse to come

San Antonio's ICE office was hit with a barrage of bullets in the wee hours of the morning, mercifully striking no one, though there were people working in the specially targeted office.
Obviously, what happened was a political act, rooted in die-hard opposition to any enforcement of U.S. borders. According to the Washington Examiner, it was the fourth such act targeting law enforcement in just a few weeks:
Last month, protesters with Never Again blocked the entrances to ICE's national headquartersin Washington, D.C.
In mid-July, police in Tacoma, Washington, fatally shot an armed man after they said he hurled Molotov cocktails at an ICE building.
On July 12, a group of protesters in Aurora, Colorado, took down an American flag and two other flags from outside an ICE facility and raised a Mexican flag and a defaced "thin blue line" flag, which commemorates law enforcement.
Antifa is a likely suspect, given its open advocacy of violence and encouragement from some elements of the media, such as Fredo Cuomo. But there are others, both from the list cited by the Examiner above, as well as a new investigative book coming up from Michelle Malkin, chronicling the funders of open borders. She describes it here.
It represents a downward slide, the Latin Americanization of U.S. politics. If you want to know how Colombia became a hellhole in the late 1990s when first Pablo Escobar and his M-19 leftist guerrilla allies waged a reign of terror on the country's judges, then the Cali cartel did its damage, then the FARC Marxist narcoterrorists made open warfare with the Colombia government, and now the ELN has made Colombia so miserable, look no further than the leftis rhetoric coming from the pols, the press and the university intellectuals. Together, they created the petri dish from which terror attacks on government buildings could go off with such impunity. 
From San Antonio in particular, we are seeing the bedrock of incivility and leftist rhetoric already being laid. The city's congressman, Rep. Joaquin Castro, was last seen doxxing his constituents for donating money to President Trump's re-election campaign and whether he admits it or not, encourging harassment of the locals he purportedly represents. The city's archbishop, Gustavo Garcia-Siller, openly declared President Trump a racist, an unprecedented wading into politics for a Catholic prelate, and something he had to apologize for. But the deed was done. The rhetoric was out there, and next thing you know, a quite possibly liberation theology-minded leftist radical shot up the ICE offices in San Antonio. 
Thus far, in the wake of this gun violence, the archbishop hasn't condemned what happened at his own hometown ICE offices. His outrage over gun violence, it seems, is selective.
Nor have any Democratic politicians so far as I have been able to find. It's hard to prove a negative, but I hunted and didn't see any outrage from leftists, whether political, academic, or media-centered.
The scary thing about this is not the hypocrisy of these supposed anti-gun violencers, but that the stage has been set for worse acts to follow. If the thugs who shot up the government office can get away with this with no condemnation from the petri dish that nourishes their sick dreams of violence and civil war, what's to stop them from cooking up something worse. Nobody in the establishment is going to say anything.
That's what makes this attack a signal that worse is coming.



Heroin, Fentanyl Seized at California Inland Border Security Checkpoints

Border Patrol agents assigned to the El Centro Sector seized packages containing heroin and fentanyl at the Highway 86 inland security checkpoint. (Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/El Centro Sector)
Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/El Centro Sector
3:01

El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents seized heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamine in three separate incidents at California inland border security checkpoints.

