Democrats Collapse in Georgia, and Sessions Is Pursuing Them for their Sanctuary City Rebellion against America

On a day when the Progressive Democrats and their media lapdogs are trying to make a winner out of a loser, there is also the important question of sanctuary cities to consider. • • • PROGDEMS FAIL IN GEORGIA ELECTION. Newsmax reported that Democrat candidate Jon Ossoff, "an upstart Democrat in a special election in a conservative Georgia 6th congressional district failed to stave off a runoff election early Wednesday morning." With 100% of the vote counted, Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old former congressional staffer, had 48.1% of the vote, according to AP results, well below the 50% plus one needed to prevent a runoff." To be clear, Ossoff was running against an unpardonable number of GOP candidates -- 11 among the 17 on the ballot with Ossoff -- and he had money pour into the district as Democrats tried to snag the seat previously held by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. A report from The Center for Public Integrity found that of more than $9 million spent on the race by outside groups as of Sunday just $1,070 came from inside Georgia. Of that total, Ossoff raised more than $8.3 million, mostly from donors far from the northern suburbs of Atlanta or Georgia, dwarfing what any Republican candidate has spent on the contest. President Trump hit Twitter urging Republicans to cast ballots late Tuesday. He even mocked Ossoff's choice of residence -- outside the district : "Just learned that Jon @Ossoff, who is running for Congress in Georgia, doesn't even live in the district. Republicans, get out and vote!" Later, Trump tweeted : “Despite major outside money, FAKE media support and eleven Republican candidates, BIG 'R' win with runoff in Georgia. Glad to be of help!” The failure of one candidate to breach the 50% mark means that voters will go to the polls in June to select the winner between Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel, a former Georgia Secretary of State with high name recognition. In the runoff in June; when there is just one Republican instead of 11 dividing up the vote on the right, it’s hard to see how Ossoff can win. An outright Democratic win on Tuesday would have been a painful blow to Trump’s agenda. A loss so shocking for the party would have caused current members of the House to take big steps back from Trump and his initiatives. But, Democrats may have hyped the race too much, giving Trump an opportunity to claim what otherwise would have been a completely unremarkable win in a long-term red district. Now that the Democrats have made it "big news," it gives the President the chance to claim victory. Pity the Democrats who will have to slog along with Ossoff while hetakes a probable drubbing in June. • Georgia will definitely be on our minds come June. • • • NEIL GORSUCH, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE. American Thinker said last Friday that the signs of the American renewal championed by Donald Trump are finally beginning to show : "The week started with the swearing in of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. This portends a potentially sane court policy for years. Another ideological leftist on the court would have been a disaster. Instead, we have a stabilizing, common sense, intellectually clear judge to countermand the court’s drift to the left. It means we still have a reasonable shot at holding on to being a country of laws, rather than a country of cool personalities with bad ideas. We no longer need to fear the lack of constitutional authority. That’s a big deal. Equally big is how the foolish Democrats tried to filibuster his nomination and lost. This means that the next good Supreme Court nomination by Trump will also sail through. And the next if there is one." • Justice Gorsuch will be key in the fight against illegal immigration and sanctuary cities. American Thinker says : "The wave of illegals has been cut by 70% since Trump’s inauguration. And the Wall doesn’t even exist yet. So much for all those who said we couldn’t halt this illegal flood. ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is deporting criminals, sanctuary cities are going to lose funds, Lansing, Michigan, just voted to stop being a sanctuary city, overcoming their 'sanctuary' mayor. • The Reagan years began shakily, with his agenda building steam slowly, but it eventually became an unstoppable force for the renewing of the American spirit in the 1980s. Many look back on Reagan’s decision to fire the air traffic controllers as the beginning point of the good things that happened. And, Americans today may eventually look back on the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch as the turning point in the Trump agenda to put America back into "constitutional good health." • • • WHAT IS A SANTUARY? Wikipedia states that 'Sanctuary' is a word derived from the Latin sanctuarium, which is like most words ending in -arium, a container for keeping something in -- in this case holy things or perhaps holy people, sancta or sancti. The meaning was extended to places of holiness or safety. A religious sanctuary may be a sacred place (such as a church, temple, synagogue or mosque), or a consecrated area of a church