President Trump Oficially Decreases the Debt to GDP Ratio in His First Year in Office – First Time in More than 50 Years!

Joe Hoft  "The higher a country’s debt to GDP ratio, the less healthy the country’s economy.  With the GDP numbers released yesterday, President Trump’s policies have officially decreased the Debt to GDP ratio by 1.2% in the President’s first year in office.

"In contrast, President Obama increased the US Debt to GDP ratio his first year in office by 14.5%.  Obama increased the rate a total of 37% over his 8 years in office.

"Since his inauguration President Trump has focused his efforts on the security of the country and on the prosperity of its economy. The results of his actions are taking shape.

"The US GDP has increased each quarter in 2017 with the 4th Quarter GDP increasing to $19.739 trillion – the highest GDP for any country in world history.

"On the other hand, the President has curtailed US spending. The result is that the US Debt to GDP ratio decreased in 2017 from 105% to 104%.

"No President in more than 50 years has decreased the Debt to GDP ratio in his first year in office by more than 1%. The last President to do so was Nixon in 1969. Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush decreased the Debt to GDP ratio in their first years in office but by less than 1%.

"President Trump has the stock market at all time highs, jobs at all time highs and the debt to GDP ratio decreasing.  As a result America is moving in the right direction for the first time in at least a decade." 

Andrew Klavan: Three Reasons I Won't Be Talking About the Oscars

Andrew Klavan On The culture.  "The Academy Award nominations were announced this week. Usually I try to respond to the announcement with some sort of satirical piece in which I give awards to movies that, for political reasons, never got made. For instance, this year I might have celebrated the movie about the brave cop who stands up to charges of racism in order to bring down a Muslim rape ring in Britain, or the one in which an angry father hunts down a murderous illegal immigrant after a jury lets him off to show how woke they are, or maybe the hilarious college comedy about the snowflake students who can't hear conservative ideas without going into therapy.

"But this year — forget it. The Oscars no longer matter enough to satirize. Here's(sic) three reasons why." . . . Outline below:

• First, Movies Are No Longer America's Art Form
• Second, Oscar Winners Make Carping Political Speeches and They Don't Know What They're Talking About
• And Third, Politically Correct Quotas Make the Awards Meaningless

. . . 

Illustrations added by TD

Joe Manchin Tells Nancy Pelosi To Grow Up And Stop The Immigration Rhetoric [VIDEO]

Daily Caller

"Democratic Senator Joe Manchin told House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to stop her divisive rhetoric on immigration and work with the Republican party, Sunday on CNN’s “State of The Union.”

"Host Jake Tapper played a clip of Pelsoi claiming President Donald Trump’s immigration plan seeks to “make America white again,” and then asked Manchin what he thought of the quote.

“ 'You know what, we don’t need that type of rhetoric on either side. From Nancy, Paul Ryan or anybody else” said Manchin, of West Virginia. “We have the wall. We need to repair the wall. We’ll need to build more wall. We need to do whatever we can to secure the borders.' ” . . .

Fox Exposes the Clintons in the Scandalous Series

Peter Barry Chowka

Fox News’ efforts with Scandalous represent a more serious and balanced appraisal of its subject than CNN’s hagiographic and one-sided take on recent decades, especially their excesses. (In reviewing CNN’s "The Nineties," Salon -- usually a friend of CNN -- opined that the series was “empty nostalgia for a decade we should let die.”)

"The excellent 7-part Fox News documentary series Scandalous, covering the scandals of the Clintons through the 42nd president’s impeachment trial in 1999, continues tonight with the premiere of part 2, “A Woman Called Paula.” The hour-long program airs at 8 P.M. E.T./P.T. At 7 P.M., part 1, “Up Crooked Creek” about the Whitewater scandal, which originally aired last Sunday, will be reprised.

