Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Lack of Free Speech On College Campuses Remains A Threat To Our Republic. Democrats Gloat and John Podhoretz Sends Warning. Israeli Commentary.

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Until free speech and speakers with differing, currently unacceptable ideas, are allowed to return to campuses our Republic  remains in danger. This is what far left liberals, progressives and fascists want. (See 1 and 1a below.)

Even dogs are being muzzled:

Neighbors Complain About Dog
She lives next door to a Mosque in France.

She bought a Husky.

He is very nice and does not bite.

She is now getting complaints from the Muslim Imam next door.

She doesn't know why?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ Vogp-n1-JPA

Ironically, last night Trump made a Truman Like speech before S Korea's Parliament. Ironic because he was welcomed to speak by a group that has mixed feelings about what to do regarding N Korea. He was well received and applauded quite often.  Some sat on their hands but in the Asian tradition, all were cordial and respectful.

I say Truman like because Trump is not a gifted speaker. He also is stilted and hackneyed in his style. That said he is direct, clear as to his intent and therefore, refreshing.

Now the question that remains to be seen is will he act should his words be ignored and his bluff called. If he fails to act then he will be no better than Clinton, GW and Obama and perhaps more dangerous because he threw down the gauntlet while at the same time extended his hand.

Iran will be watching.

Meanwhile, I applaud Trump for what he said last night.

And:

Finally, I too am tired of hearing about how our hearts go out and you are in our prayers every time a tragic incident occurs.

I am willing to support a law banning assault weapons  for a year.  I also favor a lawful penalty be imposed on those who fail to notify/provide the proper agency information leading to the restriction of those who should be unable to purchase weapons.

I would even go so far as to require the mentally dangerous be incarcerated and treated under appropriate circumstances and conditions. How that could be accomplished legally is another matter.

Jimmy Carter closed Georgia's insane asylums because the treatment the mentally ill were receiving was equally insane and probably cruel but we have made enormous advances in mental healthcare and treatment.
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Democrats are delirious after last night's victories.  They won and deserve to crow.  One of the problems is the candidates who won are mostly sad.  For a start, New York re-elected its mayor.  That is pathetic.  The new Governor of Virginia was not the first choice of his party so I guess that says something. The Mafia controls New Jersey and most of the Republican candidates were rather pathetic themselves. The fellow who ran for Governor of Virginia was a Bushie and lukewarm when it came to embracing Trump.  Also, Northern Virginia is a wealthy extension of D.C. Government bureaucrat millionaires who are not likely to vote themselves out of their gold plated jobs and pensions. Northern Virginia is mostly inhabited by the creatures that comprise the swamp Trump wants to drain.

Too early to conclude it sends a message about 2018.  However, it is a wake up call to a bunch of politicians who live in a dream world.

If pitiful Republicans pass tax relief, some form of health plan and fund infrastructure rebuilding the tide could change and if Trump's initiatives begin to take hold that would help.

Also, if  Republicans can get across a Democrat House would mean Trump's impeachment based on their dislike of his personality that could throw some caution into the political mix.. Dislike of Trump's personality is thin gruel and rather a cruel basis for impeachment..

My friend, John Podhoretz thinks otherwise. (See 2 below.)
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Israel, that bigoted nation, protects Syrian Druze. (See 3 below.)

And:

Israel greatest concern remains N Korea and Iran and this article explains why as if it isn't obvious to those who are intellectually informed and honest. (See 3a below.)
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In a recent memo I said something similar. (See 4 blow.)
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Dick
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1)

My pro-free speech views made me the target of a smear campaign at Vassar College


William A. Jacobson, Opinion contributor 

My lecture against squeezing out free speech from colleges got me smeared. The students who smeared me got a safe space complete with coloring books and markers.


I became the campus-wide object of hate at Vassar College for defending free speech
It will come no surprise that campuses face a free-speech crisis at many levels.

From speech codes to kangaroo campus courts to lack of faculty political diversity, non-progressive voices are being pushed off campus.

But there is an aspect of the free speech problem that gets most of the headlines because of the viral videos.
From UC Berkeley in the west to Middlebury College in the northeast, and at dozens of colleges and universities in between, we have seen speakers disrupted, shouted-down, shut-down and threatened. Almost all such speakers were right of center, and almost all of the perpetrators were progressive students.
At Cornell University, where I teach at the law school, former Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum was heckled and Tea Party activist Michael Johns was forced to hold his appearance at a secret location due to threats of disruption.

