"It was as predictable as the sunrise -- the second the 'deal' was announced Friday to reopen the government, smug liberals took to social media to declare victory. And why not? They won. But what exactly did they win? And is the fight really over?

"What Democrats won is a continued unsecured border. Americans will continue to be victims of crimes, up to and including being murdered at the hands of people who shouldn't be in the country in the first place, congratulations. Those criminals will continue to enjoy the protections of Democratic Party officials until they manage to cross the ever-moving line leftists draw to protect illegal aliens (basically a violent crime) and allow authorities to call ICE. Way to go! Opioid overdoses will continue to skyrocket, claiming more American lives every year than died in the entirety of the Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq Wars combined. Congratulations, Democrats.

"I don't really see how any of that is worth celebrating, but I'm not a 'progressive Democrat.' I'm more interested in protecting American citizens than I am with illegal aliens or scoring political points with a race-obsessed base."

"Venezuela's resistance to the tyrannical rule of Nicolas Maduro has hit a new peak, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to demand his exit. He can hold on if the military doesn't turn - and if he's willing to rule over a wasteland. ...

"Juan Guaido, the new head of the National Assembly, has rallied the latest uprising by invoking constitutional provisions that make him the legitimate interim president. Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru and other Latin nations have recognized his claim, as have Canada and the United States. ...

"The regime is holding on with the help of secret police imported from Cuba, and by mortgaging the nation's future to China and Russia. Guaido became leader of the opposition because the government has jailed, killed or otherwise sidelined a long string of challengers - and he's now been forced into hiding.

"Washington has no magic answers here, certainly not an invasion. For now, Team Trump is rightly doing what it can to support Venezuela's best hope for freedom."

"The Supreme Court has taken its first gun-rights case in almost a decade, and it's a strange case indeed. At issue is what appears to be a draconian, one-of-a-kind New York City law that prohibits any person who possesses a license to own a gun in their home from transporting that gun (even in a locked container, separate from its ammunition) anywhere except for one of the seven shooting ranges within the city.

"Under this law, if you want to transport your gun to a shooting competition outside the city, you can't. If you're fortunate enough to own a second home, you can't even take your own weapon to your own home. You can't take it to any other shooting range. If you leave your house for an extended period, your gun has to stay in your vacant home. If you're going to another location - where you have the right to possess or even carry the gun - the weapon can't travel with you.

"It's an astonishing law, but it's also (given its single-city applicability and the fact that very few New Yorkers are able to get gun permits to begin with) one of the most limited gun-rights cases in the country. In the years since the Supreme Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms and then ruled that the Second Amendment was applicable to state and local governments, it has time and again declined to rule on consequential cases."

Read entire article here.

"Good citizens with proper respect for themselves, their neighbors, and their country do not seek to destroy the lives of a couple of teenagers in the pursuit of a transient and petty political advantage.

"Errors can be forgiven, and the occasional tendency to get carried away with rhetorical excess can be received with charity - especially by those of us who suffer from the same temptation from time to time. But political psychosis and deceit are something else. They can be forgiven only contingently - and never forgotten."

"Mission, Texas -- Democrats show no interest in solving illegal immigration, and they downplay the drug and humanitarian problems it causes, yet liberals in the media never ask them to explain why.

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has so far said she's unwilling to do anything on immigration, so long as the White House refuses to sign a bill funding the small portion of the government that's been shut down for a month.

"As agents here at the southernmost point of Texas will tell you, the way to deter smugglers from bringing in drugs and undocumented immigrants from Mexico is to install cameras, strategically place personnel, and build a physical barrier. ...

"Border agents have told us what they want and why they want it. Why won't Democrats give it to them?"

"Imagine that a scientist wanted to conduct an experiment to see if it's true that blind hatred of President Trump has led Democrats and their media handmaidens to go 'round the bend and off the cliff.

"Such a scientist would inject a damning -- and false -- media report about Trump into the political bloodstream, then observe the reactions. It wouldn't take long.

