Friday, December 29, 2017

Trump Triumphs in 2017!





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The Wall Street Journal 


The ‘Stupidity’ of Donald Trump

By William McGurn


This time one year ago, the assumption dominating political coverage was that the only people more stupid than Donald Trump were the deplorables who elected him.

Since then, of course, President-elect Trump has become President Trump. 

Over his 11 months in office, he has put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and four times as many judges on the appellate courts as Barack Obama did his first year; recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; withdrawn from the Paris climate accord; adopted a more resolute policy on Afghanistan than the one he’d campaigned on; rolled back the mandate forcing Catholic nuns, among others, to provide employees with contraception and abortifacients; signed legislation to open up drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; initiated a bold, deregulatory assault on the administrative state—and topped it all off with the first major overhaul of the tax code in more than 30 years.

And yet that Mr. Trump is a very stupid man remains the assumption dominating his press coverage.

[...]

Almost all GOP presidents are stereotyped as not very bright. Ask Ike, or George W. Bush, or even Lincoln. 

[...]

Perhaps the best advice for anti-Trumpers comes from one of their own, a Vermont Democrat named Jason Lorber.  Way back in April, in an article for the Burlington Free Press, the retired state politician wrote that “while it may be good for a chuckle, calling or even thinking someone else stupid is virtually guaranteed to give them the last laugh.”

Is that not what Mr. Trump is now enjoying at the close of his first year?


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POWERLINE


Happy Tax Cut



Watching the Democrats rend their garments over allowing people to keep more of their own money rather than letting politicians spend it for them recalls the late great political scientist Aaron Wildavsky, who once tallied up the victim classes of liberalism, and calculated that 375 percent of Americans are certified victims!

Start with consumers, who Ralph Nader says are all victims, and you begin with 100 percent of the population. 

Now add in women, and you’re up to 150 percent before you even get to racial minorities, etc.

Democrats are saying the tax cut will kill people, but haven’t Republicans already killed off the entire population with the repeal of net neutrality and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord? 

What am I leaving out?

I know many Democrats think Americans are zombies, but just how many times can you kill everyone?


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Trump Ends 2017 Residing In His Enemies’ Heads




As 2017 comes to a close, tumbleweeds roll down the empty Lido Deck while the Republican base answers the question, “What if Conservative, Inc., gave a cruise and nobody came?” 

The Democrats fled Washington under cover of darkness, desperate to keep their slobbering socialist wing from forcing them to commit ritual suicide by closing down the government over Christmas because the GOP Congress (for now) won’t hand a couple million illegal aliens citizenship. 

Robert Mueller’s Keystone Kop Korps started off with “unquestioned integrity” and ended the year with totally questioned integrity. The mainstream media abandoned the principle of objectivity in favor of shrill advocacy, yet it is baffled that most Americans now consider its members like just another bunch of partisan hacks.

In the White House, where everyone who was anyone told us Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit would reign, President Donald Trump finished the year by signing a tax reform bill that punished conservatives’ enemies and rewarded their friends. 

The Democrats get to go tell their base of blue state coastal swells, “Uh, sorry about losing those state tax deductions cuz we were too busy resisting to actually negotiate and thereby get a seat at the table.” Cue the Sad Trombone

Trump plays for keeps, unlike the squish-cons who play for media hugs and invitations to the kool kidz’ parties.

He was supposed to lose the primary, but he didn’t. He was supposed to lose the general, but he didn’t. He was supposed to fall victim to the covert schemes of leftist bureaucrats and the overt obstruction of The Resistance, but he didn’t. 

Instead, Donald Trump has prospered as the most conservative president since Ronald Reagan. And it’s breaking the souls of his enemies. Deliciously.

The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell us is dumb. The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell us is a clown. The elite keeps losing to the guy who doesn’t meet their bottom line standard to be worthy of governing – being one of the elite. So, what’s that make the elite?

He just refuses to lose. He just refuses to submit. He just refuses to give a damn about what they say or what they think. And that infuriates them. He won’t take a knee, but he will offer them a finger.

Brick by brick, he is disassembling the rickety edifice of Barack Obama’s transformed America. Regulations? Slashed, even as the screams of the professional expert class echo across the District of Columbia.