I have watched these anti-free speech mobs from a distance, and from a news perspective. At my website, Legal Insurrection, I’ve written about many dozens of such incidents which started with attacks on Israeli and pro-Israeli speakers going back almost a decade and now have migrated into the mainstream.
I have given many lectures on campuses, mostly focusing on opposing the academic boycott of Israel and on the subject of anti-Semitism.

But I’m not a household name. And I’m not particularly controversial, although I do stick out at Cornell as one of only a small number of openly politically conservative faculty members.

So despite my campus speeches and conservative politics, I never really thought the anti-free speech mob would come for me. Until they did, at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

previously spoke at Vassar in 2014 about academic freedom and the Israel boycott, at the invitation of the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union. That small group, numbering fewer than 20 students on a campus of 2400 students, invited me back to speak on Oct. 25, 2017, on the topic of “hate speech” and free speech on campus.

That topic was important to me, particularly after the Charlottesville torch march and subsequent riots and killing of a young woman. I feared that the normal tension between free speech on campus and the desire to create an atmosphere where all groups would feel welcome, would sway campus politics towards greater speech restrictions.

My speech was to be titled “Hate Speech” is Still Free Speech, Even After Charlottesville. That title, which is an accurate statement of the law, focused on the dilemma of constitutional rights versus campus inclusiveness goals. Through clerical error, VCLU filed for funding of the speech under a different name, An Examination of Hate Speech and Free Speech.

Regardless of title, the planned discussion of “hate speech” as protected speech set in motion a smear campaign against me and attempts to stop my speech that left me feeling like I was going through an out-of-body experience.

A student activist group at Vassar, with the help of Vassar student government, spread false claims to the entire student body that event information was shared by me “on multiple white nationalist websites,” that there was “active encouragement for other white nationalists to come to the event,” and that there was a need to “protect the people that this speaker has targeted in the past.” None of this was true.

Two forums were held attended by over 200 students, faculty and staff, for the purpose of planning how to prevent ME from harming students. The claim reportedly was made at that forum that the “speaker himself is trying to incite violence.” That was a lie without any factual basis.

The student activists put together a research team to pour though my thousands of blog posts in order to falsely portray me as the equivalent of a Richard Spencer-type character. Being mainstream right-of-center became the equivalent of being a neo-Nazi or White Supremacist.

So complete was the demonization that one event poster was defaced by putting horns on my head.
Students put together a safety plan for the day of my speech that reads like parody, but was real. It included the now-common “safe spaces,” but also safety and emotional support teams. The Library was designated one such safe space and “will provide coloring books, zine kits, markers, construction paper etc.,” per a campus email. In case students had trouble finding a safe space, “Safe(r) spaces will be occupied by designated Vassar students with glowsticks.
This all was surreal.

And then the Vassar student government moved in to kill the event, demanding in a letter from the Executive Board that Vassar’s president prevent me from appearing:

“We strongly urge you, on account of students undergoing serious and real pain, to take our words and ideas seriously, and work towards breaching the contract, ultimately preventing him from coming to campus on Wednesday... We urge you to think critically about these things. Rather than just engaging the abstract, we urge you to understand how these ideas have physical implications for the safety and well-being of real students on this campus..."

I was permitted to appear, under heavy security.

The event itself was as wonderful as the demonization campaign was awful. The room was at capacity of 200 students, with an overflow crowd in the hallway. The students listened to me discuss constitutional principles of free speech, how those principles do and do not apply at private colleges and how we should aspire to make campuses the most free places, not the least free.

There were no disruptions, not even from the 2-3 dozen students dressed all in black as a protest. Almost all students stayed to the end of the 45 minute lecture and 120-minute Q&A.
This Vassar experience left me shaken.

Because I committed to discussing free speech and the constitutional protection of even hateful speech, I was made the object of hate by student activists who whipped the campus into a frenzy.

Why would any right-of-center student, faculty member or guest speaker want to endure what I had to go through? For that matter, why would any liberal defender of free speech want to undergo such a smear campaign?

And isn’t that the point? While I was permitted to speak, the message was sent that support for the 1st Amendment and freedom of speech is not welcome. To get to speak on these sensitive yet critical topics means you have to run the gauntlet of anti-free speech progressives.

