Dems keep throwing curves, Trump keeps taking them deep

President Trump swings for the fences in rookie political year

Democrats have tried nearly everything within their power during 2017 to discredit President Donald J. Trump. Still obviously butt-hurt after Hillary Clinton's stunning (to them) defeat last November, they have refused to simply play the role of gallant opposition party.

The Dems could have decided to put forth their own agenda, their own vision for the future, pushing those programs into the public consciousness through their media cohorts.

They could have chosen to work with the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress to gain something, no matter how small, for their own constituents until the next opportunity to win control for themselves at the ballot box.

Instead, they chose a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scorched Earth policy of no-holds barred, relentless attacks against the Trump administration. They did so in some cases knowing full well that it would mean some of their own stars would fall, such as U.S. Senator Al Franken. It has been a year of nothing else but "take down Trump, at all costs" for the liberal progressive Democratic Party.

They have pulled one trick pitch after another out of their arsenal. Trump collusion with the Russians helped enable the November 2016 election upset. Trump's anti-immigration goals would prove reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930's. His reversal of Barack Obama regulations, as well as ill-conceived tax reform, would benefit the wealthy while hurting the "little guy" and prove devastating to both the economy and the environment.

Relentless attacks on Trump on these and many other issues, all aided by their liberal media sycophants, were sure to eventually wear down the President. There would be a major slip-up, some irreversible damage would occur. This would lead to a Democratic Party takeover of the U.S. Senate and Congress in 2018, and then the White House in 2020.

Heck, perhaps the inevitable Trump gaffe would be so major that it would lead to impeachment, and a Nixonian resignation. Then a weakened Pence administration would be dominated by the new Dem-controlled congress over the next couple of years.

That was the plan as inning after inning, the Dems took turns on the mound making their pitch, tossing curve balls and spit balls at the President and his team.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Jimmy Kimmel. CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post. Much of their pitch financed by deep-pocketed ownership in the person of George Soros, along with other wealthy liberals.

And yet here we are, more than a year after that election, and Donald J. Trump is still standing, perhaps stronger than ever. Nearly every exaggerated curve tossed by the Dems to date, every fabricated spitter that has slipped from their grip, has been taken deep by POTUS.

Russian collusion on the election? About as big a nothing burger as has been offered up on the liberal menu in decades. When the liberal progressives couldn't nail Trump with that one, they went after his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Then his son, Donald Trump Jr. The result? Two more wild pitches in the dirt.

Immigration? There is still no wall, even though the President continues to tout it's inevitability. Big city liberal mayors such as Philly's Jim Kenney continue to thumb their noses at federal immigration law by establishing their municipalities as "sanctuary cities" while taunting the President with vitriolic rhetoric. But there have also been huge wins.

An empowered and emboldened ICE made more than 143,000 arrests, with a 92% "win" rate. The proportion of removals resulting from ICE arrests rose from just 27% in FY2016 under Obama to 36% in FY2017 under Trump.

ICE has taken down hundreds of members of the notorious MS-13 gang. The CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Patrol) has stated that due to President Trump, we have seen a "historic shift" in attempted illegal border crossings. Also, SCOTUS just upheld President Trump's travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries. All of these moves are helping make America more secure.

Jerusalem is factually the capital of Israel

To say that the city of Jerusalem, the entire Land of Israel, has a contentious history would be a colossal understatement. Doing justice to the entire history of this land in the Southern Levant in one short piece would be an impossible task.

Let us simply deal with the reality of the world today. Israel is by far America's greatest friend and ally in the Middle East, a challenging region of the world where those are hard to come by for the United States.

When the modern State of Israel was formed nearly seven decades ago, the United States under President Harry Truman was first to recognize it as legitimate.

Over the ensuing decades, through times of outright war and spasmodic peace, United States support for Israel has slowly but steadily grown stronger. Drawing lines on a graph to display that U.S. support would look more like a roller coaster than a straight, steady upward incline, but the overall movement would certainly be upward.

Donald Trump is perhaps the greatest U.S. Presidential supporter that the Israelis have had to date. He now appears poised to become the first to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel.

This public recognition has not happened previously due to claims on Jerusalem by the Palestinians. Not wanting to further inflame tensions in the region, past administrations have withheld this recognition, and have kept the U.S. foreign embassy located in Tel Aviv.

The President's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, has been intimately involved in relations between the administration and Israel since the momentous 2016 election. Just yesterday, Kushner stated that he wasn't sure the President actually had made up his mind on formal recognition.

“He’s still looking at a lot of different facts, and then when he makes his decision, he’ll be the one to want to tell you, not me," said Kushner per Marisa Schultz for the New York Post. \

Still, rumors persist of a speech this week by the President granting just such recognition. This past Friday, Jonathan Swan at Axios reported that "two sources with direct knowledge" had told him that the speech would likely come on Wednesday. 

The capital of Israel is the city of Jerusalem. This is the location for their formal seat of government, the Knesset.

David Ben-Gurion, the nation's first Prime Minister, stated the following in 1949:

"Jewish Jerusalem is an organic, inseparable part of the State of Israel, just as it is an integral part of Jewish history and belief. Jerusalem is the heart of the State of Israel...its eternal capital. Twice in the history of our nation were we driven out of Jerusalem, only after being defeated in bitter wars by the larger, stronger forces of Babylon and Rome. Our links with Jerusalem today are no less deep than in the days of Nebuchadnezzar and Titus Flavius, and when Jerusalem was attacked after the fourteenth of May 1948, our valiant youngsters risked their lives for our sacred capital no less than our forefathers did in the time of the First and Second Temples. A nation that, for two thousand and five hundred years, has faithfully adhered to the vow made by the first exiles by the waters of Babylon not to forget Jerusalem, will never agree to be separated from Jerusalem. Jewish Jerusalem will never accept alien rule after thousands of its youngsters liberated their historic homeland for the third time, redeeming Jerusalem from destruction and vandalism."