"It's not that border control has been tried and failed; it hasn't been tried. Thanks to court decrees and congressional enactments, we don't permit ourselves to quickly return minors from Central American countries, or to detain them for any significant period of time. They get released, along with the adults accompanying them.

"The asylum process is broken. The initial so-called credible-fear interview to determine whether asylum-seekers get to the next step of the process approves almost all of them, even if they are unlikely ultimately to win asylum. In the meantime, they are waved into the country and probably never removed.

"The migrants coming in increasing numbers realize we are helpless to exclude them, and indeed, surrender to border-patrol agents when they get here.

"Congress could fix all this in an afternoon, with a few key changes in the law. ...

"In a more rational world, Congress would take seriously the spectacle of US officials -- and humanitarian organizations -- scrambling to handle a flood of humanity showing up every day, and give them the legal authorities and resources to get the situation under control. That it won't is a dereliction of duty of the highest order."

"President Trump on Friday signed a presidential permit to jump-start construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline with a facility in Montana, a move seen as a way to circumvent previous court orders halting development.

"The permit authorizes energy company TransCanada Corp. to 'construct, connect, operate, and maintain' pipeline facilities between the U.S. and Canada.

"The permit also allows for the maintenance of a pipeline facility at Phillips County, Montana, for importation of the oil to the U.S.

"The order supersedes a March 2017 order. That permit was invalidated by a Montana federal judge in November. The ruling is being appealed in the 9th Circuit. Separately, a December lawsuit placed an injunction on most pre-construction activities.

"'For the avoidance of doubt, I hereby revoke that March 23, 2017, permit,' Trump wrote in Friday's order.

"A White House spokesperson told The Hill that the new permit 'dispels any uncertainty.' ...

"The pipeline has been a lightning rod in national energy policy for much of a decade since its proposal by TransCanada."

Read entire article here.

"The city of Chicago threatened Jussie Smollett on Thursday with a new charge if he doesn't pay $130,000 to cover overtime costs incurred by police during their investigation into a hate crime the actor allegedly staged against himself in January.

"In a letter sent to Smollett's attorneys, the Chicago Corporation Counsel requested that Smollett pay up within seven days, noting that the 'Empire' actor could face a new charge for making a false statement if he doesn't pay in a 'timely' manner.

"'[Y]ou made a police report in which you falsely claimed that two men had attacked you while yelling racial and homophobic slurs. The Chicago Police Department conducted an extensive investigation into this report,' the letter stated, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. 'Over two dozen detectives and police officers participated in the investigation, ultimately spending weeks investigating the false claims, including a substantial number of overtime hours.'

"'In an attempt to resolve this matter without further legal action, the City requires immediate payment of the $130,106.15 expended on overtime hours in the investigation of this matter,' the letter stated. 'If the amount is not timely paid, the Department of Law may prosecute you for making a false statement to the City under section 1-21-010 of the Municipal Code of Chicago.'"

Read entire article here.

"On Collusiongate, the CIA and the FBI were acting contrary to their usual rule of refraining from interference in domestic politics. Instead, as has become clear thanks largely to former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., they were relying heavily on a document bought and paid for by the Democratic National Committee, to the point of presenting it as evidence to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court without identifying its provenance. ...

"I've written that the Democrats have been over-invested in Collusiongate and would be wiser to concentrate on other, forward-looking issues. Some Democrats are now urging just that. Put aside the dog-eared copies of the Steele dossier and safely dispose of the Robert Mueller votive candles. Everyone makes mistakes.

"But the government officials who promoted Collusiongate should not get off so easily. I'm biased, in favor of respecting elections, and I think that a CIA or FBI director who tries to tilt them his own way should be held morally accountable. Anyone disagree?"

"Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his city's police force Tuesday afternoon, denouncing prosecutors for dropping charges against 'Empire' star Jussie Smollett and slamming the episode as a 'whitewash of justice.'

"Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Emanuel said they were not only furious with the outcome of Tuesday's surprise hearing but also blindsided by the decision itself, with the officials only learning Smollett wouldn't face charges for allegedly faking a hate crime at the same time the public found out.

"'Where is the accountability in the system? You cannot have -- because of a person's position -- one set of rules applies to them and another set of rules apply to everyone else,' Emanuel said. 'Our officers did hard work day in and day out, countless hours working to unwind what actually happened that night. The city saw its reputation dragged through the mud...It's not just the officers' work, but the work of the grand jury that made a decision based on only a sliver of the evidence [presented]. Because of the judge's decision, none of that evidence will ever be made public.'

"Meantime, First Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Magats told reporters he still believed Smollett filed a false police report. He said prosecutors "stand behind the investigation and the facts," adding, 'this was not an exoneration.'"