"Fox hopes that Scandalous will be an ongoing series devoted to various political scandals in American history. The first 7 parts, devoted to the Clintons, total 280 minutes of content and go a long way towards helping to correct the largely sanitized and whitewashed record of Bill Clinton’s scandal-ridden career and presidency. Since he left office on January 20, 2001, the mainstream media, to my knowledge, has never attempted any serious appraisals of the underside of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s eight years in the White House and their earlier careers in Arkansas. The only exception was the PBS American Experience 2-part, 4-hour presidents’ series episode about Clinton which aired most recently in 2012. It covered Bill and Hillary’s entire career with only a minor focus on the scandals. Like most MSM appraisals of the Clintons, it reinforced the gauzy, airbrushed history of the 1990s, which witnessed the pumped up Internet dot com surge that helped to propel the temporary economic boomlet before the bubble started to burst in 2000, Bill Clinton’s last full year in office." . . .

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran reporter and analyst of news on national politics, media, and popular culture.  In addition to his writing, Peter has appeared as a guest commentator on NBC; PBS; the CBC; and, on January 4, 2018, the BBC.  

New westerns in town rustle up gore and 21st-century mores after classics ride off into the sunset

Washington Times

   "John Wayne might not recognize the westerns hitting screens large and small of late.
   "The modern western isn’t just white hats and black hats. The violence is meaner (“Bone Tomahawk”) and the women more progressive (“Godless”), and the stories share sensibilities beyond 19th-century mores (“Hostiles”).
   "The question for hard-core genre fans is clear: Is this an improvement over the westerns of yesteryear or a sorry sign of the times?
   " An example of the “new” western: Christian Bale’s “Hostiles,” released this month, nds his circa 1892 Army captain protecting a Cheyenne chief against every instinct in his bones. The story spins on understanding one’s enemies and their cultural perspectives.
   "Netix’s new drama “Godless” teems with classic western tropes as well as feminist heroines in a town where the men died in a mining accident.
   " The 2015 indie western “Bone Tomahawk” features the kinds of grisly deaths you would expect from a Quentin Tarantino lm. And let’s not forget that director’s “The Hateful Eight,” which ladled on the gore as well as some woke lessons about racism.
   "Even 2016’s “Jane Got a Gun” showcases a female protagonist ready to defend her turf by any means necessary." . . .

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders body-shamed by LA Times columnist

Timothy Bishop

Repeat from November 2017: Fox News because what other source would cover these things?  . . . "It’s curious to think what Horsey, who is politically correct when it’s convenient, would feel about fat-shaming Sanders on a day when it doesn’t fit his anti-Trump agenda. It should be noted that Horsey doesn’t only shame the appearance of females, as he has mocked Trump in cartoons, calling him a “bloated orange mess,” among other things.

"The L.A. Times and Horsey did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment. 

"Shortly after Fox News asked for comment, the Times removed all references to Sanders’ appearance and added a note from Horsey.

" 'I want to apologize to Times readers – and to Sarah Huckabee Sanders -- for a description that was insensitive and failed to meet the standards of our newspaper. It also failed to meet the expectations I have for myself. It surely won’t be my last mistake, but this particular error will be scrupulously avoided in my future commentaries. I’ve removed the offending description,” he wrote." . . .

The original Tunnel Wall post wherein we commented:

I'm sure cartoonist Horsey, a gifted artist and occasional honest critic of Obama policies, must enjoy the social scene among the LA elite and his cartoons must certainly place him high on the Hollywood social register. I do not know the man and have not chosen to read his thoughts other than those in this post, but figure he must enjoy the thought of his work hanging on walls in leftist gathering places.This cartoon below surely ingratiated him to the Obamas and their sychophants. The Tunnel Dweller.

If Horsey attends a Hollywood award show, this stuff will earn him the backslaps and affection of those there. Maybe even a bro hug if Obama is there. TC

Not only Sarah: Melania Trump vs. the media

"If Trump wins,” a commenter wrote on a blog in 2016, "I do not envy what Melania Trump and Barron Trump will have to go through."