Agents assigned to the Highway 86 Border Patrol checkpoint observed a driver approaching for inspection. During an immigration interview, the agents determined the driver to be a U.S. citizen. The agents referred the driver to a secondary inspection area where a K-9 agent alerted to an odor it is trained to detect, according to a statement from El Centro Sector Border Patrol officials.
The agents began a search of the vehicle and found 28 vacuum-sealed packages hidden in the vehicle’s door panels. The agents tested the packages and obtained positive results for methamphetamine. The drugs weighed 39.45 pounds and had an estimated street value of more than $63,000.
Agents arrested the driver and seized the vehicle and drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration will conduct an investigation into the failed smuggling attempt.
On Thursday, agents assigned to the same checkpoint observed a private taxi approaching for inspection. The taxi contained multiple passengers, officials reported. The agents referred the taxi driver to a secondary inspection area where agents discovered one of the passengers, a U.S. citizen, had packages of drugs on his person.
The agents tested the drugs and determined there was 2.61 pounds of heroin and .312 pounds of fentanyl. The total street value of the drugs is estimated to be more than $40,000. The agents arrested the 19-year-old man and turned him and the drugs over to the DEA.
Earlier in the week, agents assigned to the same checkpoint observed a Mitsubishi Eclipse approach for inspection. After a K-9 alerted to an odor it is trained to detect, the agents referred the driver, a 19-year-old man, to the secondary inspection area. Agents discovered multiple drug packages hidden in the fuel tank. The substance tested positive for methamphetamine, officials stated.
Agents reported the weight of the meth to be 42.07 pounds with an estimated street value of $96,761. Agents turned the drugs and the U.S. citizen driver over to the DEA for investigation. Officials also seized the vehicle.
In total, the agents seized more than 80 pounds of methamphetamine, nearly three pounds of heroin, and a small amount of fentanyl. The total value of the seized drugs is reported to be nearly $200,000.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.

Pelosi: ‘Democrats Will Continue to…Protect Clean Air, Clean Water and the Beauty of God’s Creation’



By CNSNews.com Staff | August 14, 2019 | 11:11 AM EDT



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a four-month old baby on Capitol Hill on March 15, 2010. (TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) put out a statement on Tuesday criticizing the new regulationsthat the Trump administration has finalized for the implementation of the Endangered Species Act.
“From Day One, this Administration has put the special interests ahead of the public interest,” Pelosi said.
“This latest disastrous decision deals a devastating blow to our natural inheritance and shamefully abandons our moral responsibility to be good stewards of our planet and its precious resources, all to help out big corporations and polluters--just days after the United Nations warned that our natural world is under ‘unprecedented threat,’” she said.
“House Democrats will continue to be relentless in our work to combat the climate crisis, and to protect clean air, clean water and the beauty of God’s creation for generations to come,” she said.
On Monday, the Department of Interior announced that it had finalized new rules for the implementation of the Endangered Species Act. A significant element of the new regulation deals with when territory that is not inhabited by a species can be declared as “critical habitat” for that species.
“The revisions to the regulations clarify that the standards for delisting and reclassification of a species consider the same five statutory factors as the listing of a species in the first place,” the Department of Interior said. “This requirement ensures that all species proposed for delisting or reclassification receive the same careful analysis to determine whether or not they meet the statutory definitions of a threatened or endangered species as is done for determining whether to add a species to the list.
“While this administration recognizes the value of critical habitat as a conservation tool, in some cases, designation of critical habitat is not prudent,” it said. “Revisions to the regulations identify a non-exhaustive list of such circumstances, but this will continue to be rare exceptions.
“When designating critical habitat, the regulations reinstate the requirement that areas where threatened or endangered species are present at the time of listing be evaluated first before unoccupied areas are considered,” said Interior. “This reduces the potential for additional regulatory burden that results from a designation when species are not present in an area. In addition, the regulations impose a heightened standard for unoccupied areas to be designated as critical habitat. On top of the existing standard that the designated unoccupied habitat is essential to the conservation of the species, it must also, at the time of designation, contain one or more of the physical or biological features essential to the species’ conservation.”
Pelosi Statement on Trump Administration’s Assault on the Endangered Species Act
August 13, 2019
San Francisco – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement after the Trump Administration announced major changes to the way that the Endangered Species Act is applied, which will drastically weaken protections for endangered and threatened species and force scientists to consider economic and business interests while ignoring the impacts of climate change:
“The Trump Administration’s staggering special interest handout perfectly showcases its utter disdain for science and the future.
“From Day One, this Administration has put the special interests ahead of the public interest. This latest disastrous decision deals a devastating blow to our natural inheritance and shamefully abandons our moral responsibility to be good stewards of our planet and its precious resources, all to help out big corporations and polluters — just days after the United Nations warned that our natural world is under ‘unprecedented threat.’
“House Democrats will continue to be relentless in our work to combat the climate crisis, and to our protect clean air, clean water and the beauty of God’s creation for generations to come.”

Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding the Wicked War on ICE?

All the gun control zealots out in full force last week have apparently gone to the beach. An alarming shooting took place at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in San Antonio on Tuesday. Local media reported that "multiple shots were fired on two floors targeting ICE officials." But the Second Amendment saboteurs were AWOL.
Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Federal government workers are under literal fire for enforcing our immigration laws and protecting America. But the left-wing Moms Demand Action ignored the story. So did the anti-gun Brady Campaign agitators. And the usual stampede of camera-hogging Democratic presidential candidates lost their unquenchable thirst for the spotlight to blame "hate speech" for inducing violence.
The vacuum is bipartisan. With few exceptions, Beltway Republicans have also lost their tongues when they should be relentlessly smashing the open borders wall of silence about this escalating anti-ICE terror campaign. The San Antonio attack comes just one month after an antifa extremist ambushed an ICE detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, armed with a rifle and incendiary devices. The vengeful antifa gunman had assaulted a police officer last year at the same location, received a wrist slap, and then published a manifesto that declared: "I strongly encourage comrades and incoming comrades to arm themselves."
The Tacoma terrorist had also invoked the incendiary ICE-bashing rhetoric of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her diatribes on ICE centers as "concentration camps" were, in turn, borrowed from and amplified by rent-a-mobsters who demonized Homeland Security employees at a string of summer demonstrations against ICE facilities the past two years -- from the lawless hellhole of Portland to the D.C. swamp to the Big Apple criminal sanctuary to my adopted home state of Colorado, where the American flag was ripped from its post and replaced with the Mexican flag by still-unidentified vandals on the loose.
The same hysterical demagogues who are blaming me for the El Paso shooting because my first book on immigration in 2002 was titled "Invasion" are silent about the climate of hate wrought by:
--The New York Times op-ed page's brazen call to target ICE and Border Patrol agents and their families.
--WikiLeaks' "ICE Patrol" personal information and location database targeting more than 9,000 ICE employees, from auditors to young research assistants and interns, electricians, IT analysts, field intelligence officers, translators, anti-terrorism experts and detention and deportation agents.
--Twitter's publication of bloody hate speech by antifa and Abolish ICE thugs, including Occupy Wall Street's graphic cartoon advising followers on how to stab an ICE agent in the chest "and pull out his still beating heart."
Who's funding the wicked war on ICE? For starters, open borders billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations, his son Alex's Jewish social justice nonprofit Bend the Arc, Soros-backed CREDO Action, and the Soros-funded Center for Popular Democracy, United We Dream and Make the Road New York have all subsidized and stoked hatred of ICE and the Border Patrol.
This is not anti-Semitism, white nationalism or white supremacy. It's fact.
And it's not a conspiracy "theory" that Soros' money has fueled dangerous immigration anarchy. It's conspiracy truth.
Even more shocking is how much of the toxic propaganda undermining the men and women on our Homeland Security frontlines is being underwritten by unsuspecting taxpayers, churchgoers and consumers.
In the coming weeks, I will be exposing the global financiers and government programs promoting the campaign to "melt ICE," turn the Border Patrol into the "diaper patrol," open the floodgates to every last unvetted Muslim refugee and unassimilated, low-wage Central American laborer, and erase the America my legal immigrant parents taught me to cherish.
My seventh book, "Open Borders, Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction," will be released on Sept. 10, 2019. I've compiled nearly 500 pages and 12 appendices and maps tracing tens of billions of dollars spent or received by 400+ nonprofits, religious charities, legal organizations, political lobbying groups, businesses and government contractors, backed up by 1,600-plus footnotes to educate my fellow citizens.
Border security and restored sovereignty start with defunding the funders of America's destruction, and then prosecuting them as criminal open borders racketeers. Follow the money; find the truth.
Malkin is author of the upcoming book, "Open Borders, Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction," available now for preorder at Amazon.com. Her email is michellemalkininvestigates@protonmail.com.

