Here are my observations and opinions on selected news of the day.
WORTH NOTING – “Eighteen months into Donald Trump’s term, the world is having trouble coming to grips with the most unconventional American president ever. Still, he is neither a bad dream from which the U.S. will soon wake up, nor a fool to be ridiculed,” writes former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot in an op-ed published in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal.
“On the evidence so far, when he says something, he means it and when he says something consistently, it will happen.
“He said he’d cut taxes and regulation. He did, and the American economy is at its strongest in at least a decade. He said he would pull out of the Paris climate-change agreement and he did, to the usual obloquy, but no discernable environmental damage. He said he’d scrap the Iranian deal, and he did. If Tehran gets nuclear weapons, at least it won’t be with American connivance.
“He said he’d move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and he did, without catastrophe. He said he’d boost defense spending. That’s happening too, and adversaries are no longer think that they can cross American red lines with impunity.”
Writing of President Obama’s high-mindedness on fringe issues like climate change, Abbot said, “President Obama spoke beautifully about American values but was always cautious and sometimes slow to stand up for them.”
Referencing President Trump’s pressuring other nations for free trade and to pay their fair share to NATO, he views the president as “tired of allies who give sermons from the sidelines while America keeps them safe.”
“Mr. Trump is clearly impatient with the liberal internationalism that has shaped American policy for 70 years, which he worries has been better for others than for the U.S.”
I highly recommend you read Abbot’s Journal op-ed, “An Ally Sizes Up Donald Trump” in its entirety.
AN HILARIOUS TWEET by Ann Coulter @AnnCoulter was brought to my attention by a friend: “Peter Strzok’s wife threatened to leave until he explained that not once did he let his affair with Lisa Page affect any specific actions he took in their marriage.”
DEMOCRATS GET COLD FEET – Remember all of those radical liberal Democrats who were calling for the abolishment of ICE? Fear of tying the crisis on the border to their party, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have called instead for the agency to be restructured, according to Rick Moran at PJ Media. Consider it dead.
THEN THERE’S THE TWO FACES of Democrat Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware. While admitting “there’s little that Democrats can do to delay Trump’s nominee (Judge Brett Kavanaugh),” during an appearance on the leftist “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC, he credited the ability of Senator Schumer to “hold us together as a caucus” and will play “follow the leader.” That’s Senator Coons, “RESIST member.
NOW HERE’S Senator Coons, the pragmatist, who has launched what The Wall Street Journal has called a “one-man campaign imploring his party to exchange “pie-in-the-sky” promises for pragmatic policies.
“Some members of our party, I fear, are instead taking the easy road, and proposing ideas that might sound great in a tweet, like free college and free health care,” Coons told a centrist Democrat group.
Liberal Democrats are worried that Coons strategy will demoralize their high-energy segment of the party. It seems that Coons has gotten the ear of colleagues who privately agree with him but are unwilling to say so publicly.
(Graphic courtesy The Lid.)
MEANWHILE, The Lid, headlined a piece, “IT’S WAR! The Democratic Party Is Now A House Divided Against Itself.” Jeff Dunetz writes about the rift between the far-left members and moderates. “A group of moderate Democratic lawmakers sounded the alarm Thursday over the party’s shift to the left,” he reported, saying “the embrace of ultra-liberal policies could endanger their efforts to capture Congress in the November midterm elections and the White House in 2020.”
“These extreme leftist Democrats seem to prefer the idea of losing this election and clearing out as many moderate Democrats from the party as possible. Any break with the far left is considered a treacherous act.”
SPEAKING OF THE LEFT – I forgot to mention in my last post that in the four-hour news block following President Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, MSNBC interviewed 27 individuals and … wait for it … not one of them was conservative.
Three far-left Senators, Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, joined representatives from Planned Parenthood and George Soros’ Center for American Progress and others to declare that the nomination “is a threat to all of our rights.” “Chicken Little” did not appear.
LEAD FROM BEHIND DEMOCRATS are insisting that the president cancel his meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Monday, and as you might expect, Sen. John McCain (RINO-AZ) expressed disapproval of the meeting. Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) suggests that the president should inform Putin that ‘I can either be your best friend or your worst enemy.”
May God bless the United States of America.
