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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The Progressive Disintegration The self-destruction of so many failed progressive gods. Bruce Thornton

A month ago, progressives were having a conniption fit over Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election. So of course, now that Trump has won, they are rioting, vandalizing, staging “cry-ins,” ditching class, group-hugging, tweeting threats, calling names, seeking counseling, and doing everything in their power to make sure that their party declines even further. If this behavior continues, and if––a big “if” –– Trump governs the way he promised, we may be witnessing the start of the progressive disintegration.

Start with the melting snowflake millennials, all those “cocksure women and hensure men,” as D.H. Lawrence once described feminists of both sexes. These layabouts have become used to throwing tantrums whenever they don’t like something or they feel “unsafe.” Most of them are spoiled brats, the pampered detritus of the middle class. But don’t forget the Alinskyite activists who manipulate these juveniles and bus them in on George Soros’ dime. These two-bit Leninists are adept at using “useful idiots” in order to further their aim of destroying America’s political and social order. They’re skilled at manipulating empty slogans like “income inequality,” “fair share,” “social justice,” “diversity,” “inclusion,” and all the other bumper-sticker bromides in order to consolidate and increase their power and influence.

If the delicate millennial Eloi were really interested in reforming their team instead of indulging phony moral exhibitionism, they would start with the Democrat party. No true leftist would have sat still for the nomination of a candidate so obviously part of the fat-cat ruling class as Hillary Clinton. (And no, he wouldn’t be happy with Bernie Sanders either, a bumbling blowhard who thinks imitating Sweden’s “social democracy” ––which means an overregulated capitalism leavened with over-generous social welfare benefits––is somehow an epochal revolutionary change.) It was electoral malfeasance to choose a geriatric insider and establishment plutocrat with no charisma and a long record of abusing her privilege and power. So, kiddies, go protest against the DNC and Barack Obama. They’re the reason the Republican party is the strongest it’s been since 1928.

Next, look at yourselves. As Piers Morgan––no conservative he––said recently, “The tragic truth is that America’s millennials are a bunch of phone-addicted, selfie-obsessed, hashtagging, snapchatting, kale-munching, twerking, lazy, whining, ill-informed, politically correct, cossetted narcissists who find absolutely everything mortally offensive and believe there are 165 ways to sexually identify.” It follows that your politics are merely symbolic, expressions of your inflated self-regard, privileged life-style, and arrogant pretensions to sophistication and intelligence. Unsurprisingly, as Morgan points out, according to the National Institutes of Health, 40% of you think you should be promoted every two years despite performance, 77% of you can’t name a senator from your home state, and 80% of you think you’ll be richer than your parents, even as you pile up student debt earning junk “studies” degrees utterly useless for employment in the real world.

The EPA Shows Again That It’s an Affront to Common Sense It’s cooking data to justify costly regulations with disproportionately small benefits. By Henry I. Miller & Jeff Stier

For decades, in administrations Democratic and Republican alike, the Environmental Protection Agency has been a paragon of waste, fraud, and abuse, a corrupt taxpayer-funded Evil Empire. “Science” there is just a tool to be manipulated in order to advance radical anti-technology and anti-industry agendas, even if it means distorting the intent of statutes and affronting common sense.

The EPA is the prototype of agencies that, driven largely by politics, spend more and more to address smaller and smaller risks. In one analysis by the Office of Management and Budget, of the 30 least cost-effective regulations throughout the government, the EPA had imposed no fewer than 17. For example, the agency’s restrictions on the disposal of land that contains certain wastes prevent 0.59 cancer cases per year — about three cases every five years — and avoid $20 million in property damage, at an annual cost of $194 to $219 million.

In his excellent book Breaking the Vicious Circle, written shortly before he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Stephen Breyer cited another, similar example of expensive, non-cost-effective regulation by the EPA: a ban on asbestos pipe, shingles, coating, and paper, which the most optimistic estimates suggested would prevent seven or eight premature deaths over 13 years — at a cost of approximately a quarter of a billion dollars. Breyer, appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton, observed that such a vast expenditure would cause more deaths than it would prevent from the asbestos exposure, simply by reducing the resources available for other public amenities.

