Category: President Trump’s Actions

Baltimore is Burning

July 31, 2019

Baltimore IS on fire — and it HAS been for some time. We’ll get into specifics in a moment that bears this out. The last few days have found the President and Baltimore resident Congressman Elijah Cummings going after each other in the press. And it’s ugly.

It’s ugly, not because Democrats and their communications arm — the Mainstream Media — pipe in and all in unison cry “Trump is a racist! His attacks on Rep. Cummings and the city of Baltimore are racist! He’s a racist…..”

Racism is NOT Baltimore’s problem! Or is it?

The “Problem”

Baltimore’s problem is not unique. In fact, large cities across the nation face the exact same problem. The problem is NOT that they need more money. The problem is the money they have that comes in total from taxpayers is NOT being used wisely. AND THERE’S NO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE WASTE AND CORRUPTION THAT THOSE DOLLARS FUND!

The Problem’s Source

The source seems to be the plethora of money from the Feds to help Baltimore fix itself: fix its high crime rate, raging unemployment, incorrigible public education, homelessness, corruption in local government, etc. Baltimore’s political leadership can cry “foul” as loud as they want against the Trump Administration, but those cries fall on deaf ears. The federal government has buried Baltimore in free taxpayer dollars. And it began with President Obama.

Free Money

President Barack Obama said, ”Massive investments in urban communities could make a difference right now.” Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings said, “We have to invest in our cities and our children.” And House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who also represents Maryland, said, “But we’re going to have to as a country invest if we’re going to have the kinds of communities we want.”

But the idea that we haven’t been “investing” in Baltimore is nonsense.

Federal and state money poured into the city for decades. From fiscal years 2003 to 2013 (the last year for which these reports are available), Baltimore received at least $2.4 billion in federal assistance and another $1.8 billion in state aid. The city also received roughly $1.8 billion in federal stimulus money. And this doesn’t count the billions of dollars received directly by the people who live in Baltimore through various social welfare programs.

Yet nearly a quarter of the people in the city still live in poverty, 65 percent above the national level. We’ve clearly been throwing a lot of money at poverty in Baltimore with very little (if any) positive results.

Part of the problem, unsurprisingly, is that the city does not make very good use of the money it receives.

Under Obama, Baltimore received $9.5 million in federal funds to deal specifically with the city’s growing homeless problem. But according to an audit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city did not properly monitor the homelessness funds, paid providers according to a preset formula rather than actual expenditures, lost track of money in several instances, and paid city staffers based on estimates, not the actual time they spent on grant activities. The city ended up having to repay nearly a third of the money. Not to worry, though: Baltimore expects to receive another $20 million+ in homelessness assistance from the feds this year and EVERY year.

Similarly, the city may end up having to repay a federal education grant designed to help the city’s poorest schools, after an audit by the Department of Education found that much of the money was actually used for dinner cruises, makeovers, and meals.

And a new audit of a city program to help low-income families with heating and energy bills found that nearly 20 percent of payments were unsupported by paperwork, and others had missing or incorrect information. Some bills were paid multiple times, while still other payments were made to families that didn’t live in the city.

But it’s not just a question of waste, fraud, and abuse. Even when the money was spent as intended, it has done little good.

Remember that $1.4 billion in federal stimulus spending? $1.4 Billion: how many thousands of jobs should that have created? Well, according to the government’s official website Recovery.gov, that spending generated just 64 permanent jobs. (you do the math)

The Washington Post reported how the federal and state governments spent more than $130 million rejuvenating the Sandtown area in Baltimore where Freddie Gray was arrested. Barely half of the working-age population is employed, according to a recent report from the Justice Policy Institute and the Prison Policy Initiative. The neighborhood lacks a supermarket or a single restaurant, not even a fast-food outlet. More than 60 percent of people over 25 have less than a high school diploma, and almost half of current high school students are chronically absent. Life expectancy is 10 years lower than the national average.

Baltimore spends $16,578 a year per pupil in schools, roughly 52 percent above the national average, and the fourth most of any major city. The majority of that money comes not from the city itself but from the state and federal governments. Yet more than a quarter of Baltimore students fail to graduate from high school. Fewer than half of Baltimore high school students passed the last Maryland High School Assessment test. SAT scores for Baltimore students are more than 100 points below the national average.

Why do we think it will be any different this time if we simply throw more money at the problem? Worse, the focus on spending more money distracts us from those things we know actually do lift people out of poverty.

There are few better routes out of poverty than a job. Fewer than 3 percent of those working full time live in poverty. Yet Maryland has one of the most anti-business tax and regulatory climates in the nation. And Baltimore adds its own layer of excessive taxes and regulatory bureaucracy.

Education reform is another key to lifting people out of poverty. Drop out of school and you are likely to be poor. Graduate from college and you won’t be. Yet, Maryland radically restricts parental choice and teacher accountability.

And any effective anti-poverty program will try to reduce out-of-wedlock birth and single parenting. Households headed by a single mother are more than five times more likely to be poor compared with married-couple families, but in Baltimore two-thirds of the births in the city are to unmarried mothers, and almost 60 percent of households are headed by single parents. Yet our welfare system continues to discourage family formation.

Of course, we need to do something to lift the people of Baltimore and other struggling cities out of poverty. But that something is not continuing to throw good money after bad.

Baltimore’s Current “Numbers”

Real estate: The median home value in Baltimore is $113,500, according to Zillow. Baltimore home values have declined 3.2 percent over the past year and Zillow predicts they will fall 4.2 percent within the next year. The median list price per square foot in Baltimore is $144, which is lower than the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson Metro average of $190. The median rent price in Baltimore is $1,400, which is lower than the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson Metro median of $1,650.

Jobs: The unemployment rate in Baltimore city was at 5.10 percent in May. Compare that to Maryland state’s 3.8 percent unemployment rate in June, while the national average sits at 3.7 percent.

Income: The typical household income in Baltimore was $46,641 in 2017, while the average family in the U.S. saw annual earnings of $57,652, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Poverty: According to Census Bureau data, the poverty rate in Charm City came in at 22.4 percent in 2017, compared to the national average of 12.3 percent.

City leadership ranking: Baltimore ranked as No. 129 out of 150 — (or 21 spots from the bottom of the list) — in WalletHub’s list of 2019’s best- and worst-run cities in America.

Crime: The city also took the No. 3  spot on 24/7 Wall Street’s recent list of the most dangerous cities in America. The No. 1 spot went to St. Louis, Missouri, while Detroit, Michigan took the No. 2 spot.

Retail sales per capita: In 2012, Baltimore rang in $5,871 in retail sales per capita, compared to the national average of $13,443, according to the Census Bureau.

The Cummings/Trump Feud

It has been brutal! It is no secret that Rep. Cummings as head of the House Oversight Committee has steadily attacked President Trump personally and professionally since 2016. Mr. Trump ratcheted up the feud last week with a series of tweets excoriating the deplorable conditions in Baltimore placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the MD Congressman. It’s not surprising that Cummings has continually fired back in like kind.

But what is shameful is that the allegations made by the President were not original. In fact, Trump’s statements of Baltimore being “rat-infested,” and in “horrible condition” have been previously touted by numerous others in politics — and not Republicans — several of which are Maryland resident politicians. In fact, the Baltimore mayor (who recently resigned) stated herself that the city was rat-infested. Of course, Democrats and members of the Mainstream media immediately turned Trump’s criticism of Baltimore into pure racism. Why? Cummings is African-American, so any criticism of any kind of him professionally, the city of Baltimore or the state of Maryland could certainly be driven only by racism, right?

But here’s a word for Mr. Cummings, all other Democrats, and Baltimore residents and politicians: Baltimore IS burning! It’s on fire with racism, crime, poverty, poor public education, healthcare, much homelessness, and government waste and corruption.

Summary

Let’s end this today with a topic that is political, personal, divisive, and controversial at best: Racism. The cries of “Racist” have been hurled at President Trump nonstop over his very visible public attacks against the conditions in Baltimore. Of course, he has labeled as primarily responsible Baltimore’s leading federal advocate and resident, Representative Elijah Cummings. The Democrat heavyweight wields significant power in D.C. He’s Chairman of the House Oversight Committee which supervises pretty much every department in the Executive Branch of government. And in his gun sights has been this president who Mr. Cummings detests vehemently and never misses an opportunity to tell those on the other end of a network microphone and tv camera. Cummings didn’t just recently start his Trump attacks. And they’ve been extraordinarily crude and derisive since the 2016 election.

Naturally joining Mr. Cummings in his cries of racism against this president are most Democrats in federal and state offices and, of course, the fawning media. And this topic is what we will close this story with today.

Elijah Cummings and the rest of American Democrats are either innocently or purposely missing what’s really going on in this spat between Trump and Cummings. And what’s going on has NOTHING to do with racism. Further, it is beyond disingenuous for Cummings, all these Democrat presidential candidates, House and Senate Democrat leaders, and EVERY Democrat who has joined in the mob cries of racism. Why is that? Pay close attention to what we are saying:

  • First, Mr. Trump is by far not the first to reference the rat infestation in Baltimore. In fact, Baltimore’s mayor — an African American female — stated just months ago she could smell the rats infesting the city;
  • Secondly, Mr. Cummings in all of his hate-filled attacks against President Trump has NEVER sought actual and real and specific federal government assistance. In fact, in the Freddie Gray demonstrations-turned-riots, Baltimore made very clear they did not want federal help. And regarding additional federal financial support, Cummings has been virtually quiet. Why is that?
  • It could be because Department of Housing and Urban Development regional administrator Lynne Patton appeared just days ago on Fox News and took note of just how much federal money has been steered into Cummings’ district, which is nearly 53% percent black.“President Trump has given $16 billion in 2018 alone to Elijah Cummings’ district in federal grants,” Patton explained. “We have given more money in homeless funds to Baltimore than the last administration. We have given more money in ‘community development grants.’”Patton then asked, “What are you actually doing with the money so that it benefits residents in the community for once instead of deep-pocket, crooked politicians?”

It’s blatantly clear that what is being heard from the White House about Baltimore certainly CANNOT be initiated by racism. Say what you want about the President’s tweets, his “in-your-face” response to the myriad of personal and political attacks from all sides, screaming about his insistence for federal law enforcement persons to do exactly what they are supposed to do: enforce the law! By the way, every one of those federal lawmakers — EVERYONE — with one hand raised and one on a Bible pledged to support and defend the Constitution — which is the laws of the United States that members of Congress crafted, agreed to, and were signed into law.

How is it OK for ANY of them to want laws of the country to NOT be enforced! And should they not expect this president — ANY president — to see to it that those who serve in the Department of Justice do just that: enforce U.S. laws? These 2020 Democrat presidential candidates are to a person advocating for illegal immigrants AND American citizens to violate existing federal laws. And many of them actually serve in the House and Senate where any laws they don’t like and think should NOT be enforced can be changed!

The problem today is not Elijah Cummings and is not Donald Trump. And it’s NOT racism. No, Donald Trump is NOT a racist. He has a fifty + year business reputation that dramatically evidences exactly the opposite. And think about this: one of the certainties in the life of every bigot and racist is that they not only verbally attack people of other races vehemently, but their attacks are also always the denigration of them specifically because of their skin color. Trump has NEVER done that. And for anyone that disagrees, feel free to send me specific examples — quotations and/or video proof — and we’ll certainly post it here with an apology.

So what is the problem?

When people scream that others are racists without citing specific examples that prove their allegations, what they are doing IS the real problem! Racism IS a serious problem. There are many ways to deal with it. And screaming ad nauseum that someone is a racist is NOT one of them.

But it comes to this: “If” Mr. Trump is a racist, why would he authorize his Department of Urban Development to invest $16 billion in Baltimore for its many issues in just one year? Secondly, if he IS a racist, nothing anyone says will change that.

In case you’ve forgotten, here are the 3 Websters definitions of racism: The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others; Discrimination or prejudice based on race; The belief that each race has distinct and intrinsic attributes.

Go ahead: send some specific examples that prove Mr. Trump is racist.

In the meantime, do you want to know what really is wrong in Baltimore? The cause certainly is not money. The cause is poor planning, poor leadership, and virtually NO accountability for local and state government. How else can a city receive several billion federal dollars specifically to address those issues followed by $16 billion more and achieve NO POSITIVE RESULTS?

Rep. Cummings, other Democrats, and the Media can cry “Racist!” all they want at the President. But they’re saying that does not make it true. And even if it IS true, how does that cause all the crap in Baltimore? It’s been happening for many years before a Trump presidency.

(I apologize: I said “all the crap” and should have said “all the rats” instead. Sorry!)

 

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Reagan or Trump: Flip a Coin

July 3, 2019

Trump and Kim Jung Un have now been together face-to-face three times. The third meeting was a bit strange, certainly unconventional, and absolutely showed the World that the North Korean leader is pretty desperate to continue down the path of “getting along” with the leader of the United States — in this case, Donald Trump.

Trump detractors’ heads have been spinning, they’ve all been spewing green vomit, and their non-stop attacks of the President are escalating every day. Their crushing crescendo has drowned out any tidbits of good that might have resulted from that short back-slapping get together between those two leaders. Trump adversaries don’t care at all about facts. Their cries are NOT founded on facts, but are directly tied to their one and only political perspective: “Trump is Evil.”

