GDP Up, Getting Tough, Babies vs. Cancer, Buckle Up Joe

by Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: GDP Up
The Trump economy continues to defy expectations. First quarter economic growth came in at 3.2%, beating expectations of 2.5%. According to CNBC, "It was the first time since 2015 that first-quarter GDP topped 3%."

It is also noteworthy because it happened during most of the longest government shutdown in history. As you no doubt recall, we were told over and over that the bureaucrats were so essential to our success that the long shutdown was going to hurt the economy.

Once again, all the pundits and so-called "experts" who were predicting gloom and doom were wrong. Just like Paul Krugman and others who predicted a recession and a stock market crash after Trump's election were wrong.

Getting Tough
President Trump recently said we needed to go in a tougher direction when it comes to illegal immigration. I agree completely. Here are a few encouraging headlines:

• A Massachusetts judge and another court official were charged yesterday by federal prosecutors with conspiracy and obstruction of justice for helping an illegal alien escape when ICE officers attempted to arrest him at a court hearing.
• The Florida legislature advanced a bill this week to ban sanctuary cities in the Sunshine State.
• A recall petition against New Jersey's left-wing governor has been approved. Among the issues driving the recall effort is Gov. Phil Murphy's decision to make New Jersey a sanctuary state and to provide financial aid to illegal immigrants attending New Jersey colleges.
• The Pentagon is expected to announce new rules "expanding the military's involvement" in border security efforts. Our troops are severely restricted in terms of what they can and cannot do at the border. But if our military exists for anything, it should be the security of our borders!

More Spying?
Senators Charles Grassley and Ron Johnson, chairmen of the Finance and Homeland Security Committees, are asking Attorney General William Barr to investigate whether the FBI attempted to spy on members of the Trump transition team after the November 2016 election.

Grassley and Johnson have reportedly discovered new text messages that suggest fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page may have been using transition team intelligence briefings as opportunities to conduct "intelligence gathering operations."

We will keep you posted.

Babies vs. Cancer
If you're meeting young people today with bizarre ideas on everything from America's history to economics, faith and human sexuality, blame the educational establishment. Here's a good example of the confusion that reigns on our college campuses.

A slide from a "top-level biology course" at the University of California San Diego went viral this week. It purported to explain to students the "parallels between fetuses and cancers."

The fetus was described as "a legitimate parasite" that "rapidly grows" and "invades," just like a cancer, which also "rapidly grows" and "invades."

I appreciate that there may be some "parallels." But describing developing babies as "invading parasites" explains why Democrats continually insist that abortion is essential to women's "healthcare." They are treating pregnancy like a disease to be eradicated!

It is ridiculous that so many young Americans are going into debt for this kind of absurd indoctrination. Even worse, socialists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren say it should be "free," meaning they want the rest of us to pay for it.

Buckle Up, Joe!
Can Joe Biden make the argument that he is a traditional, mainstream Democrat and thus best positioned to defeat Donald Trump, while constantly trying to convince the left that he is really one of them?

It's not going to be easy. Within minutes of Biden's announcement, he was already getting whacked by the progressive movement.

Evidently, the former vice president felt the need to seek forgiveness from Anita Hill before running for president. (Biden served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.)

Yesterday, Hill publicly rejected his apology. In an interview with the New York Times, Hill declared that Biden owes an apology "to the other women and to the American public" who have been so "deeply disappointed."

What I want to know is whether Anita Hill has ever apologized to Clarence Thomas!

Meanwhile, Biden is getting slammed for his weakness on Russia during the 2012 election. In the age of Trump, Biden's party has suddenly morphed into Cold Warriors who see nefarious Russian conspiracies behind every corner.

Well, Biden was really soft on Russia seven years ago. Biden mocked Romney, saying, "He acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on. . . [The Russians] are working closely with us. . . This is not 1956!"

How is Biden going to thread that needle in today's McCarthyite Democrat Party?

Biden had better buckle up. His past runs for the presidency didn't go well, and I suspect this is going to be the toughest race of his life.

In fact, I wonder if Joe Biden might turn out to be the Jeb Bush of the 2020 campaign -- a big name with a lot of money and establishment support whose time has passed.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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