or temple around its tabernacle or altar. In Europe, Christian churches were sometimes built on land considered to be a particularly holy spot, perhaps where a miracle or martyrdom was believed to have taken place or where a holy person was buried. Examples are St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and St. Albans Cathedral in England, which commemorate the martyrdom of Saint Peter (the first Pope) and Saint Alban (the first Christian martyr in Britain), respectively. The place, and therefore the church built there, was considered to have been sanctified (made holy) by what happened there. In modern times, the Catholic Church has continued this practice by placing in the altar of each church, when it is consecrated for use, a box (the sepulcrum) containing relics of a saint. The relics box is removed when the church is taken out of use as a church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the antimension on the altar serves a similar function. It is a cloth icon of Christ's body taken down from the cross, and typically has the relics of a saint sewn into it. In addition, it is signed by the parish's bishop, and represents his authorization and blessing for the Eucharist to be celebrated on that altar. • • • SANCTUARY CITIES AND THE BIBLE. James K. Hoffmeier -- a professor of Old Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and author of “The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens and the Bible” -- wrote an article for Religion News Service in February that dealt with Sanctuary Cities, asking the question, Does the Bible really advocate sanctuary cities? Approximately 40 cities and hundreds of counties in America have joined the “sanctuary cities” movement, which means they offer limited or no cooperation to federal officials carrying out deportations. President Trump’s January 25 executive order to halt federal funding to these local governments has reignited the debate over the practice. Hoffmeier writes : "While immigration laws require local governments to inform federal officials when undocumented immigrants are held in nonfederal prisons for various offenses, the practice of sanctuary -- a place of legal protection -- is rooted in laws of the Torah or Old Testament. That leads some Christians and Jews to think that offering such a shield from the law to illegal immigrants is a noble thing. Most advocates, however, seem totally unaware of the conditions prescribed in the Old Testament for receiving such protection." Hoffmeier explains that sanctuary is among the laws given to Moses at Mount Sinai, according to Exodus 21:12-15. Only intentional or premeditated killing was punishable by death. Thus, accroding to Hoffmeier : "The reason why people in Bible times sought sanctuary was because of the lex talionis, the law of retaliation, or the 'eye for an eye' principle. But, often, the punishment exceeded the crime. When the Old Testament law introduced the law of retaliation, it was to limit the punishment to fit the crime, as Exodus 21:23-25 specifies : 'if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.' ” In later biblical law specific cities would serve as a place of sanctuary. They will be places of refuge from the avenger, so that a person accused of murder may not die before he stands trial before the assembly. The purpose of the practice of sanctuary at the temple or the cities of refuge scattered throughout Israel was to provide safe zones to which the person who had accidentally killed someone could flee, be protected from excessive retribution and have the case heard by an impartial judge....A person who was found guilty of intentionally murdering someone should be removed from the protection of the sanctuary and receive his punishment. • Hoffmeier says : "According to these biblical passages dealing with the practice of sanctuary in the Bible, it is clear that its purpose was limited exclusively for offenders who had accidentally or unintentionally killed someone, thereby providing a place where their case could be heard. Sanctuary was never intended as a place to avoid “the law” and the consequences of criminal behavior, but to allow the law to take its proper course rather than unwarranted vengeful retaliation when it was not called for....American cities, counties and universities that offer sanctuary for foreigners who have broken American laws regulating entry to our country cannot claim to be following the practice described in the Bible. Rather, they are twisting biblical statutes to political ends and subverting federal law." • • • THE US SANCTUARY CITY BATTLE. The battle to enforce federal immigration law in sanctuary cities is escalating as cities defy orders from federal immigration authorities to put a "hold" on illegal aliens, and federal authorities bring pressure on sanctuary cities by denying them certain federal funds. At the same time, Republican legislatures across the country are considering legislation to ban sanctuary cities in their states. The Hill reports that legislators in 33 states have introduced measures to limit or prevent cities from acting as sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants. Sanctuary cities and counties often defy requests from federal ICE officials to hold undocumented immigrants so they can be