______________________________
The Wall Street
Journal
The ‘Stupidity’ of Donald Trump
By William McGurn
This time one year ago, the assumption dominating
political coverage was that the only people more stupid than Donald Trump were
the deplorables who elected him.
Since then, of course, President-elect Trump has become
President Trump.
Over his 11 months in office, he has put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme
Court and four times as many judges on the appellate courts as Barack Obama did
his first year; recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; withdrawn from
the Paris climate accord; adopted a more resolute policy on Afghanistan than
the one he’d campaigned on; rolled back the mandate forcing Catholic nuns,
among others, to provide employees with contraception and abortifacients;
signed legislation to open up drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge; initiated a bold, deregulatory assault on the administrative state—and
topped it all off with the first major overhaul of the tax code in more than 30
years.
And yet that Mr. Trump is a very stupid man
remains the assumption dominating his press coverage.
[...]
Almost all GOP presidents are stereotyped as not very bright. Ask
Ike, or George W. Bush, or even Lincoln.
[...]
Perhaps the best advice for anti-Trumpers
comes from one of their own, a Vermont Democrat named Jason Lorber. Way back in
April, in an article for the Burlington Free Press, the retired state
politician wrote that “while it may be good for a chuckle, calling or even
thinking someone else stupid is virtually guaranteed to give them the last laugh.”
Is that not what Mr. Trump is now enjoying at the close
of his first year?
___________________________
POWERLINE
Happy Tax Cut
Watching the Democrats rend their
garments over allowing people to keep more of their own money rather than letting
politicians spend it for them recalls the late great political scientist
Aaron Wildavsky, who once tallied up the victim classes of liberalism, and
calculated that 375 percent of Americans are certified victims!
Start with consumers, who Ralph Nader
says are all victims, and you begin with 100 percent of the population.
Now add
in women, and you’re up to 150 percent before you even get to racial
minorities, etc.
Democrats are saying the tax cut will
kill people, but haven’t Republicans already
killed off the entire population with the repeal of net neutrality and
withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord?
What am I leaving out?
I know
many Democrats think Americans are zombies, but just how many times can you
kill everyone?
___________________________
Trump Ends 2017 Residing In His Enemies’
Heads
As 2017 comes to a close, tumbleweeds roll
down the empty Lido Deck while the Republican base answers the question, “What
if Conservative, Inc., gave a cruise and nobody came?”
The Democrats fled
Washington under cover of darkness, desperate to keep their slobbering
socialist wing from forcing them to commit ritual suicide by closing down the
government over Christmas because the GOP Congress (for now) won’t hand a
couple million illegal aliens citizenship.
Robert Mueller’s Keystone Kop Korps
started off with “unquestioned integrity” and ended the year with totally
questioned integrity. The mainstream media abandoned the principle of
objectivity in favor of shrill advocacy, yet it is baffled that most Americans
now consider its members like just another bunch of partisan hacks.
In the White House, where everyone who was
anyone told us Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit would reign, President Donald Trump
finished the year by signing a tax reform bill that punished conservatives’
enemies and rewarded their friends.
The Democrats get to go tell their base of
blue state coastal swells, “Uh, sorry about losing those state tax deductions
cuz we were too busy resisting to actually negotiate and thereby get a seat at
the table.” Cue the Sad Trombone.
Trump plays for keeps, unlike the squish-cons who play for media hugs and
invitations to the kool kidz’ parties.
He was supposed to lose the primary, but he
didn’t. He was supposed to lose the general, but he didn’t. He was supposed to
fall victim to the covert schemes of leftist bureaucrats and the overt
obstruction of The Resistance, but he didn’t.
Instead, Donald Trump has
prospered as the most conservative president since Ronald Reagan. And it’s
breaking the souls of his enemies. Deliciously.
The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell
us is dumb. The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell us is a clown. The
elite keeps losing to the guy who doesn’t meet their bottom line standard to be
worthy of governing – being one of the elite. So, what’s that make the elite?
He just refuses to lose. He just refuses to
submit. He just refuses to give a damn about what they say or what they think.
And that infuriates them. He won’t take a knee, but he will offer them a
finger.
Brick by brick, he is disassembling the
rickety edifice of Barack Obama’s transformed America. Regulations? Slashed,
even as the screams of the professional expert class echo across the District
of Columbia.
ISIS? Dead, with our military unleashed to hunt down our enemies
without hesitation or mercy.