The mob didn’t stop me from speaking. But the damage was done.

William A. Jacobson is a clinical professor of law at Cornell University, and director of the Cornell Securities Law Clinic. He blogs at Legal Insurrection.


1a)

After snub, Michael Oren calls for sanctions against Princeton Hillel

'We must boycott the boycotters,' deputy minister says after Jewish campus group cancelled Tzipi Hotovely's speech

Deputy Minister Michael Oren at the Knesset, June 27, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel)
Deputy Minister Michael Oren at the Knesset, June 27, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel)
Deputy Minister for diplomacy Michael Oren on Tuesday called on Israeli officials and politicians to boycott the Hillel at Princeton University after the Jewish campus organization cancelled a speech by Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely.

“I call on all MKs, past and present, left and right, not to accept any invitation to speak at that Hillel,” he told The Times of Israel.

Oren, who went to Princeton himself, urged fellow alumni not to donate any money to the university’s Hillel, known as the Center for Jewish Life. He also called for the group’s executive director, Rabbi Julie Roth, to be fired.

“A Hillel director, and a campus, can have political views. But Hillel has to be welcoming to representatives of Israel who are democratically elected. They represent a large, if not major share of Israeli public opinion,” the New Jersey-born Kulanu politician said.

Jerusalem urges US states to pass legislation against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, Oren said. “We argue that we have to boycott the boycotters, that there’s a price to be paid for people boycotting Israel. And the same things holds true for Hillels at universities or universities themselves.”
After Hillel’s cancellation, Chabad on campus hosted Hotovely’s speech, which took place at the time and location as originally announced, just under the Hasidic organization’s auspices.

Also on Tuesday, Matt Berger, a spokesperson for Hillel International, admitted that it was a “mistake” to disinvite the deputy foreign minister, adding that the organization’s Princeton branch has apologized to her.
Oren, who in the 1980s received a master’s degree and a Phd in History and Middle East Studies from Princeton, said he recalled taking issue with the Hillel there from his days as a student. “It was not a friendly Hillel. It was always a Hillel that was very politically active and on the left. And I had my difficulties with it but I have spoken there many times.”

Hotovely was scheduled to speak Monday night at the Center for Jewish Life as part of her current visit to the US, during which she planned to speak and hand out the Foreign Ministry’s new brochures about Israel at three top universities in the New York area.
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely speaking at Princeton University, November 6, 2017 (courtesy)
Citing a recent article in The Times of Israel about the deputy minister’s plan to advocate her views on campus, as well as her hard-right positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a group called Alliance of Jewish Progressives (AJP) protested her scheduled appearance on campus.

The pro-Israel pamphlets she wanted to hand out “blatantly disregard any Palestinian claim to the land and amount to little more than propaganda,” the group charged in a letter to The Daily Princetonian campus newspaper.

“Hotovely’s work causes irreparable damage to the prospects of a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She has stated her opposition to a Palestinian state and has made it her mission to expand settlement construction in the West Bank,” the letter went on.

It was signed by several campus organizations, including Princeton’s branch of J-Street, and dozens of individual students.

As a consequence, the Center for Jewish Life at Princeton decided to “postpone” Hotovely’s speech “until we can properly vet the program through our Israel Advisory Committee,” the organization’s executive director, Rabbi Julie Roth, told The Times of Israel on Monday.

“We are fortunate that our colleagues at Chabad agreed to host the program,” she said, adding that she encouraged students who are interested to attend. “We regret the last-minute change and apologize to Ms. Hotovely for the inconvenience. We look forward to a continued robust and healthy debate around Israel in our community.”

Hotovely was livid.

“By canceling this lecture, you are infringing on the fundamental academic freedom of the students. You are denying the basic freedom of students to hear different points of views, to question, challenge and think for themselves,” she wrote in a letter to Roth.

“Your actions are counter to the core tenants of education, contradict the values that an institution of higher learning such as Princeton hold sacred and are obligated to share with its students,” the letter went on. “Furthermore, by agreeing to the demands of radical voices you are silencing the voice of Israeli democracy.”
Earlier this week, Hotovely spoke at Columbia University in New York City, where her hawkish views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were received with much skepticism, according to people who attended the event. On Tuesday evening, she is scheduled to address New York University.
Tzipi Hotovely speaking at Columbia University on November 2, 2017. (Dor Malka/MFA)
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Omens dire.


