The Hottest Yeah Evah! Really?

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Assume for a moment, as the press with triumphant glee is reporting, that 2016 was the hottest year evah! Believe the claim for the sake of argument. Swallow the idea, for at least the next minute, that the media and government really do have your best interests at heart and are reporting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the world’s temperature.

How much hotter than previous years was 2016? Bare your wrist and blow a huh on it from about half a foot away. Don’t blow—stay with me here: this is a genuine scientific experiment — but utter a soft ugh so that your breath wafts over your wrist gently. Feel that increase in heat? Well, that boost to your skin was much hotter than the increase supposed to have happened to the atmosphere in 2016.

Here’s a better experiment. You are likely reading this article sitting down. Sense the temperature around your face: it might help to think about your cheeks. Now stand up. Take a second mental reading. Feel the difference? That same tenth or so change in degree, which was probably imperceptible to you, is about the same as the change in temperature scientists say they measured over the entire globe, including over the salty seas from last year to this.

Yes. Climatologists gathered measurements from buoys at sea, from thousands of thermometers at airports and other locations, from balloons, even, and then took their average — sort of. That number was then declared as the Official Temperature of Earth for 2016.

The “sort of” is important. Because the places and methods of measurement used in 2016 were not exactly the same as those used in 2015; and those used in 2015 were not the same as those used in 2014; and so on. And those used in, for instance, 1914 are completely different than in 2014. A century ago, mercury-in-glass thermometers were in a different class than the digital complexities in use today. Too, 100 years ago the places of measurement were few in number. Vast areas of the globe went unmeasured. And at places which were the same, well, thermometers out in the woods in 1914 now have a cities grown up around them. Even in modern times, thermometers break and are serviced. Buoys corrode. And so on. Things change.

And then we have to consider the devices used to measure temperature are imperfect. They are only accurate to, say, a tenth of a degree; and this plus-or-minus uncertainty varies from instrument to instrument, and even at the same instrument from year to year (consider how efficient your joints are as you age). The accuracy of thermometers even fifty years ago was not the same as it is today. Shipboard measurements 100 years ago were of an entirely different nature than now. (For more from the author of “Fireworks, Protests, Celebs, Prayers — What to Expect at the Inauguration” please click HERE)

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Why Trump Poses a Bigger Threat to the Left Than Reagan, According to Newt Gingrich

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President-elect Donald Trump poses a greater threat to the left than any other political leader in the last 100 years, Newt Gingrich proclaimed on the eve of Inauguration Day.

Speaking at The Heritage Foundation on Thursday, Gingrich predicted that the Trump administration will dismantle the Washington establishment, unlike anything America has ever seen.

“Trump is a direct moral threat to both the value system of the left—because he’s so politically incorrect—and to the power structure of the left,” the former House speaker said.

Trump will put an end to the liberal agenda pushed by the establishment since Franklin Roosevelt, Gingrich predicted.

“I believe it’s an opportunity to end the 84-year dominance of the left starting with Roosevelt in 1932,” Gingrich said. “[Ronald] Reagan didn’t end it, I didn’t end it. It has continued to be the dominant underlying force in American culture and government. We have a chance now to really do that.”

As the media becomes increasingly terrified and the left’s anticipation has risen, Gingrich said, it has become clear to me that there is no historical parallel to Trumpism.

Not even Reagan can serve as a model for a chief executive whose primary goal is to completely alter the current power structure, Gingrich noted.

“Reagan’s goal was to defeat the Soviet empire and, within the context of the traditional system, to accelerate economic growth and rebuild a belief in America and American history,” he said. “He didn’t spend a lot of time trying to take on the core value system of the left.”

Trump’s tackling of the left’s ideology is comparable to Margaret Thatcher’s annihilation of socialism in Great Britain during her years as prime minister.

Thatcher assailed socialism, “which is exactly what Trump should do,” Gingrich said. “Thatcher was a direct threat to both the value system and the power structure of the left in Great Britain.”

Gingrich suggested that while Trump may not be an ideological, traditional conservative, he has the ability to not only create jobs and stimulate the economy, but also to overpower the left’s agenda.

