As Americans Honor Old Glory on Flag Day, Trump Does Good Things and Hillary Learns Why She Lost

JUNE 14 IS FLAG DAY IN AMERICA. Old Glory, the most cherished symbol of the American Republic, is still waving proudly all over the United States, and President Trump is adding to her proud history. Let's give President Trump credit for some of the good things he is doing for America -- recent successes the mainstream media will never talk about. • • • THE SOUTHERN BORDER IS COMING UNDER CONTROL. There has been a precipitous drop in illegal immigration at the border since Donald Trump took office. The Daily Caller News Foundation has analyzed the numbers of illegals stopped at the border or apprehended since the Trump inauguration and they show a whopping drop in illegal alien activity at the border. The number of illegal aliens apprehended at the US-Mexico border in May fell 64% compared to the same period in 2016, continuing a trend of decreased border activity in the Trump era. According to numbers released by US Customs and Border Protection this week, 19,967 illegal aliens were apprehended or deemed inadmissible at the southwest border in May. That’s down significantly from the 55,442 apprehended during the same month last year. But, the May result is a 27% increase from the April numbers, largely due to warmer weather. The CBP says : “Based on historic trends, CBP expected a seasonal uptick in apprehensions and inadmissible persons as the summer months began and expects the uptick to continue." The first four full months of the Trump administration has seen a 60% overall decrease in the number of apprehended illegal aliens. From February through May of 2017 -- 75,910 were apprehended compared to 2016, when 188,370 were apprehended trying to cross the border. In February - May 2014, 227,000 illegals were caught crossing the border. • There is an reason -- deterrence. Illegal aliens know that there's a new sheriff and the free ride they were given under President Obama is over. Potential illegal aliens aren't even trying to cross the border because they know there is a very good chance they'll be caught and sent back rather than released. This is the "Trump effect" at the border. Illegal alien advocates have been saying for years that nothing could put a dent in the numbers of illegals crossing the border -- not more border guards, not a wall, not better enforcement. The illegal alien tidal wave is just something we have to get used to. President Trump and his administration knew better. And now we are seeing the positive effects of President Trump getting serious about controlling our borders. • • • TRUMP WELCOMES ROMANIA'S PRESIDENT. And President Trump got good news about Romania. Trump has often said that American taxpayers and American military personnel have put up money and lives for more than 70 years, while allies have devoted their resources elsewhere, freed up by the generosity of the superpower created by victory in World War II. But, last week, an extraordinary thing happened : The president of Romania, the former Soviet-era puppet state enslaved by Stalin’s troops, came to the White House, and stood up during a Rose Garden press conference with President Trump to say that his country will start paying its share of the burden for NATO -- because of President Trump. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said last Friday that his country is increasing its contribution to NATO after hearing President Donald Trump's speech last month at NATO headquarters in Brussels. During a joint press conference at the White House, Trump praised Iohannis for committing to increase Romania's defense spending to NATO from 1.4% to 2%, as Trump called for during his speech in Brussels on May 25. Trump said other nations are also starting to "realize that it's time to pay up." Iohannis said : "I was in Brussels, and I met President Trump. I listened to his speech, and I liked it, because you see NATO is based on values, but it is ultimately a military alliance." A reporter asked whether Iohannis thought it was fair that Trump encouraged NATO members to pay but also countries, including Romania, who had not paid 2% in the past to make up for that difference. Iohannis answered : "And you know, military spendings are complicated, and you need a lot of money, because NATO is the strongest alliance the earth ever saw, and we want to keep it that way, so we have to spend money for defense purposes. And spending money means if you're in alliance, everybody has to spend money. This is called burden-sharing, and I fully agree, Mr. President, to that." • Bravo, President Iohannis !! Bravo, President Trump !! • It takes genuine leadership to change a status quo that has been in place for 70 years . Those who despise Trump will never admit the effectiveness of leadership, even when a foreign head of state acts on it -- but we know how important President Trump's direct and honest diplomacy is for the future of America and all her allies. • • • TRUMP FREES UP ALASKA OIL. