During the Cold War, which Ronald Reagan helped to win, virtually everything that our military recommended and that Reagan wanted to do was opposed by the left in Europe and America. 

Fortunately, the strong leadership of Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II was able to overcome that opposition. As Reagan put it, “We won. They lost.”

That was a lifetime ago. Reagan took office 38 years ago. And the presidents after him went back to sleepwalking through a dangerous world. 

They bungled into a couple of no-win wars, convinced themselves that trading with China would change China, when in fact it changed us. Sadly, we do not have a Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain today or a John Paul II on the throne of Saint Peter.

But we do have a president who understands the world as well as Reagan did. Thankfully, he is willing to make the hard decisions to save our economy from China’s predatory economic policies and to safeguard our national security from communist Beijing’s designs for the future.

Regrettably, there are apologists for China in both political parties today. And some elements of the left struggle to find an enemy in the world they don’t prefer over the United States. 

Here’s a parting thought: Some of the worst left-wing critics of the president are the handful of Muslim members of Congress. An hour does not go by on social media that they are not attacking the president or Israel. 

I’m hard-pressed to find a tweet, a speech, anything from any of them going after China, a nation that has put perhaps as many as three million Muslims in concentration camps. The left will refer to Gaza as a “concentration camp.” Yet there are real concentration camps in China today, and the left is largely silent. 

Liberal Policies Kill

Last week, we reported on the latest MS-13 victim to be brutally murdered right here in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Ariana Funes-Diaz, a 14-year-old girl, was hacked to death with a machete and beaten with a baseball bat by other teenagers. 

Her death was totally preventable. In fact, ICE agents had tried to stop it, but they were blocked by sanctuary policies imposed by liberal Maryland politicians.

Two of Funes-Diaz’s alleged assailants, 16-year-old Josue Rafael Fuentes-Ponce and 17-year-old Joel Ernesto Escobar, were in police custody last year, charged with attempted murder. 

ICE had issued detainers for Escobar and Fuentes-Ponce, but so-called “progressive” politicians in Prince George’s County, Maryland, barred local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE.

Fuentes-Ponce and Escobar should have been deported. Instead, they were protected by sanctuary city policies and released. Now Ariana Funes-Diaz is dead. I hope her family sues Prince George’s County. It was certainly no sanctuary for her.

I am pleased to report that Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) has introduced legislation to cut off certain federal funds to sanctuary cities. President Trump attempted to do this through executive action, but was blocked by left-wing judges.

And don’t forget that the progressive movement wants to abolish ICE — the brave men and women responsible for getting criminal illegal aliens off our streets. How is that going to make our communities safer?

Illegals First?

President Trump is known for his “America First” theme. Increasingly it seems as though the left has an “Illegals First” mantra.

Yesterday, I wrote about the tragic death of a 16-year-old illegal immigrant in Border Patrol custody. The death of this boy was reported on page three of the Washington Post.

Incredibly, Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL) exploited his death to suggest that the Border Patrol was “intentionally” choosing “cruel and inhumane” policies that were killing migrants.

It turns out that he died from the flu. During the 2017-2018 flu season, as many as 80,000 Americans died from the flu, including 180 children. I don’t recall any of those kids getting an entire story from the Washington Post.

Unfortunately, people die from the flu. But why are the liberal media and the Democrat Party in attack mode because THIS child died from the flu?

How many veterans died on the same day as this 16-year-old boy? How many children of all races died on that same day? 

How many Americans, how many legal immigrants, will be killed or raped over the next ten years at the hands of some of the people currently pouring across the border?

The left is all in on its open-borders agenda, and as Dr. Ben Carson pointed out this week, it is putting illegal immigrants ahead of American citizens.

Kudos to Ben Carson

Ben Carson is continuing to drive liberals crazy!

First, he rolled back Clinton-era regulations that allowed the federal government to subsidize housing for illegal immigrants. Now he’s restoring sanity when it comes to protecting women in our nation’s homeless shelters by rolling back Obama regulations that forced women to share bathrooms and sleeping quarters with biological men who claim to be women.

But there’s more.

After heated exchanges with other Democrats this week about various policies he is implementing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Carson is now taking fire from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and he’s firing right back!

Omar was critical of Carson’s congressional testimony, and tweeted that he might not have been “fully awake.” Here’s his response:

Since you brought it up… I know what it’s like to actually be sleepy, especially after 18-hour surgeries and operating on babies in the womb. I hope [Rep. Omar] knows I care about all people, even those she doesn’t recognize as having a right to life.“

Can America Unite?

You wouldn’t know it from the headlines, but the United States is enjoying a period of relative peace and prosperity. For the first time in at least a decade, more Americans think the country is headed in the right direction than in the wrong direction.

But despite these happy facts, there is a nagging sense that all is not well in America. There is a lingering feeling that our nation is frayed and fractured, perhaps beyond repair. Can we unite once again?

Read more in my latest opinion piece at the Washington Examiner.