CRONY CAPITALISM
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.


OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to

the top 1% of the world’s wealthy. 

“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes.  This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ----Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER

OBAMA: SERVANT OF THE 1% 

Richest one percent controls nearly half of global wealth 

The richest one percent of the world’s population now controls 48.2 percent of global wealth, up from 46 percent last year.



The report found that the growth of global inequality has accelerated sharply since the 2008 financial crisis, as the values of financial assets have soared while wages have stagnated and declined.


PATHOLOGICAL LIAR BARACK OBAMA MOCKS TRUMP
Obama orchestrated the greatest transfer of wealth to the rich in U.S. history!

THE WALL STREET BOUGHT AND OWNED DEMOCRAT PARTY
SERVING BANKSTERS, BILLIONAIRES and INVADING ILLEGALS

“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes.  This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ----Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER

THE CRONY CLASS:

Income inequality grows FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama-Biden and their bankster regime than Bush.



“By the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994 Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has helped create the largest prison population in the world.”

“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes.  This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ----Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER

INCOME PLUMMETS UNDER OBAMA AND HIS WALL STREET CRONIES

Double Standards: Will the Media Hold Warren and Harris Accountable for Spreading a Pernicious Racial Hoax?


In case you missed it over the weekend, two 'top tier' Democratic presidential hopefuls actively spread a vile lie, perpetuating a racially-charged hoax for cheap political gain.  Considering the intense scrutiny paid to President Trump's divisive rhetoric and loose relationship with the truth, both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris should be in serious damage control mode this week, if journalistic standards were consistent.  Instead, both have been dinged by a handful of conservatives (and a few other fact-check wrist slaps -- see update), with relatively little attention paid to their actions.  Days after these tweets, both remain published, and neither campaign appears to be facing much heat at all.  Here are the social media posts in question:


5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on.



Michael Brown’s murder forever changed Ferguson and America. His tragic death sparked a desperately needed conversation and a nationwide movement. We must fight for stronger accountability and racial equity in our justice system.