This all reminds me of the press and political treatment of President Ronald Reagan. In fact, Reagan’s treatment by politicians (both Democrat and Republican) and by members of the press are eerily similar.

  • Reagan could do NOTHING right;
  • Reagan did EVERYTHING wrong;
  • Reagan HATED the poor and American minorities;
  • Reagan cared only about the Rich;
  • Reagan was a stupid politician;
  • Reagan was a cowboy that spurned conventional governing.

Does any of that sound familiar?

Reagan and the Press

They hated him, pure and simple.

Journalists — TRUE journalists — are politically neutral in their reporting and take pride in keeping readers, viewers, and listeners from ever knowing what their political persuasions are. Honestly, before 1980 (when Reagan was elected) journalists were fairly successful at hiding their politics. But with the election of the movie star/governor from California, all that journalist independence and integrity in reporting was immediately in the trash.

Want some examples?

“I used to say I thought if you were down on your luck and you got through the Secret Service, got in the Oval Office and said, Mr. President, ‘I’m down on my luck,’ he would literally give you the shirt off his back. And then he’d sit down in his undershirt and he’d sign legislation throwing your kids off school lunch program, maybe your parents off Social Security, and of course the Welfare Queen off of welfare.”
— ABC’s Sam Donaldson, who covered the White House during the 1980s, on Good Morning America, June 11, 2004.

“All of us who covered the Reagans agreed that President Reagan was personable and charming, but I’m not so certain he was nice. It’s hard for me to think of anyone as nice when I hear him say ‘The homeless are homeless because they want to be homeless.’ To my mind, a President should care about all people, and he didn’t, which is why I will always feel Reagan lacked soul.”
— UPI White House reporter Helen Thomas in the July 1993 Good Housekeeping.

“At the end of his presidency, a great many people thought he’d made the wealthy wealthier and had not improved life particularly for the middle class.”
— Peter Jennings talking to co-host Charles Gibson on ABC’s Good Morning America, June 10, 2004.

“Despite the accolades lavished upon Reagan since his death — for ending the Cold War, for restoring the nation’s optimism — his many detractors remember him as a right-wing ideologue beholden to monied interests and insensitive to the needs of the most vulnerable Americans.”
…
“Elected on a promise to slash taxes and crack down on freeloading ‘welfare queens,’ Reagan depicted government as wasteful and minimized its capacity to help people, ideas that survive today. Reagan also dealt a blow to organized labor by firing the striking air traffic controllers, and appointed Antonin Scalia, still the Supreme Court’s most conservative jurist.”
…
“Reagan’s weakening of the social safety net by dismantling longtime Democratic ‘Great Society’ programs arguably vexes his critics the most. By persuading Congress to approve sweeping tax cuts for the wealthy while slashing welfare benefits and other social services like the federal housing assistance program, Reagan was blamed for a huge surge in the nation’s poor and homeless population.”
— Beth Fouhy in an AP story headlined: “Many Still Troubled by Reagan’s Legacy,” June 9, 2004.

CBS’s Morley Safer: “You talk about a vision, and it’s some kind of abstract, vague idea. Did his [Ronald Reagan’s] vision include extraordinary deficits? Did his vision include cutting of the budgets for education and a back of the hand in terms of public education?”
Larry King: “History will not be kind to him?”
Safer: “No, I don’t think history particularly will be kind…I don’t think history has any reason to be kind to him.”
— CNN’s Larry King Live, June 14, 2004.

“After eight years of what many saw as the Reagan administration’s benign neglect of the poor and studied indifference to civil rights, a lot of those who lived through this week in Overtown seemed to think the best thing about George Bush is that he is not Ronald Reagan…There is an Overtown in every big city in America. Pockets of misery made even meaner and more desperate in the past eight years.”
— ABC’s Richard Threlkeld reporting from a section of Miami where there had been riots, on World News Tonight, January 20, 1989.

“Senator, don’t you believe, a lot of people do think that the ‘80s were an excess, which a lot of people got richer and people got poorer, and it’s now fair to redress that balance?”
— Sam Donaldson to Robert Dole on This Week with David Brinkley, Feb. 21, 1993.

“In the greedy excesses of the Reagan years, the mean income of the average physician nearly doubled, from $88,000 to $170,000. Was that warranted?”
— Bryant Gumbel to Dr. Richard Corlin of the American Medical Association, March 31, 1993, Today.

Reagan/Gorbachev

Reagan inherited a pretty nasty foreign policy mess in several countries — none bigger than that of the U.S./Soviet Union nuclear weapons arms race. Reagan — though no foreign policy expert — knew that Soviet Russia was the biggest danger the U.S. faced. He immediately set out to try to find a way to make peace with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They held three historical meetings: the first in Geneva, the second in Reykjavik, Iceland, and the third in Washington D.C. I will not give you the U.S. media reports that followed each of the Gorbachev-Reagan meetings for the sake of your time. But know this for certain: the media excoriated Reagan for everything he did and didn’t do in planning for and his actions at each meeting. Reagan could do NOTHING right! (Exactly like Trump/Kim meetings as portrayed in today’s media)

In preparation for the Reykjavik meeting, unknown to the Americans Gorbachev prepared and presented a series of nuclear proposals regarding denuclearization by both Russia and the U.S. He did so because he wanted to catch Reagan by surprise. It worked. The Americans were planning intense meetings to find common ground, but not nearly the same common ground as the Russian contingency offered.

Gorbachev feared Reagan’s “Star Wars” plan called “SDI,” or “Strategic Defense Initiative.” The Soviets felt that if “Star Wars” was implemented, it would give the U.S. total defensive nuclear dominance over the Soviet Union both domestically and in Europe. Gorbachev insisted that “if” the U.S. completed and implemented the SDI, it would NOT be activated for the next 10 years. Reagan refused to accept those terms and abruptly left Iceland without any meaningful agreement with Gorbachev nor any future plans to meet again. (Trump took similar action leaving Vietnam abruptly from his meeting with Kim)

Of course, the rest of that story is historical. Gorbachev came to Washington later to continue negotiations. Finally, President Reagan made a trip to Germany and made this historical speech in which he sent a direct message to Gorbachev:

Not long after Reagan’s nuclear negotiations with Gorbachev and this speech in Berlin, the demise of the Soviet Union began, and the Berlin Wall came down.

The U.S. Media Weigh-In with Politicians, Too

No doubt the similarities between Reagan and Gorbachev’s relationship have been compared to that of Trump and Kim Jung Un. That’s not saying that Gorbachev and Kim have personal similarities, but the conditions surrounding U.S. presidential meetings with a foreign leader over nuclear arms issues are VERY similar in nature.

Also, Trump in Vietnam walked out of his second meeting with Kim in a similar fashion as did Reagan in Iceland.

What other similarities are there? Democrats and The Media!

  • A spokesman for leading Democratic candidate and former vice president Joe Biden blasted Trump for “coddling” Kim “at the expense of American national security and interests.”
  • Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who enjoys the second strongest following among the 2020 presidential aspirants, said the president was “squandering American influence on photo ops and exchanging love letters” with Kim.
  • Senator Bernie Sanders, almost next in popularity to Warren, said the move had “weakened the State Department.”
  • Samantha Vinograd, who served on the national security council under President Obama: “By shaking hands with Kim Jong Un at the DMZ with no preconditions attached, he’s really signaling that his metric for success at this point is the status quo, which is no long-range missile tests and no nuclear tests, but North Korea keeping its nuclear arsenal,” she said. Then she stated, “Kim has no reason to denuclearize, but every reason to push Trump for what he’s wanted all along, phased sanctions relief. North Korea under Trump is a normalized, nuclear power.”
  • Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Twitter that while Trump and Kim met, “North Korea continues to build nuclear weapons. Another typical Trump ‘show.’”
  • Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said “We’ve seen a history here,” she said. “Donald Trump announces these summits and nothing really comes out of it.”
  • Despite the fact that there were four North Korean nuclear tests under President Obama and only one under President Trump, (none in almost 2 years) and Obama gave everything away to Cuba for nothing, Sunday’s editions of ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Sunday Today rushed to declare Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong-un at the DMZ to be nothing more than just a photo op. “[T]his was the dramatic headline, the dramatic photo that the President wanted. He’s a great showman. He pulled it off. There’s just no question about that,” proclaimed ABC chief anchor and Clinton lackey George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos argued that there were no political or substantive outcomes from Trump’s previous talks with the North Korean dictator.
  • There was an echo on NBC where host Willie Geist asked political director Chuck Todd: “Is there a plan from the Trump administration or was it a photo op?” Todd hinted at it being just that, noting: “The last two ended up looking as if they were photo ops in the end. We thought they could lead to something, but they didn’t.”

Summary

Here’s the question that everyone in the media is afraid to ask or answer: Is Donald Trump another Ronald Reagan? You know what: he just might be. Trump really liked Reagan. The two met several times and got along well. But that was long before Donald Trump ever became a politician. It’s humorous that both ended up with entertainment careers immediately prior to becoming politicians: Reagan as California governor after a Hollywood acting career, Trump as U.S. President after a short but very successful television stint.

Do the similarities stop there?

It’s fairly obvious that the Socialist Democrat Party and their communication arm — the Media — hope the current Reagan/Trump comparisons are short-lived. They cannot bear to think that Donald Trump might just pull-off a successful political career! His doing so would certainly complete the self-destruction of the floundering Trump-hating sycophants at MSNBC and CNN. There’s just too much money behind the Washington Post and the New York Times for them to disintegrate. But that’s NOT the Trump objective.

Donald Trump sincerely wants only an American success story full of wins for the American people!

He has NO political agenda other than that. And it drives the Left insane.

Here’s one last comparison of the two: Ronald Reagan’s most famous speech took place in front of a wall in Berlin in which he cried, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Democrats and their media henchmen cringe at the thought of Donald Trump ever being able to in McAllen, Texas or San Diego, California stand before network television cameras and say, “What do you think about this recently completed border wall between Mexico and the United States?”

Uncanny similarities between Reagan and Trump, don’t you think?

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“We Are the World, We are the People….”

June 12, 2019

Here we are: two years+ into the Donald Trump Presidency and STILL the United States media do not give this guy any credit. They  everyday still throw allegations of wrongdoing, insults regarding his hairstyle, the way he speaks, his skin color, his Queens accent — pretty much in every way a country’s media could demean someone. And when they do it, they laugh and snarl, kind of like they did shortly before Donald Trump announced he was actually running for president in 2016. They started laughing and making fun of him then. They haven’t stopped.

But things are a bit different now: Donald Trump has a political history. No, his political history is not one of his personal foreign policy accomplishments — at least no accomplishments from BEFORE he became President. His “pre-White House” political history probably exists only with his record of the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has contributed through the years to local, state, and national candidates whom he supported. Several of those contribution recipients have donned the Democrat mantle of “presidential candidate” and are on the campaign trail for their party’s nomination to take their former “contributor” — Donald Trump — head-on in 2020. And none have very nice things to say about him — but they took his money!

There’s a bit of irony there, don’t you think?

Let’s face facts: this President gets very little support in the U.S., Of course, the ardent Trump supporters in the United States support him. And contrary to how the State Media portray this president, most understand facts and numbers and know what he has done for the country in 2 years. But also, those “Trumpsters” still cannot reconcile the fact that the American Media — NY Times, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Huffington Post — give President Trump no credit for the economy, foreign trade, millions of new jobs, low unemployment across the board, more people employed than ever, etc. Almost daily there is a collective “SMH” you can almost hear across the nation. (For those of you in downtown Manhattan and San Francisco, “SMH” means “Shake My Head.)

Here’s what we’re going to do today: we’re going to take a look for yourselves at something as simple as Google, do a search, and see what’s important to the media in the U.S. and across the “Pond” regarding this President. It begins with his popularity overseas, takes a look at the domestic and European media portrayals of Mr. Trump’s just completed visit to the U.K., and then we’ll complete today’s offering with a story — a really GOOD story — about “Bubba” from Texas. And Bubba will help explain what the American State Media are missing about Donald Trump. Let’s start here:

Google

Take just a moment and Google this: “What is President Trump’s world favorability number?” I took that challenge, and here are some of the results I found:

“Trump is even more unpopular in Europe than he is in the U.S …”

“Trump’s Approval Rating Is Even Lower Globally, and He’s …”

“How Popular Is Donald Trump? | FiveThirtyEight”

“Trump Approval Worldwide Remains Low Especially Among Key …”

Notice the stories that Googles’ algorithm popped up with this specific search that had NOTHING to do with Europe. So President Trump’s favorability is low in some countries overseas. And according to media pundits in the U.S., that’s a really big deal. Meghan Markle spurned the President during his recent trip to Britain to celebrate the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Though an American by birth, she is now a married member of the Royal Family. Certainly, she was not a Donald Trump fan when he ran for president. And, certainly, members of the British press made very little about the comments made about the President and his response to hers.’ But not so across the Pond! America’s press went nuts with constant negativity about President Trump and details of his trip. Some even made fun of Melania and her attire!

