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August 2017

Despite predictions of economic doom and gloom in the wake of Donald Trump's presidential election win, things are actually looking quite sunny. A revised estimate showed gross domestic product had climbed at an annualized rate of 3 per cent, showing more growth than the professionals projected. Part of the reason for this new trajectory is President Trump's war on excessive regulation. For instance, in response to the impact of Hurricane Harvey on the region's fuel industry, Environmental Protection Agency is temporarily suspending some rules about gasoline production in an effort to minimize shortages around the southeast.
States from Maryland to Texas can sell winter-grade gasoline held in storage now, even though normally that type of fuel wouldn’t become available until fall, according to a federal waiver issued Wednesday. Refineries that continue to operate can also start churning out winter-grade gasoline, which emits more pollution than summer-grade gasoline when combusted in engines.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray to inform him that the committee found in unredacted parts in transcripts that former FBI Director James Comey decided to write a statement to exonerate then-presumptive Democrat presidential candidate before the FBI finished its investigation into her emails.

Reports have emerged that President Donald Trump may end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Friday. From McClatchyDC:
President Donald Trump is expected to end an Obama-era program that shielded young people from deportation, but he will likely let the immigrants known as Dreamers stay in the United States until their work permits run out, according to multiple people familiar with the policy negotiation.

The State Department has told Russia to close its consulate in San Francisco, CA, by September 2. Yes, in only two days. The order also stated Russia must close a chancery in Washington, D.C., and a consular annex in New York City. This is a direct response for Russia demanding the US to reduce its diplomats in Russia to 455 by September 1.

One of things that used to flummox me about the left is their sophomoric insistence on "all or nothing." Children love the false dichotomy: either you buy me this iPhone, prom dress, car, or you hate me and wish I'd never been born. For Democrats and the left, this puerile insistence that there are only two answers (theirs and the wrong, wildly-extreme answer) manifests as, for example, you're either against President Trump or you're a white supremacist/Nazi/etc. This all-or-nothing fallacy is at the root of the outrage concerning a Politico cartoon about Texans and Hurricane Harvey.

As Congress is scheduled to return from recess next week, President Donald Trump traveled to Missouri on Wednesday to encourage Congress to tackle tax reform and actually get the job done...unlike the ordeal with Obamacare. From Yahoo! News:
“I don’t want to be disappointed by Congress, do you understand me,” Trump said, pointing into a crowd that included much of the state’s GOP Congressional delegation. “Do you understand?” “I think Congress is going to make a comeback,” the president added. “I hope so.”

With the Western leaders divided in their strategy to counter the rising threat of Islamic terrorism, the Islamist terror groups continue to work on new ways of attacking the West. According to Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), modeled after the American FBI, Islamic State might be planning to sabotage railway networks to inflict heavy civilian casualties in the West, as part of its evolving Jihad warfare strategy.

On today's Morning Joe, MSNBC senior political analyst Mark Halperin said that special counsel Robert Mueller "is a cyborg." Joe Scarborough was so tickled by the description that he had Halperin repeat it. Calling Mueller "a relentless opponent," Halperin said that "there is a strategy here, there's a fearlessness, and there's a level of coordination that makes anyone trying to help the president on this be put in a very defensive position."

Pallywood is the cottage industry of Palestinians and Palestinian supporters who concoct facts or present facts in misleading context in order to start viral anti-Israel narratives, such as the false claim that Israel opened dam gates to flood Gaza, and a myriad of other false claims. The Tamimi Clan is particularly adept and active, sending children to confront soldiers to create false narratives of Israeli brutality towards children. Bassem Tamimi and Manal Tamimi are heroes to the anti-Israel movement because of their fake media operations.

It is scary how quickly media eco-activists have unleashed torrents of climate change pseudo-science on the American public since Hurricane Harvey hit. There are many articles now making the rounds on social media asserting that this deadly storm proves "climate change is real". Perhaps the most dramatic comes from the Godfather of Climate Change, Dr. Michael Mann, who penned the following analysis -- It's a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly:
Harvey was almost certainly more intense than it would have been in the absence of human-caused warming, which means stronger winds, more wind damage and a larger storm surge.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has revised the second quarter GDP growth to reflect 3%, up from the 2.6% growth initially released. This gives the U.S. its strongest quarter since 2015. From The Wall Street Journal:
Growth in the second quarter was “above the trend for the expansion” but came “after a below-trend pace” in the first quarter, said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, in a note to clients. “The trend is probably still not much more than 2%,” he said.