Trump is on a Roll; don’t let the MSM fool you.

Trump is on a roll, an unprecedented, historic, and all-together impressive roll.

Look at the world as Trump does and you’ll see what I mean.

Let’s be honest, even from Trump’s point of view, and he certainly judges himself as capable, his to-do list was massive. And the Trump assignment list was not just long it was tough. Change the country, change it’s laws, change it’s attitude, change it’s economy, change it’s foreign policy direction, change it’s military posture, change it’s Supreme Court, change years of growing regulation momentum, change it’s economy, change it’s tax structure, change it’s federal work force — and their mission — and roll back years of unconstitutional action by a former president, significantly more popular than Trump is himself. Oh, and do all this with a small but stubborn portion of your own party establishment – calling you names in the press and voting against you in the Senate!

Having watched politics carefully and having read a lot of history I can tell you, this looked nearly impossible to me. I was, and am, an ardent Trump supporter, I even predicted on FB, the night BEFORE the election he would win with 300 electoral votes and bet several liberal friends – things I would be embarrassed to pay off – that he would win.

So how did Trump have such a good year? Can he continue? And what will the compromises look like this year?

TRAVEL BAN

Trump’s first move in office, his travel ban, was poorly done on the first iteration BUT then Trump changed course, wrote a better one, and then rode that perfected one all the way to SCOTUS victory. This should have been a sign to people (and wasn’t) just how smart, just how resourceful, and just how successful Trump was planning to be and working to be. Most presidents would have done this very differently. They would have prepared for a year, submitted what they perceived to be a perfected order, defended it vigorously in court, and would have come out looking bad in the press, and only then prevailing after years of arguing, by which time, the political effect of this, after years of liberal media bashing, would be negative on the president and minor in the reality.

Trump short circuited the liberal narrative progressive machine algorithm and blew it up in their face. His new travel ban wasn’t even dry on the paper yet, and the Liberal 9th circuit, as expected, shot Trump down and the media initially crowed, he was going to learn about how swampy Washington can be, the liberals thought.

But Trump doesn’t have political ego. He has so much other ego, there’s no room left for any political ego — and it turns out, as many famous leaders have discovered — if you don’t care who gets the political credit, you can usually get the win. In this case Trump seized upon Alan Dershowitz, a liberal Democratic law professor with liberal credentials out the ying-yang. Dershowitz, who was critical of the first order (but also admitted it was constitutional) because it was poorly drafted, then made concrete suggestions concerning how to improve the order – which Trump adopted almost verbatim.

Not a typical Republican presidential move.

Dershowitz in effect, ghost wrote his second order, the one eventually upheld unanimously by the Supremes. By embracing the logic, suggestions and compromises of his intellectual enemies, Trump won a quick, politically beneficial victory. This was the beginning of the Roll and a clue to how Trump wins, but the media missed it entirely. Dershowitz’s liberal friends (mine too) disowned him however and stopped inviting him to their liberal dinner parties — a fact he jokingly credits with some healthy weight loss.

GORSUCH

This could have been a mess. An establishment president would have run afoul of the 60-vote problem and would have made a compromise with Schumer. Not Trump. His strategy, probably thought out YEARS ago, was untouchable. Trump had a list of potential SCOTUS candidates, AND he published the list during the campaign. This breaks a taboo and tradition at the same time. Presidents like to mull over SOTUS choices, interview them extensively, and THEN — log roll with the opposing party — to get things they want, in return for compromises on the candidate list.

Trump looked like he was foregoing this advantage, and instead, turned the whole apple cart upside down. Gorsuch was on the top of the list, the list was vetted and approved by the Republican Party and the establishment RINO’s — and therefore Grassley/McConnell were open and even amenable to pressure from Trump — to go nuclear and forego the 60-vote limit. Bingo. Just like that, Trump had a major victory.

Trump is very right about something crucial, he does get things done quickly and easily, that others either cannot do, or do so slowly, as to lose effectiveness and his enemies don’t get this yet, to fight this guy, you need to bring your “A” game.

Trump has turned the swamp into quicksand, every time his opponents try to use the swamp to slow him down; they end up drowning themselves instead. Schumer has hit Trump quicksand 2 or 3 times now, and as the result — has seen his own approval ratings, in his home district, plummet below 50%. This is a warning siren Schumer apparently does not hear. This week, Trump had him so confused, so turned around, he actually admitted, in the Senate — he was voting against a highly qualified judicial appointment for South Carolina – JUST because the candidate was WHITE.

Schumer used to say outrageous stuff all the time, but he wasn’t minority leader — and he didn’t have an opponent like Trump — a test he is failing miserably.