picked up later for deportation. Many of the state bills under consideration would require cities to swear under penalty of perjury that they comply with federal detainer requests. There have been numerous instances where an illegal has been charged with a felony and the city refuses to hand him or her over. Sanctuary cities may complain about agents "stalking" illegals, but if a city isn't going to cooperate, then ICE agents will enforce the law without their help. Cutting off funding is a good way to apply pressure on sanctuary cities, but it usually ends up hurting law abiding citizens who, in any case, should be putting pressure on politicians to comply with the law. A few politicians who lose elections due to their defiance may do more than all the pressure the federal government can bring to bear. • San Francisco asked a federal judge last Friday to halt enforcement of President Trump’s executive order blocking federal money from so-called “sanctuary cities." NBC News reported last Friday that the city argued that Trump cannot withhold federal funds without approval from Congress. The lawsuit asks Judge William Orrick to issue a nationwide injunction. San Francisco says it could lose about $2 billion annually in federal funding, NBC said, but a Justice Department lawyer told Orrick the total would be much lower. The dispute centers on detainer requests, according to NBC, in which the federal government asks local police and sheriff offices to hold jail inmates for up to 48 hours after they have finished serving their sentences. The requests apply to undocumented immigrants who are convicted of local crimes and can ultimately result in deportation after release. San Francisco city ordinances prohibit its police from providing advance notice of an inmate’s release from jail, NBC added, even if ICE wants to detain them. • • • FEDERAL JURISDICTION OVER IMMIGRATION. President Trump issued a broad order on immigration law enforcement in January which gave his administration the power to limit financial grants to sanctuary cities. Immigration and the entry of aliens into the US have been delegated to the President by Congress; giving him extremely broad authority under 8 USC §1182 (f) to suspend the entry of any aliens or class of aliens into the US if he believes it “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” • Unfortunately, certain states have petitioned federal courts to ignore the Constitution, federal law, and precedent in the case of President Trump's executive order putting a telporary hold in immigration from countries where it is impossible to 'vet' immigrants. Some federal courts have agreed, substituting their judgment for that of the President and Congress. Essentially, states such as Hawaii and Washington are turning to activist federal judges to nullify the exclusive authority of the federal government over immigration and the security of our national border -- and those judges are complying. • Sanctuary policies implemented by cities such as San Francisco and Seattle also seek to nullify federal immigration law and obstruct its enforcement. 8 USC §1373 prohibits states and local jurisdictions from preventing their law enforcement officials from exchanging information with federal officials on the citizenship status of individuals they have arrested or detained. The Supreme Court upheld this provision in 2012 in Arizona v. United States. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced that he will not award any discretionary federal grants from the Justice Department to cities that violate Section 1373. Seattle has filed suit, claiming that the federal government has no right to cut off its access to discretionary funding. The city also makes the specious claim that its policy does not violate federal immigration law. Sanctuary cities claim that Sessions is trying to force them to enforce federal immigration law by “commandeering” the states to “enact or administer a federal regulatory program.” But AG Sessions is simply trying to get states to not obstruct federal enforcement. That includes abiding by the ban contained in Section 1373, which doesn’t force local law enforcement officials to notify federal officials when they detain an illegal alien. It simply says that local governments can't ban law enforcement officials from doing so. Further, the legal argument that Section1373 violates the anti-"commandeering" principle -- an argument raised by New York City in a lawsuit against the federal government only 11 days after the provision became federal law -- was thrown out by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals because the federal law was constitutional and "well within congressional authority" on immigration. The court pointed out that Section 1373 does not compel “state and local governments to enact or administer any federal regulatory program. Nor has it affirmatively conscripted states, localities, or their employees into the federal government’s service.” The only thing the provision does is prohibit state and local governmental entities or officials from “directly restricting the voluntary exchange of immigration information with the INS [ICE].” The court said a contrary holding would cause chaos : “If Congress may not forbid states from outlawing even voluntary cooperation