ON TARGET COMMENTARY

                                                                  2/1/17              by Dave Gunn

Separating Fact From Fiction

     President Donald Trump’s executive action suspending immigration from seven nations known to be hotbeds of Islamic jihad has the loony left in spasms.  Democrat leaders in Congress are purple with rage, protesters are creating havoc in airports, the Hollywood left is apoplectic, and George Soros –funded demonstrators are marching in Washington.  In short, the hissy fit that Democrats have been having since Donald Trump was elected continues.

     As with most knee-jerk emotional reactions, this one by the left is fraught with people speaking before they think, and making statements that are not true -  whether lies or mistakes.  Much misinformation and even fake news surrounds this issue.

     The President’s action was hardly announced when space cadet Nancy Pelosi and slip and fall lawyer Chucky Schumer went immediately to the cameras and microphones – Schumer in tears - to denounce the action as unconstitutional and illegal.  Now they should both know better.  In fact, I believe they do know better.  It is one thing to honestly oppose a political position and another thing altogether to purposely lie about it.

     The Constitution does not speak to this issue.  As for the law, current immigration law allows the president to suspend all immigrants from coming to America or to suspend the immigration of any group of immigrants.  So if he wanted to, President Trump could legally suspend the immigration of all Muslims to America.

     Did the president target Muslims?  There are currently 49 Muslim majority nations on the face of the earth (50 if you count the rump-nation ISIS).  Only 7 were singled out for the temporary travel ban.  So Muslims from 42 nations can still come to the United States just as they did before.

     Further, the action by President Trump is temporary.  Once we have an adequate method of assuring that immigrants from the seven nations are truly refugees or people coming in peace and not ISIS agents, the suspension will be lifted.  This action by President Trump is both prudent and proper.

     One thing this whole affair has brought to light is the presence of Democrat moles in the apparatus of the executive branch of our federal government.  Sally Yates, well-known leftist lawyer in the Justice Department and acting Attorney General, in direct defiance of the president’s directives, instructed Justice Department personnel to refuse to defend the president’s executive order.

     An attorney general, even an acting attorney general, serves at the pleasure of the president.  If he or she finds an order from the president to be disagreeable, they have the option of carrying out the order or resigning.  They do not have the option of defying the order while remaining a member of the administration.

     By the way, this raises questions about who dropped the ball on the Trump transition team.  Sally Yates should never have been made acting Attorney General.

     President Trump immediately fired Yates.  In her misguided zeal, Yates handed Trump a victory.  Had she resigned and then criticized from outside the administration, she could have claimed some of the high ground.  As it was, her firing raised Trump’s stature among his supporters.

     How many other Democrat moles are hiding in the woodwork of the federal bureaucracy?  We do know that, among employees of the Justice Department and the State Department, 90-95 percent donated to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.  Being Democrats without ethics, hey will do all they can to sabotage the Trump agenda. 

     It would serve President Trump well to identify these moles, fire the ones he can, and transfer to harmless duty those he cannot fire.  These are not public servants.  They are far-leftists who see themselves as enemies of the new president – the properly elected president for whom they are supposed to work.

[Dave Gunn is the nom de plume of Dr. David E. Gonnella, Pastor of the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, Alabama.  The opinions expressed are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the church or its membership.