Here are my observations on the news of the day.
MCCABE IS OUT – Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe following the recommendation of the Office of Professional Responsibility. It’s but the first step in cleaning up the deep state conspiracy at the top levels of the agency. We can expect more action with the IG report soon to be released.
WAKE UP GOP – When are you – especially Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – going to wake up and act like the president’s agenda depends on you? Like the president, you made promises too. You just may still have the majority after the midterms, but what if the “unbelievable” happens, and Chuck Schumer gains control.
Why are you permitting Democrats to delay the president’s nominations? Why aren’t you moving ahead with legislation covering the president’s “four pillars” immigration proposal? And, the final stake still needs to be driven into the heart of ObamaCare.
Yes, you helped put money back in the pockets of taxpayers and paved the way for companies to do business in America, but you cannot rest on your laurels. There’s much more to be done, and I’m not sure the electorate has much confidence in you. We’re not convinced that you want to change Washington’s ways.
ON THAT NOTE – “Republicans in Congress are working on a $1.3 trillion spending bill that includes all kinds of provisions that fly in the face of campaign promises, principles, and even their party’s platform,” writes Rachel Bovard in The Federalist. That doesn’t sound good.
The list includes full funding for Planned Parenthood, extension of Obama’s executive amnesty order, an ObamaCare bailout to help insurance companies, an effort to “do something” about gun control, restoration of the Export-Import Bank, funding for a tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York, a plan to empower states to tax and regulate internet sales, and the approval of a dramatic increase in the amount of cash party organizations can spend in coordination with their candidates.
Despite having congressional majorities, Republicans are writing bills designed to attract liberal votes, according to Bovard.
‘THE FLAKE’ TURNS TO COMEDY – Sen. Jeff Flake (RINO-AZ) is becoming the GOP’s Hillary Clinton. He, too, doesn’t know when to just go away.
Speaking at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, after referring to President Trump as “a bad comic at a cheap roast,” Flake himself turned to comedy, saying, “I stand before you, that rarest of species: the American conservative – Americanus Never Trumpus.” He’s obviously writing his own material.
FOOD STAMP ENROLLMENT DROPPED by more than 1.3 million since President Trump’s inauguration, but be aware that enrollments have been steadily declining since 2013, when many states passed laws requiring able-bodied recipients to work, volunteer, be in school, or participate in a job training program to receive stamps.
It was in 2013 that enrollments had reached its highest number since President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the program in 1964.
OPENLY ATHEIST DEMOCRAT Gayle Jordan lost a special election to fill a vacant seat in the Tennessee Senate this week, but it didn’t get much media attention. Republican Shane Reeves, who won the seat in a landslide, argued that Jordan was unsuited for the state senate because “faith shape’s one’s world view and affects decisions one makes more than you know.”
HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT TRUE – America is exporting its oil at a record never before seen in history, according to Amy Harder at AXIOS. It reflects one of the most dramatic turnarounds of an industry that affects so many corners of the American and global economies, from trade deficits to every day drivers
Fueled by fracking and horizontal drilling, American is on track to produce a record 10.7 million barrels of oil per day this year.
DO TRUMP’S WAYS CONFOUND YOU? I encourage you to read, “The Art of the Steel Tariffs,” an op-ed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal by Melissa Francis, who co-hosts Fox Business Channel’s After the Bell.
The headline is misleading; obviously the headline writer didn’t read beyond the first paragraph.
“A recurring trick of his presidency, and before it during his campaign, has been to stir controversy with unexpected announcements, Francis writes, “he shocks the parties at both ends of the table, then watches as the back-and-forth begins.”
Francis cites a number of his pronouncements – the wall, DACA, the travel ban, NATO, and the steel and aluminum tariffs – that merely kicked off discussion and negotiations that followed.
“The negotiating style Mr. Trump developed in business may not translate perfectly to politics, Francis writes. “(His) style of leadership is agonizing for this staff and Republican officeholders … (but) my advice to them to close their ears and open their eyes instead of joining the chorus of critics when Trump bellows an outrageous position. Recognize his final goal and realize that he’s just opening up the bidding.”
