Saturday, January 28, 2017

op ed review 1/29



THIS WEEK’S NEWS
An extraordinary week: President Trump issues executive orders restricting refugees, blocking visas to people from Muslim-majority Middle Eastern and North African countries including Syria.  Plans to hire 5,000 more U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and to triple the number of ICE agents used to arrest and deport immigrants living in the United States illegally.
President Trump announces a major investigation into voter fraud.  In reaction, liberal media insist that there is no such thing.
Whoops!  A university study released this week shows Hillary Clinton garnered more than 800,000 votes from noncitizens on Nov. 8.
White House moves to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, and first steps to repeal Obamacare.
Trump Wins The Unions: Teamsters Praise TPP Withdrawal, Labor Chiefs Describe "Incredible" Meeting With Trump.
Trump tells Detroit auto CEOs that environmental regulations are ‘out of control’.
Trump tells business leaders he wants to cut regulations by 75% or 'maybe more'.
General Motors Co. announces plans to invest an additional $1 billion in the United States, following criticism from President-elect Donald Trump for producing cars in Mexico and sending them back to the U.S.
Ford cancels Mexico plant. Will create 700 U.S. jobs in 'vote of confidence' in Trump
Kroger: 10000 new jobs
Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, is considering setting up a TV display-making plant in the United States in an investment that would exceed $7 billion.
The Rasmussen Tracking Poll shows 59% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance.

Conservative Colorado judge emerges as top contender to fill Scalia seat...
Trump reinstates Reagan policy on abortion.
Planned Parenthood is horrified; claims “Abortion is an American Value”

New White House begins with English-only website.
Trump names new FCC chairman who wants to take a 'weed whacker' to net neutrality
No free pass anymore on violent protests:  Majority of 230 protesters arrested on Inauguration Day will face 10 years in prison and $25k fine as US attorney says they will be charged with felony rioting.

USA Today:  “How Donald Trump and Theresa May are the 2017 version of Reagan-Thatcher”

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus intensified the Trump administration´s criticism of the news media on Sunday, accusing it of trying to delegitimize Donald Trump´s presidency and vowing to fight such coverage "tooth and nail."

How angry is the left? Kellyanne Conway gets Secret Service protection due to threats...

Texas Gov. Abbott demands Travis County reverse new "sanctuary" policy.
Trump orders weekly publication of crimes committed by illegals in sanctuary cities.
Even 74% of Californians Want to End Sanctuary Cities...
Border Patrol Union: Trump’s Border Plan ‘Gives Us the Tools We Need’

 “President Trump just forced the press to cover the 2017 March for Life”.
The crowds attending the Women’s March on Washington and the March for Life are comparable — but the amount of time the media devote to them is not. The major television networks gave the Women’s March on Washington 129 times more coverage than last year’s March for Life, according to one study.
Many photos from Friday’s Right to Life March.  One sign read: “In case you’re lost, this is the women’s march that was NOT organized by Planned Parenthood.”
Interesting rooftop time lapse photo of the march.

“CNN Quietly Releases Updated Pic Showing Trump’s Inaugural Crowd Size Greater than Obama’s 2009 Inaugural Crowd”
CNNs “gigapixel” view of the inaugural crowd.  Gigapixel means you can zoom in on individual faces in the crowd. See for yourself the size of the crowd back near the Washington Monument. Click on the picture inserts to zoom in on the glum faces of Hillary and Obama.  http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/

The American people liked President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech a lot more than the media did. A new Politico/Morning Consult poll shows that a majority of Americans approved of Trump’s Inauguration Day rhetoric. Forty-nine percent of those polled said it was either excellent or good, and 51 percent said the speech was “optimistic.” Forty-six percent thought it was a “presidential” speech and another 44 percent thought it was “inspiring.”
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COLUMN OF THE WEEK
Investor’s Business Daily 1/26 “Trump's Opening Act Is More Conservative Than Reagan”

During the primaries and the presidential campaign, Donald Trump rarely described himself as a conservative. But his appointments and his initial actions as president have turned out to be as about as right wing as it gets.

Trump over the years has earned a healthy amount of skepticism from conservatives, including from this page. National Review, in its editorial denouncing Trump early in the  primary season, called him "a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself." We asked at one point whether Trump was a "common-sense conservative" — as he described himself — or "just mostly liberal." When Trump secured the nomination, we argued that "Republicans have managed to pick the least reliably conservative candidate out of a field that started with some of the most experienced, dedicated and successful conservatives ever to have thrown their hats into the ring."

But since winning the election, Trump has acted more conservative than Ronald Reagan.

Consider the Cabinet Trump has assembled: school choice activist Betsy DeVos for Education, attorney general and EPA foe Scott Pruitt to head that agency, and former Texas governor Rick Perry to run Energy. Trump picked Tom Price, who had developed a detailed ObamaCare replacement plan, to run Health and Human Services, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, who gets a 94% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, as attorney general. Trump also named a staunch opponent of net neutrality to head the Federal Communications Commission.

CNN described it as a "conservative dream team of domestic Cabinet appointments that promises to move swiftly to dismantle the Obama administration's legacy in health care, education, labor and environmental policies." Bill Bennett, who served as education secretary under Reagan, said "these picks so far are not the most conservative by a Republican president since Reagan. They're the most conservative including Reagan. I was there. I sat around that table. I knew who those folks were."

