Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, January 13, 2018

B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 13, 2018 OPINION B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 13, 2018 OPINION 
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TOM PURCELL 



FRIGID WINTER SAD FOR 
ANTI-TRUMPERS 

Boy, it’s cold across America.

It’s so cold, politicians are picking their own pockets, people are

flocking inside the U.S. Capitol just for the hot air, and the outlook for

anti-Trumpers has been downgraded from miserable and bewildered

to hopelessly depressed.

Here’s one reason anti-Trumpers are especially down this winter: Seasonal Affective Disorder(SAD).

According to About.com , this woeful malady is triggered by overcast winter weather. Lackof exposure to sunlight can cause low levels of melatonin and serotonin. Low levels of bothcause depression-like symptoms.

Lots of people are affected by SAD at this time every year, but, according to Dr. NormanRosenthal - who, reports Newsweek, was the “first to describe the syndrome” - anti-Trumpersare especially susceptible to SAD symptoms this year.

That’s because stress exacerbates SAD symptoms, and anti-Trumpers are under severe stress.

“You know, people are worried, then you hear that the president is going to annihilateNorth Korea,” Rosenthal tells Newsweek. “I think these stressors definitely do register morepowerfully.” 

Anti-Trumpers must also contend with a sizable list of Trump administrationaccomplishments.

President Trump successfully appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch, a solid conservative, to theSupreme Court, and is the first president to have 12 appellate appointments confirmed by theSenate during the first year of his presidency.

He signed into law the largest tax-reform bill in 31 years - a bill that makes conservativeshappy as it makes anti-Trumpers sad.

“In addition to slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, the landmark legislationcut individual rates for all income tax levels, doubled the child tax credit to $2,000, and 
dramatically increased the standard deduction,” reports the Washington Examiner.

Trump is slowly dismantling ObamaCare, which drove up premiums and deductiblesfor millions of middle-class Americans. The individual mandate was repealed as part ofRepublican tax reform.

Repealing the individual mandate is a big first step toward replacing ObamaCare’s complexitywith more creative health-care reform strategy that addresses the elephant in the living room:
massive costs. 

That can be accomplished, in part, by introducing a variety of market-based options that givepatients more control over the insurance they choose, the dollars they spend and the healthcare 
decisions they make with their doctors.

Another step toward reducing premiums and deductibles - toward extending high-qualityinsurance and care to the uninsured and needy - is to tackle massive complexity, and there isgrowing optimism that Trump may succeed in doing so.

Trump is undoing a variety of costly regulations imposed on the country during the Obamaadministration - many of these regulations impeded economic growth.

According to the Examiner, the Trump administration has “canceled or delayed more than1,500 regulations in the first 11 months” and “ultimately cut 22 regulations for each new oneenacted (last) year, saving taxpayers billions of dollars over the coming years.” 

In any event, some of Trump’s “conservative” successes may be a pleasant surprise toconservatives and libertarians, who were not big Trump supporters (I am in this group), butthey are extremely unpleasant to progressives - particularly during this bitter-cold winter.

Their SAD symptoms include increased anxiety and irritability. They are eating less andhaving difficulty falling asleep. They are craving carbohydrates and packing on weight, eatingjunk food.

So I empathize with you, my Trump-loathing friends. The only hope for you is that Trump’stax and regulation reforms work so well that America’s economy enjoys 4-percent growthagain.

We’ll be so busy depositing our economic windfall in the bank, nobody will have time tosuffer SAD symptoms.

Copyright 2018 by Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood”
and “Wicked Is the Whiskey,” a Sean McClanahan mystery novel, both available at Amazon.
com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively byCagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@
cagle.com or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com. 


LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN
DICK POLMAN 


ON IMMIGRATION, TRUMP 
IS RUDDERLESS 

It was awesome this week to watch Donald Trump in action - or,

more accurately, inaction.

Clearly stung by Michael Wolff ’s true portrayal, in “Fire and Fury,” 

of a guy whose sole core conviction is himself, a guy of limitedintellect who knows squat about policy, Trump invited the media to watch him presideover a White House confab on immigration with congressional leaders. He got a few goodreviews, because at this point the bar is so low that if he stays semi-attentive for 55 minuteswithout tweeting or drooling, somebody inevitably concludes that This Was The MomentWhen He Became President of the United States. 

But the camera doesn’t lie. It was glaringly obvious that on the issue of immigration,
mostly notably the future of the 700,000 dreamers (the undocumented immigrants whocame to America as kids), the very stable genius has no idea what he believes. Based onwhat he said at the meeting, he believes in everything that everyone in both parties said although 
he’d be fine with endorsing all of it or none of it, depending on what they want todo or not do. 

That’s the gist, compliments of a weak president who wants to lead from behind. Waybehind. 

Republican senators, in particular, were hoping that Trump would say what he wants;
after all, in a normally functioning government, it’s the president who frames the issues,
and provides policy direction, for his congressional allies. But alas, as Sen. James Lankfordadmitted later, the meeting “got confusing at times.” 

At times Trump appeared to endorse the Democrats’ idea of simply allowing thedreamers to stay in America, with no conditions attached - in legislative parlance, a “cleanbill.” When Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked on camera whether Trump would support a cleandreamer bill, he immediately declared, “Yeah, I would like to do it.” 