Both of these tweets are extremely irresponsible and dishonest, framing Michael Brown's killing by a police officer as a "murder."  It was not.  As David French reminds us, the Obama-Holder Justice Department reviewed all the evidence of that officer-involved shooting in great detail, and cleared the officer of wrongdoing.  Here are the facts of the case:
When [Officer] Wilson first spotted Brown and his friend, he told them to walk on the sidewalk. He then realized that they matched the description of the theft suspects and blocked their path with his vehicle. Wilson tried to open his door, but it either bounced off Brown or Brown slammed it shut. Brown then reached into the vehicle and started punching Wilson. As Wilson fended off the blows, he reached for his gun. Brown allegedly tried to take the gun from Wilson, and Wilson managed to get a shot off, injuring Brown in the hand. Eyewitnesses corroborated Wilson’s claims that Brown was reaching in the car, and these claims were further corroborated by “bruising on Wilson’s jaw and scratches on his neck, the presence of Brown’s DNA on Wilson’s collar, shirt, and pants, and Wilson’s DNA on Brown’s palm.” Brown then started to run away. After a brief pause Wilson pursued, ordering Brown to stop. Brown then turned back to Wilson and started running toward him. According to the report, “several witnesses stated that Brown appeared to pose a physical threat to Wilson as he moved toward Wilson.” Wilson fired again, striking Brown several times, yet Brown kept moving toward Wilson until the final shot hit him in the head, killing him.
And French's summary of the Justice Departments post-investigation findings:
The report’s conclusion was crystal clear: "Given that Wilson’s account is corroborated by physical evidence and that his perception of a threat posed by Brown is corroborated by other eyewitnesses, to include aspects of the testimony of [Brown’s friend], there is no credible evidence that Wilson willfully shot Brown as he was attempting to surrender or was otherwise not posing a threat." [Emphasis added.] The report flatly declared that Wilson “did not act with the requisite criminal intent.”“No credible evidence” is a powerful statement, but if you read the report, it’s a powerful statement based not just on extensive forensic evidence but also on the courageous testimony of witnesses who feared reprisal for speaking the truth.
Warren's commentary is even worse than Harris' because it compounds the "murder" libel by highlighting the race of the police officer, citing the incident as emblematic of "systemic racism" and "police violence."  This is disgraceful.  The "hands up, don't shoot" myth has been blasted to pieces by fact-checkers; resurrecting the lie in order to stir racial grievances is indefensible.  I am not a reflexive defender of the police in every circumstance.  Real abuses do occur, and some police shootings and other actions deserve serious criticism.  It therefore does a grave disservice to our policy and cultural discussions around these issues to seize upon a thoroughly debunked example to make a point, as if the real facts were never illuminated -- especially given the racially-charged political climate in this country (to which Democrats are almost gleefully contributing).  Will either of these powerful politicians be pressed and challenged for promulgating these damaging lies based on nakedly political calculations?
It's also worth noting that Harris followed up on this grave falsehood by accusing the Trump administration of inflicting a program of "terror" upon immigrant communities.  Her evidence?  The Mississippi ICE raids, which were an entirely legitimate exercise in internal immigration enforcement.  Her hyperbole is once again harmful and misleading.  As for Warren, we should not be surprised that she's engaging in this sort of thing, given her longstanding penchant for self-serving racial hoaxes.  I'll leave you with Warren's latest "plan," which -- in addition to pressuring Walmart to stop selling guns altogether -- seeks to increase taxes as to make the exercise of a constitutional right more expensive for average Americans:


1) Warren concedes here that > taxes lead to less economic activity showing how her tax big business platform will kill the economy.

2) Increasing costs for people to exercise their rights disproportionately affects the poor and minorities. This is an attack on their rights. https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1160337528668467202 



UPDATE - Here's a start. Four Pinocchios from the Washington Post. Could that be the peg for a feeding frenzy of pointed questions? I'm still not holding my breath.









Guy Benson's Latest Book, End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun). is available on Amazon



Pollak: Barack Obama Wrote the Playbook on Political Division

 


Left-wing pundits have accused President Donald Trump of using his tweets last weekend to launch a divisive re-election campaign.

