It's Morning In America; The Government Is Shut Down (LOL) And Congressmen Are Getting $200,000/Year Simply For Getting Out Of Bed; The President Not Impeached Yet, The Political Page, T+365 -- January 21, 2018

Morning in America., snow cover on all 50 states reported a few days ago.

President Trump has now been in office a full 365 days. I wasn't sure Hillary was going to let him get sworn in; surely Bill's army had a way of stopping that from happening. But it did not. Truly amazing.

On the other hand, Germany's the real western country that has disappointed its citizens. But I digress.

Time to take a look back. First, my favorite:


Then, this from The Daily Beast: Obama mocked Trump's political ambitions. Trump spent his first year dismantling Obama's legacy. I didn't read the article, just the headline. I wonder how ObamaCare will be seen five years from now. My hunch: ObamaCare, the New Coke, and the Edsel will all have a chapter of their own in some new book looking at ... well, looking at something. Tesla could certainly join the list.

Speaking of which, speaking of Tesla, my hunch: GM will crush Tesla. In the local area I see a handful of Teslas -- this is a very, very high-end community in north Texas -- but once I get a bit east of the immediate area I start to see a few Chevrolet Bolts. In Grapevine, Classic Chevrolet bills itself as the largest Chevrolet dealer in the US. I don't know if that's true. I do know they sell a lot of Corvettes to American pilots. So, on revenue, they may the biggest; on volume, hard to say. But GM, as well as Ford, is going to have a ton of EVs to select from by this time next year, and we will still be watching pathetic numbers being reported by Tesla.

By the way, "ObamaCare" in Canada? The waiting time to see a neurologist when referred by a family practice physician is now 4.5 years. Mark Perry has a copy of an incredible referral reply.

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Government Shutdown

Time for President Trump to get ahead of this thing.

He needs to go positive. He needs to make it so painful that Congress (either party) will never want to "shut down" the government again.

1. He needs to start signing executive orders again.

2. First executive order: to fully pay active duty military and border law enforcement. (Yes, I know he doesn't have the authority to do this unilaterally, but there are ways to write executive orders -- as an example, in fact, DACA was never a law, much less an executive order. DACA started out as a speech and reached its zenith as a memo from the President. Watch the 9th Circuit Court and the Dems protest about paying the military. I remember George Washington had the same problem with pay for his troops; I wasn't there but I read the history books.)

3. Second executive order: to announce that Social Security checks will go out in full and on schedule. (That, of course, already happens, but Nancy Pelosi does not know that.)

4. Third, direct the US Postal Service to maintain full operations. (The US Postal Service, not even part of the US government any more, is not affected by the shut down, but there are still folks who think it is.)

5. Fourth, direct NASA to monitor incoming meteors.

6. Fifth, direct Scott Pruitt to transfer more money from EPA to the military.

7. Sixth, declare all national parks, museums, and monuments temporary consulates. A consulate is a representative of a government to another, and there can be many of these per country. In this case, the new consulates would be there for disaffected Americans and sovereign native Americans. Open the Smithsonian and all other national museums and monuments. The gift shops and the restaurants don't have to be open, but open the doors to the museums and monument grounds and have a few US Marines stand watch, as they do at embassies. Don't say it can't be done; President Trump moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem with an executive order. Remind folks that his White House is open to the public, even as the former president used the shutdown as an "excuse" to close the White House to the public, which he never re-opened except by appointment.

8. Seventh, order HHS to ensure that health care insurance for children is not interrupted.

9. Eighth, send a letter to Congress that a funding bill to "back pay" furloughed government workers will not be signed if there is anything other than funding a) the government; and, b) the wall in the bill re-opening government. That will set the phones ringing off the walls of Congress.

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Priceless

Even as she says Trump can't keep from thinking about Hillary, Gail Collins can't get past the facts that a) Hillary lost the election (that was over a year ago; and, b) Hillary probably lost because she forgot that Wisconsin was a state, also. Priceless. 

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By The Way, How's The Blog Doing?

Glad you asked.