“He is not an ideological, traditional conservative, but he may be the most anti-left political leader of the last 100 years,” Gingrich said. “If they come together as a team and if they really focus on large-scale change, this will in fact be a historic opportunity.

Gingrich urged Trump voters to be both “noisily supported” of the administration and heavily critical of the elite news media.

“Every time the news media does something wrong, scream at them,” he said. “Just pound on them. Don’t pretend that we should pay attention to them in a positive way.”

Gingrich will pick up with part four of his six-part series on understanding Trump and Trumpism at Heritage on Monday, Jan. 23. The speech will take place at 11 a.m. EST. (For more from the author of “Why Trump Poses a Bigger Threat to the Left Than Reagan, According to Newt Gingrich” please click HERE)

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Trump Day One Executive Actions Could Include Immigration, Obamacare, ISIS, and Trade

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President-elect Donald Trump plans to use “four or five” executive actions on Friday after being sworn into office, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.

“We’ve talked about that for a few months now—Obamacare, the fight against ISIS, he talked about immigration, key issues that have been important to him throughout the campaign that will continue to be important to him throughout this administration,” Spicer said Thursday at a press briefing.

This comes after Wednesday, when Spicer told reporters that Trump will have “in the area of four or five” executive actions during his first day in office.

During the Thursday press briefing, Spicer said Trump is committed to using executive actions beyond day one.

“I think the president-elect is still working through which [executive actions] he wants to deal with tomorrow versus Monday or Tuesday,” Spicer said.

When later asked about trade, Spicer said Trump will move on taking action on the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“Part of what he announced in the executive order list, around Thanksgiving time, included actions on both TPP and NAFTA that will be done by executive order,” Spicer said. “So I think you will see those happen very shortly.”

During the campaign, Trump announced his first action to protect American workers will be to announce his plan to renegotiate NAFTA, a trade deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico, with the threat of withdrawal if necessary. He also intends to withdraw from the TPP, an 11-nation trade agreement negotiated by the Obama administration.

Ditching TPP would be largely symbolic because the agreement is essentially dead on arrival in Congress. But early executive actions by presidents are frequently symbolic, to mark a turning of the page in policy, said Dan Mahaffee, vice president for the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, a nonpartisan education and public policy organization.

“Early in administrations, executive actions are used to fire up the base, but it also fires up the opposition,” Mahaffee told The Daily Signal.

Trump’s first 100-day plan, which includes potential executive actions on immigration, ethics, and energy, says he will “cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum, and order issued by President Obama.”

Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst with the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, anticipates more than symbolism from Trump’s earliest days.

“On one hand, symbolism could be a good place to start while the administration figures out how to implement a certain policy, but at the same time, I’m more inclined to think Donald Trump will run right into the fire,” Skelley said.

In the 100-day plan, Trump has said he would impose a lifetime ban on former White House staffers becoming lobbyists for a foreign government.

He also pledged to lift restrictions on energy production, which could include reversing President Barack Obama’s executive-imposed Clean Power Plan, for what he said would be $50 trillion worth of jobs.

With regard to immigration, the Islamic State and Obamacare, some actions could be broad. For example, a president has wide latitude as commander-in-chief to combat the Islamic State.

Only Congress can repeal Obamacare. However, Trump could reverse some of the executive enforcement actions by the Obama administration, such as directing the Department of Health and Human Services to end mandated insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and therapy or surgery for gender transition.

On immigration, which was a signature issue for Trump during the campaign, he has said one of the actions he would take in the first 100 days is canceling federal funding to sanctuary cities or municipalities that don’t enforce federal immigration law.

Trump has also vowed to begin removing more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country, which is largely a federal law enforcement matter. (For more from the author of “Trump Day One Executive Actions Could Include Immigration, Obamacare, ISIS, and Trade” please click HERE)

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Trump Team Right to Consider ‘Dramatic’ Cuts to Federal Budget

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The Hill reported Thursday that President-elect Donald Trump’s team is considering “dramatic” cuts to the federal budget, using as a baseline a report issued in 2016 by The Heritage Foundation.

Predictably, the left is having an absolute meltdown.