David Axelrod, former adviser to President Barack Obama, tweeted: “With his deliberate, racist outburst, @realDonaldTrump wants to raise the profile of his targets, drive Dems to defend them and make them emblematic of the entire party. It’s a cold, hard strategy.”
That is debatable — but if so, Axelrod should know; Obama did it first.
By 2011, Obama knew that re-election would be difficult. The Tea Party had just led the Republicans to a historic victory in the 2010 midterm elections, winning the House and nearly taking the Senate. The economy was only growing sluggishly, and Obama’s stimulus had failed to keep unemployment below eight percent, as projected. Moreover, the passage of Obamacare had provoked a backlash against Obama’s state-centered model of American society.
Facing a similar situation in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton had “triangulated,” moving back toward the middle, frustrating the GOP by taking up their issues, such as welfare reform.
But Obama rejected that approach. Having watched his icon, Chicago mayor Harold Washington, settle for an incremental approach when faced with opposition in the 1980s, only to die of a sudden heart attack before fulfilling his potential, Obama chose the path of hard-left policy — and divide-and-rule politics.
The first hint of his strategy emerged during the debt ceiling negotiations in the summer of August 2011. As Bob Woodward recounted in his book about the crisis, The Price of Politics, then-Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) had wanted to reach a “grand bargain” with the president on long-term spending cuts. But Obama blew up that agreement by demanding $400 billion in new taxes, to his aides’ surprise. Obama wanted an opponent, not a deal. (Last week, Boehner told Breitbart News Tonight that Obama’s decision was his worst disappointment in 35 years of politics.)
In the fall of 2011, a new left-wing movement, Occupy Wall Street, was launched. A mix of communists, anarchists, and digital pranksters, the Occupy movement cast American society as a struggle between the “99 percent” and the “one percent.”
Obama and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) embraced the movement — and failed to distance themselves from it even as it collapsed into violence, sexual assault, and confrontations with police.
Instead, Obama picked up on Occupy’s themes and used them to shape his campaign.
In December 2011, Obama gave a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas — a place steeped in radical symbolism — at which he doubled down on his left-wing policies. He focused on the issue of economic inequality, and attacked the idea that the free market could lift the middle class to prosperity. “This isn’t about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare,” he insisted.
Then, in the spring of 2012, Obama made a controversial play on race. When a black teen, Trayvon Martin, was killed in Florida during a scuffle with neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, Al Sharprton — who was serving as an informal adviser to Obama at the time — made the local crime story into a national racial controversy. Obama, following Sharpton’s lead, weighed in: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” Obama said at the time.
Poll numbers suggest that race relations, which had been improving, dropped precipitously after that. But to Obama, it was worth it: the campaign needed to find a way to motivate minority voters. (Vice President Joe Biden did his part, telling black voters that GOP nominee Mitt Romney was “gonna put y’all in chains.”)
Trump is pushing a non-racial, nationalist message. But if he actually wanted to divide America for political gain, he could learn from the master.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.



Heading for civil war

Donald Trump’s opponents are completely unhinged. The hate and slander directed towards the president and his supporters is off the charts. The vitriol comes not just from the Democrat party, the media, and the world of entertainment, but also from a sizable proportion of the federal bureaucracy and many seemingly ordinary people.  
The media coordinates this campaign and amplifies the hate at every opportunity. Media twist every event, be it big or small, into a criticism of the president. The goal is always to present Trump in not just an unfavorable light but to make him appear too loathsome for polite society. And Trump is not the sole target of this demonization. It is directed at his supporters, too. 
Where will all this lead? No less than Angelo M. Codevilla fears it could ultimately result in a bloody civil war. And if it comes to that, there's no doubt where he places the blame.  
The story of the contemporary American Left's sponsorship of hate and violence began around 1964, when the Democrats chose to abandon the Southern constituencies that had been its mainstay since the time of Jefferson and Jackson. In less than a decade, the party found itself increasingly dependent on gaining super-majorities among blacks, upscale liberals, and constituencies of resentment in general -- and hence on stoking their hate. 
For the past half century, America's political history has been driven by the Democrats' effort  to fire up these constituencies by denigrating the rest of America.
Codevilla notes that prominent Democrats like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton have led millions of their followers "to think and act as if conservatives were simply a lower level of humanity, and should have their faces rubbed in their own inferiority."
It’s not surprising that many ordinary followers have concluded that harassing conservatives in restaurants, airports, and public functions is "not just permissible but praiseworthy, and if thousands of persons who exercise power over cities, towns, and schools have not concluded that facilitating such harassment and harm is their duty."
This is the toxic environment that the Democrats, in conjunction with the media, have created. Has Pandora's box been opened? Are we beyond the point of no return? Are leftists and their liberal soulmates too obtuse not to expect that hate and violence will someday be answered in kind? These questions are up in the air. Right now, one thing is clear. As Yeats wrote: "The best lack all conviction while the worse are full of passionate intensity."
Codevilla's worry about a civil war dovetails with The Fourth Turning,: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About American's Next Rendezvous with Destiny (1997)  by William Strauss and Neil Howe. To my reading, these authors predict a Fourth Turning Crisis period around the years 2020-2022. Then, many things that Americans have always taken for granted will unravel. 
Just to touch on a few of the changes that Strauss and Howe see: today's soft criminal justice system will become swift and rough. Vagrants will be rounded up and the mentally ill recommitted. Criminal appeals shortened and executions hastened. Pension funds will go bust and Social Security checks become iffy. The full spectrum of society will be under distress. All the problems will be combined into one -- the survival of society.  
Aren't the seeds already planted for a crisis? Trust in Washington and in government institutions is at an all-time low. Political violence is tacitly condoned and often openly encouraged by Democratic officeholders. The political establishment encourages massive Illegal immigration. The mainstream media is highly partisan and corrupt beyond reform. The American flag, the country's history, and even its nationhood are openly despised in universities. American public schools are a disgrace despite the money poured into them. The country is burdened by a $22 trillion national debt to which many trillions more of unfunded government liabilities must be added. Students owe a trillion dollars in school loans that can never be repaid.
Someday there has to be a reckoning for all this dysfunction. Irrespective of the election results in 2020, the time frame of 2020-2022 sounds about the right for things to come to a head. It would be prudent to be ready. 