After several special elections in which Democrats consoled themselves with having won “moral victories”—by coming closer than recent history would have suggested they would while still losing—Democrats now have real victories to celebrate. And Republicans had better brace themselves.

The Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia didn’t just win the race he was favored to win; he won a landslide. And according to some observers, results in the races below his in Virginia saw a one-party sweep larger than any seen in the state since 1899. That’s not a wave. It’s a tsunami.

In one state, sure. But let’s be clear. If the Republican, Ed Gillespie, had prevailed in the race for VA governor, the general takeaway would have been that Democrats could not capitalize on Donald Trump’s parlous approval ratings and the general low repute in which the GOP is held and that it would now be time to panic.
A Democratic victory this commanding up and down the ticket says exactly the opposite. It says Republicans should panic. It says Democratic enthusiasm is through the roof. It says that pollsters trying to correct for 2016 surveys that under counted Republican voters over represented them in the final weeks of the Virginia campaign and made it look like a race that was probably never close was close.

And what happened will have real-world consequences down the road. Given the portent this represents for the 2018 midterm elections—remember that a GOP win in the same race in 2009 was a harbinger of the Democratic House wipe out in 2010—Republicans considering retirement ahead of the 2018 elections may stop considering and start retiring.

Who wants to run a race for a year he’s going to lose, especially if it appears Donald Trump is a negative for Republicans in his own way analogous to what Barack Obama was for Democrats in 2010? And who wants to stay in the House if his position in the majority is flipped and he must serve as a back bencher in 2019 under the thumb of new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?

Those 23 Republican House members representing districts won by Hillary Clinton are having a horrendous day today. Remember that Democrats only need 24 seats to flip the House to their control.

Political gravity has reasserted itself. Trump is wildly unpopular. He enrages people in the other party. They mobilized against him and his party in exactly the way they need to mobilize. This is normal. This is the way things work. Trump fans and others who seem to have believed he possessed mystical powers to rewrite political reality are learning otherwise today.

Or perhaps they aren’t learning it. In which case, they will be more likely to learn a far more painful lesson a year from now.
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When animosities are buried.

For many, it is assumed that Israel is a racist state that considers its Arab minority second-class citizens. I wonder, then, how they explain what happened last Friday?
For the third time in the last two years, Israel threatened military action to stop an attack by extremist Syrian rebels on the Syrian Druze village of Khader. It did so despite the fact that Syrian Druze have sided with the Assad regime in that war, meaning they’re aligned with Israel’s arch-enemies, Iran and Hezbollah; despite the fact that Khader itself has been the source of several anti-Israel terror attacks; and despite the fact that such intervention risks entangling Israel in Syria’s civil war, something it has hitherto tried hard to avoid–and all just because it was asked to do so by its own Druze minority, which was worried about its coreligionists across the border.
To most Israelis, it seems both obvious and unremarkable that Israel should accede to this request. But in fact, though Israel has always considered itself obligated as a Jewish state to try to protect Jews anywhere, it’s not at all obvious that it would consider itself equally obligated to try to protect Druze beyond its borders. Threatening cross-border military action on behalf of foreign nationals aligned with your worst enemies, simply because they’re the coreligionists of one of your own ethnic minorities, isn’t an obvious step for any country. And it’s especially not obvious for a country accused of considering said minorities to be second-class citizens.
Thus, the fact that Israel has repeatedly taken action to protect the Syrian Druze says a lot about the true state of anti-Arab “racism” in the country. But to understand exactly what it says, it’s first necessary to understand the difference between Israeli Druze and other Arab Israelis.
The Druze are ethnically Arab, and their religion is considered an offshoot of Islam. But in their attitude toward the Jewish state, Israeli Druze differ markedly from most Muslim and Christian Arabs. All Druze men serve in the army, whereas Muslim and Christian Arabs generally do not. Druze politicians can be found in every major political party (except the explicitly religious ones), and Druze voting patterns aren’t markedly different from their Jewish counterparts. In contrast, other Arabs generally support ethnic Arab parties that are openly hostile to the Jewish state. Druze overwhelmingly identify as Israeli rather than Palestinian, whereas among other Arabs, the reverse has been true until very recently. Finally, given their superior integration, Druze unsurprisingly feel much less discriminated against than other Arabs.
The Druze consider themselves to be and act as loyal Israelis in every respect, so Jewish Israelis consider themselves bound to show equal loyalty to the Druze. Therefore, when Israeli Druze (some of whom even have relatives in Khader) were concerned about what might happen to their Syrian brethren if the extremist militias succeeded in capturing the town, Israeli Jews–who can readily understand concern for the fate of one’s coreligionists in another country–fully agreed that something had to be done. Hence the army, as it has twice before, warned the extremists that if they didn’t retreat, they would be attacked by Israeli planes and artillery. And the extremists, as they have twice before, got the message and abandoned their attack.
In contrast, Israeli Jews feel far less commitment to other Israeli Arabs because other Israeli Arabs demonstrate far less commitment to Israel. This is obvious in their refusal not only to do military service–something most Israeli Jews could reluctantly accept–but even to do civilian national service in their own communities, because they consider it unacceptable to do anything that might be construed as identification with the hated Zionist state. It is equally obvious in their repeated reelection of Arab Knesset members who, in marked contrast to Druze MKs, routinely refuse to condemn Palestinian terror and sometimes even actively defend it, hurl calumnies like “apartheid” and “genocide” at their own government, and side with the Palestinians against Israel on virtually every issue.
While prejudice and discrimination definitely exist in Israel, as they do in every society, they do not, for the most part, stem from “racism.” Rather, they are a response to the objective fact that many Israeli Arabs demonstrate their contempt for and opposition to the Jewish state on a daily basis. While Israel can and does ensure equality before the law for its Arab citizens, it can’t change human nature. And it is human nature to be less generous and more suspicious toward people who openly side with your enemies than toward those who side with you, because loyalty is a two-way street. Indeed, what’s truly remarkable is that Israel has made such great efforts to integrate its Arab minority despite the barrier posed by Arab behavior.
As I’ve noted many times before, Israeli Arab attitudes toward Israel are slowly changing. As they do, anti-Arab prejudice and discrimination will lessen in the same way that prejudice and discrimination against the Druze already have. And nothing demonstrates this better than last Friday’s incident in Khader, when Israel put its army at the service of non-Jewish enemy nationals across the border just because their Israeli coreligionists asked it to do so.


