"Blue wave" a mere ripple; Trump still POTUS!

The sun rose in the east this morning. So did President Donald J. Trump, satisfied, I'm sure, that his presidency and his plans to MAGA are in no more danger of being derailed by the socialist Democrats than they were 24 hours ago.

As early as 1800 FMT (Fort Mudge Time) the lamestream media pundits and perplexed pollsters were starting to wonder when they were going to see the Democrats' "Blue Wave". Hours went by, and the social justice tsunami failed to materialize. Talk of mountains and molehills? The threatened Blue Wave turned out to be a mere ripple! Here's the Fox News results map showing how things turned out. [Memo from Ed. to Fox News: Hope you don't mind. We don't make any money out of WWW, and we gave ya a plug!]

This morning's official line from the Clinton News Network, the NY Times and WaPo, is that the Democrats "took back control of the House of Representatives", while the Republicans "hung onto the Senate." Hey! Look at the map! There are 435 seats in the House. At last count, with 23 seats not yet declared, the Demns got 219 -- one more than half! Some "control"! As for the Senate, with one seat still undecided, the Republicans increased their numbers to 52.

What does this mean for the future of the US of A and for federal politics over the next two years? Militant Democrats are already hatching plots to use several powerful committees, which they will now chair, including the lower chamber's Intelligence, Ways and Means, Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees, to stall the President's legislative agenda and generally do as much damage as they can to POTUS.

Using subpoenas, they will be able to seek access to President Trump's long sought-after tax returns. They will also be ratcheting up the probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The lefties are talking again about impeachment, chances of which are, realistically, slim and none.

The usual "analysts" are saying that Republicans will no longer be able to pass legislation without help from the Democrats, meaning that pushing through conservative bills -- on immigration and tax reform, for instance -- will become more difficult. Likewise, the Democrats are claiming to have "saved Obamacare" and protected the rights of those with pre-existing health conditions.

The fact is that derailing the President's legislative agenda is not going to be that easy. The Demns have a larger, but more fractious caucus, with several left wing-nuts like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez keen to turn America into another "people's republic". But there is a larger group of moderates, many of whom only mentioned the word "Democrat" in six-point type at the bottom of their signs and campaign literature. They know that they will be up for re-election in just two years, and had better not oppose POTUS too violently or irrationally. Look what happened to the Democratic senators who opposed POTUS' nomination to the Supreme Court. Every Demn senator in a competitive race who voted against Judge Kavanaugh lost!

And the Republicans are still in charge of the Senate, more so than before. Any attempt to impeach President Trump, even if it passes the House, is doomed to failure, as the trial would have to take place in the Senate, where 66 votes are required to remove POTUS from office.

The Senate is also where the President's nominations to top Cabinet and judicial posts are confirmed, and this will be easier now than it was in the case of Justice Kavanaugh. This means the President and the Republicans will be able to seat more conservative federal judges, possibly including one or two more justices of the Supreme Court, should a couple of ancient lefties shuffle off this mortal coil in the next two years.

White House spokesthingy Sarah Huckabee-Sanders described the Senate results as "historic" and told reporters the election was "a huge moment and victory for the president." And just a few moments ago, the President Himself tweeted, "Now we can all get back to work and get things done!" Indeed. The first thing I'm going to do is go out to collect on my election bets. Lifetime pct .988.

Further reading: Thanks to Agent 3 for sending us the link to "So much for the Democrats' hammer blow against Trumpism", by Kelly McParland in today's National Post. Key quote: "His opponents still don’t grasp what it is about the president that appeals to the 40% or more of Americans who appear willing to stand by him no matter what."

A year of accomplishment under President Trump

As we hit the 11-month mark in the first presidency of Donald J. Trump, let's be clear about one central truth. MAGA was never going to happen overnight. It will take years to undo the damage done by previous administrations, particularly that of President 0, and realize the hopes and dreams that inspired Americans to elect Mr Trump POTUS. That said, even the lamestream media must admit (although they probably won't) that President Trump has done a tremendous amount of good in the first year of his first term. In Walt's opinion, he fully deserves two thumbs up!