The bloggers at Slate fanned themselves with sanctimonious tweets from people who clearly hadn’t read the Heritage proposals. Meanwhile, the liberals at Salon and Mother Jones took to their fainting couches over the idea that Trump might eliminate the Violence Against Women grants—failing, of course, to note that the Government Accountability Office has already questioned the effectiveness of the grant program.

What all this hand-wringing and hysteria ignores is why contemplating budget cuts is so vitally necessary.

This country is almost $20 trillion in debt. Our entitlement programs—Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security—are headed toward bankruptcy. The U.S. continues to finance its spending with money it doesn’t have, making nations like China our largest creditor.

In 2015, the national debt exceeded 100 percent of everything the economy produced in goods and services—a warning siren if there ever was one, as countries with debt-to-gross domestic product ratios above 90 percent experience a significant reduction in economic growth.

Without meaningful reforms, America is on track to become economically stagnant and permanently debt-bound.

That is why it should come as no surprise that the new president is focused on tackling America’s debt crisis. The Trump team received several mandates from the voters in November, but one of them was to get the bloated federal budget under control.

If it hews to the Heritage “Blueprint for Balance,” it’ll start by first tackling programs that are wasteful, duplicative, and inefficient—not the vital government services that feverish liberals would have you believe.

For example, have you heard of the catfish inspection program? This program is so wasteful and duplicative that the Government Accountability Office has tried no less than nine times to get rid of it. In 2016, the Senate voted to do just that, but without corresponding action from the House of Representatives, the program remains.

Eliminating it would save $14 million a year. (And lest you worry about the cleanliness of your catfish, a similar program already exists at the Food and Drug Administration, where it runs at a cost of $700,000 a year.)

Or maybe you didn’t know that the Environmental Protection Agency has a whole lot of office space that it isn’t using. If it leased all of it out, the agency could save $22 million in one year. On a similar note, if we eliminated just one of the many corporate welfare programs within the federal government, we could save anywhere from $15 million to $500 million a year.

These are the low-hanging fruit of budget cuts: easy and obvious ways to save money. Unfortunately, it’s still not enough to right the fiscal ship. Tough choices—trade-offs between spending and saving—must be made.

Over the years, the role of government has expanded into almost every area of modern life. Reducing spending requires reducing that footprint. That’s why the blueprint proposes to eliminate organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts.

While some may argue that government has a role in fostering the growth of culture, the government simply does not have the resources to do this while simultaneously promoting fiscally prudent growth.

As it stands, the American citizens are doing pretty well advocating the arts—in 2014, Americans gave $358 billion to charity, and of that, nearly $18 billion went to the arts and humanities. Rather than writhing in their sackcloth and ashes over this “draconian” cut in spending, liberals should be applauding this private philanthropy.

The same calculus goes for the tough choices that must be made at agencies across the government. Should we have an entire government office focused on promoting energy efficiency when the private market is already meeting this need? Should there really be an entire bank paying foreign firms and foreign governments to purchase American goods from already wealthy corporations?

Tackling spending requires a review of government priorities. It means looking at programs through a critical lens, with an eye toward responsible stewardship, efficient allocation, and the role of government.

To liberals who think every cent of government spending is sacrosanct, any budget cut means the end of the world. But to the rest of America, to those who want to live in a country with a strong economy with well-managed resources, the actions of the Trump team are a breath of fresh—and very necessary—air. (For more from the author of “Trump Team Right to Consider ‘Dramatic’ Cuts to Federal Budget” please click HERE)

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Christian Comedy Film Set to Hit 900 Theaters This Weekend

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On Jan. 20, two events are happening that are appreciated by many in flyover country, but cause confusion or disdain at best among the pop culture elite.

One, of course, is the presidential inauguration. The other event, admittedly slightly less well-known, is the opening of the faith-based feature film I directed, “The Resurrection of Gavin Stone.”

The film tells the story of Gavin Stone, a washed-up former child star who, in his 30s, gets in some trouble in his hometown and is sentenced to 200 hours of community service at a local mega-church.

While there, Gavin sees they’re putting on a big passion play, so he pretends to be a Christian so he can play the part of Jesus and avoid cleaning toilets. And of course, by playing the part of Jesus he learns more about him, and he ultimately experiences the uncommon community and grace that he can’t get anywhere but church.