3a)
World Israel News logo


Expert: Iran-North Korea nuclear collaboration is Israel’s ‘worst nightmare’
 November 7, 2017

Expert: Iran-North Korea nuclear collaboration is Israel’s ‘worst nightmare’

“There are more differences between North Korea and Iran than there are similarities, but both countries are determined nuclear proliferators.”
By: Andrew Friedman/TPS
An international commitment to a failed model of diplomacy, coupled with loopholes in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, could create a fertile breeding ground for Iran to collaborate with North Korea to achieve nuclear capability without technically violating the 2015 nuclear deal, a panel of experts said Monday.
“There are more differences between North Korea and Iran than there are similarities, but both countries are determined nuclear proliferators,” said Dr. Emily B. Landau, head of the Arms Control Program at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told a conference titled “No good options on North Korea? Regional and global implications from an Israeli perspective.”
Landau said the international community should recognize that 25 years of diplomacy as the “strategy of choice” vis-à-vis North Korea did not prevent Pyongyang from achieving nuclear capability, and there is no reason to expect the same model will work with respect to Iran.
“The international community must understand the limits of diplomacy if there is any hope to derail Iran’s nuclear program,” Landau said.
The panel, hosted by the Jerusalem-based Israel-Asia Center at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, also featured Dr. Alon Levkowitz, a researcher, the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and an expert on the history and politics of the Korean peninsula at Bar-Ilan University and Dr. Daniel A. Pinkston, a lecturer in international relations at Troy University and a former Northeast Asia Deputy Project Director at the International Crisis Group in Seoul.
Levkowitz has noted that North Korea’s history of collaborating with Israel’s enemies stretches back at least 50 years, when the country sent soldiers to fight with Arab armies against Israel during both the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War six years later. Israel’s “biggest fear,” he said, would be for Pyongyang to offer to develop nuclear weapons on behalf of Iran, thus allowing the Islamic Republic to become a nuclear state without violating the terms of the nuclear agreement signed with the P5+1. But he added it would not be the only way for North Korea could pose a threat to Israel.

