HALF-FULL REPORT 09/08/17

Jack is still in Eastern Europe, so you’re stuck with me again. He’ll be returning next week.

Coming off Hurricane Harvey, we are now staring down Hurricane Irma (especially those of us here in Florida). It genuinely appears to be a monster storm, so please pray for all those in its path. It has already done a great deal of harm in the Caribbean and the worst is likely yet to come.

There are many ways you can help, but my personal favorite is Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, which annually mobilizes more volunteers for such service than any other organization in America except the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. You can give or volunteer by clicking here.

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Largely overshadowed in a week dominated by DACA, North Korea and the debt ceiling deal was the President’s speech in North Dakota. But you need to take note. When even the Trump-skeptic Wall Street Journal says “Maybe The Obama Era Really Is Ending”, you know the winds really are changing.

https://youtu.be/z7nt2rmWBkQ

Proudly standing before an oil refinery in Bismarck, flanked by billionaire fracking innovator Harold Hamm, Trump never mentioned his predecessor, but he did outline plans to end Obama’s restrictions on U.S. oil production, approve pipelines, and achieve “energy dominance” (not the mere “independence” of yesteryear, which politicians never meant).

Indeed, “dominance” is the right word. This year’s surge in U.S. oil exports – from a legally-mandated zero for the past four decades to as much as 1.1 million barrels per day now – is creating painful disruption for Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran and Russia, at just about the worst time imaginable for all of them.

That’s a happy catastrophe fueled by two things Democrats have long fought: lifting needless legal restrictions on the oil industry, and the technological boom known as fracking, which has doubled U.S. oil production in an era that was supposed to see oil’s end.

Trump is doubling down on all of this. “Dominance” he says, which means more than you think. A barrel of oil exported from the U.S. is a barrel our opponents can’t sell. It’s a barrel our allies don’t have to buy from our enemies. And it’s money in our pockets that we used to export to Caracas and Riyadh.

This one policy initiative could eliminate 80% of America’s trade deficit, and upend the global order in our favor. But the President also focused his comments on what is truly the best tax reform plan of our lifetimes (five quick points on what makes it so great here).

Donald Trump does not think small.

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The left’s response? Just as last week when all of the criticism of Trump’s disaster relief effort focused on the First Lady’s footware, this week, they expressed horror and disgust that the President’s daughter calls him “daddy”.

How dare she, after all. Doesn’t she know the Trumps aren’t allowed to have a normal family? (Here’s Colbert, and here’s the San Francisco Chronicle.)

Here’s the clip. Judge for yourself if it’s not one of the sweeter Presidential moments on record. And also whether these inane leftists didn’t have better things to cover this week.

https://youtu.be/3uhVW6cUfHc

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One of those things was DACA.

Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order is a variation on the Rahm “never let a crisis go to waste” Emanuel’s theme: never miss a chance to exploit a tragedy. And from Katrina (“Bush is a racist who deliberately undermined the dikes to commit genocide against black people”) to Charleston (“All law-abiding citizens must be disarmed because Dylan Roof murdered people needlessly disarmed in a gun-free zone”), Democrats shamelessly exploit tragedy like cows eat grass.

That’s DACA in a nutshell. DACA is an amnesty program for the 800,000 or so children brought here by illegal alien parents. The argument is that sending them home would be “cruel” because they’ve never known any home but America.

It’s not that Democrats don’t have a point. It’s just that that isn’t their real point.

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It also misses the point. The 800,000 children? They aren’t children. Indeed, estimates of their average age range between 26 and 32.

The left (and the Christian left in particular) harangues that Trump wants to punish the children for the sins of their fathers. But when you’ve been an adult for a decade, and you know you’re breaking the law, your sins are your own. Indeed, they’re a choice you make every single day.

Twenty-six is old enough to choose to stop living as a criminal.

