President Trump has been on a roll. A few weeks ago I was worried that he was turning hard left with DACA and taking political advice from his 36 year old leftist son-in-law who apparently can't fill out forms. The President was backing Mitch McConnell's candidate in the Alabama Senate primary race and teaming up with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. These were bad signals and even his base was getting restless.
After Judge Roy Moore beat the candidate backed by President Trump I got the sense that the President realized he backed the wrong horse too late in the game, so to recover political capital he launched an offensive against the anti-American NFL on a winning issue. This was a slick political maneuver that not only distracted from his loss, it united his base and got a bunch of us patriots fired up.
Obama did a deal with Iran to curtail the development of their nuclear program in exchange for removing sanctions. There are some issues with the deal, and even more ironic, both the North Korea deal in the 1990s and this Iran deal were negotiated by the same person. Great stuff, Obama. President Trump announced he's going to decertify it and kick it back to congress.
He's cutting Obama's “Clean Power Plan” on Tuesday, reducing more EPA regulations:
This morning in Kentucky, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt declared “the war on coal is over” when unveiling a new Trump administration move to revoke the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
Pruitt said no governmental agency “should ever use its authority” to “declare war on any sector of our economy.”
Obama used the EPA to control businesses and shake down corporations to fund Marxist organizations. This was another huge win for the country and another political win for the President.
He issued an executive order to start the eventual transition from the ACA scam, and also ended the illegal subsidies funneled to the insurance companies:
President Trump’s decision to halt Obamacare subsidies to insurance companies is not part of the Executive Order, but is on firm legal ground. House Republicans sued the Obama Administration over the subsidies in 2014. In May 2016, a federal judge ruled that Congress had authorized the payments, but had never appropriated money for them. The Obama Administration appealed the ruling, but the decision by President Trump seems to be merely accepting the court’s initial decision and dropping the appeal.
The administration was effective dealing with the responses from hurricanes, and even the left isn't fighting that. They're happy just blaming the hurricanes on him personally, but that's OK. Leftists wouldn't be leftists if they weren't stupid. One thing we've learned is Puerto Rico has some issues while Texas has a culture of people coming together in crisis. The corruption is so bad in Puerto Rico that the FBI is investigating officials holding supplies. Politically, these disasters were converted into wins.
He worked with Pakistan to get hostages released:
President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the release of an American woman, her Canadian husband and their three children born in captivity, all of whom were held hostage for five years.
The important part of that story is our relationship with Pakistan:
Since his inauguration, Trump has taken on a get-tough approach toward Pakistan. In August, Trump officials said the U.S. government could potentially sanction Pakistani government officials with ties to terrorist organizations, as part of an overall regional strategy.
Looks like being tough worked. Imagine that. Contrast this with Obama's skills where he negotiated with terrorists and paid a ransom for the release of Bowe Bergdahl. Meanwhile, some of his previous actions seem to be sprouting some success. ISIS in Iraq is giving up:
US-backed Iraqi forces announced Thursday they have retaken one of Islamic State's remaining strongholds after hundreds of militants surrendered amid fresh signs the terror group is collapsing and unable to defend its territory.
'They're giving up,' said Lieutenant General Paul Funk, who commands the coalition task force fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. 'Their leaders are abandoning them.'
In uncommon scenes, large groups of militants were turning themselves over to Kurdish Peshmerga forces, in the city southwest of Kirkuk.
Jobs reports are getting better:
Therefore, the establishment survey – which reported a decline of 33,000 in nonfarm payroll employment – cannot be considered reliable for the month of September.
However, the household survey, arguably, is impacted far less, if at all, by the storms. And the numbers from this survey – again, understanding the greater volatility month to month – were off-the-charts positive for September. Specifically, the household survey showed:
• Job Gains: A 906,000 increase in the number of employed in September (with gains in three of the last four months);
• Labor Force Gains: A 575,000 gain in the labor force in September (with growth in four consecutive months now); also, a decline of 368,000 in those not in the labor force in September;
• Labor Force Participation: An increase in the labor force participation rate from 62.9 percent in August to 63.1 percent in September (the highest rate in four years);
• Employment-Population Ratio: An increase in the employment-population ratio from 60.1 percent in August to 60.4 percent in September (the highest rate in over eight years);
• Self-Employment & Entrepreneurship Gains: On the entrepreneurship front, the number of unincorporated self-employed, after suffering a big drop earlier this year from February to July, has now bounced back, gaining 142,000 in August and another 278,000 in September.
Again, questions lurk given the storms and their aftermath, but in terms of the more reliable look at jobs via the household survey, September was a very positive month on the jobs front. Let’s hope that this turns into an extended trend.
Federal government jobs down 13,000 in 2017:
The number of people working for the federal government has declined by 13,000 in 2017, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Second quarter GDP rose to 3.1%:
Gross domestic product increased at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the April-June period, the Commerce Department said in its third estimate on Thursday. The upward revision from the 3.0 percent pace of growth reported last month reflected an increase in inventory investment.
Growth last quarter was the fastest since the first quarter of 2015 and followed a 1.2 percent pace of growth in the January-March period. Economists had expected that second-quarter GDP growth would be unrevised at a 3.0 percent rate.
There are plenty of these signs, and good things never happen fast enough, but it seems like we're on the right track. At this rate, even if we don't get legislation passed, the continuous reduction of regulations and revocation of unconstitutional and illegal actions will leave us in a much better place than the previous administration, and even the one before that.
So excellent work, Mr. President. Things aren't perfect, but I'm not going to sit on my laptop and nitpick everything I perceive as negative when it's obvious you're working hard, overcoming obstacles, and trying to do the right thing for the country.
