27 Promises President Trump Has Already Kept In First 14 Days

Over at the blog "Maggie's Farm", TheNewsJunkie has a humdinger of a list!  Here are a few of my favorites:

TRUMP PROGRESS REPORT  

1.   Trump erased all mentions on the White House web site of “climate change.”  He did that within ONE HOUR of taking the oath of office.

4.   Trump withdrew America from the TPP treaty

5.   Trump erased all Spanish language from the White House web site. It is now “English Only.”

6.   Trump issued an Executive order starting the construction of “THE WALL.”

7.   Trump issued an Executive order banning funding to foreign pro-abortion groups

11.        Trump announced a ban on visas from dangerous Muslim-majority countries with inadequate screening

12.        Trump announced the end of “Sanctuary cities” and the defunding of federal funds for any city that chooses to continue breaking the law

13.        Trump announced the hiring of 10,000 new border agents

14.        Trump signed an Executive order demanding the Secretary of Homeland Security publish a weekly list of violent crimes committed by illegal aliens

15.        Trump signed an Executive order freezing the hiring of non-essential federal employees

16.        Trump said out loud the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”

18.        Trump used Executive orders to give the go-ahead to the long-stalled Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines

20.        Trump announced his intention to withdraw From Climate & Environmental Accords Along With UN Funding Cuts of 40%

22.        Trump announced he’ll begin a major investigation into voter fraud in the 2016 election

Click through to read the full list. It's GREAT! 

The 2016 Texas Republican Party Platform Reads Like a Declaration of Independence

Texas Republicans held our State Convention this past weekend, and our delegates have written a platform for the ages.  If you have been worried, fearing you were alone in seeing the dangers we face from bad agendas our leaders have secretly put forward the past 25 years, this will encourage you, You can read it all at this link (PDF).

 Because it is based on unchanging and established principles, in large part this platform is almost word for word the same as the 2014 platform (PDF), saving only the defense against the most recent falsehoods being used to attack settled civilization.

But already, it looks like most of the standard media outlets continue their unserious approach to reporting: picking out a few of the hard-left's most violent depredations to tag in the headlines and ignoring the other items of primary importance to real American citizens.

Yes, we oppose child sacrifice and defend biological realism against wholesale distortion by government action, but the issues of abortion and open toileting are ultimately weapons of the hard-left. We do not spend our time "thinking about" those heartless weapons of misrule.

Instead, the ISSUES and principles of importance to us exist without regard to what the hard-left does. The genuinely important things are timeless and immortal, while the entropic manufactures of the hard-left fail without exception.

If the hard-left were healed tomorrow, finally outgrowing their boring obsessions and wasteful destructiveness, the same things would still be important to us (and would finally become important to them as well): Life, Liberty, and those bastions that make up "the pursuit of happiness" faith, family, work, self-reliance.

I've seen appalling results come out of various conventions before, but here is clear proof that the adults in Texas are not under delusion, that moral (and even written!) clarity is still possible.

This platform affirms the sovereignty of God over us and our nation, the primacy of our Judeo-Christian heritage and culture, urges elimination of a dozen Federal agencies, elimination of Congressional pensions and deposit of those funds into the Social Security Trust Fund, calls for elected officials and their staff to have no exemption from laws the rest of us must follow, elimination of gerrymandering, support for covenant marriage and eliminating "no fault divorce", sovereignty of parents to raise and educate their children, stronger penalties for sexual abuse of children by adults (up to and including the death penalty),  a hard line against illegal immigration (including visa overstays) restoration of the filibuster, elimination of "zero tolerance" policies in schools, and much, much, more.

The Platform also calls for allowing the local sale of raw milk, allowing cultivation of industrial hemp, legalizing prescription medical marijana, elimination of civil forfeiture, evicting the UN and opposing adoption of any of its programs, internet freedom, elimination of the draft, and protection of military personnel against liability for reasonable actions taken in the field.

I loved this:

 "Federal Reserve System- We believe Congress should repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 thereby abolishing the Federal Reserve Banking System. In the interim, we call for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve System and its Board of Governors followed by an immediate report to the American people."

