Fact and Fiction:President Trump took his fight for his border wall to El Paso in a big rally last night as congressional negotiators announced they had reached a deal on border security. 

  The deal, according to The NY Times,provides $1.375 billion for fencing and other physical barriers at the border. It would pay for 55 miles of new bollard fencing, with some restrictions based upon community and environmental protection.

  “We’re building the wall anyway,” Trump told his crowd in El Paso. He said he skipped a briefing on the deal to deliver his speech.

  Trump repeated his claim of recent weeks that El Paso was plagued by violent crime until the construction of a fence on the border with Mexico. 

  That message has mystified El Paso residents and political leaders who wonder what he’s talking about. Mayor Dee Margo told CBS News, “We were safe before the border wall went up, or I call it the fence.”  

  The El Paso Times has pointed out that violent crime in the city took a steep dive before a border barrier was built. Violent crime peaked in 1993 at more than 6,500 incidents. Then between 1993 and 2006 the number of violent crimes fell by more than 34 percent, down to less than 2,700 crimes reported.

The border fence was authorized by President George W. Bush in 2006, but construction didn’t start until 2008. Crime even spiked a bit after the fence was built.

 Since 2005, the number of violent crimes reported in El Paso every year has hovered below 3,200. It’s considered a very safe city.

Diversity of Opinion:In an example of how the Democratic party is wrestling with its own diversity, Minnesota’s freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim and frequent critic of Israel, was forced to apologize for what have been taken as anti-Semitic comments about Israel.

   She has accused the Israel lobby of buying support from American politicians through political donations.

  Another Israel critic is Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a freshman congresswoman from Michigan.Journalist Glenn Greenwald had posted a remark about fellow politicians attempting to muzzle criticism of Israel and its political influence in Washington. He wrote, “It’s stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans.” 

  Omar responded, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” which was immediately taken as an anti-Semitic trope about Jews and money.

  Omar supports the so-called “BDS” movement aimed at punishing Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. That stands for “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.” Critics of Israeli policy are frequently accused of being anti-Semitic.

  Sheryl Gay Stohlberg writes in The Washington Post that, “The tussle over Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar has exposed a growing generational divide within the Democratic Party, pitting an old guard of stalwart supporters of Israel against an ascendant wing of young liberals — including many young Jews — willing to accuse the Israeli government of human rights abuses and demanding movement toward a Palestinian state.

  After being taken to the woodshed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Omar issued an apology saying, “Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.”

Heavy Weather: Winter storm warnings are in effect this morning in the Pacific Northwest, Wisconsin and upper Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and most of New England. Already today more than 2,200 flights are cancelled and more than 5,000 delayed.

The Obit Page:Author CY Lee, who wrote the novel “The Flower Drum Song” about generational change among Asians in San Francisco later made into a Broadway musical and a movie, died last November at age 102.

  Both the play and the movie broke ground featuring Asians in lead roles.

  Chin Yang Lee in Hunan Province, China, to a family that lost everything in the communist revolution. He fled the Japanese invasion and moved to New York in 1943. He was ready to give up being a writer when his novel was published.

  Despite Lee’s success in American culture, when he died last fall his family told only Chinese-language newspapers. His death hit the English language press only a week ago when The Washington Postlearned of it.

Family Matters: Private investigators working for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have concluded that it was the brother of his mistress who leaked the couple’s intimate texts and photos to the National Enquirer, the Associated Press reports.

  The brother, Michael Sanchez, is a supporter of President Donald Trump and an acquaintance of Trumpies Roger Stone and Carter Page. He is also the manager of his sister, Lauren Sanchez, a former television anchor and Bezos’s current squeeze. 

   This stirs the pot. Bezos has suggested that the leak of his affair may have been politically motivated — possibly even connected to President Trump who hates Bezos for the coverage he gets from The Washington Post, which the Amazon founder owns.

  Elizabeth Bruenig writes for The Washington Post that the intimate photos will eventually come out and when they do, you shouldn’t look at them. “There are things better left unknown,” she says.

  We can’t wait to not look at those pictures.