Isn’t it a strange world in which the U.S. media would lambast the President while he makes a trip to the U.K. to join European government leaders and hundreds of World War II veterans celebrating the 75th anniversary of D-Day? Think about it: if the United States had not led the storming of Omaha Beach that day, most of Europe would probably be speaking German today. And the U.S. may have been also.

President Trump was actually applauded in the U.K. press. Not so in the U.S. Here’s a screenshot of a YouTube search with the search term “U.S. Media attacks of President Trump.” It may be too small for you to read, but basically, I’ll summarize the search findings: every story that comes up with THAT search sentence — rather than a video or story about the U.S. media’s attacks of this president — is about a video and/or story of PRESIDENT TRUMP ATTACKING THE MEDIA!

Are you surprised?

Wanna take a look at the headlines from the other side of the Pond — from European news outlets?

“Trump’s U.K. Visit Unites the British” 

“Trump’s UK Visit: Trump, May discuss special alliance between the U.S. and the U.K.”

Nile Gardiner: Pres. Trump’s U.K. Visit Possibly His “Most Successful” State Visit

Here are the headlines about the Trump U.K. trip from U.S. Media outlets:

“Ignorant Donald Trump Remarks in Ireland Force Irish PM’s Clarification” (Rachel Maddow via MSNBC)

“Jeremy Hunt Calls Donald Trump a ‘Controversial President'”(Jeremy Hunt: RT )

“Day 1 Of Donald Trump Gaffs” (RT)

“Trolling Calling: Trump Gets ‘Baby Blimp’ Treatment In London”  (MSNBC)

“President Donald Trump Causes Controversy In UK Visit”  (NBC News)

“Trump an ‘enemy of democracy,’ London protestor says | Trump’s U.K. Visit 2019 (CNBC)

Who Cares?

Let’s cut right to the chase: does anyone in America really care what people in Switzerland, Belgium, Turkey, Russia, or Lichenstein think about President Trump or any U.S. president? I know Barack Obama made it clear he wanted all of us to join all of “them” and become “Citizens of the World” instead of U.S. citizens. I would like for everyone to send me a $100 bill tomorrow, too. But just as certain I am that I will receive no $100 bills from anyone if I asked, I am certain none of us are going to become “Citizens of the World.” Donald Trump does not care to be the “President” or “King” of the World, either. I’m pretty sure Barack Obama would have liked that, though.

So why does anyone here care at all how the British or French or German media feel about President Trump?

It’s kinda like this for me: I love my wife. We’ve been married 44 years. Yes, her paint’s faded, her windshield has a few cracks in it, and her tires are constantly going flat. But you know what? I really like her THE WAY SHE IS! And, quite honestly, I don’t give a rip about what anyone else thinks about her, I think I’m going to keep her. Why? BECAUSE I LIKE WHAT SHE’S DONE AS MY WIFE, MOTHER TO OUR CHILDREN, AND NONNIE TO OUR 6 GRANDCHILDREN.

And I don’t care what anyone else thinks — especially not someone who lives in Zimbabwe!

Here’s what they’re all missing:

  • Does anyone think a stupid guy from Queens could turn a stake from his father into several billion dollars if he was stupid?
  • Does anyone think that same guy could build an enterprise from nothing into being the employer of several hundred thousand Americans and maintain it for 30 years?
  • Does anyone think that stupid guy could create and personally produce (while starring in) a multi-year #1 network television show?

Zig Ziglar is probably using that example in his career building seminars as an example of what someone — ANYONE — is capable of achieving if they only try and never give up.

The Leftist Media (and the Leftists in Congress) are just hacked off because — first of all — he beat their Star in her run for the White House in 2016. Secondly, they feel the way they feel because they do not understand how he operates, what his governing intentions are, and they certainly don’t understand this one thing about him: he makes promises and he KEEPS promises! They are not accustomed to seeing that in any national politician.

So they just stand back and throw rocks at him. Their fundamental premise is this: “He’s dumb, he’s stupid, he doesn’t know anything about politics, and we do. He simply needs to sit down, shut up, and let us tell him what to do and how to do it just like we have in the past.”

Donald Trump is NOT going to ever do that!

The Finish: Bubba

His name was Bubba. He was from Texas but he was in New York City and he needed a loan, So he walked into a bank in the Big Apple and asked for the loan officer.

He told the loan officer that he was going to Paris for an international redneck festival for two weeks and needed to borrow $5,000 and that he was not a depositor of the bank.

The bank officer told him that the bank would need some form of security for the loan, so the Redneck handed over the keys to a new Ferrari. The car was parked on the street in front of the bank.
The Redneck produced the title and everything checked out. The loan officer agreed to hold the car as collateral for the loan and apologized for having to charge 12% interest.

Later, the bank’s president and its officers all enjoyed a good laugh at the Redneck from Texas for using a $250,000 Ferrari as collateral for a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then drove the Ferrari into the bank’s private underground garage and parked it.

Two weeks later, Bubba returned, repaid the $5,000 and the interest of 23.07. The loan officer said, “Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out on Dunn & Bradstreet and found that you are a distinguished alumni from the University of Texas, a highly sophisticated investor and multi-millionaire with real estate and financial interests all over the world. Your investments include a large number of wind turbines around Sweetwater, Texas. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?”
The good ‘ole boy replied, “Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $23.07 and expect it to be there when I return?”

Moral of the story: “just because he does things a little bit different than you do doesn’t mean he’s stupid! Just look at the results.”

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Mueller: “Forget Presumption of Innocence”

May 30, 2019

Everybody was shocked when Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced he was going to speak to the press on Wednesday. Many more were shocked at the things he said:

Think about this: he stated his team — IF they could declare the President not guilty of allegations made — would have included that in the Mueller Report. What does that actually mean?

Never in U.S. history has any prosecutor ever felt obligated under the law to prove the innocence of someone charged. Mueller is the very first to do so! Based on what you heard and saw above, Mueller has changed the very premise of U.S. law: a charged individual is considered innocent “until” and “unless” he/she is PROVEN GUILTY. According to Mueller, his investigative team, besides not finding Trump guilty of collusion and obstruction of justice, could NOT prove he is innocent either.

I’m not an attorney, but Mueller doing so is either trying to forever change “innocence until proven guilty,” or he takes that position for another purpose. Wanna bet which of those is his reason?

Changing History

Folks, this position was taken by Mueller Wednesday is a first in not just U.S. history, but a first in World History. Throughout every contemporary World government on Earth, the judicial system in each of those countries adopted a presumption of innocence as a foundation. Here is a link for you to use to see the countries who do so:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence

Countries like France, Italy, Philippines, China, Poland, Romania, Spain, Brazil, not to mention countries of the European Union and even Russia and every Islamic country in their criminal and civil law as a default presume the innocence of the accused with the burden of proof lying directly on the accuser.

Apparently, Robert Mueller — that bastion of impartiality and upholder of the Law — decided on his own the U.S. no longer believes the presumption of innocence.

Why do you suppose the sudden proposed change in the foundation of Law has been assumed by Mueller?

Assumption Bullet Points

  • Mueller is really after Trump. He couldn’t find hard evidence of guilt so he left the doubt in the air to prompt the Democrat House to begin impeachment proceedings. Honestly, I think this is NOT his reason. Even though he said in his press conference they could not find sufficient evidence to indict the President, he could have simply said, “We are today turning over the evidence that we DID uncover to the House for use in their investigation into presidential wrongdoing.” Congress in impeachment is NOT required to prove criminality on the part of the charged — in this case, President Trump. They merely are required to prove guilt in the commitment of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” (Isn’t that crazy: those two words are nowhere in the Constitution defined — they are totally subjective.)
  • Mueller has been tasked by someone to lay the groundwork for non-stop Trump investigations through the 2020 elections. That’s a plausible possibility in that Democrats running for President — all 23 of them and the DNC — have put forth NO legislative platform, no new ideas on any front, and have given Americans no good reasons for voters to (based on Trump policies and legislative and executive actions Dems claim are all wrong and evil) vote for their nominee in 2020. Once again they find themselves with one thing and one thing only to use against Mr. Trump: impeachment. The timing for making impeachment last through the 2020 elections is perfect. Even though Mueller’s team has exhaustive data, documents, written and recorded testimony of hundreds of witnesses, the Democrat House will slow-play impeachment proceedings so they are justified in “thorough investigations” of their own to assure Americans they have all the facts. It’s comical that Dems were so demanding for all to give Mueller room and latitude to complete his investigation with no interruptions, but then refuse to accept his findings: politics at its worst.
  • Mueller has something to hide and he is kicking this can down the road to distract “this” from everyone until after 2020 — whatever “this” is. As strange as this may seem, this is probably the most plausible of explanations for Mueller’s actions — especially for calling that press conference, making his statement, and, more importantly, taking NO questions! That seems like an effort on his part to send a message to his minions — the Democrats — so they will take action with this cue.

The last listed above is the explanation I feel for Mueller to do what he did. He’s messaged members of the Democrat Party to “circle the wagons” around him because something really serious is about to happen. What can that be? Who will it involve and who or what will initiate it and under what circumstances?

The answers to those will blow your mind! And we’ll get to them in detail after we take this short break at TruthNewsNet.org.

The “Decoy”

Fired FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, DNI head James Clapper, and others that many say are part of the “Deep State,” have become very vocal in recent days. Comey and Brennan have always had easy access to the media, but of late in social media and Mainstream media television outlets, they are again regular fixtures. And they have become amazingly bombastic and nasty towards Mr. Trump — which is no surprise to anyone. But they’ve turned their vitriol up a notch or two.

Conventional wisdom is that because DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is reportedly releasing one of his investigations’ reports in the next few weeks, that details in that report will certainly implicate at least Brennan, Clapper, and Comey for wrongdoing in both the Clinton email debacle and in the alleged fraudulent FBI investigation of the Trump Campaign. All three have each been caught in lies in sworn testimony before House and Senate committees. It is probable Horowitz will address those issues and many more. And, of course, there are many others like Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, and many more from the Obama Justice Department who probably are in his crosshairs. His first report will tell that tale. But, there’s a second report coming as well.

There are plenty of Americans who feel more and more that additional Obama Administration career politicians were involved in the propped-up FBI Trump Campaign investigation from its inception. Several from the Obama White House staff have already been drawn into the investigation while other big name folks are yet to be mentioned. But certainly, some if not many will be exposed in the second Horowitz report. Many believe those implicated could include Susan Rice (NSA Advisor to Obama), Samantha Power (United Nations U.S. Ambassador), former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and also Bill and Hillary Clinton. The name Barack Obama has been continually floated by those closest to Horowitz, but it is probable that even if the former president was involved, lower level members of his administration would probably take the fall for any of his wrongdoing. Time will tell.

What role would Bill and Hillary Clinton play in this? And where does Mueller fit into this picture? Hold on to your hats!

Hillary And Bill

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton facilitated the transfer of highly enriched uranium (HEU) previously confiscated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) during a 2006 “nuclear smuggling sting operation involving one Russian national and several Georgian accomplices,” a newly leaked classified cable shows.

The classified cable released by WikiLeaks was authored by Hillary Clinton’s State Department on August 17th, 2009.  In the cable it states –

In 2008, Russia requested a ten-gram sample of highly enriched uranium (HEU) seized in early 2006 in Georgia during a nuclear smuggling sting operation involving one Russian national and several Georgian accomplices. The seized HEU was transferred to U.S. custody and is being held at a secure Department of Energy facility. In response to the Russian request, the Georgian Government authorized the United States to share a sample of the material with the Russians for forensic analysis.

The cable also states that “Given Russia’s reluctance to act so far, FBI Director Robert Mueller’s delivery of this sample will underscore to Russia our commitment to follow through on this case.”  It continues in stating, “Embassy Moscow is requested to alert at the highest appropriate level the Russian Federation that FBI Director Mueller plans to deliver the HEU sample once he arrives in Moscow on September 21.”

Robert Mueller — FBI Director — was “sent” by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Moscow to personally deliver a sample of highly enriched uranium (HEU)!

The cable summarizes that, “We regret that the April visit by Director Mueller could not take place due to a scheduling conflict.” and makes a final request that, “We require that the transfer of this material be conducted at the airport, on the tarmac nearby the plane, upon arrival of the Director’s aircraft.”

Now knowing that the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton hid the FBI investigation into the Uranium One deal, this cable brings on new meaning and leads to numerous questions:

  • Why did Obama and Clinton agree to provide this uranium delivered by Mueller to Russia in the first place?
  • Another question is why did Clinton’s Secretary of State request that FBI Director Mueller deliver the sample of HEU to Russia and why was the transfer in April canceled and postponed to September?

The fact that Mueller needed to perform the transfer should raise numerous red flags.  It’s been widely reported about Mueller’s conflicts of interest with his recent appointment as special counsel in the Russia investigation.

This past week information was reported that prior to the Obama administration approving the very controversial deal in 2010 giving Russia 20% of America’s Uranium through the approved sale of Uranium One, the FBI had evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were involved in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering in order to benefit Vladimir Putin, says a report by The Hill.

Mueller was handpicked by Hillary Clinton’s State Department to deal uranium to Russia.

