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August 2017

President Trump would like to end Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  This was one of his primary campaign promises, but he is facing opposition from both Democrats and among the GOP. ABC News reports:
President Donald Trump is leaning toward ending a U.S. immigration policy the Obama administration started for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, according to multiple sources. The president's decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, could be announced as early as next week, one source said.

The forces of social justice self-righteousness have claimed another victim, as an ancient Egyptian-themed fraternity party was sacrificed on the altar of "cultural appropriation".
The University of Michigan branch of Delta Sigma Phi recently deleted their Welcome Week party that was Ancient Egyptian themed due to backlash from the student body. The party asked students to “honor our Egyptian roots and join us on the night of September 1st to celebrate our newly built pyramid” and “come to Delta Sig as a mummy, Cleopatra or King Tut it doesn’t matter to us.”

The "resist we much" crowd's fevered comparisons of President Trump to Hitler have embraced a new level of hysteria and hyperbole.  Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors stated that BLM will not meet with Trump because they wouldn't meet with Hitler, either.  She also says that the president is "literally" trying to kill black communities. The Los Angeles Times reports:
[Interviewer:]  Trump has called BLM a threat. Is the door open to talk to him? [Cullors:]  It's not. And we wouldn't take the invitation. [Interviewer:]  Why not? [Cullors:]  We wouldn't as a movement take a seat at the table with Trump, because we wouldn't have done that with Hitler. Trump is literally the epitome of evil, all the evils of this country — be it racism, capitalism, sexism, homophobia.

After backing down from its recent threats against Guam, North Korea has just launched its way back into the news cycle.  Initial reports indicated that one or more of the tests failed; however, a revised report from our military indicates that none of the tests failed.

North Korea fired three short-range missiles on Saturday -- all successful -- despite earlier reports suggesting failure, according to the U.S. military.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles fired from the North's eastern coast flew about 155 miles. It said South Korea and U.S. militaries were analyzing the launch and didn't immediately provide more details.

President Donald Trump has issued guidance to the Pentagon on transgender policies. Trump has asked the military to stop admitting transgender individuals, but gives the secretaries of defense and homeland security some leeway. From Fox News:
The directive reinstates the ban on military service for transgender individuals. It also halts military expenses on sexual reassignment surgery, except for those who have already begun medical procedures, and implements criteria for whether transgender individuals already in the military should be allowed to continue to serve.

There is a growing recognition of the anti-Semitic nature of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Anti-Israel activists claim BDS was a spontaneous 2005 call from "Palestinian civil society" for an academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel to end "the occupation." (They are deliberately vague on what is occupied, and the leadership and activists make clear they consider all of Israel occupied.)

With Congress's recess about to end, eyes have turned to tax reform. But in a surprise twist, the White House has decided not to write its own tax reform plan, according to President Donald Trump's head economic aide. From The Financial Times:
“The ‘big six’ have been meeting and have come up with an outline . . . and we have a good skeleton that we have agreed,” Mr Cohn said in a reference to the lawmakers, himself and Mr Mnuchin. “Now it is Chairman Brady’s time to get the [House] ways and means committee together to put flesh and bone on it, and they will do it next week when the House comes back into session.”

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) has issued an executive order that cuts public funding to abortion clinics in the state. McMaster demanded that the state's Medicaid agency ask the "federal government to exclude abortion clinics from the state's Medicaid provider."

Sitting here, blogging from my home breaks in Houston, which is currently on the dirty side of Hurricane Harvey. My brother-in-law's family evacuated from the coast yesterday to dryer ground inland. As these things go, no one is entirely sure what to expect, but wisdom always suggests we prepare for the worst.

Progressives and #NeverTrumpers across the nation shriek that President Donald Trump should stop tweeting. In fact, former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson wants to crowdfund enough money to buy Twitter so she can close President Donald Trump's account. However, someone should really tell California Senator Kamala Harris to take a break from Twitter herself. For instance, her latest legal opinion of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio possibly receiving a pardon from President Trump is a little thin on logic and reason.