They also aren’t entitled to anything. Tear-jerker arguments notwithstanding – and I am not unsympathetic to them – this point is glaring. The so-called “dreamers” have received what millions more dream of: years of their lives spent in America. They’ve received free educations, and lots of other free stuff too, but more than anything else, the opportunity just to be here.

Think of it as a twenty-year exchange student program. And believe me, plenty of foreign students would kill for it.

Or try that another way: If your parents sneaked you into Disney World without paying, would it be Disney’s fault when they booted you out? Or does Disney have a duty to give you a free ticket? In fact, does Disney have a duty to give you a free lifetime pass if you’ve been illegally in the park for the last 20 years?

#LiberalLogic

But perhaps the most hypocritical aspect of all this is the fake patriotism, the outright jingoism of it. Leftists (and yes, that includes the Christian left) untiringly tell us that America is suffused with racism and oppression, a terror state, filled with people starving in the streets. But bring up immigration and suddenly they think that every place except America is such an unmitigated hell that it’s “cruel” to expect people to live there?

Maybe they should travel more. They do know that many Americans actually retire to Mexico and Central America (the countries where nearly all of the “dreamers” are citizens). Right?

Have they actually seen House Hunters International?

The mind just boggles.

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So what is the real point? In two parts.

DACA is blatantly unconstitutional, less executive order and more rule by decree. Frustrated by his inability to get the legislative branch to give him his way, the Obamanation decided, on this and many other things, to do what he wanted on his own. DACA is at best an enormously illegal and troubling power grab by the executive branch.

That usurpation has been characteristic of leftist governments throughout the world, and of Democrat Presidents here as well, from Wilson to FDR to Johnson and Clinton. And from shuttering Republican-owned GM dealerships (but not their Democrat counterparts), to using the IRS to shut down the President’s enemies, to illegally selectively implementing Obamacare, to imposing climate “rules” that he could not get through Congress, Barack Obama has exceeded all who’ve gone before him.

That ever-increasing authoritarian ratchet assumed – because the left universally assumed – Hillary would win. Though executive acts can easily be rescinded by the next President, Obama had no fear of this because he “knew” Hillary would uphold and expand it. And likewise, he “knew” she would replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, probably with a 40-year-old in a Che shirt. The Revolution was at hand.

And he would have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.

On Tuesday, despite his apparent support for the program itself, Donald Trump rescinded DACA, perhaps the first time in our lifetimes that a President actually strengthened the separation of powers.

Obama ruled as a tyrant. Donald Trump is governing as a President. And for that reason, Donald Trump is our HFR Hero of the Week.

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But using the plight of children to unconstitutionally expand presidential power is just part it. DACA is also part of the left’s broader effort, actively pursued for a generation now, to flood the country with what can only be termed “undocumented Democrats”, illegal voters (made legal as soon as feasible) who can make up for Democrats’ otherwise declining numbers and make conservatives a permanent minority.

This is why the Gang of Eight deal tried to create a means to have every illegal alien voting within five years. “Demography is destiny” is not a slogan: it’s a strategy.

So what’s a President to do?

DACA is just one small part of that plan. The wall, and border enforcement generally, is vastly more important: it’s the difference between 800,000 mostly-Americans and something between 20 million and an unlimited deluge of foreign Democrat pawns, with more than a few gang members and terrorists thrown in, all voting as soon as the left can rig it. If Congress uses the six months the President has given them to pass a constitutionally-legitimate legislative version of DACA, they will have acted with reasonable compassion, at comparatively little cost to the body politic.

Lots of conservatives – particularly of the #NeverTrump sort – lost it over Trump’s giving Congress a chance to act (as if they don’t always have that chance regardless). And indeed, the President clearly signaled his willingness to sign an appropriate bill. It was almost as though he was begging them to act.

Still, what strikes me about the sentence above are the words “the President has given”. Because Donald Trump doesn’t give away anything. Presumably he has a bargain in mind, not just the sort of pre-surrender we’re used to from Ryan and McConnell.

So let’s examine that.