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was recently in Alaska to began laying the groundwork to open the 3% of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge contained in Area 1002 to oil development. He ordered a new assessment of the area's potential oil reserves. • The most recent comprehensive study by the United States Geological Survey was completed in 1998, and its mean estimate of recoverable reserves in Area 1002 was 7.7 BBO (billion barrels of oil). At $45 a barrel, that's $346 billion. Most of this oil lies in the western portion, near the terminus of the Trans Alaska Pipeline at Prudhoe Bay -- a desolate area that is devoid of wildlife. Development of Area 1002 alone would fill the Alaska pipeline, now being used at 25% of capacity, for a minimum of 10 to 15 years. • This development could have an impact on the state of Alaska similar to that of Prudhoe Bay itself. Revenue to the state would soar -- so, instead of depleting its Permanent Fund, Alaska could add billions to it. Jobs would be created, and property values would recover. In brief, it would be a boon to Alaska and its people. And, unlike the giant State of Alaska-owned field at Prudhoe Bay, all of ANWR is federal land, and if oil is found there, it will also prove a bonanza for the US Treasury. Revenues from oil development could put a significant dent in the federal deficit. This would qualify it for inclusion in a budget reconciliation bill, and only 50 Senators, plus Vice President Pence, would be needed for passage -- forget Democrat stonewalling. • Detractors argue that with a world petroleum surplus, and Russia and Saudi Arabia cutting production in a bid to stabilize prices, Alaska oil isn't needed. But, President Trump and Secretary Zinke have the answer for their critics -- the US seeks not only energy independence, but energy dominance, and this can be achieved by using American oil as a tool of foreign policy, as it has been for a hundred years. JAPAN, our most important ally in the Pacific, with a navy inferior only to America's, needs oil. The US has a strategic interest in ensuring that Japan has a stable and secure energy supply -- this can be done by selling it the oil from Area 1002. The 3,600 miles from the Alaska pipeline's terminus at Valdez to Yokohama is just slightly longer than the trip to Los Angeles. And the passage would be secure because the seas between Alaska and Japan are under the total control of the United States Navy and its allies. There are no bottlenecks or Iranian harassment tactics as there are in the Strait of Hormuz, or the Strait of Malacca, through which most of Japan's energy imports must currently pass. • Japan would jump at the chance to import more Alaskan oil. • Kudos to President Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke for their realization that in order to contain China, Japan is indispensable. This is in the highest national security interest of the United States. • • • TRUMP BEAT HILLARY -- THE FACTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE. The Center for Immigration Studies has published a definitive report on the voting patterns of minorities in the 2016 presidential election. CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota, who prepared the report, states : “What really cost Hillary the election, based on the demographic analysis, was the decline in black turnout nationally and in key states, as well as the decline in Hispanic turnout in Florida and an uptick in white turnout in some places like Florida and Ohio.” • Paul Bremmer of WND interviewed Camarota for its analysis, using CIS data to show how this happened : "Black Americans did not come to the polls in 2016 at the same rate they did in 2012 or 2008, possibly contributing to Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the hands of Donald Trump. The black voter turnout rate declined from 67% to 60% nationwide from 2012 to 2016, returning to pre-Obama levels....Despite Trump’s strong rhetoric against illegal immigration, Hispanic turnout did not significantly increase or decrease nationwide. While some had predicted a surge in white voter turnout, it never materialized, including among those without a college degree. Overall, white turnout crept up from 64% to 65%. Meanwhile, in the six states that flipped from Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin), turnout among both blacks and Hispanics declined significantly -- the black turnout rate decreased from 64% to 58%, while the Hispanic turnout rate dropped from 59% to 52%. As in the nation as a whole, white turnout did not significantly change in these six states from the previous election to the 2016 election." • There we have it. Hillary lost because she could not hold onto the black and Hispanic voter coalitions expanded and used by Obama to his advantage. • FLORIDA saw an especially sharp drop in Hispanic turnout, falling from 62% to 54%. Camarota told WND that Florida accounts for most of the Hispanic turnout decline in the states Trump flipped, because the other five states have small Hispanic populations while Florida’s electorate was 18% Hispanic in 2016. Camarota said the decline in black turnout likely played the biggest role, among demographic factors, in Hillary Clinton’s election defeat. However, he cautioned against