"In the last two years, half of Americans say their trust in the media has decreased, while only 8 percent report increasing trust. By a margin of 69 to 29, Americans agree that the media are more interested in advancing their point of view than reporting all the facts. Three-fifths agree that the media covers matters in order 'to delegitimize the views held by President Trump and his supporters.' Sixty percent of independents and 93 percent of Republicans agreed with that last item. The media have become an amen chorus of liberals chanting liberal refrains to liberals. The signature phrase of our moment is Fake News. And the Hindenburg of Fake News just went up in flames."

"The FBI and the DOJ were fundamentally compromised from the start. They were fed information through backdoor channels like DOJ official Bruce Ohr's wife, who was on the Fusion GPS payroll, bypassing real intelligence operations. Comey clearly was out to entrap the president with the private one-on-one meeting he called to dangle the dossier, his taunting of the president by refusing to say publicly that Trump was not a target, and writing up memos of unknown veracity following meetings with the president. The after-party of Comey and other intelligence officials becoming anti-Trump talking heads on CNN and elsewhere unmasked any veneer of impartiality.

"Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Gerald Nadler (D-N.Y.) are poised to ignore the report and to stir up years of new investigations. This kind of raw partisanship, after the largest criminal investigation of a campaign and an administration in history, has no place in our democracy. It's an abuse of power without precedent. The Mueller investigation systematically went after everyone named in the Steele dossier, using the toughest possible tactics. Rather than investigate the crime, they investigated the people, finding unrelated crimes to use as leverage to squeeze out any potential drops of evidence related to collusion. They got every email of the transition; they looked through every communication by everyone through every means, including tapping secret messaging apps. ...

"It's time for true bipartisan investigation of how and why this was allowed to smear and destroy so many people when there was nothing there. Those who launched this disruption of the presidency on the basis of questionable evidence and procedures should be held accountable for their actions. Those who were investigated but not charged should have their legal fees reimbursed."

Read entire article here.

"The First Amendment ensures that all Americans have the right to engage in political speech. Democrats wish to put political speech under heavy regulation, so that the people holding political power set the rules under which they may be criticized and debated. The Democrats have attempted to gut the First Amendment under the guise of 'campaign finance' regulation, as though the right of free speech could be separated from the means of speech. It is worth bearing in mind that the Democrats' latest attack on the First Amendment was occasioned by the desire of a political activist group to show a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the run-up to a presidential election -- a film whose circulation the Democrats sought to prohibit as a 'campaign finance' matter.

"The Supreme Court stepped in to stop that, finding that the First Amendment means what it says. And now the Democrats propose to corrupt the Supreme Court, expanding the number of justices from nine to whatever number it takes for a future Democratic president to create a majority of Democratic partisans on the Court. They are counting on the same court-packing scheme to give them the power to effectively repeal the Second Amendment without having to bother to propose and ratify a constitutional amendment -- a political fight that the Democrats would surely lose."

"After nearly three years and millions of tax dollars, the Trump-Russia collusion probe is about to be resolved. Emerging in its place is newly unearthed evidence suggesting another foreign effort to influence the 2016 election -- this time, in favor of the Democrats.

"Ukraine's top prosecutor divulged in an interview aired Wednesday on Hill.TV that he has opened an investigation into whether his country's law enforcement apparatus intentionally leaked financial records during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.

"The leak of the so-called 'black ledger' files to U.S. media prompted Manafort's resignation from the Trump campaign and gave rise to one of the key allegations in the Russia collusion probe that has dogged Trump for the last two and a half years.

"Ukraine Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko's probe was prompted by a Ukrainian parliamentarian's release of a tape recording purporting to quote a top law enforcement official as saying his agency leaked the Manafort financial records to help Clinton's campaign.

"The parliamentarian also secured a court ruling that the leak amounted to 'an illegal intrusion into the American election campaign,' Lutsenko told me. Lutsenko said the tape recording is a serious enough allegation to warrant opening a probe, and one of his concerns is that the Ukrainian law enforcement agency involved had frequent contact with the Obama administration's U.S. embassy in Kiev at the time.

"'Today we will launch a criminal investigation about this and we will give legal assessment of this information,' Lutsenko told me."

Read entire article here.

"Amid a number of proposals pushed by 2020 Democratic presidential candidates trying to stand out in a crowded field comes an idea that totally doesn't scream 'sore loser' at all: abolishing the Electoral College. ...

"The framers of the Constitution established the Electoral College as a compromise between election of the president by a vote in Congress and election of the president by popular vote. It maintains the institution of national representation by preventing bigger states from wielding more influence over smaller states in elections. Additionally, the Electoral College distributes popular support and gives minority interests more sway in each state.

"The Electoral College is a fundamental part of our democracy. Democrats proposing to abolish it merely want to shift the balance of power in their favor, by changing the rules of a game they just lost fair and square."