Trump’s immigration proposal asks for a few big conservative immigration goals—border wall funding, ending chain migration and the visa lottery—in exchange for an amnesty for 1.8 million of those who illegally immigrated to the United States as children. In his State of the Union, the president's immigration talk was designed to infuriate the left and remind hardliners that he is on their side.
The State of the Union address is perfect for President Donald Trump. His showmanship and sense of dramatic timing; the endless applause and moving stories, lovingly told; the pleasure he takes in enunciating truths no one could disagree with—it’s almost as if the whole cockamamie tradition were designed just for him.
In fairness, the president has delivered competent speeches and refrained from his customary ferociousness, both last night and in his 2017 address. He delivers a good set speech.
And there were some genuinely praiseworthy moments in last night’s speech. He rightly called for the end of a nonsense budget rule that shortchanges spending on the federal government’s most necessary
I was flying cross-country and didn’t see Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address Tuesday night. The instant reviews were predictably mixed. Trump supporters, even reluctant ones, seemed to like it. His critics all hated it.
I read it twice and mostly liked what was in there. But the most notable thing about the speech, to me anyway, was what it left out.
Trump said nothing about the country’s $20 trillion debt crisis. Literally not a word. It was a long, long speech but the president and his speechwriting team apparently couldn’t find any room for a mention of debt and the slow-motion crisis that is upon us.
Eleven months ago—before Donald Trump had to accept any of the disappointments of lawmaking—the new president stood before a joint session of Congress and called for, among other things, the passage of a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.
At the time, it was one of the few issues Democrats said they could work with Trump on, as they’d been calling for greater infrastructure spending for years. But nearly a year later, delivering his first official State of the Union Tuesday night, Trump’s repeated—and increased, even—his call for massive spending on an infrastructure bill. And it left Republicans tepidly applauding and Democrats cautiously suspicious.
It’s time for the January 2018 Hypocrite of the Month awards. The nominees are . . .
Jerry Brown and Andrew Cuomo, governors of the two largest states controlled by the Democratic party—which accuses the new Republican tax cuts of favoring the rich at the expense of the middle class. Brown and Cuomo are preparing to sue the federal government because the new tax law limits deduction for state income, sales, and property taxes to $10,000. Until now, the deduction has been unlimited. Clearly, this change hits people with large and expensive homes, none of whom are likely to be poor.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Major League Baseball will expand its experiment of starting extra innings in certain games with a runner at second base.
Despite the inevitable freakout from baseball purists, there is one big takeaway: None of the games will count toward a team’s regular season or postseason record. The rule went into effect in the low minors last year, beginning in the 10th inning. It will be applied at the same point in spring training games (which are capped at 10 innings, anyway) this upcoming season. And it will go into effect in the 11th inning of the All-Star Game—and only seven contests in the 85-year history of the game have reached.
You may not believe this, but in the United States there are more weeks without football than with it. Considering only the contests that count—preseason games in the pros are inconsequential, as are spring games in college—each year has 23 weeks with football compared to 29 weeks without it. So savor the upcoming curtain call of this eventful season, and hope both contenders, the Eagles and Patriots, honor sports lore by saving the best for last.

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