"Repeal Dodd-Frank- We support the immediate repeal of Dodd-Frank legislation and replace with the Glass-Steagall Act." [I wrote about this way back in 2010, Glad to see it finally being seriously discussed.] 

"Sound Money- We support the return to the precious metal standard for the United States dollar. "

Some of my favorite planks are those relating to taxation and spending. Here are some of those:

"Bailouts and Subsidies- We encourage government to divest its ownership of all business that should be run in the private sector and allow the free market to prevail. We oppose all bailouts of domestic and foreign government entities, states and all businesses, public and private. We oppose local government handouts to businesses and other private entities in the name of economic development. 

"Tax Burden - "....Furthermore, we believe that the borrower truly is a slave to the lender, and so long as we continue to increase our tax and debt burdens we will never be a truly free people. Towards these ends, we support the reformation of the current systems of taxation at all levels of government: federal, state, and local.
" Examples of these reforms include the following:
1. Eliminating the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
2. The “Fair Tax” system
3. A Flat Tax
4. The 1-2-3 No Federal Tax
5. Abolishing property taxes, but in the interim, property taxes should be paid on the
price of the property when it was initially purchased.
6. Electing appraisal boards
7. Exempting inventories from property taxes
8. Abolishing estate taxes or the “Death Tax” as it’s more commonly known
9. Abolishing capital gains taxes
10. Abolishing franchise and business income taxes
11. Abolishing the gift tax.
12. Discontinuing revenue generating licensing fee "

I have never been more proud of our delegates to the State Convention. All ~8000 of them stood up for scientific clarity, rational thinking, personal liberty, reality-based legal principles, classical education, proven morals and established ethics.

All of these planks are items that Mr Donald Trump supports or can support in his candidacy. Where we will be looking intently is at our representatives, both national and state, expecting them to actually introduce legislation to do these things and aggressively support their enactment (or elimination as the case may be).

Big Texas Weather: Same Old Climate, Same El Nino Events Cause Texas Floods and Texas Rains

There is nothing unusual about the rain or flooding that Texas and Oklahoma are experiencing. It is actually a feature of our same old climate, and happens especially often in El Nino years.  During these past years of drought (which are also a normal feature of our same old climate), we've all been pulling for an El Nino to show up with the lovely rain it always brings. 

We mourn the tragic loss of life... flash floods are the only weather I fear, and they kill more people each year than all other weather events combined. That is no comfort to the grieving families. Please learn how to be safe in heavy rain, and never cross a water-covered road. 

But we must also be grateful for the abundance of rain that fills ranch tanks and the lakes that provide our water supplies. These rains are even replenishing underground aquifers, storing water for the long haul. 

An enlightening statement,courtesy of Floodsafety.com,  gives us the facts about these floods: 

"Flooding from large storms has affected Texas throughout its history...and destructive floods occur somewhere in the State every year. Many of these floods are destructive because they often occur in areas where extreme flooding had not occurred for many years. These floods often are perceived as unexpected or even unprecedented because their peak water-surface elevations (stages) can greatly exceed those of past floods." 

More facts from the same source as of 2002: 

• *Texas has had 256 major floods (41 catastrophic) from 1853 thru 2002. 
• *From 1986 to 2000, Texas experienced 4,722 flash flood events.
• *" Central Texas has been identified as the most flash-flood prone area in the United States by the National Weather Service." 
• *"Texas holds 6 of 12 world record rainfall rates in 24 hours or less - source United States Geological Survey (USGS)." 
• *"Texas leads the nation in flood-related deaths most every year -- averaging twice the next nearest state: California." 

So please, young AP writers, don't be fooled into thinking this rain and these floods are unusual or "historic", because... they are both, but only to the degree that Texas weather is, like so much else in Texas, always larger than life. In fact, if you read Cabeza de Vaca's account of his Travels through Texas in 1528, you might be surprised to find that the climate is much the same as it is today, with the same edible plants growing in the same locations and the same bitter cold coastal winters, even the same merciless mosquitoes.