I'd never met a president before Donald Trump. His empathy and thoughtfulness on one of the worst days of my life won my gratitude.

"I call on President Trump to immediately issue an executive order..."

That this even had to be explained was ... something.

Ryan Long and his fellow actors portray an editorial room now faced with the prospect of writing articles in a world where there is no President Trump. The initial joy of Biden’s victory quickly wears off as they attempt to come up with something, anything, to write about.

Frustration immediately sets in, followed by panic. Before you know it, they’re wishing they had their favorite punching bag back.

“I’m 2o-something and I hate Trump. That’s all I know!” says one of the journos.

“I don’t remember life BT,” says another, meaning “Before Trump.”

As hilarious as this is, it’s likely that this may well come true. Without Trump to drive the clicks, it’s unclear what leftists sites from HuffPo to CNN will actually talk about. For months, CNN relied on the Russian conspiracy to drive eyeballs to its channel, and then once that was over, viewership collapsed.

Polling after the convention showed zero bounce for the historic ticket that includes the first female, Black, Jamaican and Indian vice presidential nominee for a major party.

The two early problems I noticed with the ticket (Senator Harris’ policy flip flops and criminal justice record plus Joe Biden’s diminishing mental capacity and propensity for gaffes) are problems the electorate seems to have identified and have concerns with as well.

I find it noteworthy that Joe Biden’s acceptance speech garnered a larger audience than President Trump’s acceptance speech but President Trump is the candidate leaving his convention with a polling bounce:

President Trump’s continued diplomatic successes, will continue to engender even more of them.

Alice Johnson is just one of those reasons. //

there’s the inconvenient fact that Alice Johnson exists — a Black woman who served time in prison for a first-time drug offense, and is now free and pardoned by the President of the United States himself. If anyone should feel downtrodden and victimized, it’s Johnson. But instead of railing against the sexist and racist man in the White House, she told Fox News on Friday she “[doesn’t] believe President Trump is a racist”:

“The people who are saying this don’t even know President Trump,” she said. “I don’t believe President Trump is a racist. My interactions with him and the things that he said and the things that I know touches his heart, those things would not come from a racist man.”

Johnson’s voice is just one of many, along with the others within Pres. Trump’s administration and in Congress, like Secretary Ben Carson and Sen. Tim Scott, and personal friends like Herschel Walker. Convincing the American people he’s racist or sexist is going to be a tough sell come November.

Earlier Red State contributor Nick Armana reported on Letter signed by six Minnesota Mayors — Democrats all — formally endorsing Donald Trump’s candidacy for re-election. The implications of this letter owe not just to the traditional political allegiances of the Mayors who signed, but to the nature of the Democrat party |

Dissident Chen Guangcheng's speech at the convention was no accident.

Because of the media being so hysterically anti-Trump, this convention is the first time in about four years that non-leftist Americans have seen other Americans reflecting their positive views about President Trump.

It's been four years since Donald Trump made a string of promises during his long 2016 campaign to be the 45th president of the United States. As his big speech to the RNC looms, how is he doing on keeping them?

Many of them made headlines - from banning all Muslims entering the US, to building a wall along the border with Mexico.

So how did he do?

Israel and the United Arab Emirates agree to normalise relations in the third Israel-Arab peace deal. //

Opening direct ties between two of the Middle East's most dynamic societies and advanced economies will transform the region by spurring economic growth, enhancing technological innovation, and forging closer people-to-people relations," the joint statement says.

Israel will also "suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined" in President Trump's Vision for Peace between Israel and the Palestinians, in which he backed an Israeli plan to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the strategic Jordan Valley.

Trump has begun something long thought impossible.

The United States finally has an administration willing to secure America's freedom from the Chinese Communist Party — whatever it takes. //

Two days after the United States ordered China to close its consulate at Houston within 72 hours, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo clarified the Trump administration’s foreign policy on China in a major speech on July 23. Because shutting down a country’s diplomatic mission is a very serious and provocative step, many wonder if the Sino-U.S. relationship is in freefall and what that could mean for the rest of the world. So Pompeo’s speech couldn’t have come at a better time. //

The truth is that our policies — and those of other free nations — resurrected China’s failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that were feeding it. We opened our arms to Chinese citizens, only to see the Chinese Communist Party exploit our free and open society. China sent propagandists into our press conferences, our research centers, our high-schools, our colleges, and even into our PTA meetings …

We gave the Chinese Communist Party and the regime itself special economic treatment, only to see the CCP insist on silence over its human rights abuses as the price of admission for Western companies entering China. //

So if past policies failed, what is the Trump administration’s policy, and what result the administration hopes to achieve? According to Pompeo, the Trump administration’s new China policy is rooted in practicality. This begins with treating the CCP as who they are, not whom we wish them to be.