His many detractors, like CBC's Neil Macdonald, want President Trump to fail, even if America goes down with him. They can't bring themselves to admit or even talk about the many good things he's accomplished in less than a year: the small ones (like making it OK to say "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" again) or the big ones, like pushing through a much-needed tax reform in spite of the opposition of Democrats and the Republican establishment. The fact is that Mr Trump has, in less than a year, done more than his predecessor did in eight years and more than the Republican Establishment did in a decade of controlling Congress!

The aforementioned tax cut and simplification bill will excuse a majority of Americans from personal income tax altogether. 80% of taxpayers will be able to file their returns on a post card. The top personal rate goes down to 37% the corporate rate to 21%. Americans will be able to keep more of the money they earn and put that money back into the economy.

The Democrats keep saying the tax reform will drive the budgetary deficit out of sight. Walt calls BS on that. According to the Federal Reserve, the annual deficit will be eliminated in less than three years and the national debt (as a percentage of GDP) will start to shrink. GDP growth should be close to 4% -- roughly double that of Canada -- generating nearly a trillion dollars of additional production and transactions in 2018 with only minimal inflation.

The result will be the revival of the spirit of entrepreneurship and capitalism, and the end of the Prez's defeatist warnings that the USA must learn to live with a mere 1% annual growth rate and ever-rising numbers of Americans surviving by sucking on the government tit. And, even better, the gap between the USA and China will finally stop narrowing, as America increases its lead as the world's largest economy.

In the first year of President Trump's term, 2,500,000 jobs have been created -- 228,000 jobs last month alone. The jobless rate is at a 17-year low. In 2017, 171,000 manufacturing jobs were created, compared with 16,000 lost in 2016.The unemployment rate is at its lowest this century! And that's not just for whities like Walt, but for Latinos too. Their unemployment rate is down to 4.7%, the lowest since recording started 45 years ago.

And how about the stock market? Since Mr Trump was elected, the Dow has risen by some 5000 points -- almost 30%. New highs have been hit over 15 times, and Walt predicts the Dow will hit 25,000 by New Year's Eve. (Lifetime pct .988.) Energy production has been drastically deregulated and imports of petroleum reduced to a third of the country's needs and falling steadily. And just this week, the bunkum of "climate change" -- the "global warming" that was -- has been taken off the list of threats to America.

Getting the costs of America's so-called health care "system" under control has presented a challenge, sure enough. President Trump said he would sign any health care bill Congress could pass. They tried twice to come up with a replacement for Obamacare, and failed twice. That's not the President's fault, but that of the Republicans in Congress, some of whom (Hello! Mitch McConnell) are working against the President's agenda, for reasons which we can only guess.

In his draft report card on the first year of POTUS' administration, Scott Adams writes that the only way to get a good health care bill is by letting the Republican Congress fail a few times so they become flexible (more bipartisan) later. He predicts that President Trump's potential influence over health care will grow over time as both sides look at a failing Obamacare system and don't want to explain their failure to voters next year.

And finally -- this is just a partial list of achievements -- there's immigration. Prototypes for the components of the Wall have been built and displayed. It will be built! The Department of Homeland Security reports border patrol arrests have dropped to a 45-year low, down 25 percent from this time last year. The millions of aliens who are in the USA illegally or on sufferance are getting nervous and are starting to go home or, like the Haitian "refugees" who've been in America for a decade, heading for Canada, where they'll be welcomed by the Trudeau government, if not the Canadian people.

Neil Macdonald and the other bleeding hearts in the media should realize that American voters didn't elect Donald Trump to be nice. They elected him to get things done. And that's exactly what he's doing.

Footnote from Ed.: The source of most of the statistics presented in this post is this week's (16/12/17) issue of The Economist. Even they, guardians of the liberal progressive ideal, are forced to admit that the outlook for the USA in 2018 is, errr, positive.