The Left and the Democratic Party are now so committed to open borders and illegal immigration that they cannot reverse course without a major upheaval within their ranks.  Do they really give a damn about the African American population, native born or naturalized Hispanics, and the low-income white working families?  Or, are the potential votes of the illegal population more important?  With the spending plans outlined above how will they buy off these groups as there will be no money or jobs?  How will they avoid the inevitable friction and potential hostility with so many in the marketplace and a limited number of jobs in the low-income sector?

Can the Democratic Party Govern America?

I recently had a lunch meeting with a client of 25 years who is a lifelong member and financial supporter of the Democratic Party.  While we managed to avoid politics as best we could, the inevitable subject of Donald Trump and the Democratic presidential field reared its head.   Once my friend got past the usual left-wing talking points about Trump, I asked him a simple question.  Given the current state of the American Left and their domination of the Democratic Party would the Democrats be able to govern a nation of 330 million people the size of the continent of Europe if they assumed all the reins of power in Washington D.C.?  I was met with a blank stare and a stammered “I really don’t know.”
So, for the benefit of my friend and his fellow Democrats and leftists some further questions to help them answer that fundamental inquiry.
This same cabal that would be charged with governing the nation has, for the past three and a half years, marginalized, physically confronted and repeatedly accused 63 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump of being not only racists but fascists and white supremacists, as well as homophobic, xenophobic and among the most vile people on the face of the earth.  What will be their intentions for these rightfully incensed citizens?  Ignore them and hope they go away (which they will not)?  Or succumb to their base in order to stay in power and continue to vilify nearly half of the voters in 2020, thus potentially fomenting serious ongoing confrontations and retaliation. 
Over the years 154 million fundamentalist, evangelical or Catholic Christians have been denigrated, mocked and pilloried for their beliefs as religious liberty is under continual assault by the Left and the Democratic Party.  What can this segment of society look forward to under a government committed to promoting unfettered abortion and infanticide as well as a determination to purge society of its basic Judeo-Christian foundation?  It is almost certain that the hierarchy of the party, in order to placate their base, will continue, by litigation, administrative decrees, and intimidation, to force their secularism on the nation.   How will they respond to what will be increasing anger and resentment by 48% of the population?
In a nation of 330 million people there will always be those who will commit mass murder.  When and if the current iteration of the Democratic Party takes over, these occurrences will increase.  The left has always blamed rhetoric and guns as the primary causation.  Thus, when mass murders occur, a Democratic Party in power will have no choice but to appease their left-wing voters (the bulk of their base) and continue to ignore underlying factors such as societal breakdown and mental illness and actively focus on limiting speech and gun control. 
Currently 235 million Americans either own or could see themselves owning a gun. How will the Democrats in power go about confiscating guns in a nation of 3.8 million square miles?  Utilize a national registry of all gun owners?  Outlaw all semi-automatic weapons?  Impose onerous taxes and insurance requirements making gun ownership unaffordable?  Pass open-ended red flag laws allowing virtually anyone to file a complaint against someone, ostensibly based in their suspicions, thus allowing the police to seize the guns of the accused?  As for speech, will certain words, phrases and organizations, as determined by the Left, be considered inciteful and dangerous and thus outlawed?  How will the Democrats deal with the inevitable resistance and potential violent pushback from upwards of 72% of the nation’s citizenry?