This is how big the roll I am describing is — Trump isn’t just winning, he is making his opposition look bad.

I expect Trump to make a commercial out of this latest offense by Schumer, and if I were the RNC, I would show it in every state in the union starting next week. The majority of white people in this country, at this time, are not racist. And furthermore, after Obama, these white people understand the majority of their fellow whites are also not racist. Which means they will no longer tolerate reverse racism either, a point Obama somehow failed to understand/comprehend until really the very last-minute. Obama changed this, not Trump, but Trump picked up on it before any other major politician.

Most white Americans are appalled at racism. Period. One way or the other, and yes, they see it as racism either way.

What Schumer did this week, apart from being morally reprehensible, is actually illegal, although he cannot be charged — because he said this stupid thing as part of his voting prerogative, but IF god forbid, you or I would have said such a thing and voted to deny somebody an opportunity for that reason – we would be sued and even charged criminally – particularly if we had power over a job candidate and we openly discriminated against said candidate because they were black, red, yellow or mixed.

TAX REFORM

This was masterful. Trump zigged, he zagged, he cajoled, he tweeted, he attacked, he compromised, he beat up his staff, their staff, and everybody in between, and in the end, he not only got the most significant tax cut in decades through Congress – he tucked an appeal of the Obamacare mandate right into the package.

This package fixes the long-standing corporate rate problem; lowered personal rates across the board and doubles the standard deduction! And it doubles the childcare credit! All of this while simplifying the entire structure and allowing for a much bigger percentage of people to easy-file. This is a huge win for Trump, one he would have been denied if he had handled this even a little bit differently.

Nancy Pelosi thinks she’s a master at the legal process in Congress, and she is, but while in the minority, her claws are blunted and Trump took advantage of this, letting Ryan send up the outline for his proposal and then doing his compromising and infighting at the Senate level, knowing Ryan could be flexible on reconciliation. So far, whether Trump is brilliant enough to have planned this out, or it just worked out, this strategy is paying huge dividends.

Republicans are getting credit for getting things done, Democrats are getting blamed for the things that aren’t, and none of the mud is kicking up on Trump, because he’s staying to policy positions he knows have broad public support.

Pelosi must be going into the bathroom every 2 or 3 hours and screaming at the mirror because Trump is making her look ridiculous – literally everyday. To get the Tax win was brilliant, but to get Pelosi so mad, she called it “Crumbs” was icing on the cake. Pelosi is slipping and it’s showing. She also predicted people would die in huge numbers from a tax cut! Trump isn’t just winning, he’s rattling the cage of his opposition so hard, they all look like stroke victims when they do interviews.

Trump and the RNC should make a commercial out of that and run it in every swing district before the mid terms. By then, people will know (paychecks!) they have been lied to about the tax plan by the democrats, and this will help Trump a lot. The CNN, NBC, NYT and WaPo assaults have wounded him, but the wounds are temporary, if the NYT and WaPo turn out to be false in their coverage (and they are!) — this will then boomerang on them giving Trump moral armor where he had none!

This is 4 D chess at it’s finest, making your enemies publicize the things you need publicizing and then snatching victory from their jaws. Trump usually does this just after his opponents prepare the electorate through backwards messaging. It will be exactly like when Hillary – while virtue signaling on the environment — foolishly told the coal miners, their jobs were going to disappear and poof, WV went to Trump. When you lie to people about money (tax reform) and/or insult their livelihood and even THREATEN their livelihood (WV), they will come out in droves and vote against you.

NORTH KOREA & CHINA

China is willing to execute our spies. China is planning to invade Taiwan.

China is not attempting to contain North Korea, they are the only reason the country remains a threat.

Even a double talker like Xi could not deny this. Xi has recently purged over 100,000 Chinese from their political system and has recently amended the Chinese constitution to make him eligible to remain President (Dictator) for longer than two terms, or ten years, the previous constitutional limit.

Xi is a tin-horn dictator, with no respect for the law, in ironclad charge of the world’s largest population.

That’s why these constitutional limits are a joke anyway, China is a fascist state — with a revolving dictatorship that always chooses it’s head from within an unelected (single candidate elections) political party. The CCP suppresses dissent, free speech, lawful assembly, virtually all civil rights, except private property ownership. This is allowed in order to fuel growth, which is then redirected to fund the CCP.

China threatened the Philippines with “War” if they did not abandon their legal claims to the South Sea Islands the Chinese are stealing. China promised the U.S. military they would NOT militarize those islands — and they have blatantly broken that promise.