Also, perversely, the very act of removing asbestos from existing structures poses greater risk from asbestos than does simply leaving it where it is: During removal, long-dormant asbestos fibers are spread into the ambient air, where they expose workers and bystanders to heightened risk. When the EPA banned asbestos in 1989, it was already an old product whose risks and benefits were well understood. Nevertheless, political pressures from environmental activists pushed the EPA into making a decision that actually raised public-health risks.

Breyer also addressed the EPA’s counterproductive efforts to eliminate the “last 10 percent” of risk from a substance or activity, noting that it involves “high cost, devotion of considerable agency resources, large legal fees, and endless argument,” with only limited, incremental benefit. Such overly stringent rules are also more likely to be challenged in court and overturned on judicial review. Breyer quotes an EPA official as observing that “about 95 percent of the toxic material could be removed from [Superfund] waste sites in a few months, but years are spent trying to remove the last little bit.”

Hillary’s Actions Deserve a Special Prosecutor President Trump should hand Hillary’s fate to a nonpartisan investigator. By Deroy Murdock

Let her go or lock her up?

Hillary Clinton’s fate is one piece of old business that will sit on President Donald J. Trump’s desk and fester like a warm mackerel.

Trump’s ambitious agenda involves scrapping and substituting Obamacare, cutting taxes, liberating the energy sector, securing America’s southern “border,” and much more — nearly everything controversial.

Congressional Democrats will be unusually obstructive due to Hillary’s upset loss, a unified Republican government in Washington, and the GOP’s strongest position nationwide since 1928, according to RealClearPolitics. Liberal politicians and activists called Trump a latter-day Mussolini for saying in his final debate that he would “keep you in suspense” before agreeing in advance to accept Election Day’s results. Leftist street thugs then fascistically rejected the outcome of a fair and decisive election, trashed personal property, smashed windows, sparked fires, and — like dedicated Brownshirts — physically pummeled Trump supporters.

As such, Democrats on Capitol Hill — and their enraged base — likely will be in no mood to compromise. Despite Republican control of the Senate, incoming Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York is no wallflower. He almost surely will tie Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s shoelaces together at every turn. This probably will include filibustering everything this side of legislation on National Asparagus Month.

Against this backdrop, it must be tempting for Team Trump to blow Crooked Hillary’s dank, lawless stench out the nearest window. Indeed, Trump’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC Tuesday that “he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges.”

If true, this would abandon the pledge that Trump made to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who chanted “Lock her up!” at his rallies and the 61.9 million voters who sent Trump to Washington to purify Hillary’s ethical Superfund site.

Hillary auctioned off public favors as if the Clinton Foundation were Sotheby’s and abused state secrets so flagrantly that her maid reportedly printed out classified documents for the former secretary of state to read. According to the New York Post’s Paul Sperry, this may have included the Presidential Daily Brief, the most secret document in Washington.

Trump changes mind on waterboarding, global warming By Ed Straker

Donald Trump, after stating that he was going to reinstate waterboarding “and worse” for terrorists, now says he is against waterboarding. He also says global warming, which he once said was a hoax created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing uncompetitive, may be caused by man-made activities.

Donald Trump seemed to acknowledge that humans contribute to climate change Tuesday in a meeting with New York Times reporters, moving closer to widely held scientific opinion but away from the Republican Party line.

He is keeping an “open mind” when it comes to climate issues, he said.

“I think there is some connectivity” between human activity and climate change, Trump said[.]

There is no way any person who is informed about the “theory” of global warming can believe that. The theory of global warming is that human-produced carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. But human-produced CO2 is only 3% of all CO2 (most is produced naturally), which in turn is only 3% of all the chemicals in the atmosphere. Common sense would tell anyone that human CO2 production has no bearing on so-called global warming.