Church. That’s the scary word.

A movie set in a church, about a church, and written and directed by churchgoers (evangelical, no less). A movie that dares to say that church is filled with flawed but ultimately loving and generous people.

Despite the increase in successful faith-based films over the last few years, Hollywood still doesn’t have much of a lane for this kind of film.

In an early test screening of the film, which was attended by Christians and non-Christians alike, the scores were significant. The average test score is in the low 70s. We got an 89.

We thought we had the next sleeper hit on our hands. And yet the process of securing distribution and booking theaters has been arduous. We held at least a dozen meetings in which we concluded that we didn’t know how to reach our target audience.

It was strikingly similar to how conventional wisdom didn’t quite match internal polling and analysis for a certain someone. (Yes, I’m comparing my film to our next president.)

It didn’t help that our film is largely a comedy, which is highly unusual for a faith film. And it’s also not quite as much of a “cause” film as several of the most successful faith-based hits in recent years. So it’s a bit outside of the box in the current marketplace.

But isn’t it strange that a snapshot of the nearly 100 million regular American churchgoers—at least a few of whom are funny—is considered a unique audience?

Fortunately, there were some companies who were willing to take the plunge on our film (BH Tilt, Walden Media, and flyover state proficient WWE Studios), and it’s now coming to 900 theaters this weekend. Pre-screenings have gotten terrific responses, albeit with a ton of “this was so much better/funnier than I expected.”

I’ll just leave it at this: If all of the 40 percent of the country who approve of Trump end up liking our film, that will be great box office. (For more from the author of “Trump Team Right to Consider ‘Dramatic’ Cuts to Federal Budget” please click HERE)

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Eric Braverman, Missing Former Clinton Foundation CEO, Sighted — Kind Of

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The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported today that former Clinton Foundation CEO Eric Braverman will be joining the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Group, a left-wing philanthropic organization. As I covered previously, no one has been able to get in touch with Braverman since October, when an email released from Wikileaks revealed that John Podesta had named him as a mole within the foundation.

Eric and Wendy Schmidt provided a statement to the paper, which said in part, “As we look to increase our impact, Eric Braverman’s insight into growing solutions that work and his experience with leaders in government, philanthropy, and business will be central to our efforts.” Wendy also tweeted a welcome to Braverman announcing the hire.

Braverman did not respond to her over Twitter. He still has not tweeted since October.

Eric Schmidt is a former CEO of Google, where he came under fire for illegally conspiring with Apple, Intel, and Adobe to refuse to hire each others’ tech engineers in order to avert a salary war. Employees filed a class-action lawsuit and were awarded $415 million, to be paid by the four companies. Last year, Schmidt invested in Groundwork, an organization that worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, spending $500,000 as of May 2016. Schmidt is considered the 100th wealthiest person in the world, and through his organization contributes millions of dollars to environmental causes.

If He’s Not Missing, Where Is He?

Based on this announcement, it appears likely that Braverman is not missing or in hiding. But based on the fact that he has yet to respond publicly, speculation continues that he’s been told by someone — like the FBI — not to make any public statements or speak to anyone in the press or on social media.

One possible reason is that he might be a witness in any charges brought against the Clintons, their foundation, or its employees. This would be true especially if he was the source of the Wikileaked documents that so embarrassed the Clintons, as Wikileaks’ Julian Assange has hinted.

There’s another possible explanation for his long silence: is he staying silent to embarrass conservatives investigating his disappearance? Some of the sites covering his absence have made sloppy claims that discredited them, such as claiming he’d never shown up for his teaching position at Yale when he’s been teaching there for a couple years.

The class Braverman teaches at Yale resumes on January 27. If he shows up. (For more from the author of “Eric Braverman, Missing Former Clinton Foundation CEO, Sighted — Kind Of” please click HERE)

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The $20 Trillion Question Republicans MUST Answer

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Obama’s parting gift to this country is a transformed society with $20 trillion in debt. The big question is what will Republicans do differently to curb the growth of the debt?