Summary

What is Mueller attempting to hide? Robert Mueller is really a brilliant individual. We wrote extensively about his personal and business history when he was first appointed as Special Counsel by President Trump. It is important to note that in his past business life, he initiated and was personally involved in multiple “speckled” circumstances in which he took dramatic and questionable actions that were never questioned by anyone! Well, almost no one questioned him. But Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert certainly did. Take a look back at our 4-part series on Mr. Mueller that started on July 28, 2018: “ROBERT MUELLER: UNMASKED Part One.“ 

It’s a simple fact: members of the proverbial “Deep State” — and Mueller certainly is actually a “Charter Member” of that group — are masterful and hiding, covering, and making excuses for the wrongdoings of each other. The Obama Administration was full of them! We’ve mentioned just a few names in today’s story, but know for certain there are dozens more that have a Deep State ID card in their wallet or purse.

Why oh why would the Director of the FBI be tasked by Hillary Clinton — then Secretary of State that had NO authority to dispatch anyone in the FBI to Moscow, especially not the Director — to take that HEU sample to Putin personally? The only answer can be this: Hillary had/has something on Mueller that she threatened to expose if he did NOT take care of that tidbit of necessity to ramp-up the closing of that Uranium One deal! “If” Mueller is as smart as most think he is, and “If” Mueller has the legal mind that most think he does, the ONLY explanation for his doing so was that he owed the Clintons something and they had something on him. Think about it: by taking that trip, he exposed himself as a Clinton sycophant!

In closing, know this: Washington D.C. and those who live and work in that swamp are known as the “quid pro quo” capital of the world. Nothing is done in that city unless somebody initiates it with a threat or blackmail, and in doing so, someone else then owes a favor to the initiator. Mueller in his charade press conference was out there not because he thought it was the right thing to do or that he wanted to do it, he was told by someone who has something on him to do it!

So what happens now? Let’s hope it all ends this way:

  1. Attorney General Barr releases the now unclassified documents that will show U.S. voters exactly what and who initiated the bogus Russia Collusion investigation;
  2. With the release, AG Barr starts letting indictments fly for all those implicated in those documents;
  3. Many of those indicted will “turn” on those above them — their “handlers” — by cutting a deal with the DOJ for immunity or negotiated sentences for their crimes;
  4. Inspector General Horowitz will fill the missing spots with details he’ll be shortly releasing of his investigation into the Clinton Campaign, the DNC server hack, the Clinton email server debacle, and Uranium One and the involvement (if any) by the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation.

I doubt Attorney General Barr is going to let this all drag out. I feel strongly that he’ll push hard for indictments, prosecution, and sentence adjudications. He is a no-play federal attorney who knows his way around an investigation and corrupt political operations. And one other thing: he’s planning on retiring from prosecuting and I don’t think he will let this push his retirement back!

The last thing in this conversation, I hope President Trump will NOT get so angry, tired, and disgusted with the dysfunctional American political system that he decides to simply throw in the towel. Just how many Americans would stay in the line of fire as he has when every day he and every member of his family are denigrated in the vilest ways very publicly, often by people who are supposed to be honest and hard-working government servants? Not very many.

You can say much about Donald Trump. Yes, he is loud. Yes, he bloviates quite often. Yes, he is caustic. Yes, he brags a lot.

But as Deion Sanders once said to Howard Cosell in an interview when Cosell asked Sanders why he bragged so much about his capabilities on the football field. Deion famously responded, “Howard, it ain’t bragging if you can do it!”

Say what you will, but Donald Trump has accomplished a lot for Americans and our nation. Just imagine how much more he would have achieved if the Deep State and Never Trumpers had stayed out of the way?

 

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Executive Privilege

May 22, 2019

This was released Monday (May 19, 2019) from The Hill:

A district judge on Monday upheld a subpoena issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee for President Trump’s financial records, dealing a blow to White House efforts to resist the Democrats’ investigations. In a 41-page opinion, Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, found that the panel, under the leadership of Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), had valid reasons for requesting the president’s financial records from the accounting firm Mazars, even though they predated his entering office.

“These are factually valid legislative purposes, and it is not for the court to question whether the Committee’s actions are truly motivated by political considerations,” Mehta wrote.

The judge was skeptical of the arguments brought forward by the president’s attorneys both in court last week and in his opinion issued Monday. Trump’s attorneys had argued that the subpoena, issued by Cummings earlier this year, was unconstitutional because it wasn’t tied to legislation. But attorneys for the House said that the records will help strengthen ethics and disclosure laws and see if Trump is in compliance with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

Let’s get this straight: the basis for this judge’s ruling was reasonable because the committee’s request for Trump’s financial records was “to see if Trump is in compliance with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.”

Americans should be horrified!

Judge Mehta in his ruling forgot one thing — a very fundamental thing — that is a thread of the very fiber of the Constitution: “Probable Cause.” In his 41-page opinion, Federal District Judge Mehta asserted that Congress has the right to investigate potential illegal behavior by a president, including actions both before and after the president assumed office. Seriously?!? Americans are to accept this amazing finding by a federal judge as a “legal and Constitutionally based opinion?” I think not!

Most Americans when discovering Congressman Elijah Cumming’s subpoena for the President’s financial records for a period before he became President and for the period of time he has been office will shake their heads in disbelief. This committee’s action further fans the flames of those who look own in amazement at what Congress is doing to “get” Donald Trump in the wake of the Mueller Report. (In our Summary below we’ll unpack what Congress is really up to)

President Trump’s team is fighting this action based on Executive Privilege. What is it?

Executive Privilege

In the landmark case of United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled that it had authority to resolve the conflict between President Richard Nixon and Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who had been appointed to investigate the Watergate affair, over the issue of executive privilege. Cox had obtained a grand jury subpoena requiring Nixon to deliver to the district court tape recordings of various meetings with assistants. The Supreme Court acknowledged, for the first time, that an executive privilege exists under the Constitution, but it qualified the scope of the privilege by subjecting it to a balancing of the opposing interests and legitimate needs of the executive and judicial branches. Courts have applied this general approach in the context of enforcement of congressional subpoenas as well, but there haven’t been very many such decisions—and the ones that do exist are drawn to the particular facts of the cases at hand. In addition, as articulated in United States v. AT&T, courts will only decide such a case if the executive and legislative branches have tried, in good faith, but failed to reach an accommodation. (“in good faith” is the principle in this argument that, in my opinion, is NOT occurring)

So while it is settled that the federal courts have jurisdiction to resolve a conflict over a claim of executive privilege in the context of enforcement of a congressional subpoena, there isn’t much actual case law to suggest exactly how assertions of executive privilege by the president may ultimately be decided by a court. In addition, the good-faith accommodation requirement typically has the effect of lengthening the amount of time it takes for civil enforcement action by Congress to confirm its subpoena power, and in many instances may prevent the practical usefulness of a court decision in a given controversy.

Dealing with White House executive privilege has always created issues: and always have been political in nature.

The most recent example is President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege regarding “Operation Fast and Furious”—a federal gun-running investigation and operation gone wrong. On March 31, 2011, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, then chaired by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, issued a subpoena to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The Justice Department responded in writing to the committee a few months later. After more back-and-forth, on Oct. 12, the committee issued a second subpoena to the department for communications from several top officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, relating to the operation. The subpoena covered communications from Holder’s chief of staff and the head of the department’s criminal division. It also requested information regarding relevant departmental communications with the White House and details about the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent that spurred investigation of the operation.

In June of 2012, President Obama invoked executive privilege to deny the committee access to certain documents responsive to the subpoena on the basis that complying “would raise substantial separation of powers concerns and potentially create an imbalance in the relationship” between Congress and the White House. The House voted on June 28, 2012, to hold Holder in contempt—the first such action against a sitting Cabinet official. The committee then brought a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force disclosure of the documents at issue. The court case was repeatedly delayed by procedural issues and unsuccessful efforts to broker a settlement.

It wasn’t until January of 2016—a full three and a half years later—that a federal judge rejected Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to the records on the grounds that “under the unique and limited circumstances of this case, … the qualified privilege must yield, given the executive’s acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the investigation, and the fact that the Department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold.” The court also found that “records reflecting the agency’s internal deliberations over how to respond to Congressional and media inquiries fall under the protection of the deliberative process privilege.” Finally, the court “encourage[d] the parties to start with a fresh slate and resolve the few remaining issues with flexibility and respect.”

Knowing what we know now and this exhaustive confrontational relationship between the White House and the Democrat-controlled House, peaceful resolution of this conflict does not seem inevitable. What will happen?

The criminal contempt statute permits Congress to certify a contempt citation against the executive branch for the criminal prosecution of whoever is the principal of the subpoena. But Congress will have a practical problem using this approach if the president does not agree with the action. Administrations of both political parties have decided that U.S. attorneys are NOT required to refer congressional contempt charges to a grand jury or prosecute an executive branch official who carries out the president’s instruction to invoke the president’s claim of executive privilege before a committee.

That leaves Congress’s inherent contempt power, which means relying on the legislature’s own constitutional authority to detain and jail a person in contempt until the individual complies with congressional demands. What does that actually look like? It’s not very pretty—which is why the contempt process has not been used by either body since 1935 when a Herbert Hoover administration official was held briefly in the Willard Hotel. While there is no “Capitol Jail,” the Capitol Police do maintain a holding cell a few blocks away at the Capitol Police Department. At the current moment, the prospect of the House sending the sergeant-at-arms of the Capitol to arrest an administration official would likely not sit well with a public that does not favor physical confrontation in U.S. politics.

Summary

Let’s see: unemployment overall is at record lows; black, Hispanic, and female unemployment is at record lows; millions of taxpayers received a federal income tax reduction in 2018 that averaged just over $2000; federal government revenue last year far exceeded any previous year, in spite of those massive tax cuts; there are far more people at work today than ever before. And what is our government doing in the wake of these successes?

  • Congress refuses to pass comprehensive immigration reforms;
  • Congress refuses to finance measures to close our borders to illegal aliens;
  • Congress refuses to support and/or demand federal law enforcement agencies enforce laws that Congress passed;
  • Pushes for the legalization of 3rd-trimester abortions;
  • Pushes for two legislative measures that have NEVER worked anywhere on Earth but if made law will cost Americans MORE THAN THE ENTIRETY OF THE ANNUAL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INCOME over the next 10 years;
  • Demanded that all stay away from Special Counsel Mueller to guarantee completion of his findings on Russia collusion with the Trump Campaign;
  • Demand now the rejection of the Mueller findings because they are “incomplete;”
  • Are burying members and agencies of this Administration with subpoenas, testimony, and records that are already in the treasure-trove of evidence voluntarily given to Mueller;
  • What else is our government doing? NOTHING!

What’s Really Going On?

What we are watching in D.C. in the House of Representatives is the equivalent of that North Carolina Tar Heel 4-corner stall in which the sole purpose is to bring the game to a screeching whoa: kill time to “run out the clock.” The clock that concerns them is the calendar until 2020’s elections. They are desperate with these parlor tricks masking the REAL reasons for these silly measures: praying that something will mysteriously pop up they can use to legitimately go after Mr. Trump.

Congressman Jerald Nadler (D-NY) is totally committed to destroying Donald Trump. And his commitment is running far ahead of all reason, legality, and any concerns for the citizens of the United States. On his watch the committee he chairs — the House Judiciary Committee — is instead of doing the business of the People, sending out demand after demand, subpoena after subpoena, daily threatening members of the Trump Administration with obstruction charges if they do not comply with his committee’s requests. This is all after exhaustive compliance with subpoenas for records and testimony by the Administration to Robert Mueller over 2 years and $30 million of taxpayer funds: a “Witch Hunt” in the President’s words. I suggest that Mr. Nadler and Democrat House members get after doing the work for which they were elected: Legislation. Find some ways to make America better. What they’re doing now is pure insanity: doing the same things over and over but expecting different results.

Democrats’ only hope is for some mysterious piece of evidence is uncovered that is so egregious that the U.S. cannot in any way reconcile a sitting U.S. president committing such a travesty that they can immediately impeach.

Wait: they can file articles of impeachment right now, can’t they? Absolutely! Nadler’s committee is the ONLY committee that can draft, approve, and then send to the floor of the House for consideration. If the President’s actions are so egregious and if there is real evidence that confirms any illegal actions as Congressmen Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell still maintain they have, why don’t they just go ahead and file the impeachment articles? Honestly, as a law-abiding American, I think THEY are obstructing justice by NOT taking legal action because of the President’s wrongdoing of which they say they have evidence. Why don’t they take action? THERE’S NO THERE THERE!

So what is Congress doing that really matters? Congress is REALLY good at doing two things and only two: 1) assuring their spot in Congress through massive campaign contributions to give them an extreme inside track to re-election, and 2) Spending taxpayer money!

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For The Greater Good?

May 12, 2019

It is common knowledge that the Left in America feel the country is in a downward spin socially, economically, environmentally, in healthcare, immigration, and foreign policy in the Trump Administration. It is also common knowledge that the Left in America is beyond absolute certainty that “They” have all the answers for any and all of the absurd policies thrust on Americans by the Trump Administration.

But who is to determine if The Trump Administration is correct or is the Left?

Great news: IT’S US!

