By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — “Sanctuary city” has an immediately understood meaning at this point in the twenty-first century United States: a location where criminal illegal aliens are protected by local authorities from lawful federal immigration requirements.
“Sanctuary city” doesn’t refer to a place in the U.S. where the atrocity of permissive abortion is rejected and unborn babies receive a sanctuary of protection. It doesn’t refer to a place where traditionally religious people are guaranteed security against the sexually disoriented who may decide to harass and ruinously sue them.
The morally deformed proclivities of coastal elites are imposed on even the most conservative locations of the heartland. However, the heart-landers aren’t telling the ACLU’s far-left executives how to live. The heart-landers don’t even effectively defend their values within their own citadels.
New York leftists impose themselves on legal systems in Wyoming and Montana, not the other way around.
Traditionalists may vote with a hope that better candidates can change things one day. But they capitulate in the here and now, with their own liberties and consciences under constant potential threat. No sanctuary for them. Nor do they even seem to want to establish one.
This says something about the leftist mindset that’s ready to force itself upon others no matter how lawless or repugnant it is, versus conservatism that accepts authority and bows to officialdom no matter how illegitimate or repellent.
Thus, as the federal government funding deadline approached on January 19 — the week after this hard-copy edition of The Wanderer went to press on January 11 — we were told that the priority was to reach some acceptable political deal on DACA, the illegal imposition upon society that lawless Barack Obama had invented at his White House to favor young illegal residents.
President Trump even held a remarkable, live-televised meeting at the White House on January 9 with congressional leaders. Trump not only seemed to accept the priority for DACA but also said he’d sign whatever these legislators sent him. That was careless language Trump backed away from as he continued to insist on the importance of a border wall.
There was no such high-level urgency among any political figures to set the priority that Planned Parenthood must be absolutely defunded of taxpayer money by a certain date, or any solid expectation that would happen at all during this second year of the current two-year congressional term.
Meanwhile, the Republican-majority Congress allowed the tax money to keep flowing to the nation’s biggest abortionist organization, which pleased the pro-abortion Democratic minority just fine.
Nor is there any presidential declaration that national permissive abortion is hereby ended as of January 22, allowing a little time to implement this order to take effect exactly 45 years after the original legalization by the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, which was based on lies, deceptions, and unconstitutional usurpations that no longer can be tolerated to destroy millions more defenseless, innocent lives.
Even though the Trump administration effected some actions to buoy pro-lifers, his January 9 DACA conference seemed to show more evidence that rather than being utterly determined to drain the swamp, as many voters hoped he would, Trump was becoming inclined to sip from its mossy waters.
On a separate issue, Trump was confronted with an uncomfortable situation on January 9 when a strong supporter of his, 85-year-old former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, said he was running for the same U.S. Senate seat that another strong Trump supporter, Arizona physician Kelli Ward, already announced for. (More on this below.)
Last August Trump had tweeted his pleasure at Ward making the Senate race against incumbent anti-Trump Republican Jeff Flake, who later quit seeking re-election because of his low popularity.
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter quickly warned Trump on January 9 that his White House “DACA lovefest” hurt him more than any wild accusations in gossip monger Michael Wolff’s recently released Fire and Fury book.
Indeed, Trump’s campaign-season fire against massive illegal immigration, which won over many forgotten-feeling voters, seemed missing as the now-elected president on January 9 not only placed priority on carrying on Obama’s DACA imposition but also said that as soon as DACA was taken care of, “then we can start immediately” on doing comprehensive immigration reform.
Trump fully knows that “comprehensive reform” here means “amnesty.” Which means continued inducement for still more waves of illegal aliens to slip into the U.S. then await the next amnesty.
Had candidate Trump talked this way in 2016, as hapless Jeb Bush did, Trump might well have lacked the electoral votes he needed to sweep past Hillary Clinton.
Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson said on January 9 that key Trump allies on the immigration issue “told us . . . they were shocked by what they saw” at the meeting — “a completely different” Trump from the campaign trail two years ago.
And EWTN anchor Raymond Arroyo, hosting Laura Ingraham’s national radio program on January 10, warned that a politician shouldn’t make a key vow then dump it, as President George H.W. Bush disastrously discovered after he promised firmness against new taxes then raised them, later losing the presidency in 1992 to wily Democrat triangulator Bill Clinton.
National radio host Rush Limbaugh said on January 9 that although the media can’t separate Trump from his supporters, Trump could separate himself from them by a betrayal. However, on the following day Limbaugh expressed confidence that Trump “is in command of things. . . .
“The president does understand the source of his power” with his base, Limbaugh continued. “. . . Trump is in the driver’s seat” with his successful agenda. “And he’s not going to cave on immigration.”
Ward For Senate
Meanwhile, former Maricopa County Republican Sheriff Arpaio sent out his own shockwaves on January 9 when he said he was jumping in the GOP primary-election race for the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Flake, making this one of the more interesting Senate contests as the GOP tries to improve on its narrow 51-seat majority in November.
Many Arpaio supporters had stood by him as his law-enforcement efforts were opposed by Arizona’s corrupt open-borders elite. However, they seriously questioned his trying for this new line of work after he lost his bid in 2016 for a seventh consecutive four-year term as sheriff.