Inviting a bill legalizing the so-called “dreamers” provokes action: there will surely be a bill. Ryan will lead the charge personally. It may pass, or it may not. If it doesn’t, it’s not because Trump didn’t try, but he also upheld the Constitution. Trump wins.

On the other hand, what if it does pass? A lot will have gone into passage, including deals across the aisle. And there the fun begins.

Congress just punted on border wall funding, again. Trump’s excellent merit-based immigration plan was widely panned. Tax reform is coming up. So are a lot of nominations needing confirmation, still being held up to an unprecedented degree by brazen Democrats and by Republican leaders who won’t crack the whip.

Normal Republicans can’t conceive of bargaining for those things. On Sunday, before Trump’s announcement, I watched a former Romney aide make the case on Fox that Trump should keep DACA, and Congress should pass their own version of it, and no one should attach border wall funding to the bill because “that would be too controversial.”

These people are too pathetic to live.

By adding the six-month delay, Trump has given Congress a chance to act, but he holds all the cards: whatever Congress does, it won’t do it with a veto-proof majority. So they can either deal, or they can watch DACA disappear.

Either way Trump wins.

As usual.

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Oh, and by the way: post-DACA announcement, Trump’s approval rating ticked up to 46% for the first time in two months. Take that RINOs.

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And if that’s not enough, then the President pulled the rug out from under RINOs by cutting a debt ceiling deal with the Democrats. And Paul Ryan was just gobsmacked.

Don’t misunderstand: there’s a case to be made for tying the debt ceiling to reforms. I’ve made it. I get it.

But everyone in Washington knew the debt ceiling was getting raised. What’s more, in the next two and a half months, a do-nothing Congress has to find time to actually appropriate funds for the government to operate, enact major tax reform legislation, possibly readdress healthcare, plus half a dozen other things.

Oh, and disaster relief. That has to happen (and thanks to the President, did happen) today.

So he sat down with Pelosi and Schumer, ignoring Ryan and McConnell completely, and worked out a deal: hurricane funding now, three month debt ceiling increase, done.

Once again, #NeverTrump-land declared betrayal and defeat. But they’re missing the point yet again.

Americans demand decisive competent action on natural disasters: Katrina taught us that, indelibly. They also don’t believe that the debt ceiling fight is real, nor many other of Washington’s many Inside Baseball squabbles, because Republican leaders have consistently taught them not to trust.

Trump took action for the country against his own party. To normal people, that’s a huge win.

But was it really against Republicans? Quite the contrary.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said it outright on Fox Business yesterday: the President’s deal clears the way for tax reform, which will absorb most of the next three months. My skepticism about olive branches to the Dems abounds, but still: the deal also shows Pelosi and Schumer that Trump isn’t as intractable as they’ve been, that the right deal can be made. That’s a new tactical advantage for the master negotiator, especially as he draws them into his web on DACA.

Even so, that’s not the most important thing Trump won.

What Trump really achieved is a clear and overpowering warning to Ryan and McConnell: get your team together or get run over.

Healthcare could have been done. It wasn’t, because Republicans couldn’t unite. That’s certainly a betrayal by John McCain and Lisa Murkowski. But it’s mostly a failure of leadership.

RINOs and NeverTrump Republicans have arrogantly thought the President needed them more than they needed him, carping at him over idiocy instead of doing their jobs. Their base already thought that was stupid. They just learned its a one way ticket to irrelevance.

They can be horrified all they want. Or they can unite and actually pass conservative legislation, which a President will finally sign.

The ball’s now in their court.

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It would be hard to top what Lou Dobbs had to say about Trump’s deal. Take the less than two minutes needed to watch:

https://youtu.be/kcxqD2VzUf8

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In the middle of all this, North Korea claims (reasonably credibly) to have tested an actual H-Bomb.

This matters. Over the years, Jack and I have written a lot about the relative insignificance of North Korea’s atomic weaponry. But an H-Bomb means a significant EMP capability. And orbited in a seemingly peaceful satellite, the NORKs could unleash a doomsday scenario on America with only a handful of bombs and without any warning.