Given recent news about GOP plans on health care and infrastructure, there are no signs things will improve. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office has released a new “fiscal health” study, which portends disturbing trends for our fiscal stability.

The gross federal debt now stands at $19.94 trillion — roughly $9.3 trillion more than it was when Obama took office. It took from our nation’s founding until 2008 (including most of the profligate Bush presidency) to accrue the first $9.3 trillion in debt. The public’s share of the debt is now $14.4 trillion, an $8.1 trillion increase since 2009.

Yes, Obama more than doubled the public share of the debt during his presidency!

obama debt graph (1)

The gross federal debt, which includes intra-governmental debt comprised primarily of obligations for Social Security, federal pensions, and military pensions, is now 107 percent of the size of our economy and will forever grow larger than our GDP. When Obama was inaugurated, the gross debt was just 74 percent of GDP. If we look at just the public share of the debt, the numbers are even starker. In January 2009, the public share of the debt was just 44 percent of GDP; now it stands at 77.4 percent.

To make matters worse, the GAO published a report amplifying what we all already know: The current fiscal crisis will place “the federal government on an unsustainable long-term fiscal path.” Here are some other key takeaways from the report:

The federal government made $144 billion in improper payments during 2016. Errors in Medicare, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit collectively accounted for 78 percent of the overpayments.

If health care spending is not reined in, the public share of the debt (now at 77 percent) will reach 106 percent in 15 years and surpass the all-time high during the peak of WWII.

One of the reasons the debt has not already engulfed this country in a fiscal calamity is because of the artificially low interest rates servicing increased debt on the cheap. But a return to historically average interest rates, in conjunction with the growing size of the debt itself, will self-perpetuate interest on the debt as the fastest growing expenditure. It will more than quadruple from just 1.4 percent of the economy today to 6.2 percent in 30 years. The longer we wait, therefore, to address the debt crisis, the steeper the punishment will be when the tab comes due. At present, we pay $273 billion in interest payments. That number will rise to $1.4 trillion in 2045 (adjusted for inflation).

Spending on federal health care programs will double from roughly $1 trillion to $2 trillion (adjusted for inflation) by 2045.

These are not merely abstract numbers on a balance sheet that only affect the budget of the federal government. Aside from the fact that taxpayers will ultimately bear the cost of this debt, the crushing debt and misallocation of resources is already hurting the family budget. As the report observes, “high levels of national debt may contribute to higher interest rates leading to lower investment and a smaller capital stock to assist economic growth.”

As we head into an era of GOP dominance, we must pose the $20 trillion question: Where is the party of fiscal conservatism?

Rather than discussing ways to make existing health care entitlements more free market-oriented to lower costs, Republicans are concocting a new massive health care entitlement built on top of crushing regulations that will force taxpayers to subsidize health care at the highest price possible.

This GAO report demonstrates the additional folly of pursuing Obamacare 2.0 instead of the free market. The gross cost of Medicare already outpaces military spending, and the combined federal and state price tag for Medicaid will soon overtake the defense budget. According to the CMS Actuary, in just six years, annual Medicaid expenditures will total $835 billion compared with the $687 billion projected cost of base military spending in 2023. The simple reality is that there is no way to forestall the financial collapse without dealing with health care spending.

Why can’t Republicans just speak the truth of how socialist health care is bankrupting the private and public sectors and pin the blame where it rightfully belongs? Why are they being defensive about the need to legitimize Obamacare with a commensurate “replacement?”

While the media focus on the inaugural attire of the Trump family this weekend, conservatives should begin demanding answers from Trump and Republicans to the $20 trillion question. (For more from the author of “The $20 Trillion Question Republicans MUST Answer” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Decision to Commute Manning Proves Liberals Will Always Choose Political Gain over Justice

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In light of President Obama’s commutation of national traitor Chelsea Manning Tuesday, the looming question of whether Manning’s status as a transgender “woman” had anything to do with the decision remains. Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld speculated Wednesday about whether a non-trans individual in Manning’s situation would have enjoyed such a generous (and completely asinine) pardon:

If this were just an average guy that had leaked this stuff and just went to jail as an average guy and didn’t go and have a sex change and become a sympathetic character, would that person be treated differently? I think that person would be treated differently from Chelsea Manning.

