Losers and more empty seats

Making the rounds . . . 

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Action Alert: Amnesty Again

image credit: americanmexorist.wordpress.com

RE: H-2B visas for 2018 and DACA amnesty

NumbersUSA sent this Alert out today:

NumbersUSA has learned that Congressional Leaders may include an H-2B visa increase in the year-end spending bill. The H-2B visa is the low-skilled guest worker program used to fill seasonal or temporary jobs in landscaping, food service, hospitality, and more. This program adds extra job competition for low-skilled American workers and adversely affects the wages for these jobs.

In past year's spending bills, Congress has exempted returning workers from the H-2B program, having the potential impact of quadrupling the number of these guest worker visas issued each year. For FY2017, Congress didn't exempt returning workers, but gave the Department of Homeland Security authority to issue visas beyond the annual cap. DHS ultimately increased the number of visas available by 15,000.

This new threat adds to the continuing threat of a DACA amnesty being part of the spending bill. Despite rhetoric from leaders of both Parties, Congress could still include this amnesty in the must-pass bill.

The ALERT:

Please call your U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators and tell them to oppose a DACA amnesty and an H-2B visa increase in the must-pass, year-end spending bill.

Sen. Sherrod Brown  ~  (202) 224-2315

Sen. Rob Portman  ~  (202) 224-3353

Rep. Marcia Fudge  ~  (202) 225-7032

If Marcia Fudge is not your Representative, call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 255-3121 to reach your Rep.

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2017 official White House Christmas Portrait

Via Conservative Treehouse: 

The White House released the official Christmas Portrait – President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are seen . . . in their official 2017 Christmas portrait, in the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, D.C.

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Judge Roy Moore vs RINO Mitch McConnell and the Uniparty

image credit: sol1776.blogspot.com 

Mark Steyn is a favorite of mine, and here are a few of his post-election thoughts:

[Judge Roy] Moore lost narrowly enough to suggest that it wasn't the accusations that did him in. He could have survived those, just about. What killed him was that he was running against both the Democrats and the Republicans - including Alabama's own senior senator, Richard Shelby. (Trump post-Billy Bush was in a similar position, as the likes of Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, etc, stampeded to distance themselves.) But Roy Moore was the nominee only because the smart guys over-invested in Luther Strange (just as in 2015 they over-invested in Jeb Bush). In the first round of primary voting, Mitch McConnell's priority was to prop up Strange by taking out what he regarded as his principal threat, Mo Brooks. Congressman Brooks would have made an excellent senator, and would have been elected in a walk, and he can also claim more plausibly than Moore to be a populist conservative aligned with the Trump agenda. But McConnell didn't want him in the Senate and, as he saw it, once Brooks was gone, Luther Strange would have no trouble walloping Moore in the run-off.

Unfortunately, Strange owed his eminence in Alabama to the patronage of a corrupt and discredited governor. As I wrote three months ago, given the disposition of GOP primary electorates in the Age of Trump, they were unlikely to turn to "a creature from the Alabama swamp ...to drain the Washington swamp". So, thanks to McConnell and the ten million bucks he blew through, Moore won the run-off and became the candidate. And thus, of all preposterous outcomes, Alabama is now a blue state.

. . . 

A final thought on Moore: Yes, he's a kook, and an insufficiently nimble one to dodge the incoming schoolgirls. But as I wrote three months ago:

Whatever one feels about Roy Moore, he's principled enough to be willing to lose his job over the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage. That's unusual in American politics.

Read Steyn’s full column here. I think he is correct to place blame on Mitch McConnell and the GOPe Uniparty. 

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Catching up on last week’s news: Mike Gibbons running for U.S. Senate

map image credit: cleveland.com 

Last week, Jeremy Pelzer at cleveland.com reported (h/t Ralph King):

COLUMBUS, Ohio--U.S. Senate candidate Mike Gibbons was endorsed by the Franklin County Republican Party on Wednesday by an overwhelming margin, giving the Cleveland-area businessman a high-profile win in his underdog bid to snatch the GOP nomination from Treasurer Josh Mandel.

The county party's central committee vote was 85-16, according to Gibbons. It's the first time Gibbons has been endorsed by a county party; the Cuyahoga County GOP previously endorsed Mandel.

Read the rest here. Mr. Gibbons's website is here.

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Army-Navy Game Puts National Football League to Shame

photo credit: cbssports.com

Tom Joyce reports at Lifezette on yesterday’s Army-Navy game:

The Army, which honored the 10th Mountain Division with their uniforms on Saturday, ran for 221 yards on 49 carries while the Navy, which honored the Blue Angels, ran for 294 yards on 46 carries. . . .

Thanks to the team's win and its victory over the Air Force Falcons earlier in the season, the Army received the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, which is given to the top military football school annually. . . .

President Donald Trump himself tweeted earlier in the day that he would be watching the game. Following the results, he offered congratulations to the Army's Black Knights. . . 

No matter what the teams' records are coming into the game or which one comes out on top, the American people are still happy to support these two sides. Without them and the rest of the military academies and the military overall, there would be no United States, in which citizens are free to enjoy things like football.

The game, quite frankly, makes the NFL anthem kneelers look even worse than they already do.

Joyce’s full column, with the President's Congratulatory tweet, is here.

UPDATE: Here's a video of the National Anthem before the game.

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Trump storms

Image credit: cowgernation.com

Need a little pick-me-up? David Prentice at American Thinker has some thoughts on President Trump's accomplishments in his first year in office, despite a corrupt and hostile media that lies about him every day, despite the GOP elites that obstruct his agenda every inch of the way, despite the howling from environmentalists, the academic community, etc., etc. Prentice’s question: “how in the hell is Trump doing this?” Below is a short extract from his article proposing some answers:

The art of building is an underestimated skill.   It requires a combination of deep intelligence, blue collar toughness, a mind capable of great focus and flexibility.   Walking onto a construction site is like walking into a washing machine.  Everything is moving; machines, people, tools, and lots of noise.  Lots of noise.  All being driven to a finish line of time, money, and hopefully the integrity of a job that will endure.  It’s the Wild West of being in business, and you’d better be prepared to live your life in a storm that doesn’t stop until each project is complete.  After which you are fired.  Well, not really, but you are terminated with your final payment, and if you’re good, you get to start another job all over again because you won a bid against other companies that want the same job.   The storm never ends.

. . .

It’s a storm that invigorates you to succeed, or drives you to fail.  You push, you press to figure out the process and master it.    Or go home.  Donald Trump loved this process early on. It was his early training, it was what molded his outlook, it was what tested him.  His life was a storm.  He used the storm of New York building to vault his company to the top of the heap.  He used the storm while building nationwide, and worldwide to propel it even further.

This is a man whose whole life has been lived within storms.  He thrives on them, welcomes them, and uses them to achieve his goals. 

It’s clear Trump’s political career is following the same course.  Whoever tries to engulf him within a storm loses.  The left has been calling on storm after storm, and they are still losing.  They don’t get it yet.  Return to that list of accomplishments cited earlier.  He is implementing his promises one at a time, the whole time the left conjures multiple deluges, dark ones, like the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

It’s amazing to watch.

Read the rest here. And yes, it is amazing to watch.

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