"NATO leaders made an 'unwavering commitment' to shoulder a greater share of the military-preparedness burden Wednesday after President Trump lambasted alliance members generally, and Germany specifically, for failing to pull their weight.

"Following a contentious meeting with Trump, NATO members signed a joint declaration voicing their commitment 'to improving the balance of sharing the costs and responsibilities of alliance membership.'"

"This time, Trump Derangement Syndrome is getting a bad rap. Paranoids have real enemies and leftists whose heads are exploding over the president's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court have real reasons to be horrified.

"And, no, it's not because of abortion, which is probably the least of their problems right now. It's all the other tentacles of coercive liberalism that Democrats were able to ram down the throats of ordinary Americans for more than half a century thanks to activist courts.

"Their heyday is over -- if Kavanaugh is confirmed and becomes the reliable fifth vote to uphold the original intent of the Constitution. In that case, Dems would be out in the cold and America would be witnessing the advent of a new legal era, though it will take years to be fully realized because of the Supremes' deference to earlier rulings. ...

"The Supreme Court was designed to check the power of the other two branches of government, not assume it.

"Besides, the smearing of Kavanaugh's character and threats of violence probably will convince even more voters that the left isn't ready for prime time."

"Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's new nominee for the Supreme Court, is a whip-smart legal conservative. As a judge in the highest-profile appeals court in the nation, he has shown an exemplary dedication to the rule of law. He has defended the separation of powers against threats coming from multiple directions. He has repeatedly cautioned his colleagues on the bench not to attempt to play a legislative role. He has also insisted on enforcing constitutional structures of accountability on government agencies. He has vindicated the right to free speech (against certain campaign-finance regulations), to bear arms (against the D.C. government's attempts to implement sweeping bans), and to religious liberty (against a version of the Obama administration's 'contraceptive mandate'). And he has followed Supreme Court precedents even when gently suggesting they should be rethought."

"The victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over long-time Democratic congressman Joe Crowley of New York inspired some hysterical punditry. We were told that the 28,000 people who voted in a district of more than 600,000 had decided the fate of the political universe. Ocasio-Cortez, in this telling, heralds the coming of Democratic-Socialist, multiracial, female-dominated America. The 28-year-old bartender and community activist is the Democrat of the future -- according to no less an authority than the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. And in a polarized media climate, with hyperbolic insinuations of 'civil war' and calls for the harassment of political opponents, one is tempted to believe that romanticism and extremism grow ever stronger.

"I remain skeptical. For one thing, New York politics is sort of the equivalent of the Las Vegas party scene -- what happens there tends to stay there. Crowley was boring and out-of-touch; Ocasio-Cortez is appealing and a tireless campaigner. Her picture of democratic socialism is all rainbows and unicorns, platitudes and aspirations. And the numbers involved in the primary were so small that randomness has to have played some part in her 4,000-vote win. Ocasio-Cortez is neither a threat to America nor to the American right. But she is representative of the transformation of the American left.

"The only civil war happening at the moment is within the Democratic party. The old-guard corporatists are under attack from activists with radical goals and immoderate tempers. You can trace a line from Occupy Wall Street in 2011 through Black Lives Matter in 2013 through Bernie Sanders in 2016 through the Women's March a year later, Tom Steyer's and Maxine Waters's impeachment campaigns, the growing prominence of Democratic Socialists of America, and the movement to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement today."

"The Trump agenda enrages the Left in much the same manner that Obamacare, the Obama tax hikes, Obama's liberal Supreme Court picks, and the Iran nuclear deal goaded the Right.

"Yet the current progressive meltdown is about more than just political differences. The outrage is mostly about power -- or rather, the utter and unexpected loss of it. ...

"Voters in 2016 bristled at redistribution, open borders, bigger government, and higher taxes, but progressives are now promising those voters even more of what they didn't want.

"Furious over the sudden and unexpected loss of power, enraged progressives have so far done almost everything to lose even more of it.

"And that paradox only leads to more furor."

Read entire article here.

"'Just to state this,' wrote Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, 'Justice Kennedy's son gave a billion dollar loan to Trump when no one would give him a dime, and Justice Kennedy has been ruling in favor of the Trump Administration position for 2 years as the Court decides 5-4 case after 5-4 case.'

"This was crazy conspiracy theory completely ungrounded in facts. Still, 21,600 Twitter users spread the lie promulgated by a well-respected matron of the progressive movement. The conspiracy was somehow that because the bank where Justice Anthony Kennedy's son works loaned money to a Donald Trump Jr. business, President Trump was able to force or entice Kennedy to retire. It made no sense.

"It was fact-free fearmongering. And so it was a perfect kickoff to the progressive movement's efforts in the wake of Kennedy's retirement.

"Dishonesty is ever-present in the political fray. Factual errors crop up everywhere. But the truth rarely seems to take a beating as much when a Supreme Court seat is up for grabs."

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

"Call it the summer of '68.

"Rioters in the streets.

"Communists on the ballot.

"Radical leftists threaten to kidnap, rape and torture political enemies. Even the children of political enemies. ...

"There is good news. In the summer of 1968, sober-minded American voters saw the daily drumbeat of the 'Antifa' fascists on television. Voters did not freak out and riot back in the streets. They did not arm up and shoot back.

"No, they just showed up at the voting booth in November. And delivered one of the most stunning rebukes to the 'Antifa' fascist crowd in U.S. history.

"So, 'Antifa,' please, keep the riots going. And definitely keep up your calls to abolish ICE. That is a real winner."

"When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Tuesday to endorse the president's so-called 'Muslim ban,' the Left's knee-jerk response was typically predictable, pathetic, and phony: 'Trump is a racist!' ...

"Despite the Left's now-yawn-inducing screams of 'racism,' this policy has nothing to do with Islamophobia. And it never did. It concerns U.S. national security and counter-terrorism. ...

"Individuals who traveled from or through these 'countries of concern,' as they are known officially, have experienced increased scrutiny since December 2015. Donald J. Trump was not president back then. In fact, as anti-Trump CNN reported on January 30, 2017: "The seven Muslim-majority countries targeted in President Trump's executive order on immigration were initially identified as 'countries of concern' under the Obama administration." (Emphasis added.) By the Left's logic, compiling this list of 'countries of concern' would make Barack Hussein Obama an anti-Muslim bigot.

"Once again, the fact that the Left went from zero to racism in just 10 seconds after Tuesday's Supreme Court decision confirms that the Democrat choir has just one hymn in its missal. How sad. How ugly."

"Prominent Democratic pollster Mark Penn said on Thursday that a vast majority of Americans don't really support so-called sanctuary cities that shield immigrants in the country illegally from deportation.

"Penn, who served as chief strategist for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, revealed that 84 percent of Americans favor turning undocumented immigrants over to federal agents. ...

"Penn said the response was strikingly 'out of sync' with what the public might think about sanctuary cities. The broad term refers to cities that don't fully cooperate with federal authorities when it comes to turning over people in the country illegally to immigration enforcement."