How prescient. A year after the President's inauguration, media jackals continue to declare open season on the gracious First Lady and her innocent 12-year-old son. 

From CNN: . . . (Where else but the recommended channel of the California school system?)

Bold About What?

Mike Adams

"Every now and then, I visit other churches in order to see what kinds of traditions they observe and what kinds of issues they tackle in their weekly worship services. Last weekend, I visited a nondenominational church. As I write this column on a Thursday morning, I am on my fourth day of trying to figure out what the pastor actually said, if anything. To be frank, I suspect that the pastor is still trying to figure out what he actually said, if anything.

"The thesis of the sermon, which was given to a church heavily populated with college students, seems to have been that Christians need to be “bold in their faith.” I only inferred that was the pastor’s thesis because he said, “you need to be bold in your faith” about 50 times. Apparently, this was deeply inspirational to many of those present. It must have been because I kept hearing people shout back at the pastor with phrases like “tell it,” "bring it,” and “preach it.” Fortunately, none of the congregants actually hurled his undergarments on the stage as the pastor was “bringing it.” For awhile there, I was worried.

"Even though people seemed to be enjoying themselves, I saw the pastor’s message as a lost opportunity. Something seemed to be missing to me. So I did what I often do in situations where I think the pastor may have missed the mark. I asked myself what I would have done differently had I been preaching the sermon. Specifically, what would I have said? Here’s what I came up with: . . . "

Full article here.

The silver lining in the NFL protests

American Thinker  . . . "Shelby Steele has an interesting take on the "Take a Knee" protest by African-American NFL players, "Black Protest Has Lost Its Power" 

"Steele writes that protests have been an effective tactic for black Americans from the Montgomery bus rides to Selma through the massive 1963 March on Washington. Two aspects of such protests were that they 1) involved risk and great sacrifice and 2) were aimed at real injustices. They were also highly effective in advancing freedom, a critical point we'll come back to.

"None of this holds true for the Take a Kneers. There was no risk involved to these millionaire sportsmen. Some may have had their feelings and sense of entitlement bruised by the negative reaction from fans, but the money kept rolling in. So did the adulation in the mainstream media." . . . 

. . . "The mandate that freedom leads to accountability is what causes the black community to believe the lie that white racism hovers over it like an all-encompassing fog and that freedom for blacks, if it exists at all, then it is at least severely curtailed. As Steele puts it:

That's why in the face of freedom's unsparing judgmentalism, we reflexively claim that freedom is a lie. We conjure elaborate narratives to give white racism new life in the present: systematic and 'structural' racism, racist 'microaggressions,' 'white privilege,' and so on. All these narratives insist that blacks are still victims of racism, and that freedom's accountability is an injustice.

"The NFL protests are not about injustice. They are 'genuflections to today's victim-focused black identity.'  ' . . . "Steele sees the antics of Black Lives Matter as people literally aspiring for black victimization, longing for it, as a way of confirming their self-identity and excusing their shortcomings. " . . .

Hillary Clinton’s First Tweet After News Of Sexual Misconduct Cover Up Ignores Allegations

Daily Caller  "It was reported on Friday that Hillary Clinton covered up for a longtime friend and campaign aide who was accused of sexually harassing a female staffer on her 2008 presidential campaign, but she avoided the bombshell revelation in her first public comments after the story broke.

"Clinton tweeted a thank you to Cecile Richards, the former president of the pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood, for her “tireless advocacy on behalf of women and girls.”

Hillary Clinton

✔@HillaryClinton

Thank you, @CecileRichards, for your tireless advocacy on behalf of women and girls, and for your grace under pressure over these last 12 years. And thank you to @PPFA for all you’ve done and continue to do to advance reproductive rights. Onward!