‘Huge Matter of Concern for Israel’
“North Korea is selling missiles to Syria, for example, selling light ammunition to just about every terrorist group in the region,” Levkowitz said. “In the old days they sold [weapons] to Egypt. So it is a huge matter of concern for Israel – Israel needs the US to intercept the shipments on the way to the Middle East, or if they don’t manage to do that, we have to bombard them.”
Levkowitz has also written extensively about North Korea’s involvement in constructing Syria’s nuclear reactor, which Israel destroyed in 2007, four years before the start of the civil war there.
Asked whether Israel’s close diplomatic ties with China and Russia – two countries that also share diplomatic ties with both Iran and North Korea, Levkowitz told Tazpit Press Service (TPS) that Israel’s growing relationship with both countries is unlikely to move either to press the issue on Israel’s behalf. Russia, he said, is far less influential in Asia than China, adding that Israel’s ability to act in the Far East is limited by American foreign policy concerns.
“Our leverage is not that big,” he told TPS. In the 1990s we tried to make a deal with North Korea, but there was a disagreement between the foreign office (ministry) and the Mossad [about whether we could trust the North Koreans to respect the terms of a deal]. But the Americans said ‘go away,’ this is our region. This is our meeting. You know I wish we were able to convince Beijing or put pressure on Pyongyang. But it doesn’t work. I wish it did.”
‘Some Positive Signs’
Landau warned that the history of Western talks with successive North Korean administrations bodes poorly for the attempts to use diplomacy vis-à-vis Iran. She praised US President Donald Trump for changing the tone of American diplomacy after what she called former US President Obama’s policy of “strategic patience,” but added that affecting change to a deeply flawed deal would require cooperation on the part of the other members to the agreement – something that does not appear to be in the offing.
“Look, there are some positive signs,” she said. “A year ago, supporters of the deal wouldn’t even admit the agreement wasn’t perfect. Now, at least they are saying ‘it may not be perfect, but…
“But 25 years of diplomacy failed. North Korea is a nuclear state now. As far as Iran is concerned it isn’t too late. There are things that can be done now. But the international community has got to realize the threat here. Right now, I don’t see it,” she said.
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4) A Year Ago Today Trump Won – Here's What He's Accomplished!

Donald J. Trump vanquished Crooked Hillary Clinton in an electoral landslide. Trump's campaign against the unsustainable, immoral forces of the status quo resonated with voters throughout the country. He promised to make America great again. After just one year in office, we're well on our way. 

Here is a partial list of what President Donald Trump has accomplished so far:

President Trump compelled major corporations to reinvest billions in America. After years of outsourcing, companies announced massive investments in American facilitates and labor. They include Exxon Mobil Corp., Apple, General Motors, Toyota, Hyundai-Kia, Bayer AG, and LG Electronics. All told, businesses have created more than 1.5 million new jobs.

The "Trump Effect" has resulted in 16-and-a-half year high in the Consumer Confidence Index. This index measures how ordinary consumers feel about the economy. Going from Main Street to Wall Street, the future looks as bright with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at record highs, creating $5 trillion in wealth.

The president delivered on ensuring a conservative Supreme Court. President Trump's appointment of originalist Neil Gorsuch to the Court was a huge win for Republicans. It's possible there could be three more vacancies before the end of his first term.

President Trump singlehandedly killed Obama's Trans-Pacific-Partnership. Many groups – on the right and left – were critical of this agreement for giving foreign corporations the means to circumvent our laws and potentially costing millions of manufacturing jobs.

Trump is making good on his promise to strengthen border security. Congress has appropriated money to build a wall along the southern border. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have constructed and begun testing prototypes. Already, CBP has noted a precipitous drop in illegal border crossings.

Like any good businessman, President Trump is actively cutting government waste. One of his first actions was to sign an executive order empowering government departments to eliminate unnecessary agencies and streamline their bureaucracies. Government transparency is a top priority, too.

Trump finished Dakota Access Pipeline and approved the Keystone Pipeline after years of inaction.

Finally, ISIS is on the run. Just last year, its caliphate extended from the suburbs of Damascus to the oil fields of Iraq. Now, that once-fledging evil empire has collapsed. The Islamic State no longer occupies any important Middle Eastern cities. Many of its leaders are dead or captured.

We should never lose sight of all the accomplishments this president has accomplished in such a short time. 

Read more at http://americanactionnews.com/articles/a-year-ago-today-trump-won-here-s-what-he-accomplished#FAk7lJ0xYTlMomc4.99

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