Huh? Isn’t that the opposite of what his Republican allies currently want? And isn’t thatthe opposite of what he promised his white-grievance fan base during the 2016 campaign,
when he vowed that “on day one” he would kick the dreamers out of the country?

Well, yes. But what he vowed in 2016 was the opposite of what he believed in 2011,
when he surfaced on Fox News to praise the dreamers: “You have people in this countryfor 20 years. They’ve done a great job, they’ve done wonderfully, they’ve gone to school,
they’ve gotten good marks, they’re productive. Now we’re supposed to send them out ofthe country? I don’t believe in that.” 

On Tuesday, his reaction to Feinstein vividly confirmed what Wolff says in his book,
that Trump simply agrees with the last person who advises him. And as soon as Trumpsaid yes to Feinstein, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy sought to be the last-lastperson to advise him. He quickly jumped in to gently tutor the pupil: “Mr. President, youneed to be clear, though …. You have to have security.” 

Trump later appeared to correct himself and say that, yeah, he wants dreamers plussecurity. And his press office tried to clean up the mess by purging his apparent supportfor a clean dreamer bill from the official White House transcript. When his flacks weresubsequently asked why Trump’s comment was mysteriously gone, they hilariouslyinsisted that the omission was inadvertent. 

At other points in the meeting, Trump said that he’s willing to support comprehensiveimmigration reform - including a path to citizenship - and hoped the negotiations wouldhappen very soon. But when Republican Sen. David Perdue said it can’t happen soonbecause Congress needs to focus on keeping the government open and passing a budget,
Trump left the impression that he’d be fine with that too. 

All told, his wobbles infuriated the rabid right, which doesn’t want a citizenship path atall. As Ann Coulter tweeted, “Nothing Michael Wolff could say about Trump has hurt himas much as the [dreamer] lovefest right now.” 

Whoever knew that governing could be so hard? On immigration, the congressionalRepublicans want guidance and direction, but their so-called leader is a rudderless ship.
At one point, he actually said: “I think my positions are going to be what the people in thisroom come up with. I am very much reliant on the people in this room.” 

It’s so refreshing when he doesn’t lie. 

Copyright 2018 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspapersyndicate.

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia(newsworks.org/polman) and a “Writer in Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania.
Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. 

MAKING SENSE by
MICHAEL REAGAN 


THE GOP CAN’T GET 
BURNT ON DACA DEAL 

Everyone knows something has to be done for America’s DACA kids.

Everyone with a good heart or a working brain knows it’s not theirfault their parents sneaked them into the country when they werekids under 16. 


It’s true that by law they are illegal immigrants.

But most DACA kids have grown up to become good, law-abiding Americans.

They’ve gone to school here. They’ve worked and paid taxes here. They’ve even served inour military.

Everyone except a few people on the far fringe knows it’d be wrong to deport these 800,000 
so-called “Dreamers” -- now or in the future. 

As we saw in Washington this week, DACA kids have become a bargaining chip forPresident Trump in his efforts to get Congress to build a border wall and reform immigrationpolicy.

President Obama created America’s DACA kids by executive order in 2012 with hisDeferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which delayed the deportation of “Dreamers”
who signed up for it for two years.

President Trump has already announced his administration’s plans to phase out DACA,
though this week a federal judge temporarily blocked that executive decision until a bunch oflawsuits challenging it are settled.

Trump and his Republican allies say they want to extend protections for the “Dreamers” aspart of a larger legislative bill that also funds the wall and ends chain immigration.

Democrats in Congress say to Trump, “OK, but extend DACA’s protections first, then we’ll 
deal with the border wall and other stuff later.” 

The DACA bar fight is still in the first round.

But already it’s a perfect example of how bad the Republicans are at educating the publicabout what they do in Washington and why they do it the way they do.

In this case, Republicans need to explain to the country why they are insisting on 
Congress doing DACA and immigration reform together.

The reason is because Republicans remember how badly they were burned by Democratsin 1986, after my father signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, aka the Simpson–
Mazzoli Act. 

Part one of Simpson-Mazzoli allowed 3 million illegal immigrants to have a pathway tocitizenship. That’s the only part of the bill people remember today – the so-called “Reagan 
Amnesty.” 

But nearly everyone – particularly the mainstream liberal media that thinks Americanpolitical history started when they woke up this morning – forgets about the second part.

Part 2 of Simpson-Mazzoli was an agreement to secure the southern border – which wasnever implemented in 1986 or to this day.

That’s the memory Republicans are still haunted by today. They have good reason to nottrust Democrats to keep their word on border security if they negotiate a two-step DACA-
immigration deal.

Now it’s up to the president, the speaker of the house and every important Republican inWashington to explain to the public why it’s so important for DACA and border security tobe done together.

The mainstream media will never fairly or fully explain the Republicans’ position on theirown, but if President Trump starts talking and tweeting about it, they’ll have to.

If Trump can bring enough attention to the GOP side of the immigration debate, a win-
win bipartisan deal might be possible.

The Republicans will have to cave on DACA and the Democrats will have to cave on theborder wall. 

President Trump has already said he’ll be willing to take the political hit to get animmigration reform deal done. Let him.

He doesn’t care anyway. He can say or do just about anything.
The worst that can happen to him is that in 2020 he has to go back to being a billionaire. 
-

Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, apolitical consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He isthe founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation.
Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments toReagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. 

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