It’s sad that Donald Trump believes this, and worrisome. Will he reverse Obama’s Clean Power Plan rule, which is shutting down important power plants because of the myth of CO2 production?

As for the “climate change” treaty Obama agreed to in Paris, Trump said:

On climate change, he refused to repeat his promise to abandon the international climate accord reached last year in Paris, saying that, “I’m looking at it very closely.” But he said “I have an open mind to it[.]”

An open mind to it? To locking the U.S. into mandatory CO2 reductions, which, like Obama’s Clean Power Plan, will also shut down power plants, make electricity much more expensive, and kill jobs?

Hundreds March in Support of St. Louis Police Officer Who Was Shot in the Face in Ambush Attack By Debra Heine

A march in support of a wounded St. Louis Metropolitan Police sergeant drew hundreds of participants Monday night, 24 hours after the officer was shot in the face without provocation.

St. Louis Alderman Donna Baringer helped lead the march, which began at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in south St. Louis and went to the intersection where the 46-year-old officer was ambushed.

The unnamed officer was sitting at a stoplight in his patrol car Sunday night when a car pulled up next to him and a man inside fired at him, hitting him twice in the face. Amazingly, the officer was not critically injured and is now recovering at home.

Via Fox2Now:

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Chief Sam Dotson shook the hands of people who lined up outside the church. He told them their presence makes, “all the difference in the world.”

Dotson said the wounded officer is now recovering at home.

One woman who stood in line is the wife of a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officer and a friend of the wounded officer.

“We read a lot of unkind things towards police officers and it’s hard to be a police officer’s family right now,” she said. “But it means a lot to see everybody come together.”

“I’ve talked to a lot of spouses of police officers who say that could have been my husband, that could have been my significant other,” said Dotson.

The rally ended with a moment of silence and the crowd singing “Let there be Peace on Earth.” Dotson said the show of support should go a long way to helping officers do their jobs.

Chief Dotson told reporters that this neighborhood happens to be where the unnamed officer lives and that St. Gabriel’s is “very close to him.”

The Left’s Double Standard Discounts Cop-Killings Where is the progressive outrage when police officers are murdered? By David French

One year ago this Sunday, a man named Robert Lewis Dear attacked a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo. During the assault and resulting standoff, he shot and killed three people and wounded nine. While he suffered — like many mass shooters — from mental-health issues, his motives seemed clear. In court, he shouted that he was a “warrior for the babies.” In a rambling interview after his arrest, he allegedly said “no more baby parts” and made other statements indicating that his terrorist attack was motivated by an opposition to abortion.

The incident immediately kicked off yet another “national conversation,” this one about “Christian terrorism” and the threat of pro-life speech. Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, accused pro-life groups of igniting a “firestorm of hate.” She claimed that pro-life activists “knew there could be these types of consequences” yet “ratcheted up the rhetoric anyway.” Over at Patheos, atheist writer Dan Arel wrote a widely shared piece proclaiming Christian terrorism “a bigger threat to U.S. freedom than Islamic extremism.” ThinkProgress made sure to label the violence specifically Christian and went on to repeat what was (before San Bernardino and Orlando) a favorite left-wing talking point: that right-wing extremists had killed more Americans since 9/11 than Islamic terrorists.

After Dear’s horrific attack, the National Abortion Federation listed a total of eleven anti-abortion murders and 26 attempted murders since 1993. The rate of killings works out to roughly one death every four years since Roe v. Wade. Each death is inexcusable. Each attack is evil. It’s a sad toll, to be sure. But it can hardly be mentioned in the same breath as jihadist violence.

Fast-forward one year from Dear’s attack. Last weekend, four police officers were shot on a “bloody Sunday” for our nation’s law enforcement, three of them in what appeared to be targeted, ambush-style attacks. In San Antonio, an assassin killed a police officer and sped away. In St. Louis, a man shot a passing officer in the face and was later killed in a gun battle with other cops. In Sanibel, Fla., an officer was shot as he sat in his patrol car after a traffic stop.

