President Trump is a dope?

cartoon by A.F. Branco at legalinsurrection.com

At The American Spectator, Dov Fischer traces the sorry history of the liberal media branding a (D) President as brilliant, and an (R) President as a bumbling moron, regardless of the factual record. Then Fischer gets to President Trump. I am posting the paragraph because it’s a handy and concise summary of the first year of his Presidency:

But is the President stupid? It depends. Without any prior political experience, he defeated a field of serious Republican candidates for the nomination and then defeated a former United States Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, Yale Law grad with half a century of political experience for the Presidency. In a year, he has set the economy booming with a huge nationwide increase in consumer confidence, a soaring stock market, sustained economic growth exceeding three percent for consecutive quarters, muted unemployment, a record number of successful appointments of federal appellate judges, and much more. He has revived the energy sector, deregulated the economy, honored promises from approving the Keystone XL and Dakota oil pipelines to recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, induced allied world leaders to start paying their fair share of NATO costs, sharply reduced illegal immigration along our southern border, restored civil liberty protections to college students accused of assault, promoted charter schools and school choice, enacted the most overarching tax reduction in the past thirty years — perhaps the most ever — and advanced an ambitious agenda for his second year. So, if that is the mark of stupid, then this guy is a dope.

The most recent attacks on President Trump’s unfitness for office or stupidity or [fill in the blank] prompted Trump’s response on Twitter, branding himself as a “stable genius.” Which, as Scott Adams of Dilbert fame pointed out, was sheer genius itself, because Trump’s detractors will keep referring back to his tweets, endlessly mocking him as a “very stable genius.”

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Action Alert Updated: No DACA No Dreamer Amnesty!

 Image credit: aldawood81.wordpress.com

Action Alert: No DACA  No Dreamer Amnesty!

UPDATE: Last week, callers were getting either a busy signal or a message that due to inclement weather, the office was closed and callers were requested to try again on the next business day. So this is a re-post for the week of Jan-08. 

Our friend Steve Salvi at Ohio Jobs & Justice Pac sent out this Action Alert:

Take Action this minute and call the White House:

White House comment line: 202-456-1111

What to say:

Ask the President to oppose any illegal alien DREAMER amnesty and to immediately end his unconstitutional DACA program.

Be polite but firm.

Need talking points or background before you make your call? The Cleveland Tea Party blog citing Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) on DACA is here. Our blog citing Mark Steyn, with link to Ann Coulter, both on the priority of stopping illegal immigration, is here. 

And yesterday, this blog linked to additional facts and background information about the DREAMers amnesty. Click here.

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More info on DACA / DREAMers amnesty

art credit: beforeitsnews.com

Re: Amnesty for DREAMers, I’ll be re-posting the Action Alert from last week, starting tomorrow, Monday (DC weather prevented most calls from being answered last week). But over the weekend, several blogs, especially American Thinker, have reported on some facts and developments that relate to DACA.   

From American Thinker blogs: Are most of the DREAMers “valedictorians and Medal of Honor-level military heroes” or are they “functional illiterates” and “underachievers”? Thomas Lifson reports here. And in another blog, Lifson sums up the dilemma for the Democrats pushing for DREAMer amnesty, and asks whether Sen Chuck Schumer can risk a government shutdown:

President Trump engineered this dilemma for Schumer by rescinding Obama’s executive order creating the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, but giving Congress until March 2018 to come up with an alternative approach. That trap is now closing in on Schumer. He has 10 Democrat senators up for re-election in November in states that voted for Trump. Will Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, John Tester of Montana, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri be willing to tell their voters that they think amnesty for a group that includes MS 13 members is so important that the government ought to be shut down? Or, if President Trump and the GOP offer some form of amnesty that does not include chain migration (thereby rewarding the parents that illegally brought their children here) but does include border wall funding, are they willing to vote against it?

We are watching another negotiation-in-process.

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Progressive vs conservative solutions

 

A. F. Branco cartoon at legal insurrection

Ever since their Feb. 2016 issue dedicated to “Conservatives Against Trump,” I have been wary of National Review online. But historian Victor Davis Hanson recently published an essay on “The Great Experiment” at the NRO website, and he concludes:  

The true test of conservative solutions is to see how things are after four years of a strongly conservative president, with at least two years of a Republican Congress.

. . .

Antidote One, of unapologetic progressivism under Obama, did not lead to an economically robust and growing America, one safer abroad in a more secure world, and more cohesive, united, and stable at home — at least if that truly was the leftist agenda rather than the more hushed opposite goal of more equal but poorer Americans, America as just another nation among many, and a cultural revolution aimed at accentuating rather than assimilating race, class, and gender identities.