Pompeo pointed out: “We have to keep in mind that the CCP regime is a Marxist-Leninist regime. General Secretary Xi Jinping is a true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology.” Therefore, “America can no longer ignore the fundamental political and ideological differences between our countries, just as the CCP has never ignored them.” Pompeo also revised President Reagan’s famous phrase, “Trust but verify” to “Distrust and verify” when dealing with the CCP. //

On one hand, it’s setting clear expectations of what the Sino-U.S. relationship should be — balanced, fair, and reciprocal. On the other hand, it’s confronting the CCP head-on, whether it’s about the South China Sea, human rights violations in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, the trade imbalance, or years of technology theft and political influence campaigns planted by the CCP within the United States.

Perhaps the most self-aware answer he's ever given to a question.

Great interview...

Donald Trump did not mention Lincoln’s First Inaugural address in his speech commemorating the spirit of American Independence at Mount Rushmore on Friday night. But the president’s speech—perhaps his most forceful and eloquent to date—vibrated with the same energy and existential commitment that fired Lincoln in March 1861.

Lincoln came to office at a time of crisis. His election had precipitated the secession of seven Southern states. His inaugural address was both a plea for conciliation and unity as well as a warning that violence would be stopped with force. “We are not enemies, but friends,” Lincoln said.

Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Donald Trump issued a kindred invitation to unity in the midst of conflict. The signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in July 1776 was a world-historical event. It represented, the president rightly said, “the culmination of thousands of years of Western Civilization—and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.” At the center of the triumph was the animating possession of liberty, made possible by the unanimous affirmation of the principles Thomas Jefferson articulated in the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . .”

The president’s speech was a passionate celebration of American freedom and American greatness—a greatness, he noted, that was embodied by the sublime majesty of the heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt sculpted into the granite pinnacle of Mt. Rushmore. //

the president has promised to cancel cancel culture. Is that a contradiction, a violation of the spirit of tolerance he has promised to uphold? No.

The enemies of civilization routinely use and abuse its freedoms in order to destroy it. Candid men understand this and act to prevent it. As G. K. Chesterton put it, “There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.” //

The president accurately diagnosed the extent of the malady and its true goal:

In our schools, our newsrooms—even our corporate boardrooms—there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished. Make no mistake: this left-wing Cultural Revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress.

Remember this the next time you see a mob come for a statue of Christopher Columbus or George Washington or Teddy Roosevelt, or, indeed, of Robert E. Lee. What they are coming for is our history—who we are.

When Sen. Bob Dole accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1996, his speech hit on the themes of “honor, decency and straight talk.” He proudly mentioned the great Republican Abraham Lincoln and explicitly denounced racism.

“The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view. But if there’s anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you — tonight this hall belongs to the party of Lincoln. And the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise,” Dole said.

The speech was held up in 2016 as an example of how wonderful Republican candidates for president used to be before Donald Trump. So it’s interesting to also look back at how this speech was received by its critics. For example, then-Senior White House Adviser George Stephanopoulos called it “partisan, negative and divisive.”

Fast-forward 24 years to the present. Once again a prominent Republican gives a speech with themes of honor and decency and straight talk. Once again the prominent Republican explicitly and repeatedly denounces racism. The Republican praises Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Frederick Douglass, the Wright Brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton, Louie Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Irving Berlin, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Bob Hope.

And once again critics claim that the speech is “dark and divisive.” //

[Martha Raddatz ] opined that Trump had delivered “anything but a message of unity” and a “very grim message for America.” Raddatz further shared her anti-Trump campaign narrative: “This speech was not the only time in the past few weeks the president has seemed eager to turn the attention back to the issues of race in this country, how does he expected to get re-elected with a message like that?”

It may seem quaint to do so in this day and age of fact-free opinion, but let’s look at the actual words of the Trump speech that Raddatz claimed was grim and racist:

We believe in equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment for citizens of every race, background, religion, and creed. Every child, of every color — born and unborn — is made in the holy image of God. (Applause.)

We want free and open debate, not speech codes and cancel culture.

We embrace tolerance, not prejudice. //

As if orders went out from a central director, nearly every major media outlet flat-out lied about Trump’s speech. Whether they were engaged in reflexive “political advisor” mode like the Stephanopoulos of old, whether they had pre-drafted their reports based on dubious theories about what would be in the speech, or whether they simply decided that the best way to counter an effective political message was to simply lie about it, lie about it they did.

On Thursday afternoon, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany briefed the White House press corps.

You don't get to let your cities burn for political gain and then get taxpayer money for it.