Once in power, the Democrats are committed to Medicare for all, reparations for African Americans, and new environmental programs amid a myriad of spending programs.  The estimated average annual cost of these proposals exceeds $6 Trillion over and above current spending.  At present the federal government spends $4.7 Trillion (which includes $1 Trillion of deficit spending).  Income taxes account for 50% of all government revenue and Social Security and Medicare withholding account for 36%.  Thus, individuals account for 86% of all revenue.  In order for the Democrats to pay for these programs, revenue from individual taxpayers would have to be increased by 200%.
As the Democrats have promised not to touch Social Security and Medicare withholding, all the increase would have to be in the income tax arena.  Based on the most recent IRS analysis the effective average income tax rate would have to be 80% on the top 10% of income tax filers, a rate of 65% on the next 40%, and a rate of 40% on the bottom 50% of filers. This does not include Social Security and Medicare withholding of another 8 to 12 percentage points plus an average state income tax rate of 8.5 percentage points.  Further, the corporate tax rate would have to be increased from a current rate of 21% to 60%.
How would the Democrats enforce these new rates as people either refuse to pay or go into the underground economy?   How would they pay for massive unemployment and welfare benefits as a result of an avalanche of layoffs and business closures?  What are their plans for the recession and potential depression that would ensue?  From whom would the government borrow money and at what exorbitant interest rate? Would they successfully coerce the Federal Reserve into printing trillions of dollars in new money creating massive uncontrolled inflation? 
On the other hand, if they do not initiate some if not all of these programs, how do they placate their base and voters without blaming it on the other side as they are wont to do -- thus further antagonizing and pitting segments of society against each other.
Recently the Democratic Party has become the party of open borders and amnesty as well as ultimate citizenship for upwards of 22 million illegal immigrants and with open borders at least another 2-4 million more every year.  The vast majority of these illegal immigrants are functionally illiterate and lacking in employable skills. 
Currently 30% of all working families (or nearly 50 million Americans) are essentially unskilled and low income but above the poverty threshold.  60% of these are families headed by racial/ ethnic minorities.  African-Americans, while 13% of the population (41 million), account for nearly 30% of low income working families.  Another 39 million Americans live below the poverty level.  Thus, a total of 89 million live in low-income families or in poverty.  Yet the Democratic Party, that claims to be the champion of minorities and low-income families, is pushing to ultimately legalize upwards of 22 to 30 million unskilled illegal immigrants (equal to 55 to 73% of the current African American population) which will devastate low income working American families.
The Left and the Democratic Party are now so committed to open borders and illegal immigration that they cannot reverse course without a major upheaval within their ranks.  Do they really give a damn about the African American population, native born or naturalized Hispanics, and the low-income white working families?  Or, are the potential votes of the illegal population more important?  With the spending plans outlined above how will they buy off these groups as there will be no money or jobs?  How will they avoid the inevitable friction and potential hostility with so many in the marketplace and a limited number of jobs in the low-income sector?
In summary, while the current American Left dominated Democratic Party and its propaganda arm, the mainstream media, may be good at sowing confusion, communicating overt falsehoods and vilifying their opponents in order to win elections, they cannot and will never be able to successfully govern a nation of 330 million people the size of the continent of Europe.  If they ever fully control all the levers of power, this nation will, in due course, cease to exist.