The Courts? Packed, not with squishy wimps ready
to bend to the will of the WaPo and the Georgetown cocktail
crew but with true conservatives determined to fight for the Constitution.
Trump’s enemies are getting tired of all the
winning.
[...]
That’s why they hate Trump. He didn’t make
them irrelevant; he just showed the world that they were irrelevant. And that’s
unforgiveable.
[...]
They are all about Trump, 24/7. CNN, and its
silly Don Lemons and Tater Stelters, need Trump. They obsess over him, for
without Trump they are nothing.
The Resistance? They have nothing but Trump to
fill their empty lives, getting giddy every time some media outlet reports that
someone who knows somebody who heard somebody say that maybe Mueller is
investigating someone who met Trump once for felony jaywalking.
[...]
Trump owns his foes. They are mere satellites
orbiting around him, and his gravity is all that keeps them from spinning off
into space. They have willingly submitted to the reality of a Trumpocentric
political universe. It’s hilarious.
[...]
And Trump rolls on, not seeking their
approval, not conforming to their demands, ignoring them when he isn’t mocking
them on Twitter.
He refuses to acknowledge their superiority, their right to
rule over us Normals.
[...]
[W]hile Trump makes a wonderful avatar, he is
really only that – a symbol, a representation of something more terrifying to
the elite than any one man.
Trump represents Normal Americans, the ones the
elite on both the right and the left look down upon with contempt and fear.
They don’t really hate Donald Trump. They hate who he represents. They hate
us. And they hate that they can’t do a damn thing about it.
_________________________
ISIS Has Lost Nearly All of Its
Territory—Mostly Under Trump
The Islamic State has lost 98 percent of the territory it
once controlled, thanks in large part to President Trump's changed strategy in
dealing with the terror group.
Half of the territory of ISIS’s ‘caliphate’ was
recaptured under Trump because “onerous” rules in place under the Obama
administration were lifted.
“The rules of engagement under the Obama administration
were onerous. I mean what are we doing having individual target determination
being conducted in the White House, which in some cases adds weeks and weeks,”
said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, the former head of U.S. Air
Force intelligence, reports FoxNews.com. “The limitations that were put on
actually resulted in greater civilian casualties.”
He also said the gains against ISIS could’ve been
accomplished sooner had Obama not “micromanaged” the war.
“We could have accomplished our objectives through the
use of overwhelming air power in three months not in three years,” he said,
according to FoxNews.com.
The
latest American intelligence assessment says fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters now
remain in Iraq and Syria, down from a peak of nearly 45,000 just two years ago.
U.S. officials credit nearly 30,000 U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and regional
partners on the ground for killing more than 70,000 jihadists. Meanwhile, only
a few thousand have returned home.
The
remaining ISIS strongholds are concentrated in a small area along the border of
Syria and Iraq. ISIS, at one point, controlled an area the size of Ohio. (FoxNews.com)
While the terror group’s losses are certainly worth
celebrating, its radical ideology remains. ISIS continues trying to recruit
sympathizers around the world to carry out attacks.
“ISIS became a brand, and a lot of pre-existing terrorist
groups — you’ve seen this in the Sinai, for example — start to raise the flag
of ISIS, mainly to recruit foreign fighters and other things,” Brett McGurk,
Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS at the U.S.
Department of State, told reporters last week at the State Department.
_____________________
It’s Official: Nikki Haley Announces Cuts to
the UN Budget
Just days after warning the United Nations the United
States doesn't pay to be disrespected, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has
announced a $235 million cut to UN Budget. The news comes after more than 100
countries voted to condemn the U.S. for officially recognizing Jerusalem as the
capitol city of Israel. More from Fox News:
Calling it “a big step in the right direction,” U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Sunday night announced a
historic reduction in the U.N. biennial operating budget.
Haley said the plan calls for a $285 million cut for the 2018-19 fiscal year.
“The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” Haley
said. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken
advantage of or remain unchecked."
She added, “This historic reduction in spending – in addition to many other
moves toward a more efficient and accountable U.N. – is a big step in the right
direction.”
The U.N. budget now covers a two-year period, beginning in January of an
even-numbered year.
The announcement comes after negotiations with the UN
Secretary General, who also proposed an additional $200 million in cuts.
The United States was seeking a $250 million cut to the
U.N. budget for 2018-19, on top of $200 million in savings already proposed by
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Agence France-Presse reported two
weeks ago.
Earlier this year, President Trump gave a speech to the
UN General Assembly in New York City and called for reform of the international
body.