There is reason to believe that Manning’s status as a “sympathetic character” played a role in his commutation, given Obama’s never-ending effort to appeal to the far Left. And if courting the favor of anti-establishment liberals was the goal, Obama succeeded.

The disgraced former U.S. Army soldier received support from Hollywood figures and prominent SJWs, who touted him as a “hero” of the LGBT community. WikiLeaks touted the commutation as a “victory”:

Tuesday’s decision is just the latest debacle in Obama’s long history of administrative missteps (i.e. befriending enemies of liberty). Take the recent death of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: Obama sent one of his closest aides to attend Castro’s funeral, and the White House formulated a sentimental tribute to the murderous tyrant.

The outgoing president’s commutation announcement Tuesday was met with harsh backlash from conservatives who noted the blatant hypocrisy of Obama pardoning Manning while his party continues to condemn Russia and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for allegedly tampering with the presidential election.

Others cited Manning’s commutation as further evidence of the Obama administration’s complete disregard for law and order:

In an interview with “CBS This Morning” Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest offered what is quite possibly the lamest response to this episode:

The thing that I think is outrageous is for Republicans to say is that somehow Chelsea Manning deserves a more serious punishment because of her collusion with Wikileaks and its damage to the country when they endorsed a man for president of the United States who praised Wikileaks, who encouraged people to go and check out Wikileaks and who encouraged Wikileaks to collude with the Russians to hack his opponent. It is outrageous for them to suggest that right now what Chelsea Manning did is worse than what the man who they endorsed for president did.

Even if it were true that the majority of Republicans approve of hacker Julian Assange, his anti-American activities, and his interference with the U.S. election (they don’t), since when did, “Republicans excuse traitors, too” become a viable defense for absolving a man who aided terrorists and put countless American lives at risk?

This was never about “justice.” The real reason for Obama’s preferential treatment of Chelsea Manning is that the LGBT and sexual identity issues have become the issue for the Left, presenting Obama another easy opportunity to play the social justice hero and deity — without any of the cost or fallout. His disgraceful decision shows an utter indifference toward justice and a disregard for the safety of American citizens. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Decision to Commute Manning Proves Liberals Will Always Choose Political Gain over Justice” please click HERE)

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Rand Paul’s Smack down of Bernie Sanders’ Anti-American Rhetoric Is Frickin’ Fantastic

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In his questioning of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. (D, 62%) Wednesday at the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee confirmation hearing, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (F, 17%) asked the HHS nominee if he thought health care is a “right of all Americans whether they’re rich or they’re poor?”

“We’re a compassionate society,” Price began his reply before Sanders cut him off, stating, “No, we’re not a compassionate society in terms of our relationship to poor and working people. Our record is worse than virtually any other country on earth. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty than any other major country on earth and half of our senior, older workers have nothing set aside for retirement. So I don’t think compared to other countries we are particularly compassionate.”

When it was Sen. Rand Paul’s, R-Ky. (A, 92%) turn to question Rep. Price, a former practicing physician, he centered his comments on rebutting Sen. Sanders:

“It’s also been insinuated that America is this horrible, rotten place, and that we don’t have compassion. And by extension, the physicians don’t. As you worked as an emergency room physician or as you worked, did you always agree that as part of your engagement with a hospital to treat all, regardless of whether they had the ability to pay?” questioned Sen. Paul, a trained ophthalmologist who has completed medical missions since taking office.

Price answered that, “It’s one of the things we pride ourselves on, and that is anybody that showed up in need of care was provided that care. And that was true not only in our residency but in our private orthopedic practice as well.”

Paul continued: “It’s interesting that those who say we have no compassion, you know, extol the virtues of socialism. And you look at a country like Venezuela, with great resources and an utter disaster where people can’t eat, devolving into violence. I think it’s important that we do have a debate ultimately in our country between socialism and communism and America and capitalism.

“One of things that’s extraordinary about our country is that just two years ago, in 2014, we gave away $400 billion privately. Not the government — individually, through churches and charities. We’re an incredibly compassionate society and I think often this was misplaced in sort of the wonky numbers … within healthcare. How much we do help each other — not only do we help each other in our country, I bet you half of the physicians in my community in Bowling Green have gone on international trips and done international charity work.