As of this moment, we have not seen any solution from the Left to right the great ship America which, by their definition, is sinking with Donald Trump at the helm. And the Left demands a new captain. Right now there are 20 Leftists who each feel they are the best “hire” to replace the guy now in charge. But, as of today, not one of the 20 has offered any tangible package of proposed solutions to “fix” all those horrible Trump policies. But they claim their’s —whatever they are — will make America the great ship she once was and they think should be once more. AND, they each claim they are the best qualified to bring to Americans all the “things” that are “For The Greater Good.”

So, Let’s look closer.

Economically: Tax Cuts

According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, two-thirds of all Americans received a tax cut under TCJA, averaging approximately $2,200. Tax rates are lower at every single income level, especially those at low-to-middle income levels, with 80.4 percent earners receiving a tax cut––including 91.3 percent of the middle class–– while only 4.8 percent of the population saw their taxes go up, most of which are higher-income earners living in high-tax states.

In addition to the analysis from the Tax Policy Center, H&R Block recently reported that the average taxpayer saved roughly 25 percent on their tax bill and that refunds are up 1.4 percent compared to last year. These savings happened because the TCJA let families keep more of their money through a doubled child tax credit, doubled the standard deduction, and lower rates across the board. Those changes combined with bold pro-growth cuts to the corporate tax rate, estate tax or “death tax”, alternative minimum tax, and creation of a new 20% small business deduction have increased take-home pay for families and improved the economy.

BUT….Take what then-House Minority Leader now Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi predicted about TCJA when she said passage would mean “Armageddon” for America and that the bill “is probably one of the worst bills in the history of the United States of America.” Or when New York Times columnist Paul Krugman guaranteed a “global recession, with no end in sight.”  The unrepentant gaslighting that has taken place over tax reform is rooted in dividing Americans for political gain or more clicks, rather than reporting facts.

Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and former VP Joe Biden want to dump the Trump tax cuts. In fact, Kamala Harris said she would repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act “on day one.”

Harris said:  “On day one, we gonna repeal that tax bill that benefited the top one percent and the biggest corporations in this country. Get rid of the whole thing,” Harris said.

Economically: “It’s the Economy, Stupid!”

Remember James Carville making the above statement during Bill Clinton’s campaign for his second term? He was asked if the Clinton impeachment would be THE reason voters rejected Mr. Clinton. In response, he made his famous statement above. And Clinton won re-election.

Those 20 Dem candidates are wanting to replace the Trump Economic Agenda. Hmm…..

As of 4/30/2019, The U.S. has:

  • lowest African American unemployment in history.
  • The lowest unemployment among Women.
  • The overall US unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in April 2019 from 3.8 percent in the previous month, below market expectations of 3.8 percent. It was the lowest jobless rate since December 1969.
  • Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates declined in April for adult men (3.4 percent), adult women (3.1 percent), Whites (3.1 percent), Asians (2.2 percent), and Hispanics (4.2 percent). The jobless rates for teenagers (13.0 percent) and Blacks (6.7 percent) showed little or no change. Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs declined by 186,000 over the month to 2.7 million.
  • Hourly wages increased 3.2 percent over April of 2018.
  • Gross Domestic Product in the first quarter of 2019 blew the doors off expectations: 3.2% was well ahead of the consensus 2.3% estimated, which itself had been cranked up from the sub-1% expectations many analysts had been expecting prior to Q1 earnings season. 2019’s First Quarter GDP was the strongest Q1 read since the 3.3% we saw in 2015.

Healthcare: “Medicare For All”

The President in the 2017 Congress backed the repeal and replacement of Obamacare — the current healthcare FINANCE plan that has cripple American healthcare. One last-minute vote by former Arizona Senator John McCain prevented the House-passed version to go the Senate floor for debate. The House bill (and the President’s promise to voters during the 2016 campaign) was dead at the hands of a few Republicans. However, as the cost to Americans of Obamacare continue to skyrocket, a conservative healthcare plan is set to be rolled out after the 2020 election if not sooner. In the meantime, 2020 candidates are pushing hard for the largest and many say the most egregious legislative item in U.S. History: Medicare for All. The cost of Senator Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) bill? $32 Trillion over 10 years. (Sanders proposed the plan years before did Alexandria Ocasio Cortez)

First, the plan. Just a few bullet point mentions of what we KNOW Medicare for All would do:

  • Rationed Healthcare for All. An immediate shortage of physicians would occur because of the massive reductions in payments for services by doctors, who would run for the exit to new careers. Just like as in the U.K and Canada, patients would find themselves waiting for months for a heart procedure, knee replacement, or eye surgeries. Though U.S. Leftists rail against claims of a “Death Panel” that might be installed in such a plan, that would probably occur. There would be (because of healthcare finance reductions) unelected bureaucrats — not patients with their doctors as is the practice today — determining which patients should receive certain procedures, including some life-and-death procedures.
  • Costs. The unbelievable costs for such a plan would be astronomical. All Americans would be covered with medical costs being paid by the government. Where does the government get that money? Higher taxes. Tax revenue in our government would have to be more than doubled to pay for healthcare costs. That means the average American taxpayer would see their federal income tax bill increase by approximately 150%. That’s above the astronomical premium increases under Obamacare — sometimes doubled — when Obama promised the average premium cost per U.S. family would be reduced by $2500 per year.

There is no doubt there needs to be financial changes in our healthcare system — but not at the expense of destroying American healthcare.

Immigration

”We HAVE a crisis at the southern border.” President Trump

We are on track to the apprehension of more than 1 million illegals this year crossing our southern border. Add that to whatever the number of those who Border Patrol agents do NOT apprehend that get in! Imagine what that number is. But……

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro doubts there’s a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border so much he’s calling it “B.S.” When asked about the growing situation of immigrants trying to enter to the U.S. illegally and the president mulling closing the southern border temporarily, Castro tossed it aside.

“I don’t believe their narrative,” he said. “I don’t believe the B.S. that women and children who are fleeing dangerous circumstances present a national security threat to this country.”

Who knows for certain how many illegals are in the U.S. today? Estimates range from 10 to 60 million. Either number would be a travesty. Regardless of what you hear, the drain on the entire U.S. national infrastructure is happening at a far too rapid pace just because of massively increased numbers drawing from those resources. Public schools, criminal justice, subsidized food, healthcare, and housing, cost the U.S. today billions of dollars. Our social system is stretched to the max.

But then there’s the obvious thought: “Aren’t those who cross into our country illegal breaking the law?” 

Environment

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez stated factually that the World as we know would be over in 12 years unless we immediately initiated plans to do away with all fossil fuels, make every building in the U.S. green efficient, do away with cars, airplanes, and jets, and find ways to stop cows from farting. 19 of the Democrat candidates for President have signed-on to that deal. AOC’s Green New Deal is being touted as the only solution to emissions problems for the U.S. and that they’re fatal.

Then there’s this: the U.S. per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are at their lowest levels since 1950. 2017 U.S. per capita CO2 emissions were 15.8 metric tons per person, their lowest levels in 67 years. Overall U.S. carbon emissions are at their lowest levels since 1992 and have declined 13 percent since 2005.

But according to the Green New Deal’s author, we are all to become extinct in 12 years without the deal. It’s cost? $72 Trillion.

Where do the candidates stand?

  • Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted “I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal proposal. We must address the existential crisis of planetary climate change.”
  • Sen. Cory Booker likened the GND to fighting Nazis and going to the Moon.
  • Sen. Kamala Harris, via C-SPAN: “We have to have goals. It’s a resolution that requires us to have goals and think about what we can achieve and put metrics on it.”
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted that she is “excited” to back the GND after initially saying she backed the general “idea” of it.
  • Sen. Amy Klobuchar: “I see it as aspirational, I see it as a jump-start. So I would vote yes, but I would also if it got down to the nitty-gritty of actual legislation as opposed to, ‘Oh, here are some goals we have,’ that would be different for me.”
  • Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand: “It’s got this aspirational goal of net zero carbon emissions in ten years.”

Foreign Policy

Trump’s shortlist of Foreign Policy achievements:

  • Leaving or announcing intention to leave globalist agreements, including the UN Population Fund, Global Compact on Migration, Paris climate agreement, and UNESCO.
  • Reducing U.S. contributions to the UN and challenging other NATO states to increase their contributions.
  • Reversing the Obama Administration’s lenient Cuba policy.
  • Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
  • Leaving or announcing intention to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council, Global Compact for Refugees, Iran nuclear deal, and the Universal Postal Union, and taking a tough stance against the International Criminal Court.
  • Giving another strong pro-sovereignty speech at the UN General Assembly.
  • Taking steps to reduce foreign aid when not in U.S. interests, such as to Pakistan and the PLO.
  • Moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
  • Taking an increasingly tough stance on China, criticizing South Africa’s leftist land policy, and promoting ties with Latin America’s conservative leaders.
  • Created a coalition which has all but eliminated ISIS.

For The Greater Good?

Tax Cuts. Do they really want to repeal those tax cuts that have put more money back in the pockets of Americans and increased wages 3.2%? Yes, they do.

Employment. Do they really want to do away with the Trump policies that have dropped unemployment to historical lows and put more Americans in the workforce than ever before in history? Yes, they do.

Immigration. Do they really want to abolish ICE, do away with border patrol, and allow the continued massive increases in illegals coming into the U.S. costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year? Do they really want open borders which effectively is no borders? Yes, they do.

Healthcare. Do they really want Medicare for All which will result in certain rationed care, long waits for things as simple as X-rays and heart caths, sometimes as long as 1 year and cost $32 Trillion? Yes, they do.

Environment. Do they really want the Green New Deal at the price of $72 Trillion that will take away all cars and airplanes, all fossil fuels, mandate 100% clean energy-efficient buildings throughout the U.S. and create massive tax increases on all Americans? Yes, they do.

Foreign Policy. Do they really want the amazing foreign relationships Trump has rebuilt with the numerous American allies that under Obama had been destroyed to be eliminated to be replaced by the Obama “American Apology Policy” with no trust in the U.S.? Yes, they do.

Summary

Each of the Left’s announced candidates promises to (if elected) overturn each of the policies implemented in the Trump presidency. Why? Doing so — according to each of them — would be better for every American than those in place today.

“For The Greater Good” is a phrase that Gellert Grindelwald used to justify his horrific actions in the 1940s global wizarding war and it was engraved over the entrance of Nurmengard, the prison he constructed to house those who opposed him. The Leftist candidates claim that doing away with each of those Trump policies would be “For the Greater Good.”

It sounds like Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, California Rep. Eric Swalwell, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, Gov. Jay Inslee, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Kamala Harris, ex-San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former Rep. John Delaney, Miramar, Fla., Mayor Wayne Messam, author Marianne Williamson, and former tech executive Andrew Yang, might all be taking a page from Gellert Grindelwald’s playbook.

In the hearts and minds of most Americans, making such a change would NOT be “For The Greater Good.”

What do I say? In Louisiana we have a special way of responding to that: we say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

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Donald Trump: He’s Different (Duh!…..)

April 11, 2019
In my quest to understand the vast gulf between Liberal and Conservative political thinkers, I have struggled to find a plausible explanation. I am a researcher: I read and “look” constantly for nuggets of truth and explanations. In that quest to grasp explanations for the demonizing of Conservatives by the Left under this President, I came across a really good explanation for my dilemma. This was first attributed to a former mayor of Livermore, California. Alas, as often happens in this instant news America, that mayor did NOT write this. Rather it was written by Evan Sayet and published (under the title “He Fights”) on the “Townhall” website on July 13, 2017.  After reading this, I think I get it.

He Fights

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.” Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as did John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality, and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob. I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatred because racial hatred serves the Democrat Party. I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent. Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery, and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality, and propriety. With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming. Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking soldier. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”

That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, but he’s also defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis. It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”… Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church. Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper?” Of course, I do. These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president – I get it – he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!

Summary

(This is from TruthNewsNet staff)

Here’s the biggest problem in understanding and acceptance of the way the U.S. government functions. The government does NOT operate as a smoothly running machine. It operates more like an ancient Model T that requires constant surveillance to keep it running. Members of Congress are like family members. Mom wants Dad to slow down. She is constantly telling him he’s not paying attention to the road. Kids need to stop every 3 miles for a bathroom break. Meanwhile, they have a flat tire and the engine overheats.

Does that sounda little like the U.S. Government?

Somebody has got to be the “designated driver.” That’s President Trump — at least for the next 2 years. There will be some who are riding in the car that can’t stand the windows down, hate his driving, but they go ahead and ride with him because that’s the only way to get where they need to go.

And the driver — President Trump — always gets them there. That’s really the only thing that matters.

“MAGA” — There are those that try to spin what that stands for into racism, hatred, elitism, etc. But what it stands for is all the promises made by Candidate Trump that he would fulfill if voters elected him President. His promise was “if” he won the presidency, and “if” he was given the opportunities, and “if” Congress would pass applicable laws and fund as necessary, he would “Make America Great Again.” Despite many who detest Mr. Trump, every member of his family, his Cabinet, and Republican leadership in D.C., he’s pretty much accomplished all that he possibly could so far. And most Americans realize that he would have accomplished far more “if” the laws and resources necessary for the other parts of his platform had been made available.

Few can argue that on almost every front, America is much greater in 2019 than it was in 2016. (Oh, they can argue, but not justifiably or truthfully.)