Even though he has more stamina than many other 85-year-olds, he’d still be 92 after serving only one-six term in the grueling Senate if he were to win this November. Would he dare try for a second term that would carry him to nearly age 100? Political parties prefer to have candidates with the advantage of incumbency, not one-termers.
As a senator, Arpaio said, he’d be a strong supporter of Trump’s policies. However, a strong Trump backer already was in this race, Republican former State Sen. Kelli Ward, who turns 49 later in January. Ironically, the conservative Ward also was a strong supporter of Arpaio — when he was sheriff.
While sheriff, Arpaio repeatedly said he was thinking of running for governor of Arizona, but never did.
Co-host Chris Buskirk of the Seth and Chris political program on Phoenix-based KKNT talk radio (960 AM) quickly questioned on January 9 whether new support for Trump’s agenda was likelier if Arpaio split the conservative vote with Ward and allowed a third, “moderate” candidate to win the primary with a plurality.
Such a moderate possibility, southern Arizona GOP Cong. Martha McSally, was bruited to be about to jump in the race. Some national news stories noted that McSally is the preferred candidate of the GOP establishment.
“I don’t think that Sheriff Joe’s doing anyone any favors. . . . It’s an ego trip,” said the conservative Buskirk.
Agreeing was program co-host Seth Leibsohn, also a conservative backer of Arpaio when he was sheriff.
If Arpaio wins the GOP nod, Leibsohn wondered, what chance would this then-86-year-old man have against the presumed Democrat foe, then-42-year-old Kyrsten Sinema? Sinema is a leftist who casts herself as a moderate, with media assistance.
The following day, January 10, Leibsohn exchanged thoughts on-air with local political consultant Sean Noble about Ward and Sinema, who both were seen as able “retail politicians” — people who can sell themselves — while Arpaio was considered attractive only to his current backers, and military veteran McSally was “stoic.”
Ward told Phoenix-based KFYI talk radio (550 AM) on January 10 that she didn’t expect to be the only Republican candidate in this race, so “welcome to the fray” to others. Ward noted that her stands are similar to Arpaio’s, but she said she’s better-positioned to carry them out.
Soon after Arpaio’s announcement, Ward’s campaign manager, Ed Rollins, released a statement saying: “Dr. Ward has great respect for Sheriff Joe Arpaio and welcomes him to the race. His candidacy shows that conservatives in Arizona are fed up with the status quo and know that we need senators who support President Trump and the America First agenda.
“If Martha McSally jumps into the race, she will be just another version of Jeff Flake. She’s weak on immigration, supports amnesty, and opposes the border wall. She refused to support Donald Trump as a candidate, and she has been critical of him as president as well as his White House team,” Rollins added.
“Let’s be clear, Jeff Flake chose not to run because of the success of Dr. Ward’s campaign and her broad support across Arizona. Her candidacy is built on a strong set of principles and issues, and we feel very confident in our position in the race,” he said.
Rollins once served as campaign manager for Ronald Reagan.
Rob Haney, a retired chairman of the Phoenix-based Maricopa County Republican Party, was a strong supporter of Arpaio as sheriff, but told The Wanderer on January 10 that he is “very disappointed” by Arpaio’s entry and supports Ward for the Senate.
“Arpaio is prone to political missteps when he ventures outside of his law-enforcement role,” Haney said. “In the 2002 Arizona gubernatorial race, he shocked the Republican base when, in a television commercial, he ‘endorsed’ far-left, liberal Democrat Janet Napolitano. She was running against pro-life former Republican U.S. Cong. Matt Salmon.
“Arpaio claimed he was only defending Napolitano against false charges from a third candidate, but many Republicans saw Arpaio’s claim as a distinction without a difference since he did not endorse Salmon,” Haney said. “Salmon lost by a squeaker and, to this day, many Republicans hold Arpaio responsible for the loss.
“In the 2014 gubernatorial race, Arpaio endorsed then-Arizona State Treasurer Doug Ducey, who is a strong backer of Sen. John McCain. Arpaio had informed former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who was also running, that he was not endorsing anyone in the race. Arpaio then endorsed Ducey,” Haney continued, adding:
“Thomas had worked closely with Arpaio to attack the illegal-alien invasion in Arizona. Thomas supporters saw this as a betrayal in the fight against the alien invasion since the establishment and their Arizona Bar Association legal allies attacked Thomas in the same manner they had Arpaio.
“The establishment destroyed both of these fighters against the alien invasion and taught all politicians that they had better not oppose the invasion or they would suffer the same consequence. No politician in Arizona has picked up the battle flag to challenge the invasion since,” Haney said.
“Arpaio now will fill the spoiler role as so many Republicans have done in past races. He will split the conservative vote with . . . Ward and give McCain supporter . . . McSally a clear path to winning the Republican primary,” Haney said.
“He has taken the wind from the sails of the Ward campaign and all of the publicity that might have gone to Ward will now focus on Arpaio. . . .
“If Arpaio won, he would be 86 years old when he took office. Would we have a senator we could look forward to supporting in future elections to hold the seat? Very unlikely,” he said.
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