Donald Trump in the East Room at the White House on February 16, 2017 in Washington, DC.MARIO TAMA/GETTY
President Trump spent the weekend embroiled in yet another Twitter skirmish, this time with retiring Republican Senator Bob Corker. Trump may even have suffered a rare defeat on his own turf, based on Corker’s hilarious rejoinder about someone missing their daycare shift at the White House. If Trump has a soul, even he laughed at that one.
But many blame this kind of drama as a major contributing reason to Trump “not getting anything done” so far during the first year of his presidency. Even those on the blood-in-their-eyes, Trump-hating left make this criticism. One would think they’d be glad he’s not getting anything done, but apparently, a government not doing anything is even worse for them than one doing things they don’t like.
If only “not getting anything done” were true. The Pentagon goes on waging war, uninterrupted by elections, supposed gridlock, or even “government shutdowns.” War has become the normal state, with “an act of Congress” required to stop it, rather than start it.
Domestically, all of Washington’s unconstitutional regulatory agencies have hummed along without pause. The FDA is still driving up prescription drug prices by keeping thousands of generics off the market. The TSA is still violating the 4th Amendment millions of times per day while virtually never discovering dangerous items brought on board, even during their own tests. And the Social Security Administration goes on cutting checks as if it didn’t have tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities.
Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
In the wake of Catalonia’s referendum on independence, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy continued to argue, as he had in the weeks leading up to the vote, that any attempt by Catalans to become an independent state violates “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards.”
Like the rest of the music-loving world, I was shocked and saddened to hear of Tom Petty’s untimely passing this week. I suppose I took him for granted, assuming he would always be there making outstanding music, as he had for virtually my entire life. Now that he’s gone, I thought I’d share just a few memories of times the man touched my life.
Trump Derangement Syndrome 
Trump Derangement Syndrome
I relocated to Tampa, FL in 2004 for a job opportunity. I moved into my apartment on Saturday, July 31 and started work the following Monday. One week later, the local news was dominated by Hurricane Charley, which was predicted to be the first hurricane to directly hit Tampa since 1921. Sound familiar?
Whenever there is a natural disaster, we see two things: the best in human generosity, courage and resilience and the worst in economic ignorance. The former includes individuals rescuing stranded neighbors, volunteers lining up to join charity relief efforts, and corporations martialing their vast resources to pour needed items such as food, bottled water and clothing into devastated areas. The latter includes “economists” repeating the age old broken window fallacy and politicians denouncing and threatening so-called “price gougers.”
We’re fighting the Civil War again. Whenever both major parties drop any pretense of addressing the real problems facing American taxpayers, their constituents revert to having at each other in “the culture wars.” And no culture war would be complete without relitigating what should now be settled history: the reasons for the Civil War.