Where does the nation go from here? That’s up to Americans. He’ll be in the driver’s seat for another couple of years. And every day he gets behind the wheel and starts driving down the road. Even with all the complaining and unnecessary pit stops and the occasional flat tire, that Model T keeps moving down the road pretty well.

As far as this American is concerned, that’s the way it’s supposed to happen!

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Democrat Attack: The Rule of Law

April 5, 2019

Americans are growing numb to the Trump attacks at the hands of Congressional Democrats. That numbness we are experiencing is real, but its impact is lessening everyday because its use by Dems is incessant and just morphs into a newer version almost daily. That is a dangerous thing: it’s much like the frog and the pot of boiling water. Put a frog in a pot of boiling water and the frog quickly jumps to safety. Put that frog in a pot of cold water and slowly increase the water’s heat and the frog will stay in the pot until it’s too late. For Americans, the pot contained cold water at the beginning of the Trump Administration, but Dems have steadily turned up the heat.  Their attacks are obviously all aimed at Mr. Trump. But in doing so, we are watching a planned and coordinated attack against the Rule of Law. And conservative Americans are ALL in their sights with the President.

What is The Rule of Law?

The rule of law is a framework of laws and institutions that embody four universal principles:

1. Accountability
The government, as well as private actors, are accountable under the law.

2. Just Laws
The laws are clear, publicized, stable, and just; are applied evenly; and protect fundamental rights, including the security of persons, contract and property rights, and certain core human rights.

3. Open Government
The processes by which the laws are enacted, administered, and enforced are accessible, fair, and efficient.

4. Accessible & Impartial Dispute Resolution
Justice is delivered timely by competent, ethical, and independent representatives and neutrals who are accessible, have adequate resources and reflect the makeup of the communities they serve.

Before we move forward in this conversation, it is important for us to break-down the specifics of Law so we can relate them directly to today’s United States legal operations by our government and exactly what House Democrats are really up to.

  • Constraints on Governments Powers measures the extent to which those who govern are bound by law. It comprises the means, both constitutional and institutional, by which the powers of the government and its officials and agents are limited and held accountable under the law. It also includes non-governmental checks on the government’s power, such as a free and independent press. Governmental checks take many forms; they do not operate solely in systems marked by a formal separation of powers, nor are they necessarily codified in law. What is essential, however, is that authority is distributed, whether by formal rules or by convention, in a manner that ensures that no single organ of government has the practical ability to exercise unchecked power.
  • The absence of Corruption measures the absence of corruption in a number of government agencies. The factor considers three forms of corruption: bribery, improper influence by public or private interests, and misappropriation of public funds or other resources. These three forms of corruption are examined with respect to government officers in the executive branch, the judiciary, the military and police, and the legislature, and encompass a wide range of possible situations in which corruption – from petty bribery to major kinds of fraud – can occur.
  • Open Government measures open government defined as a government that shares information, empowers people with tools to hold the government accountable, and fosters citizen participation in public policy deliberations. The factor measures whether basic laws and information on legal rights are publicized, and evaluates the quality of information published by the government. It also measures whether requests for information held by a government agency are properly granted.
  • Fundamental Rights measures the protection of fundamental human rights in the United States. It recognizes that a system of positive law that fails to respect core human rights established under the U.S. Constitution is at best “rule by law,” and does not deserve to be called a “rule of law” system.
  • Order and Security measures how well society assures the security of persons and property. Security is one of the defining aspects of any rule of law society and a fundamental function of the state. It is also critical in the realization of the rights and freedoms that the rule of law seeks to advance.
  • Regulatory Enforcement measures the extent to which regulations are fairly and effectively implemented and enforced. Regulations, both legal and administrative, structure behaviors within and outside of the government. Strong rule of law requires that these regulations and administrative provisions are enforced effectively and are applied and enforced without improper influence by public officials or private interests.
  • Civil Justice measures whether ordinary people can resolve their grievances peacefully and effectively through the civil justice system. The delivery of effective civil justice requires that the system be accessible and affordable, free of discrimination, free of corruption, and without improper influence by public officials.
  • Criminal Justice evaluates the criminal justice system. An effective criminal justice system is a key aspect of the rule of law, as it constitutes the conventional mechanism to redress grievances and bring an action against individuals for offenses against society. Effective criminal justice systems are capable of investigating and adjudicating criminal offenses successfully and in a timely manner, through a system that is impartial and non-discriminatory and is free of corruption and improper government influence.

Clear Enough?

It certainly should be. Each area detailed in the above simple explanation of the Rule of Law is critical for the process of government that sets the U.S. apart from every other country on Earth is critical and MUST exist in tandem with the others. Without each and every one of them in force and adhered to in every area of government, NO government can truly be a democratic republic that promises “equal justice under the law.” 

Folks, we’re not in danger of losing that justice, IT’S ALREADY GONE!

How can I say that? It hasn’t been hidden very well. Its demise began decades ago while we benignly sat by and allowed it. We turned our eyes away from day-to-day government operations in D.C. We trusted our lawmakers to do the right things. As we watched, a seedy group of unscrupulous politicrats (Who together invented the perpetuity in positions of power that they solely control) quietly enacted a “new” legal system totally controlled by that group of elites. And it is in full operation.

Have you wondered how the FBI senior staff could almost en masse collude to perpetrate a coup against this sitting President who was duly elected? And they did it with impunity! Have you wondered why it has been so difficult for the “white hats” in Congress to obtain — even through subpoenas — documents, testimony, and other evidence of the “alleged” wrongdoing by many of those elites? How have people like Susan Rice, Samantha Powers, James Clapper, James Comey, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Peter Strozk, Lisa Page, and dozens and dozens of others skated through the most egregious non-military takeover of the American government while we Americans simply slept while they did it? And that doesn’t even take into account the “leaders” of that coup — the only ones that could have originated the idea, built the operation, put it in motion and managed it to its end: Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. THEY ARE IN THIS THING UP TO THEIR EYEBALLS!

Summary

Our only hope is that enough of the 60+ million Americans who were awakened during the Trump campaign, had their eyes opened (at least to some small degree) to the horrors and illegalities that were underway right before our eyes and voted to keep that “cartel” from completing the government takeover began by the Clintons during their 8 years, and put in full gear during Obama’s 8, are still watching this horror as it is revealed one page at a time. (Yes there was a momentary pause in their plan during Bush 43)

Is there still time? I believe there is. But I’m not certain of that. Fortunately, Americans are in large part still a creative lot. There are enough free-thinkers that refuse to swallow the Leftist Koolaid of Socialism being peddled by the Democrat Party to right the ship, IF the “white hats” (the “good guys”) are allowed to continue the digging up and exposing those wrongdoers.

What can go wrong? Plenty! If this Democrat Party has its way, their attempted coup which is with total impunity attacking EVERY part of the Rule of Law we detailed above will take this country down. Even right now — today — the U.S. has lost a large part of its freedom. And they want to steal the balance. How?

  • Democrat hypocrisy in governing. Remember their glorification of their “savior” Robert Mueller? They even attempted to pass legislation to keep Trump from interfering with or even firing Robert Mueller. Then his report (though we haven’t seen it yet) apparently exonerates President Trump. And now those same Dems want Mueller’s head!
  • They seriously intend to force President Trump to release his tax returns. There is absolutely NO law that allows them to do that! Can you imagine a United States in which someone — ANYONE — can petition the IRS to release YOUR tax returns? Yet these Democrats are doing just that. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-Cortez actually tweeted a threat to the President today about that, saying “We didn’t ASK you to release your returns.” In other words, she was saying they TOLD the President to do so. As if Congress has such authority!
  • They are more and more loudly shouting and demanding the release of the FULL, unredacted Mueller report, saying they will take it all the way to the Supreme Court. They do that when it is already clear: there IS American law contained within the Special Counsel statute THAT PROHIBITS DOING SO! It is imperative to protect the hundreds of Americans whose grand jury testimony could potentially damage the reputations of those who were NOT indicted in that investigation. Remember: 500 witnesses testified; only 37 people were indicted. But Democrats don’t care!

If these attacks and Democrats intentions are allowed to be carried out, privacy of working class Americans will be gone: FOREVER! Once that liberty is taken by Big Brother, he will NEVER give it back.

There are enough guys who wear the “white hats” to take this on who are willing to “take one for the team” if necessary. Chief among them is Donald Trump. Let’s face it: I cannot think of one other Republican who ran that if elected, would have had the staying power this President has. It is simply amazing to watch how he refuses to cave even with the non-stop harassment he and his family sustain every day.

Encourage all you know to ferret out the truth in everything they hear spewed by each arm of the Democrat Party: The House of Representatives, and the Mainstream Media. Every conservative needs to turn up the volume in conversations with those with whom they interface when discussing these political matters. Remaining silent will allow the Rule of Law to be killed — permanently.

”Pray for all those who are in authority over you.” That is NOT instructions from TruthNewsNetwork. That’s from the Bible. I encourage all to make that a daily practice — including EVERYONE in authority. You cannot skip those with whom you disagree when you pray. In doing so, hold on to this:

”The effective and continual prayer of my people will bring to pass what is asked for in those prayers.”

How Powerful Is Congress?

March 31, 2019

It depends on who you talk to. Right now, Democrats in the House of Representatives are acting like they have supernatural powers over everything and everybody — especially over this presidential administration and all its members. Since taking control of the House, Democrats heads of multiple committees have hire dozens of added investigatory attorneys for one reason and one only: they are hell-bent on attacking the Trump Administration and everyone in it. Why? One would think doing so would be the result of serious criminal wrongdoing and an effort to find those guilty parties and bring them to justice. But in this case the massive investigations that have already begin at the hands of Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Congressman Jerold Nadler (D-NY) who have assumed the joint roles of “Investigators in Chief.” What are they investigating? Which crime are they investigating? All things Trump are the subject of investigations but there’s NO crime. Their hope is simple: they go to bed every night and get up every morning praying that they find something sufficient to run Donald Trump out of D.C.

Robert Mueller’s investigation was the one thing all these Democrats and their minions just knew would bring their quest to dump Trump to fruition. And when Mueller’s findings apparently proved Dems were wrong, many thought the battle was over. But it has just begun.

81 members of the Trump team have already been subpoenaed for personal appearances along with voluminous production of documents, many of which were already turned over to the Mueller investigators. For these 81 people, answering these subpoenas could easily be the beginning of the end of their personal and professional lives. Certainly, retaining legal representation sufficient to defend them throughout these Congressional probes will be devastating. Just look at General Michael Flynn. His defense cost him is home, all of his savings, and almost cost his son jail time. It is estimated the minimum cost of representation in these cases is $500,000 to $800,000! Not many people have that kind of “extra” money laying around.

Can Congress Legally Take Such Action?

Yes, Congress can. But what has come into question is the legality Congress does or not have in these investigations. And, believe it or not, The U.S. Supreme Court has weigh-in in previous cases that are similar in nature to what is unfolding now.

The principle target of Congress of course is Donald Trump. Word has it they are going after the President for potential wrongdoing on his part and of those who have worked for him for things from before he even campaigned for President! One would think any of that would have nothing to do with any liability for any president. This just illustrates how desperate Democrats in the House are to discredit the President and to get him ousted at all costs.

Can Congress take this approach? What do those people already under Congressional subpoena have to do? Can they thumb their noses at Congress? What happens if they ignore Congressional subpoena and simply refuse to appear and refuse to provide requested documents? The SCOTUS has a few things to say about that.

SCOTUS

Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178 (1957), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the power of the United States Congress is not unlimited in conducting investigations and that nothing in the US Constitution gives it the authority to expose individuals’ private affairs.

John Thomas Watkins, a labor union official from Rock Island, Illinois, was convicted of contempt of Congress, a misdemeanor under 2 U.S.C. § 192, for failing to answer questions posed by members of Congress during a hearing held by a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities on April 29, 1954. Watkins was born in July 1910 and ended his formal education in the eighth grade. At the time of his testimony, he had four children and was working on behalf of the United Auto Workers (UAW) to unionize workers at a division of Firestone Tire and Rubber in Illinois. The UAW underwrote his legal expenses. Watkins was asked to name people he knew to be members of the Communist Party. Watkins told the subcommittee that he did not wish to answer such questions and that they were outside the scope of the subjects on which he was summoned to testify and of the committee’s jurisdiction. He said: “I am not going to plead the fifth amendment, but I refuse to answer certain questions that I believe are outside the proper scope of your committee’s activities. I will answer any questions which this committee puts to me about myself. I will also answer questions about those persons whom I knew to be members of the Communist Party and whom I believe still are. I will not, however, answer any questions with respect to others with whom I associated in the past. I do not believe that any law in this country requires me to testify about persons who may in the past have been Communist Party members or otherwise engaged in Communist Party activity but who to my best knowledge and belief have long since removed themselves from the Communist movement.

“I do not believe that such questions are relevant to the work of this committee nor do I believe that this committee has the right to undertake the public exposure of persons because of their past activities. I may be wrong, and the committee may have this power, but until and unless a court of law so holds and directs me to answer, I most firmly refuse to discuss the political activities of my past associates.”