The Administration made that clear enough instantly. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley told the Security Council that North Korea is “begging for war.” The President sent additional forces and armaments to the peninsula, and eliminated warhead limits on South Korean missiles. He also raised the possibility of cutting off trade with any country that trades with North Korea.

North Korea’s top trading partners? China, India, Russia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

It remains to be seen what happens next. After the President’s “fire and fury” speech, Kim backed down over Guam. But the situation has taken a decidedly ugly turn that the United States simply cannot ignore.

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Right on cue, leftwing “Resistance” groups spent a good bit of this week siding with North Korea.

Thanks guys.

But while we’re talking about the “Resistance” we surely must mention the National Lawyers Guild of San Francisco, which this week announced “we are all Antifa” and endorsed their violence.

The evil Southern Poverty Law Center, the alleged “anti-hate” group about which we spoke so much last week and which condemns people like Dr. Dobson and the American Family Association as neo-Nazis, also addressed Antifa, for the first time. SPLC President Richard Cohen said that while the violent radical group’s tactics are “wrongheaded”, he could not call them a hate group.

You know, like that scary Family Research Council or the Conservative Republicans of Texas.

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That was perhaps not their best moment. But then neither was this. The SPLC – which as we discussed last week is now helping determine Google’s search results – was caught stashing $69 million in offshore accounts. Hmmm….

But they were not the only ones caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Last week we told you about the revelation that fired FBI Director James Comey had cleared Hillary Clinton before bothering to investigate her. This week we learned that Comey wasn’t the one who cleared her: Barack Obama was.

We’re still awaiting word of CNN’s breathless demands for obstruction of justice charges against the former President.

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Speaking of, the Russia investigation is not going well for Democrats. First, the FBI revealed that there is “no sign of interference” by the Trump Administration. Then, the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed key FBI and DOJ officials over the fake Russia dossier, now known to have been paid for by the Clinton campaign.

All of which seemed far less amusing than news that CNN has pulled its investigative team off the Trump-Russia story completely. It seems they were reporting too much #FakeNews.

Put a fork in this narrative. It’s done.

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Last week I told you that the left sees Hurricanes Harvey and Irma as punishment for America’s sins against progressivism. This week Jennifer Lawrence doubled down on that, saying the hurricanes are nature’s wrath for electing Donald Trump.

I suspect that might be part of why more Americans than ever think celebrities are terrible role models.

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Of course Ms. Lawrence is far from the only dumb celebrity. NFL millionaires are protesting the national anthem again. Result? Double-digit drops in NFL ratings. Again.

Maybe they should have studied something besides PE in college. They might have learned not to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs.

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And then there’s the ever-brilliant Maxine Waters. She thinks “they want to kill me.”

No, ma’am. We want you to keep talking, as much as you possibly can.

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And if that’s not enough of the left’s “never miss a chance to exploit a tragedy”, the constant drumbeat of “global warming causes hurricanes” never seems to cease.

Unfortunately, even the warmists themselves know that’s not true.

Here’s the latest from NOAA, your government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, basically the national weathermen:

“In summary, neither our model projections for the 21st century nor our analyses of trends in Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm counts over the past 120+ yr support the notion that greenhouse gas-induced warming leads to large increases in either tropical storm or overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic.”

Read the full report and enjoy.

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Sheriff David Clarke got a new job this week, at a pro-Trump Super PAC. Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore is beating Luther Strange by double digits – 52-36 – for the U.S. Senate seat in Alabama: that will make lots of Dem and RINO heads pop. And when a liberal Minnesota high school banned flags, this was the students’ reaction:

Yeah, it was a pretty good week.

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Pray for Florida. Keep up the fight. Keep the faith. We’re winning, folks. America is winning. Most of the fight is still ahead, but it is absolutely a fight we can continue to win.

I am confident we will.