BloggeRhythms

As the Trump administration begins its second month, things may truly be coming together for them whereas the opposition sounds more and more like a broken record. They’ve only got two points, both are weak, and except for hard-core leftists no others in the nation seem to care a whit about them. 

Back on February 1st, Gromer Jeffers Jr., Political Writer @dallasnews.com sensed what was coming as he tilted his article: “Trump is one step ahead and moving fast, so opposition needs a better game plan.” 

Mr. Jeffers established the point that during the presidential campaign, Trump was able to put his rivals off balance by misdirection as he got them debating him and others on obscure or comparatively unimportant topics than the many serious issues facing the nation.  

As an example, Mr. Jeffers relates that after the final presidential debate in Las Vegas, most of the world thought Hillary Clinton would be the next president. Yet news outlets heavily focused on how Trump, “perhaps, wouldn't accept the outcome of the election.” 

“That same debate featured pointed exchanges about Trump's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his views on trade, the deportation of immigrants here illegally and the fight against terrorism. 

“But all those issues were downplayed and the "story of the day" became a meaningless line about not accepting the results of the elections. That he won is the harshest of outcomes for those so upset by his comments during that debate.” 

In Mr. Jeffers opinion, Trump as president is playing the same game with critics.

“While everyone is analyzing ridiculous tweets or his comments about the crowd size at his inauguration, he's implementing radical change at dizzying speed. 

“So far, Trump is always one step ahead.” 

While Mr. Jeffers may be absolutely correct in his analysis of Trump’s style, manner and objective, he omitted the most important aspect of it all. Aside from keeping his opposition off-balance, the new POTUS is in the right on all of the issues. Particularly in the eyes of the 62,985,106 who voted for him.    

As far as the issues themselves are concerned, Erik Larson and Bob Van Voris headed their column @bloomberg.com today: “Trump Still Has a Vast Legal Arsenal for Limiting Immigration, Deporting Millions”

Delivering on a campaign promise to crack down on immigration the January 25th order says many undocumented immigrants, or those who violate the terms of their visas, “present a significant threat to national security and public safety." 

While Trump’s policy supporters argue that too many immigrants enter the country illegally, resulting in lost jobs for citizens and waves of crime, immigration experts say the vast majority of people here illegally do not have criminal records and commit relatively few crimes. 

“Pratheepan Gulasekaram, who teaches constitutional law at Santa Clara University said: “The president will need to provide a “bona fide reason” for singling out residents of those countries, which could include a national-security threat.” 

However, the steps Trump’s taking predicate on policy developed during his predecessors term as reported on February 18, 2016 @dhs.gov/news/2016: “The Department of Homeland Security today announced that it is continuing its implementation of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 with the addition of Libya, Somalia, and Yemen as three countries of concern, limiting Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals who have traveled to these countries.  

“Last month, the United States began implementing changes under the Act. The three additional countries designated today join Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Syria as countries subject to restrictions for Visa Waiver Program travel for certain individuals. Under the new law, the Secretary of Homeland Security may waive these restrictions if he determines that such a waiver is in the law enforcement or national security interests of the United States. Such waivers will be granted only on a case-by-case basis.”  

Most importantly: “The addition of these three countries is indicative of the Department’s continued focus on the threat of foreign fighters. DHS continues to review the security of the Visa Waiver Program, the threat environment, and potential vulnerabilities. This is the latest step in a series of actions over the past 15 months to strengthen the security of the Visa Waiver Program and ensure the Program’s requirements are commensurate with the growing threat from foreign terrorist fighters, many of whom are nationals of Visa Waiver Program countries.” 

Despite the steps taken by the Obama administration who set the regulatory premise, there were no protests in the streets and no professors like Santa Clara’s Pratheepan Gulasekaram threatening lawsuits either. And that’s because, not only does the law make perfect sense regarding protection of the nation’s citizens, George Soros wasn’t offering fifty bucks a head back then to deadbeats who showed up to “protest.”   

At the same time, a very strong and likely more reliable indication of Trump's performance to date came from an article by Peter Hasson @dailycaller.com reporting that the Republican National Committee filed a record setting $19.8 million in January. The results are the best post-election fundraising month in RNC history. Which means that an awful lot of people must really, really like him.

To that Mr. Hasson added that the “record setting month represents much-needed good news for Republicans, who have faced organized protests at town hall meetings while dealing with the fall-out from former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation earlier this month.” 

But that too fly’s in the face of reality, because General Flynn not only didn’t do anything extraordinary or highly questionable at all considering his scope of authority, the same steps have been before by others in similar circumstances.   

Chris Stirewalt @FoxNews.com quotes David G. Zlotnick, Santa Fe, N.M. who wrote: “With all of the talk that is going around about that bad Russia, and they have been bad for a long time, we tend to forget that the Democratic President Roosevelt worked with Stalin to defeat the Nazis and that was after Stalin signed a treaty with Hitler.” 

To that Stirewalt added: “[Ed. note: Quite so. Stalin was one of history’s most deplorable butchers but his country was arguably the most important component of the Allied victory. No country lost more of its people or killed more Germans than the U.S.S.R. And America has worked with other gangsters, thugs and brutes since then, too. Saddam Hussein comes first to mind, but there were many others. Strategic alliances with wicked leaders who do not share our views on the value of human life or the concept of individual liberty are part of the cost of doing business as a global superpower. But these fall into a different category than our real allies like Britain and the rest of the Angloshpere (Canada and Australia, most notably) or other nations that share our aims and our values. We can do business with a bad guy like Putin, but we can’t ever truly be his partner.]  

All of which adds up to a confirmation of today’s premise, set by Gromer Jeffers Jr above that “Trump is one step ahead and moving fast, so [his] opposition needs a better game plan.” 

And at the rate that his opposition's going presently it seems they can simply “fuhgeddaboudit,” which is a phrase that wiktionary.org notes “is associated with the inhabitants of New York City and the part of the state of New Jersey outside of it.” 

But it also applies to leftists everywhere else.

That's it for today folks.

Adios