We shall see if the subsequent Antidote Two, of unregretful conservatism under Trump, will provide what conservatism has always promised: greater prosperity, security, and unity.

The engines of prosperity are already revving up, yet we still see anti-Trump foot-stamping, temper tantrums, and hysteria on display in the media (see cartoon at top), in academia, in the entertainment industry, and in groups like BLM and Antifa. No unity there. Yet. Perhaps when take-home pay increases due to the tax cuts, some of the hysteria will start to subside. Anyway, you can read the rest of Hanson’s essay here.

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Action Alert: No Dreamer Amnesty

 Image credit: aldawood81.wordpress.com

Action Alert: No DACA  No Dreamer Amnesty!

UPDATE: Callers are getting either a busy signal or a message that due to inclement weather, the office is closed and the caller is requested to try again on the next business day. I'll re-post this on Monday. 

Our friend Steve Salvi at Ohio Jobs & Justice Pac sent out this Action Alert:

Take Action this minute and call the White House:

White House comment line: 202-456-1111

What to say:

Ask the President to oppose any illegal alien DREAMER amnesty and to immediately end his unconstitutional DACA program.

Be polite but firm.

Need talking points or background before you make your call? The Cleveland Tea Party blog citing Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) on DACA is here. Our blog citing Mark Steyn, with link to Ann Coulter, both on the priority of stopping illegal immigration, is here. 

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Ohio Division of Liquor “Out of” Control

 headline from 1933:

image credit: mafiapedia.wordpress.com

 headline from 2018:

Ohioans Are Going to Have a Hard Time 

Buying Their Favorite Vodka in 2018

John Ellis at PJ Media reports on a development at the Ohio Division of Liquor Control:

Ohio's Orwellian named Division of Liquor Control is forcing many Ohioans who want to enjoy their favorite flavored vodka to spend their money in neighboring states thanks to its decision to place new limits on liquor sales.

. . .

Making the decision for consumers, Ohio's Division of Liquor Control has decided that over 700 liquor brands will no longer be sold in the state. According to a spokesperson [via Cincinnati Business Courier], this decision was made to, "to free up shelf space for more popular products as well as new-to-market products."

Our household doesn’t consume much in the way of liquor, but undoubtedly some Tea Party people will not be happy about this. PJ Media provides the list of banned liquor:

If you're interested in seeing the complete list of now-banned alcohols in Ohio, click here.

Read the entire report here. Out. Of. Control.

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Healthcare in 2018

cartoon by Jake Fuller via caymancompass.com

Residents in Geneva, New York have been promoting single-payer (i.e., government-run) healthcare as better than healthcare provided by the private sector:

Those supporting an effort to get universal health care in New York — including members of a fledgling organization in Geneva — hope to convince state legislators of the need through the stories of their constituents.

. . .

The goal is to gather information with these surveys to help lobby lawmakers to support the New York Health Act, which would provide comprehensive, universal health coverage to all state residents, and which would replace private insurance coverage.

Coverage would be funded through a graduated tax on payroll and non-payroll taxable income, based on ability to pay. 

These people should be careful what they wish for. Even with the Obamacare mandate eliminated, repealing the entire Obamacare bill remains a legislative priority for President Trump. It should be a priority for McConnell and Ryan, because this is what government-run healthcare looks like (posted at Hannity.com on Jan-03-18):

The United Kingdom’s National Health Service announced this week that it was canceling all “routine operations” until February, saying all “non-emergency” procedures will be delayed after a flu-outbreak left hospitals overcrowded and under-funded.

According to the Telegraph, the nation’s government-run health services axed over 50,000 operations in every hospital in the UK following claims by doctors that patients were being treated as if they were in “third world countries.”

. . .

The chaos comes as prominent Democrats and liberal legislators like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders advocate for a similar, single-payer healthcare system in the United States. Left-wing advocates often point to Canada and the United Kingdom as an “ideal” vision for the future of America’s health industry.

The NHS is closing clinics, cancelling surgeries, the hospitals are overcrowded, they are even “running out of corridor space,” and there are ambulances lined up outside. 

At present, the Senate does not have enough GOP votes to repeal Obamacare (see here). The elimination of the mandate was a good start, but just a start. I still think that if the exemption from Obamacare currently enjoyed by members of Congress were eliminated, they'd find a way to get the job done.

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