“And all that is lost in saying that we’re this heartless, terrible country. I would just argue the opposite. I think the greatness of our country and the greatness of the compassion of our country, we give away most of the gross domestic product of most of these socialized countries around the world.”

Sen. Rand Paul’s smackdown of Sanders’ empty, predictable rhetoric on capitalism and America was an immediate hit on social media.

No word yet on how Bernie Sanders is nursing his wounds. (For more from the author of “Rand Paul’s Smack down of Bernie Sanders’ Anti-American Rhetoric Is Frickin’ Fantastic” please click HERE)

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The Story Media Bubble-Dwellers Won’t Tell You about Our ‘Divided’ Country

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The narrative following the last election is that America is a deeply divided country. Split right down the middle on both values and vision.

But what if that isn’t exactly what’s happening here?

Clearly a deep divide exists within the country. However, what isn’t known is how much of the country this divide exists within.

Is it possible that since the parts of the country most estranged from and hostile to the ideals of American Exceptionalism also happens to be where the most of the media lives and works, as well where most of pop culture is produced, the conventional wisdom on how divided we are could be overblown?

The data suggests that could be case.

Democrats are at their lowest level of national representation in American politics since before the Great Depression. Hillary Clinton won fewer than 15% of the nation’s counties, despite winning the overall national popular vote by more than 2 million votes. A margin, by the way, which came entirely from one state. Minus the leftist home world known as the People’s Republic of California, Donald Trump actually won the popular vote by well over a million votes everywhere else.

Trump also won Pennsylvania, which a Republican hasn’t won since 1988. He won Wisconsin, which a Republican hasn’t won since 1984. He won Iowa, which Republicans have only won once since 1988. He won Michigan, which a Republican hasn’t won since 1988. And he broke those decades-long trends by doing pretty much everything GOP consultants — who demand bland — have been advising the party’s standard-bearers not to do all this time.

Not to mention Trump’s own considerable personal baggage, including a frustrating tendency to seemingly find the most boorish way possible to communicate — even when it clearly isn’t necessary.

If you look at the below map of this election you actually see a lot of agreement on which direction to take the country, alongside concentrated pockets of resistance.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not having conservative delusions of grandeur, just because it appears rumors of America’s alleged leftist takeover have been greatly exaggerated. Given what I do for a living I fight on the frontlines for conservatism every day, so I’m well aware of the fact what I’m fighting for isn’t the majority view in the country, either. After all, we just went through an election when GOP primary voters rejected any semblance of conservatism in nominating Trump, as well as a general election that was almost completely devoid of conservative themes and ideas.

But what we conservatives are fighting for is a return to the ideals that founded the country, rather than the radical departure away from them progressives seek. So even if America isn’t quite ready yet for limited government (and it’s clearly not), where the country stands politically at the moment proves most Americans have rejected the existential upheaval the Left is after.

For example, reasonable people can disagree on what restrictions regarding gun ownership are prudent in light of the Second Amendment. But the Left wants to debate whether private citizens should own guns at all.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether those of the same gender should be permitted lawfully to have relationships with one another, provided they’re not imposing on anybody else’s freedom in the process. But the Left wants to force those who morally disagree with homosexuality to be compelled by government to violate their own conscience in order to function as a full-fledged member of society.

Reasonable people can disagree whether schools should teach our children abstinence, offer birth control, or remain silent on the matter altogether. But the Left wants the killing of children not only protected by law but supported by tax dollars.

And it doesn’t stop there. Heck, the Left seeks the complete dismantling of gender altogether. One of the most fundamental recognitions required of any civilized, enlightened society.

See, it appears what our friends on the Left call division is really discernment. The rest of America has simply chosen not to bankrupt themselves fiscally and morally as our friends on the Left have. It’s not that the rest of America isn’t smart enough to ingest progressive magical thinking, it’s that they’re smart enough not to. (For more from the author of “The Story Media Bubble-Dwellers Won’t Tell You about Our ‘Divided’ Country” please click HERE)

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