concluding the decline in Hispanic turnout made any difference outside of Florida. Camarota says : “What really cost Hillary the election, based on the demographic analysis, was the decline in black turnout nationally and in key states, as well as the decline in Hispanic turnout in Florida and an uptick in white turnout in some places like Florida and Ohio.” • OHIO, Camarota told WND -- a state no Republican has ever won the presidency without capturing -- experienced an especially steep drop in black turnout, falling from 73% to 65%. The white voter turnout rate in Ohio, meanwhile, increased more than in many other states, rising from 61.9% to 64.4%. • THE HISPANIC TURNOUT rate remained unchanged nationwide, even though Hispanics continued to increase their share of the electorate. In 2004, Hispanics made up 6% of the electorate, then 7% in 2008, 8% in 2012 and 9% in 2016. As a result, the number of Hispanics who voted continued to increase in 2016, even though their turnout rate dropped slightly from 48% to 47.6%. Camarota cautioned that it’s easy to forget that the Hispanic community is somewhat divided on the immigration issue, which might help explain why Hispanics did not turn out en masse to vote against Trump. Camarota added that immigration is not as important to ordinary Hispanics as it is to Hispanic leaders, who have the loudest voices in the media. • THE BLACK TURNOUT, in contrast, actually decreased, from 17.1 million to 16.4 million, despite of the fact that more blacks were eligible to vote in 2016 than in 2012. Regarding black turnout, Camarota pointed out the rate simply fell back to roughly where it was in 2004, the last time the Democrats ran a white candidate. The black turnout rate was 60% in 2004, then jumped to 65% in 2008, when Obama ran on the Democratic ticket. It crept up to 67% in 2012 before falling back to 60% in 2016. Camarota told WND : “What we saw was an unusually high black turnout rate when Obama ran, but without Obama, Hillary Clinton just didn’t excite them.” THE WHITE VOTE. The CIS report noted that prior immigration policies and low fertility rates have been reducing the white share of the national electorate for some time. However, it declined by only 0.4% in 2016, dropping from 73.7% to 73.3%. In comparison, the white percentage of the national electorate had dropped 2.5% from 2008 to 2012 and 2.9% from 2004 to 2008. The CIS report attributes the difference to the slight increase in the share of eligible whites who voted and the large decline in black turnout. • CIS used data from the Voting and Registration Supplement of the Current Population Survey collected by the Census Bureau. The Supplement reports who was eligible to vote, who was registered to vote and who actually voted. It does not report who people voted for. Exit polls indicated 88% of blacks and 65% of Hispanics voted for Clinton, so the decline in turnout among those groups most likely cost Clinton much more than it cost Trump. • Pew Research Center shed additional light on the reasons people sat out the 2016 election. According to Pew, 25% of registered Hispanic voters who didn’t vote in 2016 said they didn’t like the candidates or campaign issues. Only 9% of Hispanic nonvoters cited that reason in 2012. Similarly, 19% of blacks who didn’t vote in 2016 said they didn’t like the candidates or campaign issues, whereas only 3% gave that reason in 2012. Another 19% of black 2016 nonvoters said they were not interested or believed their votes would not make a difference. • • • DEAR READERS, the next time you hear Hillary tell us why she lost, blaming everthing from the Russians to her own Democrat Party, just remember that the real reason she lost was that she could not bring to the voter booth a large enough number of black voters. She lost because, despite her noise about Trump "racism," she was ignored or not believed by a significant number of black voters who had voted for Obama. Add to that her truly catastrophic labelling of 50% of Americans as "Deplorables," and you can see why she lost. And, as for Independents -- "third party crazies" as Hillary called them recently when she also blamed them for her loss -- even CNN's polling shows that Trump would have beaten Clinton 19% to 16% among third-party voters in a theoretical two-way race, with 65% refusing to vote. And, yes, says the New York Times -- it arrived at a similar result : 21% to 16% in favor of Trump, with 63% staying home. The Times also concluded Trump bested Clinton 26% to 11% among late-deciding voters who previously leaned third party. • "The fault, dear Hillary, is not in the stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." Shakespeare got it right. But, Hillary simply cannot grasp the truth. • So, Happy Flay Day. Wave your Old Glory high and proud on this special day that honors her. And, thank President Trump for all he is doing for America, in the face of the Democrat Party's all-out assault on him personally and the Progressive determination to destroy the Trump presidency. • "It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget : that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag." __Donald Trump.