His conviction carried a fine of $100 and a one-year suspended prison sentence. Watkins first won a 3–2 decision on appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia but then lost, 6–2, when that court heard the case en banc. The Supreme Court heard arguments on March 7, 1957, and announced its decision on June 17, 1957.

Decision

The Supreme Court decided 6–1 to overturn Watkins’ conviction. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority. Warren noted that it is an offense for a witness to refuse to answer any question “pertinent to the question under inquiry” in testifying before a Congressional committee, but he wrote that the Court was unable to ascertain the nature of the Congressional inquiry with reasonable precision:

“There are several sources that can outline the ‘question under inquiry’ in such a way that the rules against vagueness are satisfied. The authorizing resolution, the remarks of the chairman or members of the committee, or even the nature of the proceedings themselves, might sometimes make the topic clear. This case demonstrates, however, that these sources often leave the matter in grave doubt.

The New York Times commented: “The Supreme Court has placed fundamental restrictions on a Congressional investigatory power that in recent years has been asserted as all but limitless.”

Senators James Eastland and William E. Jenner, who played principal roles in investigating left-wing activities, issued a statement accusing the Court of contributing to “the trend of the past year of undermining our existent barriers against Communist subversion.”

The decision’s impact was limited in that the Court limited the application of the principles it espoused in Watkins.

The power of Congress to hold hearings is an integral part of the powers of the legislative branch. Once a person is called to be a witness, Congress has contempt powers to compel him or her to answer questions. If the person refuses, then he or she can be held in contempt and sentenced to a fine or jail or both.

However, the power to hold a hearing comes from Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. This is the Necessary and Proper clause, which states that Congress has the power to do what is necessary and proper to carry out its function as a legislative power. Thus, the power to hold a hearing has to come from the authority to pass laws.

As a result, the scope of the inquiry must be related to the legislative authority of Congress, and any question must be related to that purpose. Further, the statute used to convict Watkins limited his punishment for failing to answer only questions that were pertinent to the question under inquiry.

Finally, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Rumely (1952) that the Bill of Rights is invoked upon any questioning of a witness, and in the face of such rights, Congress had to clearly define the nature of its inquiry and consider a balance of rights the same way it would if passing a law. Why? Because its authority to ask questions at a congressional hearing stems from its enumerated legislative powers, which always must consider the constitutional rights of those affected by the law.

Summary

Why is it that no one talks about the tax dollars Congress spends on these senseless investigations? Remember all the hoopla from Democrats and Republicans alike regarding any interference in the Mueller investigation by President Trump? Mueller was the savior of Washington and was empowered by God himself to bring President Trump down for his wrongdoing. Mueller screwed up. How? He did not provide House Democrats the ammunition they needed to draft Articles of Impeachment to throw Trump out of the White House. The “spend-o-meter” began spinning as U.S. tax dollars are being spent in the millions as Democrats have launched their “payback” prosecution of anyone who has ever even smiled at President Trump. American taxpayers are paying these millions not because of any wrongdoing. We are paying it because of one thing and one thing only: Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election an Hillary is not President.

What’s going on folks is NOT the power of the Congress. I suggest all of those subpoenaed so far and any who are subpoenaed going forward in unison send Congress packing.

The Rule of Law in America works this way: everyone — including private citizens as well as public servants — are innocent until PROVEN guilty, not just charged. Why should any of these people be forced to pay one dime for defense from any of these sham investigations? They shouldn’t.

Let’s make a deal: if I was one of these people, I would get a group of those others who have received these subpoenas together for a press conference. In it, I would publicly call out Adam Schiff, Jerold Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, and tell them all not until they provide actual evidence of wrongdoing will any of these appear before Congress or provide any answers to their subpoenas. Doing so would be unnecessary and illegal according to findings in previous cases of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Further, I would publicly call them out for not pursuing actual investigations of the wrongdoers who have already been exposed during the Mueller investigation of felony violations of misuse of classified information and other federal crimes.

It’s time for every American to abide by the Rule of Law. And members of Congress are simply Americans. None of them — especially Democrat Party House committee leaders — are NOT above the law, no matter what they think.

Tell them all to pound sand.

How Significant Are Trump’s Accomplishments?

March 18, 2019

I certainly don’t need to tell you that the President has achieved much in his first two years in office. Unfortunately, the Leftist media have a propensity to forget about the significant accomplishments of this president, concentrating instead on the negative things they can  talk about, many of which are not even negatives.

At the completion of his first year in office, TruthNewsNetwork published here a complete list of those things that have already improved the lives of Americans while reclaiming and resetting  positive relations with our partner nations abroad. Today, we do the same thing.

Why not grab a cup of coffee or hot tea, and peruse the list below? If you want to pull the “official” list this represents, click on the link and go straight to the website where it originated. I encourage you to download, print it and make some copies to share with those who you feel should see it. 

I promise you this: for those of our friends and family members who lean left, they probably get their news from CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or one of the broadcast news channels. If that’s the case, you can bet IF they have seen or heard any of these accomplishments, it will just be a few. They’re the ones who need most to get this list!

Enjoy.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-historic-results-of-president-donald-j-trumps-first-two-years-in-office/?utm_source=link

Trump Accomplishments

IGNITING HISTORIC ECONOMIC GROWTH President Trump’s growth policies are unleashing economic growth and providing opportunities to workers across the country.

  • Due to President Trump’s pro-growth policies, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth exceeded 3 percent over the last four quarters.
    • Real GDP grew at annual rates of 3.4 percent in the third quarter of 2018 and 4.2 percent in the second quarter.
  • More than 5 million jobs have been created since President Trump’s election and the unemployment rate remains below 4 percent.
    • This is the eighth time this year that the unemployment rate has been below 4 percent.
    • Prior to this year, the unemployment rate had fallen below 4 percent only five times since 1970.
    • The unemployment rate for African Americans in May fell to 5.9 percent, which is the lowest rate on record.
    • Asian and Hispanic-American unemployment rates have reached record lows this year.
  • Initial weekly jobless claims have hit a nearly 50-year low under President Trump.
  • Under President Trump, job openings outnumber the unemployed for the first time on record.
  • Recently, more than two-thirds of Americans rated “now” as a good time to find a quality job, tying a record high in a poll by Gallup.
  • Americans are seeing more money in their pockets thanks to the booming economy.
    • In recent months, workers have seen their largest nominal year over year wage growth in nearly a decade.
    • In 2017, real median household income rose to a post-recession high.
  • President Trump’s policies are helping to lift Americans out of poverty.
    • African-American and Hispanic-American poverty rates reached record lows of 21.2 percent and 18.3 percent, respectively, in 2017.
    • Since the election, 4.6 million Americans have been lifted off of food stamps.
  • Consumer confidence has soared under President Trump, recently reaching an 18-year high.
  • President Trump is delivering on his promise to bring back American manufacturing.
    • The National Association of Manufacturers’ Outlook Index had the highest annual average in its history over the past year.
    • Manufacturing added 284,000 jobs in 2018, the most added in a year since 1997
  • Small Business optimism jumped to a record high under President Trump, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
    • The NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index broke a 35-year record in August.
  • President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law, ushering in the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.
  • These tax cuts are delivering real results for American families and workers.
    • More than 6 million workers received tax cut bonuses and benefits.
    • More than 100 utility companies have announced lower rates.
  • President Trump is ensuring American workers receive the training and education they need to compete in today’s economy.
    • President Trump signed an executive order establishing the National Council for the American worker.
    • More than 185 companies and associations have signed our “Pledge to America’s Workers,” promising more than 6.4 million new training and career opportunities.
    • The President signed legislation that reauthorized the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, making more than $1 billion available for career education programs.
  • President Trump has prioritized the economic empowerment of women.
    • The women’s unemployment rate recently reached its lowest rate in 65 years.
    • The Small Business Administration lent approximately $500 million more in capital to women-owned businesses in 2017 compared to 2016.
    • The Administration helped launch the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, which could leverage more than $1 billion to support women entrepreneurs.

ROLLING BACK RED TAPE: President Trump is rolling back costly regulations that have burdened hardworking Americans and stifled innovation.

  • President Trump has followed through on and exceeded his promise to roll back two regulations for every new one created.
    • President Trump’s Administration surpassed the 2:1 ratio in 2018, eliminating 12 regulations for every new one in 2018.
    • In 2017, the Trump Administration eliminated 22 regulations for every new one.
  • Since taking office, President Trump’s deregulation efforts have achieved $33 billion in regulatory savings.
    • In 2018, these efforts alone delivered $23 billion in benefits to American families and business owners.
  • President Trump has signed 16 Congressional Review Act resolutions into law, eliminating burdensome Obama-era rules and regulations.
  • President Trump announced U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, which would have harmed America’s economy and cost American workers millions of jobs.
  • President Trump signed an executive order to streamline the permitting process for infrastructure projects with a goal of cutting approval time from up to 10 years to an average of 2 years.
  • President Trump signed legislation to roll back burdensome Dodd-Frank regulations that harmed community banks.

NEGOTIATING BETTER DEALS FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: President Trump is negotiating fair and balanced trade deals that protect American industries and workers.

  • President Trump negotiated a new trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico to replace the disastrous and outdated North American Free Trade Agreement.
    • Once enacted by Congress, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) will better serve the interests of American workers and businesses.
    • USMCA will incentivize billions of dollars in auto and auto parts production in the United States and create a freer and fairer market for American agriculture.
    • USMCA also includes the strongest-ever provisions on labor, environmental, digital, and intellectual property protections to reflect the realities of the 21st century economy.
  • The President renegotiated the United States–Korea Free Trade Agreement to preserve and grow jobs in the American auto industry and increase American exports.
  • The United States and Japan are set to begin negotiations on a United States–Japan Trade Agreement.
  • President Trump is establishing a new trade relationship with the European Union (EU), working toward the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to transatlantic trade.
  • President Trump has established a Trade and Investment Working Group to lay the groundwork for post-Brexit trade with the United Kingdom (UK) and has notified Congress of his intent to negotiate a free trade agreement with the UK.
  • This year, President Trump filed a withdrawal notification with the Universal Postal Union, launching a one-year negotiation to secure fair international postal rates for American mailers.
  • President Trump has expanded market access for American agricultural producers.
    • Argentina has opened to American pork and beef, Brazil to American beef, Japan to lamb and Idaho chipping potatoes, South Korea to American poultry, and more.
    • The Administration authorized $12 billion to aid farmers affected by unfair retaliatory tariffs.
    • The Trump Administration has begun the process to expand the sale of E15, or gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol, to year round.
  • Under President Trump, the United States will no longer accept bad trade deals and unfair trade practices that harm American workers and industries.
    • One of the President’s first actions after taking office was withdrawing the United States from the terrible Trans-Pacific Partnership, which incentivized outsourcing.
    • In 2017, the Administration oversaw 82 antidumping and countervailing duty investigations.
  • President Trump is holding China accountable for its unfair trade practices, such as the theft of intellectual property, by imposing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods.
    • Following President Trump’s successful meeting with President Xi in Buenos Aires, both agreed to conduct negotiations over 90 days to address the United States concerns.
  • American steel and aluminum jobs are coming back following President Trump’s tariffs to protect domestic industries that are vital to national security.
  • President Trump imposed tariffs to protect American-made washing machines and solar products that were hurt by import surges.

UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY: President Trump is rolling back costly and burdensome regulations to unleash America’s incredible energy resources.

  • After years of stifling regulation under the last Administration, President Trump is unleashing America’s energy potential.
  • America is the largest crude oil producer in the world and production has hit a record high.
  • President Trump’s policies are helping to boost American energy exports.
    • The Administration has streamlined Liquefied Natural Gas terminal permitting.
    • In 2017, the United States became a net natural gas exporter for the first time in 60 years.
    • American coal exports increased by more than 60 percent in 2017.
  • President Trump is expanding access to our country’s abundant natural resources.
    • The President signed legislation to open up energy exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
    • In July 2018, the Department of the Interior announced it would hold the largest oil and gas lease sale in history.
  • In 2017, the Administration approved construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and the cross border permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
  • The Administration issued permits for the New Burgos Pipeline that will export American petroleum products to Mexico.
  • The President has ended the war on coal, cutting Obama-era regulations such as the “Stream Protection Rule” which was estimated to cost industries $81 million a year.
  • President Trump is replacing the Clean Power Plan, a flawed Obama-era regulation that the Supreme Court ordered halted.
  • President Trump rescinded the hydraulic fracturing rule, which was expected to cost the oil and gas industry $32 million per year.
  • The Trump Administration curbed the burdensome Obama-era rule on methane, saving American energy developers hundreds of millions of dollars in regulatory costs.

EXPANDING OPTIONS FOR QUALITY AND AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE: President Trump is expanding access to affordable healthcare choices and taking action to lower drug prices.

