Tim Donner: The memo has hit Washington like a ton of bricks, bringing into question the very legitimacy of the multiple investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and certainly about collusion between Russia and Trump. We see the clear evidence, according to Republicans, who one would presume would not put out evidence that could be refuted in the memo, that FISA warrants were granted for surveillance on Trump campaign operative Carter Page on the basis of opposition research by the Clinton campaign. The famous, or infamous, Trump Dossier, and the research included salacious, unverified accusations about Trump, most famously the golden shower he supposedly unleashed at a hotel in Russia and many other fantastic revelations.
Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch who has filed countless Freedom of Information Act requests has followed this as closely as anyone, and he says, “This could be the end of the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller”
Tom Fitton: It’d be difficult to overstate the importance of the revelations of this memo, not only in terms of the corruption during the Obama administration but the really devastating blow it strikes at the Mueller investigation. Look, when you have the Obama Justice Department take their best shot with a FISA court, and their best shot is a Clinton campaign document, to run the narrative that there was Russia collusion requiring surveillance of a Trump campaign official or volunteer, and it turns out there was really nothing else there but for that dossier paid for by Clinton and DNC funds, then that means there’s no Mueller investigation without the dossier paid for by Clinton and DNC funds. So the whole thing is subject to, really I think being called off now, by the Justice Department if they’re brave enough.
Making Alternatives?
Tom Fitton
Tim Donner: We will now wait and see if the alternative memo put out by the lead Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, will also be released. Meanwhile, we know that the left is dead set, at least for now, on opposing the President’s immigration plan. No surprise, even though his plan provides a DACA fix that would legalize twice as many of the so-called Dreamers as the Democrats even demanded, but equally unsurprising is opposition from conservatives who want no amnesty in any form for any illegal immigrants.
So I have a question for those who say, “No DACA deal under any circumstances.” Here’s the question. What, exactly, would you do with the hundreds of thousands of DACA beneficiaries living and working in this country if DACA expires and they become illegal again? What do you do, come to their doors? Cuff them? Drag them away and deport them? Enter the workplace and remove those Dreamers? Arrest them? Deport them? Really? Because that’s what you’d have to do if you were enforcing the law as Trump has promised to do, and has been doing already.
Like it or not, these are people who came here well before they reached the age of reason under the auspices of adults who entered the country illegally. You can’t deport these people to their native country, so to speak, because they effectively have no native country. They’re effectively American because they’ve known nothing else. So go ahead and blame Trump for proposing to give these people legal status and a path to citizenship over 10 to 12 years, but it’s not his fault that these people are here. He wasn’t the president when all these illegals flooded the country. Trump inherited this mess, and he’s not going to fix it by trying to pretend it can just be reversed with the stroke of a pen.
Problem Solver
See, Donald Trump is a problem solver. He was dealt a seven high hand, the worst possible hand, and he can’t change what he inherited, and he can’t rip the country apart by deporting the people most all Americans believe are here by no choice of their own and should have the chance to come out of the shadows and join the system. Instead, this president proposes a realistic solution for what amounts to about 15% of the illegal immigrants in the country. This is 15% of the illegals we’re talking about. The rest of them will be subject to deportation, millions of them.
What Trump can do, and proposes to do in his immigration plan, is to control what he can control from this time forward by tightening chain migration, terminating the diversity visa lottery, and yes, building the big, beautiful wall plus other border security measures. Of course, none of Trump’s plan is acceptable to Democrats tripping all over to respond to Trump’s State of the Union led by, who else, the stumbling, bumbling Nancy Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi: He’s stooped to a new low, in terms of how he dealt with issues. The President presents himself as generous toward Dreamers, but he’s holding them hostage to the most extreme anti-immigrant agenda in generations. We heard more insulting words of ignorance and prejudice toward patriotic immigrant families. Instead of a hand of friendship, as some have said, he presented a clenched fish, fis…uh, a clenched fist.
Tim Donner: Spit it out, Nancy. Spit it out. That was at a press briefing, but there were four or five more formal responses to Trump’s State of the Union from the left. Joe Kennedy IV inexplicably spoke in front of some kind of broken-down car, his mouth glistening from what looked like drool but turned out to be too much ChapStick, apparently. And then, of course, there was Auntie Maxine.
Mad MAxine
Maxine Waters: One speech cannot and does not make Donald Trump presidential. He’s not presidential, and he never will be presidential. He claims that he’s bringing people together, but make no mistake, he is a dangerous, unprincipled, divisive, and shameful racist.
Tim Donner: Now, you might say, “Why even bother to play that?” Maxine Waters is just a far-left extremist who doesn’t really speak for the Democrat party, but incredibly, she’s become a heroine on the left. She goes on MSNBC all the time with questioners who actually take her seriously. But wait, that’s not all. There was yet another formal response to Trump’s State of the Union from Bernie playing the class warfare card.
Bernie Sanders: During the campaign, Donald Trump told us quote, “The rich will not be gaining at all,” end-of-quote on his tax reform plan. Well, that was quite a whopper. As president, the tax reform legislation Trump signed into law a few weeks ago provides 83% of the benefits to the top 1%, drives up the deficit by $1.7 trillion, and raises taxes on 92 million middle-class families by the end of the decade.
MS-13
Tim Donner: Proving again that you can find some kind of statistic to back up whatever you’re saying, but the left’s contempt for Trump was evident throughout the State of the Union, such as when Democrats universally failed to stand for the parents of two black victims of MS-13 illegal immigrant gangs. One of those parents said he was not pleased.
Robert Mickens: I felt it was very disrespectful for the simple fact the Democrats who was there who did not stand up, they were African Americans, so that hurts me a lot to show that they did not have the respect or to honor what just happened to our lives, and to American’s lives, and it’s not right. You know, regardless of how they feel about the President, they should show the respect, because I would show them the respect if that was their loved one.
Tim Donner: But to compound the situation, Joy Reid of MSNBC said, “It’s only right-wingers who care about MS-13 illegal immigrant gang violence.”
Joy Reid: He gives a speech tonight in which he makes it sound like the biggest issue in the United States, the biggest threat, is MS-13, a gang nobody that doesn’t watch FOX News has ever heard of… so it makes it sound like they’re the biggest threat.
Tim Donner: So let’s briefly discuss what kind of threat MS-13 really is. It was started by Central American immigrants with the slogan “kill, rape, control”. The Justice Department says they seek to live up to this motto through truly shocking acts of violence designed to instil fear, vicious machete attacks, execution style gunshots, gang rape, and human trafficking. MS-13 gang members commit murder, and rape, and home invasions, and kidnapping, and carjacking, and robberies largely against other gangs, but with major collateral damage to victims like the ones whose parents were recognized by Trump at the State of the Union. And they’re believed to be behind 25 killings on Long Island alone in the past two years. So there you go. More hard reality the left refuses to acknowledge in their quest for open borders and unlimited immigration.