Senator Jeff Sessions Will Be the Restorative Attorney General We Need America needs an attorney general and a Department of Justice that will enforce the law. By Andrew C. McCarthy

I have only one complaint regarding the splendid news that President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) to be the next attorney general of the United States: He is such a valuable legislator, he may be irreplaceable in the Senate.

But that’s alright. The Senate is going to be the Senate. Plus, there are talented young conservatives with strong legal backgrounds there, so hope springs that one can step into Jeff’s big shoes.

By contrast, the Justice Department, the institution in which I proudly spent most of my professional life as a lawyer, is in crisis. For eight years, we have had not the rule of law but a Ruler of Law — the imperial president, Barack Obama, aided and abetted by his hyper-political courtiers Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, derelict in the fundamental duty of his office to execute the laws faithfully.

The Obama Justice Department has been the most politicized in the nation’s history. It has weaponized the law against the president’s political adversaries and scapegoats, while insulating the president’s allies against investigation and prosecution. It has made progressive political activism the touchstone of Justice Department hiring, stacking various departmental sections with social-justice warriors who see the law as their arsenal to achieve fundamental societal transformation. It has exploited the legal process as an extortionate tool to shakedown deep-pocketed institutions for the purpose of funding progressive rabble-rousers. It has used law-enforcement to craft political narratives that, for example, propped up Obama’s “blame the video” fraud after the Benghazi massacre; framed the nation’s financial institutions for the mortgage meltdown, to the exclusion of reckless government policies; and undermined Second Amendment rights while getting federal agents killed (see the “Fast and Furious” debacle, over which Holder was held in contempt of Congress). It has injected racial discrimination into the enforcement of civil-rights laws in blatant violation of the equal-protection principles those laws are supposed to assure. It has exhibited a contempt for Congress and a propensity to obstruct legislative oversight that would have made the Nixon administration blush. It has repeatedly engaged in appalling prosecutorial misconduct and then lied to federal judges to cover it up. It has not only refused to enforce the immigration laws and sued to prevent sovereign states from enforcing them, but has also endorsed the president’s claimed power to ignore congressional statutes. It is abetting a war on the nation’s police departments, seeking to nationalize them under the guise of baseless and ruinously divisive smears that cops are hunting down African-American men, and that the justice system is rigged against black people.

Connecticut Will Protect Muslim Refugees, Gov. Dannel Malloy Says Governor says he will oppose any move by Trump administration to bar Muslim refugees from settling in his stateBy Joseph De Avila

NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said Tuesday he would oppose any action by President-elect Donald Trump that would bar Muslim refugees from coming to his state.

Mr. Malloy has made accepting Syrian refugees a priority for his administration. Some 339 Syrian refugees have settled in Connecticut in 2016, according to the U.S. State Department.

“I would fight any attempt to limit refugees being given status based on religion,” Mr. Malloy, a Democrat, said. “I’m hopeful that the rhetoric from the campaign will give way to a sensible approach to honoring our long-term international commitments.”

The Trump transition team didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Malloy made his comments at an event at the Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven where Syrian families also spoke. One Syrian refugee, who lives in New Haven with his pregnant wife and six children, said he is grateful for the chance to build a home in the U.S. He and his family arrived in Connecticut three months ago and he is now taking English classes.

The refugee said he is familiar with Mr. Trump’s statements and but so far isn’t too concerned for his family. “I feel comfortable,” he said. “People didn’t change their behavior toward us” after the election.

Karen Foster, assistant refugee resettlement coordinator for Danbury Area Refugee Assistance, a nonprofit organization, recently began helping Syrian families in Connecticut.

“We have spoken to them about the election…to let them know that they are safe,” Ms. Foster said. “They can’t be sent back. They are legal here. They are legal residents and they are authorized to work.”

Democrats Are Obsessed With Race. Donald Trump Isn’t Why does the press hype a white nationalist sideshow of only 275 people? It feeds the ‘deplorables’ narrative. By Jason L. Riley

Since when does a weekend gathering of “nearly 275” white nationalists in a country of more than 320 million people warrant front-page coverage in major newspapers? Since the election of Donald Trump, apparently.