  • President Trump’s Administration is working to provide Americans with affordable alternatives to Obamacare.
  • The Administration expanded short-term, limited duration health insurance plans that are expected to be nearly 50 percent cheaper than unsubsidized Obamacare plans.
  • President Trump has expanded association health plans, allowing more employers to join together across State lines and affordably offer coverage to their employees.
  • The Administration proposed a reform to Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) regulations that will give consumers more freedom to purchase benefits that fit their needs.
    • Roughly 800,000 employers are expected to provide HRAs for more than 10 million employees once the rule finalized.
  • Americans have more healthcare freedom thanks to the President signing legislation that ended Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty.
  • While healthcare premiums had been steadily increasing as a result of Obamacare, the average benchmark exchange premium will decline for the first time in 2019 thanks to President Trump’s policies.
    • Next year, Americans will benefit from more insurer participation on the exchanges.
  • Medicare Advantage plans offer more benefit options than ever before, and average premiums in 2019 will be 6 percent lower than in 2018.
  • President Trump launched an unprecedented campaign to drive down drug prices, leading more than a dozen drug manufactures to enact price freezes, reductions, or rollbacks.
    • In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a record number of generic drugs, breaking the previous record set by the Administration in 2017.
    • The FDA’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 generic drug approvals are expected to bring nearly $9 billion in savings in 2017 alone.
    • President Trump signed legislation eliminating contractual gag clauses that stopped pharmacists from informing patients about lower drug prices.
  • The President put forth an initiative to stop global freeloading that drives up prices for American patients.
  • The Administration provided Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D plans with new negotiating tools to drive down drug costs for American patients.
  • The Administration implemented reforms to the amount Medicare pays hospitals for drugs that are purchased under the 340B program, saving seniors $320 million in 2018.
  • President Trump signed “Right to Try” legislation to expand access to experimental treatments for terminally ill patients.

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE CRISIS NEXT DOOR: President Trump mobilized his entire Administration to combat the opioid crisis that has devastated communities across the country.

  • President Trump launched an Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand, introducing new measures to confront the driving forces behind this crisis.
  • The President signed the landmark SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, the largest and most comprehensive legislative package addressing a single drug crisis in history.
  • The President helped secure a record $6 billion in funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
  • The Administration provided more than $2 billion in grants in 2018 to help States, territories, tribes, and local communities prevent and treat opioid abuse.
  • The Administration pursued scientific solutions to prevent and treat addiction through the Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative.
  • The President launched a national public awareness campaign about the dangers of opioid addiction and youth opioid usage.
  • Last year, President Trump created a Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, which recommends ways to tackle the opioid crisis.
  • The Administration declared the opioid crisis a nationwide Public Health Emergency in 2017.
  • President Trump is working to cut off the flow of deadly opioids into our country and to disrupt the networks that distribute them to our communities.
    • The Administration secured first-ever indictments against Chinese nationals for fentanyl trafficking.
    • The Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a surge to target fentanyl and heroin dealers in the districts with the most severe overdose death rates.
    • The DOJ formed a Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement team and shut down the biggest Darknet distributor of drugs.
  • Last year, the DOJ announced the largest healthcare fraud takedown in history, arresting more than 120 defendants with opioid-related crimes.
  • The President launched a Safer Prescribing Plan that seeks to cut nationwide opioid prescription fills by one-third within three years.
  • The Administration has led four National Prescription Drug Take-Back Days, collecting a record-breaking 1,837 tons of expired and unneeded prescription drugs.

STANDING UP FOR THE SANCTITY OF LIFE AND PROTECTING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: The President is committed to defending the right to life and religious liberty.

  • Shortly after taking office, President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy.
  • President Trump defunded a United Nations (UN) agency for colluding with China’s brutal program of forced abortion and sterilization.
  • The Administration withdrew guidance that constrained State’s ability to exclude family-planning providers that provide abortion services from the Medicaid program.
  • The Trump Administration proposed new regulations to ensure Title X family planning funding does not go to projects that perform, support, or refer patients for abortion.
  • The Trump Administration issued regulations establishing new or expanded exemptions from the Obamacare contraceptive mandate based on religious beliefs or moral convictions.
  • In 2017, the President issued an executive order to promote free speech and religious liberty.

KEEPING AMERICAN COMMUNITIES SAFE: President Trump has made clear that his first responsibility is to protect the safety and security of Americans.

  • Federal Bureau of Investigation data shows violent crime decreased under President Trump’s watch in 2017, following two consecutive years of increases.
  • United States Attorneys indicted the most violent criminals on record last year.
  • Last year, the DOJ announced nearly $100 million in grant funding to hire hundreds of additional law enforcement officers.
  • President Trump is cracking down on the vile MS-13 gang that has brought violence to communities across the country.
    • In 2017, the DOJ worked with international partners to arrest and charge approximately 4,000 MS-13 members.
    • Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations arrested nearly 800 MS-13 members and associates in FY 2017, an 83 percent increase from the prior year.
  • President Trump signed an executive order to restore State and local law enforcement’s access to surplus equipment that can be used to help keep our communities safe.
  • President Trump enhanced and updated the Project Safe Neighborhoods program.
  • The DOJ announced the creation of the National Public Safety Partnership in 2017, launching a cooperative initiative with cities to reduce violent crime.
  • President Trump signed legislation to improve the Federal firearm background check system and keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals.
  • President Trump signed the First Step Act, which includes bipartisan reforms to make our Federal justice system fairer and our communities safer.
    • The First Step Act will help prepare inmates to successfully rejoin society, reducing recidivism and improving community safety.
    • This legislation includes commonsense sentencing reforms that will make our Federal justice system fairer while keeping violent criminals and sex offenders off our streets.

ENFORCING OUR LAWS AND SECURING OUR BORDERS: From the first day of his Administration, President Trump has worked to uphold the rule of law and secure our borders.

  • President Trump released an immigration framework that would fix our broken immigration system through merit-based reform and provide the resources needed to secure our border.
    • This includes closing the legal loopholes that enable illegal immigration, ending chain migration, and eliminating the visa lottery.
  • President Trump secured funding to begin building the wall and construction has already begun in areas along the southern border.
  • President Trump deployed the military to assist in securing the southern border.
  • President Trump and his Administration took action to require aliens seeking asylum to go to a port of entry to make their claim.
  • Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended 17,256 criminals and 1,019 gang members in FY 2018.
  • ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested 158,581 aliens in FY 2018, an 11 percent increase from FY 2017.
    • 90 percent of those arrested had criminal convictions, pending charges, or had been issued final orders of removal.
  • ICE ERO increased removals by 13 percent in FY 2018 to 256,086, the majority of whom were convicted criminals.
    • Removals of convicted criminal aliens increased by 14 percent from FY 2017.
    • Nearly 6,000 known or suspected gang members were removed in FY 2018, a 9 percent increase from FY 2017.
  • The Department of Justice prosecuted a record number of criminal immigration offenses in FY 2018, and increased the number of prosecutions for illegal entry by 84 percent over FY 2017.
  • Immigration courts are now completing more cases than at any point since 2011
  • President Trump kept his promise by launching the office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) within the Department of Homeland Security.
  • The Administration has more than doubled the number of jurisdictions participating in the 287(g) program, which enables State and local law enforcement to aid immigration enforcement.
  • President Trump has made our country safer by ordering the enhanced vetting of individuals entering from countries that do not meet our security standards.
    • These procedures were upheld in a June 2018 Supreme Court ruling.

REBUILDING AMERICA’S MILITARY FORCE: President Trump is rebuilding our military and defending America’s interests across the world.

  • President Trump ended the devastating defense cuts of the past Administration and has secured historic investments to rebuild our military.
    • President Trump signed legislation providing $700 billion for defense in FY 2018 and $716 billion in FY 2019.
  • President Trump is supporting America’s men and women in uniform, securing the largest military pay raise in nearly a decade.
  • The President issued a new National Security Strategy to keep America safe from all threats.
    • The Administration has also released new strategies specific to cybersecurity, biodefense, counterterrorism, and weapons of mass destruction terrorism.
  • President Trump directed the first whole-of-government assessment of United States manufacturing and defense supply chains since the Eisenhower Administration.
  • President Trump initiated the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, improving United States deterrence policy and existing capabilities to counter nuclear threats.
  • President Trump empowered our military commanders with broad authority in order to take the fight to ISIS, and the results are clear.
    • ISIS has lost nearly all of its territory, more than half of which has been liberated since President Trump took office.
    • All of ISIS’ territory in Iraq was successfully liberated.
    • ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital city Raqqah has been recaptured.
  • ISIS’ territorial caliphate has been defeated and President Trump has announced that he is bringing America’s troops in Syria home.
  • President Trump announced a new Iran strategy to confront all of Iran’s malign activities and withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran nuclear deal.
    • All sanctions that had been lifted or waived under the Iran deal have been reimposed.
    • The Administration has sanctioned more than 160 individuals tied to the regime’s support of terrorism, ballistic missile program, human rights abuses, and more.
  • President Trump took decisive military action to respond to the barbaric use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.
    • President Trump directed strikes in response to the regime’s chemical weapons attacks in April 2017 and April 2018.
    • The Trump Administration has also rolled out sanctions targeting those tied to Syria’s chemical weapons program.
  • President Trump is strengthening America’s cyber defense and directed the elevation of the United States Cyber Command into a major warfighting command.
  • The President announced that the Department of Defense will work to create a Space Force to serve as an independent branch of the United States military.

RESTORING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP ABROAD: President Trump is restoring American leadership on the world stage and advancing an America first agenda.

  • President Trump held an historic summit with Chairman Kim Jong-Un, bringing beginnings of peace and denuclearization to the Korean Peninsula.
    • Since the summit, the leaders have exchanged letters and high-level officials from both countries have met.
    • Because of the President’s actions, North Korea has halted nuclear and missile tests.
    • The remains of POW/MIA service members from the Korean War are being returned to the United States.
  • Prior to the summit, President Trump’s leadership helped secure the passage of historic UN sanctions on North Korea.
  • President Trump followed through on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the American embassy there.
  • President Trump withdrew the United States from the UN Human Rights Council due to its bias against Israel.
  • The Administration made clear that it does not accept the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over Americans and will continue to protect America’s sovereignty.
  • President Trump has successfully advocated for cutting waste at the UN.
    • Changes made to the organization’s structure allowed the UN to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from their budget, while making the organization more efficient.
  • The President’s leadership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has encouraged members to increase their defense spending and realign the Alliance’s priorities.
    • In 2017 alone, there was an increase of more than 4.8 percent in defense spending among NATO allies.
    • President Trump convinced the Alliance to strengthen counterterrorism activities, and NATO formally joined the coalition to defeat ISIS.
  • President Trump’s Administration is working to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific through investments and partnerships.
  • President Trump has imposed tough sanctions on the corrupt regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
  • President Trump has taken tough action to combat Russia’s malign activities, including Russia’s efforts to undermine United States elections.
    • The Administration has imposed sanctions on more than 200 individuals and entities related to Russia’s destabilizing activities.
    • The Trump Administration has enhanced support for Ukraine’s defense by stepping up sales of weapons to its military.
  • The Trump Administration has secured the release of numerous American citizens held abroad, including Pastor Andrew Brunson from Turkey, Josh Holt from Venezuela, and more.
  • President Trump attended G20 summits in Argentina and Germany, where he promoted American First policies and encouraged closer cooperation.
  • In 2017, President Trump conducted tours through Asia to promote America’s interests.

HONORING AMERICA’S COMMITMENT TO OUR VETERANS: President Trump is honoring America’s commitment to our veterans by ensuring they receive the quality care they have earned.

  • President Trump secured a record $73.1 billion in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide quality medical care for our veterans.
    • This funding included $8.6 billion for mental health services, $400 million for opioid abuse prevention, $206 million for suicide prevention, and more.
  • The President signed the VA MISSION Act, revolutionizing that VA healthcare system and reforming numerous services for our veterans.
    • This legislation will consolidate and reform existing programs to give eligible veterans better access to healthcare providers in their communities.
    • Thanks to this legislation, eligible veterans will have access to walk-in community clinics that offer immediate, local care.
  • President Trump and his Administration have expanded access to telehealth services for veterans, including through the “Anywhere to Anywhere” VA health care initiative.
  • President Trump issued an executive order requiring the Administration to improve access to mental health treatment and suicide prevention resources for veterans.
  • President Trump signed the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, making it easier to fire failing employees and protect whistleblowers.
    • Under President Trump, the VA has removed, demoted, or suspended more than 4,300 employees for poor performance.
  • President Trump signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017, streamlining the process used by veterans when appealing benefits claims.
  • President Trump fulfilled his promise to create a new White House VA Hotline to provide veterans with 24/7 support.
  • The VA is providing veterans with online access to wait time and quality of care data.
  • The President signed the Forever GI Bill, providing veterans, service members, and their families with enhanced education benefits.
  • Last year, programs at the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development helped more than 51,000 veterans find permanent housing and access supportive services.

TRANSFORMING GOVERNMENT: President Trump has followed through on his pledge to transform the Federal Government and increase accountability and transparency.

  • President Trump’s Administration submitted a plan to reorganize the executive branch in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
  • In a historic show of transparency and accountability, the Trump Administration completed the Department of Defense’s first ever audit.
  • The President implemented a five-year ban on lobbying for White House employees and a lifetime ban on lobbying for foreign countries.
  • Each quarter since taking office, President Trump has donated his salary, fulfilling a promise he made to the American people.
  • President Trump is reshaping our Federal judiciary, appointing judges who will follow the Constitution as written.
    • The President has appointed Circuit Court judges at a record pace.
    • President Trump has appointed two Supreme Court justices, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.