China is a communist dictatorship. China has a powerful military and a willingness to use it – even against their own people.

China is the biggest threat to peace in the world and that is the fault of the United States — that single handily transformed the country into an economic powerhouse — with a unique trade relationship we choose to do exclusively with them.

Trump is one of the few politicians in the world smart enough to see all this, deal nice with Xi on the surface, and force him into a corner on Trade and North Korea. Trump isn’t just right about China, he may have been necessary to save out country.

Trump’s verbal and tweets on “Rocket Man” Kim were criticized and attacked by the media, literally from every angle, conservative to liberal, but here again, Trump has out foxed the gallery. Trump actually had every playing card; he only appeared to have none. Obama set the stage for this as perfectly as possible and Trump knew it.

If Trump continued to do nothing (Obama actually had a written down “strategy” of doing nothing about NK) he would be exactly where Obama was. If he messes with the crazy dictator’s head and Kim shoots off a missile – Trump gets freedom of action. If he doesn’t fire any more missiles and/or agrees to reduce his stockpile — the tactic worked.

This has been exactly the case, with Kim now — even talking to the US about a meeting, to discuss “issues of mutual concern” which is NK double speak for who knows what, but it’s a start. Trump sees this whole situation as a win-win, unless Kim nukes Seoul and/or Japan, and frankly, that’s more likely if Trump lets him steam roll ahead, than if he stops him now.

This is a win-win for Trump because NK is the perfect wedge issue that Trump NEEDS to deal effectively with China and Russia. It’s Chinese money, support and influence that keeps the Kim’s in power and that put them there in the first place — and it’s Russian missile technology in Kim’s upper stage rocket motors, plus probably some design help with the nukes as well.

None of this bad acting by Kim, for decades now, was a check on China’s ambition and or machinations; a fact Trump has learned how to leverage. If the Xi were smart, he would push Kim out, de-nuke NK, and rejoice China still has theirs.

The free traders, globalists, and multi-nationals were free to do business day and night, while this threat grew and grew. Trump has stopped all that nonsense, the only way possible, by illustrating to the world how dangerous Kim + nukes + ICBM’s can be, how committed Kim is to them — what cost they put on his people – and more importantly – whole fault it is they have them.

China and Russia are uneasy with Trump for good reason, he has their number and he’s letting everybody else in on the secret.

REGULATIONS

Trump promised a 2 for 1 reduction in regulations, 2 old ones gone for every new one created — and he has blown way past that initially — into the 20 to 1 range. Again, Trump was talking about something others weren’t – which looked politically amateurish – and then turned out to be brilliantly correct about not only where the Overton Window was on this issue, but how passionate people were about stopping the onslaught of new regulation.

Most business people I speak with today, say they don’t like his tweeting, but love having a businessman in the White House, a guy who understands that tax and regulation BOTH need to be lowered – in order for their businesses to survive. Every single one of these small and medium size business people and many that were just sympathetic but stuck with Hillary — will be voting Trump in 2020, I guarantee it.

Trump has delivered the 1-2 punch here and these business people were desperate for this and talking about it constantly, therefore this relief will be remembered in 3 years with support and loyalty.

IRAN (Nuclear Deal) MISSILE PROBLEM

The Iranian Nuclear Deal’s ballistic missile problem.

I predicted the Iranian Nuclear Deal would collapse because the Iranian mullahs cannot be trusted. They hate us, want to kill us, are corrupt, old, religious fanatics that have no place in control of armies or weapons and the fact that Obama did not see this – surprised me over and over again — right down to the bitter end.

Fox News — Iran conducted its first ballistic missile test under Donald Trump’s presidency, in yet another apparent violation of a United Nations resolution, U.S. officials told Fox News. The launch occurred Sunday at a well-known test site outside Semnan, about 140 miles east of Tehran, Fox News was first to learn. The Khorramshahr medium-range ballistic missile flew 600 miles before exploding, in a failed test of a reentry vehicle, officials said. Iran defense minister Brigadier Gen. Hossein Dehqan said in September that Iran would start production of the missile. U.N. resolution 2231 — put in place days after the Iran nuclear deal was signed — calls on the Islamic Republic not to conduct such tests. However, this is at least Iran’s second such test since July. The resolution bars Iran from conducting ballistic missile tests for eight years and went into effect July 20, 2015.

Trump understands Iran and the mullahs. He will turn Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the CIA loose on them, and they will fold, because they aren’t even good dictators like Xi — who can ostensibly claim they are doing something for their people — all the mullahs do, is kill, kill, kill, and the Iranian people have had enough.