The same media outlets that insisted Mr. Trump wouldn’t beat Hillary Clinton have spent the past two weeks misleading the public about why he did. Breathless coverage of a neo-Nazi sideshow in the nation’s capital—where antiracism protesters almost outnumbered attendees, according to the Washington Post—helps liberals illustrate their preferred “basket of deplorables” explanation for Mrs. Clinton’s loss.

The reality is that Mr. Trump didn’t prevail on Election Day because of fake news stories or voter suppression or ascendant bigotry in America. He won because a lot of people who voted for Barack Obama in previous elections cast ballots for Mr. Trump this time. In Wisconsin, he dominated the Mississippi River Valley region on the state’s western border, which went for Mr. Obama in 2012. In Ohio’s Trumbull County, where the auto industry is a major employer and the population is 89% white, Mr. Obama beat Mitt Romney, 60% to 38%. This year, Trumbull went for Mr. Trump, 51% to 45%. Iowa went for Mr. Obama easily in 2008 and 2012, but this year Mr. Trump won the state by 10 points. Either these previous Obama supporters are closet racists or they’re voting on other issues.

“Trump switched white voters in key states who were blue-collar primarily—coal counties, manufacturing counties,” the Republican strategist Whit Ayres told me this week. “These are blue-collar whites who voted for Barack Obama. And that’s a very uncomfortable thing to admit by the left. It’s much easier to say a ‘basket of deplorables’ elected Trump. But I’m sorry, that just does not conform to the data in those states that made a major swing from one party to the other.”

Part of Mr. Trump’s strategy was to turn out lots of Republicans who stayed home in 2012, but the president-elect appears to have won white voters by a margin similar to that of Mr. Romney. However, Mr. Trump was able to muster an Electoral College majority by taking advantage of lax support for Mrs. Clinton in the metro areas of large, consequential states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That the Democratic nominee failed to speak to the concerns of Obama voters is not the fault of the alt-right. CONTINUE AT SITE

Democracy’s Verdict on Clinton Trump shows more good judgment by not prosecuting Hillary.

Donald Trump’s approval rating is up nine points since Election Day in one survey, and one reason may be that he’s setting a tone of expansive leadership. A case in point is his apparent decision not to seek the prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her email and Clinton Foundation issues.

“I think when the President-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content,” Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC on Tuesday. Mr. Trump later told the New York Times that “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,” adding about prosecuting Mrs. Clinton that “it’s just not something that I feel very strongly about.”

That’s the right move—for the country and his Presidency. We know from reading our email that many Americans want Mrs. Clinton treated like Mel Gibson in the climactic scene of “Braveheart.” Their argument is that equal justice under law requires that she be treated like anyone else who mishandled classified information.

But discretion is also part of any decision to prosecute. FBI Director James Comey was wrong to exonerate Mrs. Clinton before the election because that wasn’t his job and he let the Attorney General off the hook. Loretta Lynch should have taken responsibility for absolving or indicting her party’s nominee—and voters could hold her and Democrats accountable.

The voters ultimately rendered that verdict on Nov. 8, and being denied the Presidency is a far more painful punishment than a misdemeanor or minor felony conviction. Prosecuting vanquished political opponents is the habit in Third World nations. Healthy democracies prefer their verdicts at the ballot box.

Prosecution would also stir needless controversy that would waste Mr. Trump’s political capital. President Obama made the mistake of blessing then Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision in 2009 to have a special prosecutor investigate CIA officials over post-9/11 interrogations. This made Mr. Obama look vindictive and ideologically driven, and it was among the decisions that set the tone for the hyperpartisan Obama Presidency.

The press corps is making much of Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to name a special prosecutor for Mrs. Clinton, as well as the cries at his rallies of “lock her up.” That always seemed like campaign overkill, and Mr. Trump is now President-elect. His more important promise is the one he made in his victory speech to be the President of the entire nation, and democracy’s verdict is justice enough for Mrs. Clinton.