Conservative favorite Ted Cruz summed it up by calling Trump's picks "a team of all stars." And when Trump whittled his list of Supreme Court justices down to three — Third Circuit judge Thomas Hardiman, Tenth Circuit judge Neil Gorsuch, and Eleventh Circuit judge William Pryor — conservatives were delighted with the choices.

Meanwhile, his early actions as president have been making liberals' heads swim. In his first three full days in office, Trump has ordered a freeze on federal hiring and raises, moved to overturn President Obama's ban on the Keystone XL pipeline, talked about turning Medicaid into block grants and vowed to cut spending by $10 trillion. He's been prodding the GOP to come up with an ObamaCare replacement plan now, not put it off for two years as the Republican leadership had planned. He re-instituted Reagan's ban on U.S. aid to foreign organizations that perform abortions. And he told business leaders he wants to cut federal regulations by 75% or "maybe more."

Not even Reagan was as bold as Trump has been in pushing a conservative agenda right out of the gate.

Of course, this is Donald Trump we are talking about. It's possible that he's simply getting ready to make deals, and is merely offering an opening bid. "Aim very high," is how he puts his deal-making strategy in his book "Art of the Deal." Also, we don't know what Trump has in mind for health care, spending on roads, and other areas that will reveal his governing style. We are suspicious of his anti-trade rhetoric and his interventionist instincts at home, even if they are labeled "pro-worker." (Reagan, it's worth noting, regularly made decisions that rankled his conservative base.)

But it's also possible that the ferocious attacks coming from Democrats, the liberal media and the "Never Trump" crowd (i.e., moderate to liberal establishment Republicans) are pushing Trump further to the right. Out of spite if nothing else.

If that's the case, then we hope Trump's critics keep it up. Heck, they should turn the volume up to 11.

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OTHER COLUMNS
“Few journalists have appreciated the degree to which Mr. Trump’s entire political and governing strategy depends on trolling them. They’ve mostly assumed his penchant for exaggeration and invention was the result of psychosis, or just ego. By now, though, it ought to be apparent that he’s doing it intentionally, and strategically.”
            -Barton Swaim

“Trump has only been in office for a week but has arguably managed to do more to reinvigorate the pro-life movement than the entire Republican Party in the entire four decades since Roe v. Wade.”
            -Laura Ingraham
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GLOBALONEY
Trump Orders EPA To Take Down Global Warming Web-Page
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LEFTIST WATCH
“Meltdown on the Left, Where to Begin”

All three media networks cheer left-wing protesters & politicians “defying’ Trump on immigration”

The editor-publisher of German weekly Die Zeit, suggests the easiest way to end the “Trump catastrophe” is to murder the president in the White House.
A Texas high school art teacher has been placed on administrative leave after video surfaced showing her “shooting” President Donald Trump inside a classroom while screaming, “Die!”

DNC Chair Candidates Bash White People in Racially-Charged Forum...

Hollywood´s first Trump-bashing movie is announced.

Billionaire George Soros has ties to more than 50 ‘partners’ of the Women’s March on Washington

Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers behind Saturday’s Women’s March, being held in Washington, D.C., was recently spotted at a large Muslim convention in Chicago posing for pictures with an accused financier for Hamas…… very vocal about her support for Palestine and utter hatred for Israel.

Alicia Colon offers a concise history of the American Left.   “The Brainwashing of a Nation”
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TELEVISION
If you haven’t watched Tucker yet on FOX News, you should:  “America’s Having a Love Affair With Tucker Carlson”

Following Donald Trump's presidential victory, many broadcast networks began to re-evaluate their programming decisions. This pilot season is already showing signs of their efforts to appeal to Trump America.
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ARTICLES
Pam Gellar:  “It´s been less than a week since President Donald J. Trump took office, and he has, in no short order, astonishingly delivered on myriad campaign promises. In spades. His hands-on style of governing is breathtaking. The people spoke. The people won. And our man is delivering the goods. It´s what freedom is supposed to look like. We have been living under the boot of leftist autocrats for so long, we forgot it could be this good. We have been set free. Every day is Christmas…….Trump's accomplishments in five days are nothing short of miraculous. We are witnessing history. And it's wonderful. And no one is talking about it. It's Kafkaesque.”

In his first frantic week at the White House, Donald Trump is doing almost exactly what he promised to do during his campaign, stunning those who thought he'd adapt his style as president.

Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon Torches New York Times: ‘You Have No Power’, arguing that news organizations had been “humiliated” by an election outcome few anticipated, and repeatedly describing the media as “the opposition party”.

Trump Playing Rope-a-Dope with the Media

In his new book, the director of Obama’s faith outreach campaign paints an ugly picture of the previous administration’s cynicism on people of faith.
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INTERESTING STUFF
Lay's potato chips in the White House kitchen, cable news at 6 a.m., Andrew Jackson's portrait in the Oval Office and nights alone in the suite where Lincoln slept: Trump's White House revealed
Lots of pics. Most of America knows the organizers of the various “Women’s Marches” today did not construct women’s events, they constructed events for women who are anti-Trump and voted for Hillary Clinton, ie. liberal women.
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HUMOR
How Republicans deny people their right to vote:
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WISE WORDS
“Energy in government is essential to that security against external and internal danger and to that prompt and salutary execution of the laws which enter into the very definition of good government.”
          -James Madison