Don's Tuesday Column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   3/13/2018

                   Brown’s secession vs. Sessions

The news broke last Wednesday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions, speaking to the California Peace Officers Association, announced that legal action would be initiated against California’s “sanctuary” policies. The lawsuit immediately focuses on state laws that restrict police, sheriffs and courts from interacting to provide both information on illegal alien criminals being released, as well as the actual transfer of said law-breakers into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Also being challenged: a law prohibiting employers from giving ICE access to employee information, even to work sites.

Particularly reprehensible were blatant public notices, given to illegal alien criminals by Oakland’s mayor, of impending ICE sweeps for illegals targeted for removal over their violations of law. Sessions rightly compared the mayor’s action to that of a bank robbery lookout letting the crooks know that the cops on the way. The way I and rule-of-law Americans see it, those illegally entering the United States have no right to anything but swift removal when discovered here—particularly those who have contributed nothing to our country beyond crime statistics.

Polling and news coverage—designed to obfuscate and provoke sympathy for immigrants that violated our borders and laws to be here, and take jobs from Americans and legal immigrants—has done much to undermine the resolve of authorities to uphold the law. Witness the bold, despicable statements of defiance, by Gov. Jerry Brown and state A.G. Xavier Bacerra, of the clear Constitutional position of the Trump administration. I truly hope this attempt to “nullify” federal authority over immigration, which could not be more plain in the law, results in Oakland Mayor Schaaf going to jail, and a speedy Supreme Court slap down of the Brown/Bacerra “resistance” that calls to mind the defiance of the South over slavery.

Displaying hubris and self-righteousness befitting the worst of the Confederate rationalizations over secession, Brown and Schaaf both allowed their rhetoric to reveal their inner derangement against Trump, Sessions and, ironically, Fox News (which must occupy the darkest sub-basement of their minds, rent-free). The projection could not have been more stark: Liar Brown called Sessions a liar; the federal immigration law-defying Brown denied Session’s preeminent position as the nation’s top law enforcement officer; Brown, who should be apologizing to all Californians who’ve been victims of crime at the hands of illegal immigrants, astoundingly called on Sessions to apologize. Apologize for truthfully stating the law?

Showing the fallacious mental gymnastics of the open-borders, law-flouting (when laws don’t suit their agenda) left wing politicians, Schaaf said, “How dare you (Sessions) vilify members of our community by trying to frighten the American public into believing that all undocumented residents are dangerous criminals?” Lie upon lie upon lie serving the greater (for Democrats) cause of maintaining the pipeline of illegal aliens as potential Democrat voters, as well as justifying the abrogation of responsibility for protecting Americans and legal immigrants from violent crime, drugs and vehicular assaults. She’s trying to intimidate those who disagree.

Pivoting to Russia, you might not be aware of some of the bolder intrusions by, and collusion between, Russia and American groups on the left; it gets little news coverage. However, beginning last summer, Republican chairmen of energy-related House panels, Lamar Smith and Randy Weber, were raising alarms that “the Russian government has been colluding with environmental groups to circulate ‘disinformation’ and ‘propaganda’ aimed at undermining hydraulic fracturing. Commonly called fracking, the process makes it possible to access natural gas deposits” (“Lawmakers Cite Evidence Russia ‘Colludes’ With US Green Groups to Block Fracking” by Kevin Mooney, dailysignal.com).

Their sources include a former secretary-general of NATO, who is quoted by the GOP congressmen as saying: “Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations—environmental organizations working against shale gas—to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas (in the case of European nations)…

“If you connect the dots, it is clear that Russia is funding U.S. environmental groups…They have established an elaborate scheme that funnels money through shell companies in Bermuda. This scheme may violate federal law and certainly distorts the U.S. energy market. The American people deserve to know the truth…” This anti-fracking campaign seizes upon environmental issues and health concerns…to try to constrain U.S. drilling and fracking exercises, the letter explains. “It is easy to see the benefit to Russia and Gazprom that would result from a reduction in the U.S. level of drilling and fracking—a position advocated for by numerous environmental groups in the U.S.

Hillary Clinton acknowledged, in a private speech in 2014, being “up against phony environmental groups…funded by the Russians to stand against any effort” for pipelines, fracking—and “a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.” (From email attachment of remarks by Clinton posted at Wikileaks)

Considering the above, Trump favors pipelines and fracking; Obama didn’t. It was Obama, not Trump, that touted the “reset” with Russia; Obama that muttered to Dmitry Medvedev to relay to incoming President Putin that Obama would have “more flexibility” after his reelection; Obama that mocked Mitt Romney for saying Russia posed a threat to America; Obama that failed to respond to Russian cheating on arms-control agreements. After all that, it’s somehow Trump’s doing that Russia felt emboldened to interfere in the 2016 election? No way. Obama’s “Knock it off”? Empty blather.