with federal programs by state and local officials, states will at times have the power to frustrate effectuation of some programs.” • • • HAVE SANCTUARY CITIES SECEDED FROM THE UNION? This is the question asked in an American Thinker article on April 9, in which writer Fay Voshell, a theologian and prominent writer on religion topics, noted : "New York City seriously contemplated seceding from the Union just before the outbreak of the Civil War. The mayor of the city was Fernando Wood, a rakish, charming, and handsome devil. He put his finger to the wind when southern states began to secede and decided NYC should stand with her sorely afflicted southern cousins. But veiled in all the rosy political rhetoric was the hard and pragmatic fact that New York was a central hub of the slave trade, inextricably tied to the South’s cotton empire. Money did the real talking. Wood knew that, as he was a crook who had made a fortune selling public offices and offering immigrants citizenship in exchange for votes. Mayor Wood decided disunion was a 'fixed fact' and on January 6, 1861, he proposed New York City declare its independence. Wood proclaimed New York City would 'make common cause with the South' as a sovereign entity. He added the City could 'deny Federal troops the right to march through the city.' ” What NYC Mayor Woods tried to do was establish a slave city within a free state. Woods failed. But, today, in establishing cities separate from the rest of the US, some American cities such as San Francisco and Miami have succeeded to declare themselves “sanctuaries” -- and, says Voshell, these American cities "essentially have seceded from the Union and have created an ungovernable archipelago of city states within America." • It is clear that by declaring themselves "sanctuary cities," these cities have declared themselves above the rule of law and are willing to disrupt national unity by setting themselves outside the law and federal governance -- all on the basis of supposed compassion for the alien, when it is clear that, just like NYC Mayor Woods in the 1861, some of the underlying and murky motives include vote getting and cheap labor. Voshell says : "It is not too much to say that almost universally Democratic rule of sanctuary cities such as New York City are...iron-fisted. No rival parties were and now are tolerated, and the citizens of the city are bound hand and foot by the decrees of the Democratic rulers. Patronage ensures continued rule as well as continued corruption, just as the House of Tammany did in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries....This is to say nothing of the ideological secession of states like California, which is seeing some call for the entire state to become a sanctuary state. That declaration of intent by some of California’s legislators is also essentially a call for secession from the rest of America. Most certainly, it is a call for police to disregard immigration status as well as a call to shun federal law and the status of its own citizens. The upshot is that sanctuary cities and states are essentially a new confederacy rising in the midst of a formerly United States. Behind the fervor of sanctuary advocates exist crucial ideas similar to those of zealous secessionists of the pre-Civil War era. Basically, those committed to sanctuary cities and states are devoted to the abstract ideas of a new kind of order, a far country not yet actualized. Abstract theory about what a future world should look like is diametrically opposed to the current constitutional order, the checks and balances and the distinction between citizen and non-citizen provided by the present workable, but imperfect system of our Republic." • Confederate President Jefferson Davis wrote, “If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone, ‘Died of a theory.’ The Confederacy did die of a theory, but not before the nation was torn apart and hundreds of thousands died. Sanctuary cities and states also must die by their theories as well, or the Union will die along with them, says Voshell. • • • AG SESSIONS TAKES THE LEAD FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP. During his trip to the southern border on April 11, Attorney General Jeff Sessions made it clear that he will carry out the mandate he was given by President Trump : "to vigorously enforce our immigration laws, and go after the human smugglers and traffickers who work for the Mexican cartels that have caused many of our border security problems." In his April 11 speech to Customs and Border Protection agents in Nogales, Arizona, Sessions bluntly stated his intent to go after the “transnational gangs like MS-13 and international cartels” that are flooding “our country with drugs” and “leave death and violence in their wake.” According to Sessions, it is “criminal aliens and the coyotes and the document-forgers” who want to “overthrow our system of lawful immigration” : "[They] turn cities and suburbs into war zones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders....Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings. [It is on the border,] on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth." • Strong words that certainly were never spoken by the two attorneys general who served in the Obama administration. • Sessions also announced that he was sending a memorandum to all federal prosecutors directing them to make the prosecution of certain immigration offenses a higher priority. As Sessions said -- in what seems like common sense to most Americans -- “consistent and vigorous enforcement...will disrupt” these organizations and “deter unlawful conduct.” • Here are the enforcement priorities listed by Sessions : prosecute sex traffickers; give priority to those who bring in three or more illegal aliens or where there are aggravating circumstances, such as serious bodily injury, physical or sexual assault, or death; bring felony charges against illegal aliens already deported at least twice or deported at least once and who have a history of felony crime, gang membership, or other aggravating factors; target for felony prosecutions anyone who knowingly enters into a sham marriage to evade immigration laws, or engage in identity theft or immigration-related fraud; prosecute illegal aliens who assault, resist or otherwise impede immigration officers and agents. • Sessions directed each of the 94 offices of US Attorneys to appoint a “Border Security Coordinator” by April 18. The coordinators will oversee the immigration enforcement program of each office, coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies, and report the “prosecution statistics related to these offenses.” This latter requirement is obviously an attempt to force transparency on the offices and to provide a measuring stick to gauge how well the US attorneys are actually carrying out Session’s directive. • The deterrent effect of AG Sessions' policies is already apparent. Sessions cited some stunning numbers on April 11 : [From] January to February of this year, illegal crossings dropped by 40%, unprecedented. Then in March, a 72% drop compared to the month before the President was inaugurated -- the lowest monthly figure for at least 17 years. As Sessions said, “this is no accident.” It results from : "[A president who] understands the threat, who is not afraid to publicly identify the threat and stand up to it, and who makes clear to law enforcement that the leadership of their country finally has their back." In his speech, AG Sessions also announced plans to hire 50 more immigration judges this year to handle the large backlog of cases. Another 75 judges will be added next year with the help of a new, streamlined hiring process. This comes after Trump’s previously announced plans to hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents and 10,000 more ICE agents -- and building a secure wall along the Mexican border. • Sessions has brought sweeping change to the Department of Justice. In just two months, Sessions has moved quickly to overhaul the policies and priorities of the Obama administration. He has rolled back executive orders for transgender students that allowed children to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, and rescinded plans to phase out the federal government’s use of private prisons. He has called for a review of consent decrees, reached with local police departments to address allegations of misconduct. Many of the consent decrees were drafted in response to fatal shootings by police. He has made immigration enforcement a top priority. He has notified federal prosecutors of a new national push to crack down on violent crime. Law enforcement groups say the new attorney general is focused on the right things. Jonathan Thompson, executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association told TheHill : “I think Sessions has brought a new focus to the core mission of the department, which is to make sure the nation is safe and secure in its law and make sure law enforcement operations are focused on the thing that matters most, preventing crime.” • • • DEAR READERS, the Progressive Democrat Socialist Left has commandeered the traditional Democrat Party to use it in an ideological battle against the US Constitution and its Rule of Law. Conservatives and Republicans have 'hired' President Trump to wage a bloodless war against these mutineers who are in full attack mode against American democratic institutions. The mutineers were able to apply and enforce their Progressive Globalist ideology during the past eight years under President Obama. They disregarded and undermined laws and tradition, using methods that might be called “cynical” -- “Stalinist” would also be an apt description. These Progressive Democrat mutineers subject Congress, the courts, and the presidency to slanderous attacks and abuses concocted from their willingness to abuse the Constitution in a fashion in which the ends do justify the means. Their "end" is the destruction of the United States. They fight against lawful immigration, the Trump presidency, the new Supreme Court Justice and the traditions of Congress. Moreover, having lost these powerful institutions of government when Donald Trump was elected President, they loudly declare that their Progressive ideology, the only true way forward according to them, must prevail, and they are not constrained but use riots, political mutiny and disregard for settled law and the Constitution to win. They are, to be blunt, in rebellion against America, its Founders, the American Revolution and the Constitution.