"Unmentioned in the tweet was Richards’ advocacy for abortion. An estimated 3.5 million abortions have been conducted by Planned Parenthood during Richards’ 12-year stint as the group’s leader. She is stepping down to pursue other opportunities. (RELATED: Hillary Clinton Shielded Sexual Harasser On Her Campaign)

"Also unmentioned in the tweet are aforementioned allegations of sexual misconduct against Burns Strider, a political operative who has been described as Clinton’s faith adviser." . . .

Obama -- Leader of the Deep State Coup

Daniel John Sobieski   "In any criminal investigation where the suspect is not immediately known, the first question usually asked is who would have the most to gain? As we follow the bread crumbs of the text messages of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and await release of the House Intelligence Committee’s memo regarding the collusion between the DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the DOJ, and FBI to interfere with the 2016, ensure the election of Hillary, and the defeat or impeachment of Donald Trump, the answer to that question is clear -- one Barack Hussein Obama." . . .

. . . Fake emails and surreptitious edits to incriminating documents. From the Strzok-Page text messages we know that Loretta Lynch knew Hillary would not be prosecuted. That meeting on the tarmac was to tell Bill Clinton the fix was in, a fix whose impetus came from the White House and an occupant concerned with both his legacy being erased by a President Trump but also by his involvement in covering up Hillary’s crimes." . . .

"National Review Contributing Editor Andrew McCarthy has long argued that Obama was the ringleader in obstructing justice in the Hillary email investigation:

Clinton–Obama Emails: The Key to Understanding Why Hillary Wasn’t Indicted

. . . If Clinton had been charged, Obama’s culpable involvement would have been patent. In any prosecution of Clinton, the Clinton–Obama emails would have been in the spotlight. For the prosecution, they would be more proof of willful (or, if you prefer, grossly negligent) mishandling of intelligence. More significantly, for Clinton’s defense, they would show that Obama was complicit in Clinton’s conduct yet faced no criminal charges." . . .    Read more.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the ChicagoSun-Times among other publications. 

New film accidentally exposes Team Obama’s foreign-policy naivety

NY Post 

 "In a moment of woeful irony in the Obama-administration documentary “The Final Year,” UN Ambassador Samantha Power travels to Cameroon to offer photo-op comfort to families terrorized by Boko Haram — only to have her motorcade kill a 7-year-old boy.

"Greg Barker, the director of this fan film, does his best to downplay the accident: It is discussed while we watch a clip of Power’s convoy moving at a crawl when in fact it was reportedly traveling at over 60 miles an hour when it struck the boy.

"Despite Barker’s intentions, the handiwork of the Road to Hell Paving Co. is obvious. Team Obama, with its let’s-hug-it-out attitude to world conflict, left a bloody trail.

“ 'The Final Year,” which is playing on a few screens ahead of its debut on HBO in May, drew notice for a scene in Power’s apartment on Election Night 2016. She invited the camera crew to film her party with the world’s 37 female ambassadors to toast the inevitable Hillary Clinton landslide. Power’s fist-pumping as she watches the election returns turns to blanching, but it’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes who has the most amusing reaction to Donald Trump’s victory." . . .

Reporter Behind ‘Trump Wanted To Fire Mueller Story’ “Teed Up” Stories For Dems Before, According To Podesta

Weasel Zippers  "Maggie Haberman is one of the NY Times reporters on this most recent ‘story’ that Trump wanted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This is what John Podesta said about how the Democrats used Haberman to ‘tee up’ stories for them and help shape the story. She used to work for Politico."

"Innocence is often irrelevant when navigating the minefield of verbal tricks and perjury traps set out by wily prosecutors"  "The prevailing wisdom offered by our leading political and legal risk analysts currently advises President Trump to avoid or minimize his impending meeting with Robert Mueller and his special investigation team. These risk gurus rightfully point out that innocence is often irrelevant when navigating the minefield of verbal tricks and perjury traps set out by wily prosecutors. The rich and powerful who have become trophies on the mantels of such hunters already include the likes of Bill Clinton, General Michael Flynn, and Martha Stewart. Mr. President, beware." . . .