"The Gotcha! glee, the declarations of Trump's certain impeachment for suborning perjury, reckless references to Richard Nixon, the breathless anticipation of resignation and disgrace, perhaps prison -- these and other overheated reactions quickly clogged the airwaves and Internet, growing ever more bold as the day wore on and no compelling rebuttal appeared.

"Then, suddenly, the scientist pulled the plug on the experiment. He had seen enough to prove the thesis: Much of America, many of its leaders and some of its most prominent institutions are indeed gripped with madness.

"Hatred for the president has corrupted their judgments and blinded them to duty and decency. Having succumbed to prejudice and rage, they have proven themselves unworthy of public trust.

"Case closed."

Read entire article here.

"When CNN's Jim Acosta tweeted a selfie video from the U.S.-Mexico border, he was roundly mocked and ridiculed for claiming he saw no 'crisis' at the 'tranquil' spot where he stood. Of course he didn't. Because where he stood was on the safe side of a steel barrier protecting him (and the rest of America) from illegal border crossings.

"If President Trump's policies for border protection were to be enacted, there'd be hundreds of more places on the border protected as safely as that spot where Mr. Acosta stood. Sadly, Mr. Acosta's buffoonery was merely a blatant example of the sad, slanted coverage found in most of the mainstream media over the past several weeks. ...

"The facts, which the mainstream media have almost no interest in reporting to the American people, show exactly how the existing border barriers work. From San Diego to Tucson to Yuma, illegal border crossings dropped significantly wherever a barrier has been built.

"If journalists really wish to engage their audience with facts and a fair debate over this issue, they'll start raising these points but don't hold your breath. At this point, they want little to do with informing the public and everything to do with the partisan fight to defeat President Trump.

"It's a pity because if a nation can't have a serious, informed conversation over the protection of its own borders, one wonders what we can talk about."

"Conservatives complain about government constantly. But if there's one agency hated by people across the political spectrum, it is the Transportation Security Administration.

"This agency, created in late 2001, is known by alternative acronyms such as 'Thousands Standing Around,' and anyone who has flown on a busy day understands why. On every trip, one inevitably gets the perception that innumerable TSA workers are lounging in the background.

"This complaint should resonate now, at a time when a government shutdown subtly threatens everyone's ability to travel. Although both TSA and air traffic control workers are being made to work without pay, some TSA workers have already been caught staging sickouts and many are just quitting.

"One cannot blame them for insisting on jobs that actually pay. It's fundamentally unjust that the nation's transportation system should hinge for weeks or months on thousands of people working without a paycheck.

"That's just one more reason the TSA should be privatized."

Read entire article here.

"Has President Trump suckered Democrats and the Deep State into a trap that will enable a radical downsizing of the federal bureaucracy? In only five more days of the already 'longest government shutdown in history' (25 days and counting, as of today), a heretofore obscure threshold will be reached, enabling permanent layoffs of bureaucrats furloughed 30 days or more.

"Don't believe me that federal bureaucrats can be laid off? Well, in bureaucratese, a layoff is called a RIF -- a Reduction in Force -- and of course, it comes with a slew of civil service protections. But, if the guidelines are followed, bureaucrats can be laid off -- as in no more job."

Read entire article here.

"Yes, there absolutely were some Russians trying to create confusion with the American electorate. In 1996, the Chinese poured many millions of dollars into the Bill Clinton campaign to curry favor. These governments and their would-be hangers on do try to ingratiate themselves with campaigns and take disruptive actions, just as we do.

"But this is entirely different from believing that the president of the United States has sold out his country and that the FBI should be investigating -- to the extent of even possibly wearing a wire -- a White House because their boss was fired. A boss that, by the way, was then replaced by a distinguished career official, meaning no actual investigations of any kind were ever in jeopardy in any way. ...

"The response by the FBI and DOJ to Trump's election was unprecedented, and while almost all of those behind these various actions have been exposed, fired, quit or retired, the Mueller independent counsel and SDNY investigations remain as the 'insurance policies' set up to keep up the effort to remove the president for ... something.

"At least we are learning how this all really started, even as the answers continue to grow ever more unsettling."