NAFTA

Senator Chuck Grassley wants NAFTA to stay, “Recent discussions on NAFTA and America’s participation in it have ranged from renegotiating terms to exiting the agreement entirely. In an “America First” agenda, withdrawing from NAFTA would be a mistake and cause serious, negative consequences.” — but agrees with Trump the US needs a better deal and can improve NAFTA, and more importantly, has a group of 35 Senators co-sponsoring amendment ideas on how specifically to change it – “A smart renegotiation of NAFTA would continue building on these early successes. Improvements to the agreement would unlock additional potential for productivity and prosperity in America’s heartland. Efforts to secure a better, fairer deal that increases U.S exports will help create better paying jobs for American workers, unleash investment and ramp up innovation in America.”

Grassley always brings the numbers to bolster his points and NAFTA will be the same – “In my home state of Iowa, one out of five jobs is trade-dependent. Every third row of soybeans is planted for export, 60 percent of Iowa corn exports and 77 percent of poultry product exports are exported to countries in the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, and, as the number one hog producer in the United States, Iowa exports more than 25 percent of its pork to foreign markets, valued at $1 billion in 2016. Needless to say, smart trade policies have a major and direct impact on the health of the economy in Iowa.”

I think Trump will make Grassley happy and the Chinese unhappy with his trade moves and that is good news, although his base may bitch when this happens. Grassley is smart, he’s been prepping the president for compromise on this issue for months now, listen to this – “President Trump has regularly expressed and demonstrated his support for rural America and agriculture. Over the past year, the Trump administration has taken tremendous steps forward in making life better for the farming communities that have been largely overlooked for too long. One step was the establishment of the Rural Prosperity Task Force, which helped identify legislative, regulatory and policy changes necessary to secure prosperity for rural America. In fact, it’s already working.”

Grassley knows how to grease the wheels and he’s doing it by connecting the president’s tax package to agriculture – “The passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is another victory for American agriculture. Since most farms are organized as pass-through businesses, they will benefit from both lower across-the-board tax rates and a 20 percent deduction in their taxable income. The doubling of the estate tax exemption will allow family farms to be passed from one generation to the next with less hassle, and farmers will now be able to expense 100 percent of their capital investments, such as equipment, over the next four years.”

Grassley called all this ONLY – “…some of the examples of the progress made under the President Trump on behalf of the agriculture community in America” and then closed with his pitch – “A smart renegotiation of NAFTA would continue building on these early successes (and) …improvements to the agreement would unlock additional potential for productivity and prosperity in America’s heartland.”

Will Trump buck Grassley and throw out the baby with the bath water? I don’t think so, which is why the Grassley compromises will probably all be accepted by Trump — eventually.

IMMIGRATION and THE WALL

Obama also set the stage for Trump here. If he had not allowed the rise of ISIS, sanctuary cities, DACA, and the immigration onslaught of dangerous unvetted people through crazy ideas like a lottery – Trump would not have struck such a chord here. Unchecked immigration is fraught with future liability like, rising violent crime, rising social system expenses, failure to assimilate, domestic job loss, sometimes culminating in a cultural clash, and chain migration just makes all that permanent. If Obama had not proved this to America first — Trump would have been successfully branded a xenophobe and wouldn’t have won a single primary. But Americans don’t just agree with Trump here, they go out and work for him because he is honest about this problem in a day and age when Political Correctness had changed the national discourse — to the point that even crime is mis-reported. This causes fear.

People are OK until the police and the government begin lying, then they get scared, and Obama, the police, ICE, the FBI, the DOJ and even CENTCOM, were publishing propaganda, not statistics, and that really scared even under informed Americans. Trump is seen as a savior to these people, who genuinely feared a coup from Obama and his team.

TWEETING

I think he elevates his enemies by this, which I used to think was un-presidential and now I see as necessary and part of strategy — smarter than I would have cooked up.

STEEL and TARIFFS

In the last 15 years, the Chinese have added 500% to their steel making capability, jumping them from 10% of the world’s production to 50%. They did all of this with government money and have created 500 million tons of over capacity in the world. If Trump does nothing, US steel production could completely go away and the Chinese would still have 400 million tons of over capacity. This went from not being a defense issue to being one. Trump sees this and has acted with a 25% tariff, total reasonable, maybe even light. Obama’s steel tariffs were 522% — against the Chinese and Bush had them as well. If those president’s had not acted, we wouldn’t have any domestic production left at all. Right now we make 50 million tons less than we NEED each year. Trump is dead on to address this — and he’s dead on it’s a a.) jobs, b.) security and c.) Chinese bad behavior play all in one — because that is exactly right.