ISIS? Dead, with our military unleashed to hunt down our enemies without hesitation or mercy. 

The Courts? Packed, not with squishy wimps ready to bend to the will of the WaPo and the Georgetown cocktail crew but with true conservatives determined to fight for the Constitution.

Trump’s enemies are getting tired of all the winning.

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That’s why they hate Trump. He didn’t make them irrelevant; he just showed the world that they were irrelevant. And that’s unforgiveable.

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They are all about Trump, 24/7. CNN, and its silly Don Lemons and Tater Stelters, need Trump. They obsess over him, for without Trump they are nothing. 

The Resistance? They have nothing but Trump to fill their empty lives, getting giddy every time some media outlet reports that someone who knows somebody who heard somebody say that maybe Mueller is investigating someone who met Trump once for felony jaywalking. 

[...]

Trump owns his foes. They are mere satellites orbiting around him, and his gravity is all that keeps them from spinning off into space. They have willingly submitted to the reality of a Trumpocentric political universe. It’s hilarious.

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And Trump rolls on, not seeking their approval, not conforming to their demands, ignoring them when he isn’t mocking them on Twitter. 

He refuses to acknowledge their superiority, their right to rule over us Normals. 

[...]

[W]hile Trump makes a wonderful avatar, he is really only that – a symbol, a representation of something more terrifying to the elite than any one man. 

Trump represents Normal Americans, the ones the elite on both the right and the left look down upon with contempt and fear. 

They don’t really hate Donald Trump. They hate who he represents. They hate us. And they hate that they can’t do a damn thing about it.


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ISIS Has Lost Nearly All of Its Territory—Mostly Under Trump



The Islamic State has lost 98 percent of the territory it once controlled, thanks in large part to President Trump's changed strategy in dealing with the terror group.

Half of the territory of ISIS’s ‘caliphate’ was recaptured under Trump because “onerous” rules in place under the Obama  administration were lifted. 

“The rules of engagement under the Obama administration were onerous. I mean what are we doing having individual target determination being conducted in the White House, which in some cases adds weeks and weeks,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the former head of U.S. Air Force intelligence, reports FoxNews.com. “The limitations that were put on actually resulted in greater civilian casualties.”

He also said the gains against ISIS could’ve been accomplished sooner had Obama not “micromanaged” the war.

“We could have accomplished our objectives through the use of overwhelming air power in three months not in three years,” he said, according to FoxNews.com.

The latest American intelligence assessment says fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters now remain in Iraq and Syria, down from a peak of nearly 45,000 just two years ago. U.S. officials credit nearly 30,000 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and regional partners on the ground for killing more than 70,000 jihadists. Meanwhile, only a few thousand have returned home.
The remaining ISIS strongholds are concentrated in a small area along the border of Syria and Iraq. ISIS, at one point, controlled an area the size of Ohio. (FoxNews.com)

While the terror group’s losses are certainly worth celebrating, its radical ideology remains. ISIS continues trying to recruit sympathizers around the world to carry out attacks.

“ISIS became a brand, and a lot of pre-existing terrorist groups — you’ve seen this in the Sinai, for example — start to raise the flag of ISIS, mainly to recruit foreign fighters and other things,” Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS at the U.S. Department of State, told reporters last week at the State Department.

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It’s Official: Nikki Haley Announces Cuts to the UN Budget



Just days after warning the United Nations the United States doesn't pay to be  disrespected, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has announced a $235 million cut to UN Budget. The news comes after more than 100 countries voted to condemn the U.S. for officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capitol city of Israel. More from Fox News

Calling it “a big step in the right direction,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday night announced a historic reduction in the U.N. biennial operating budget.

Haley said the plan calls for a $285 million cut for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

“The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” Haley said. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked."

She added, “This historic reduction in spending – in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable U.N. – is a big step in the right direction.”

The U.N. budget now covers a two-year period, beginning in January of an even-numbered year.

The announcement comes after negotiations with the UN Secretary General, who also proposed an additional $200 million in cuts.

The United States was seeking a $250 million cut to the U.N. budget for 2018-19, on top of $200 million in savings already proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Agence France-Presse reported two weeks ago.
Earlier this year, President Trump gave a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York City and called for reform of the international body.