The LuLac Edition #3967, December 29th, 2018

TOP NATIONAL STORIES 2018

1. Making America Hate Again: The Trump Presidency and its lack of knowledge and ability to make a decision has been the underlying top story of this year. The Trump reign is like that of a demented, syphilis king that doesn’t stick to any promise except one (the wall) and who his own party can’t trust. That same party though enables him at every turn and is no profile in courage. The attack against the news media has emboldened the ignorant to follow his lead on just about everything. The 35% of the people who sttill support him are just like him. They want simple answers to complicated questions. There is no research done by the President or any of his supporters because they are too lazy to do it. Finally the reason why Trump has his base is because they, like him are afraid of change and disdain thinking about the implication of an issue unless it is uncomplicated and easy to understand. That’s why this base and Trump are made for each other. But that simplistic love affair has caused the country to not be great again but more hateful than ever. Sadly the number one story this year is the breathtaking incompetence of the great deal maker, Diaper Don.
2. Trump-Russia probe: This investigation has now gotten to the point that real progress has come out of it. More than 30 indictments and guilty pleas. What comes out in 2019 will certainly be one of the top 5 stories of next year. For those complaining about the length of investigations, let’s remind people that probes take time. The Clinton investigation lasted for a little over 4years. Iran Contra years about 7 years. . A murder investigation lasts years. If you really want the truth, don’t complain unless you are afraid of the truth.
3. #MeToo movement: It started with a Hashtag used in October 2017 to denounce sexual assault and harassment, in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Since then powerful men have been toppled from important positions for sexual harassment of some type or the other. The movement is here to stay with all men reassessing their behavior. 2018 saw more men under scrutiny for past behavior.
4. Parkland school shooting/Mass shootings: A former student went on a shooting rampage at a Florida high school leaving 17 dead while panicked students barricaded themselves inside classrooms and frantic parents raced to the scene.
The gunman, who had been expelled and graduate was armed with “countless” magazines and an AR-15-style rifle. In the aftermath of the shooting, students took to their megaphones and began to go fter lawmakers for not doing enough to protect them in schools. Rallies were held, students were attacked by Fox News commentators as being actor but still soldiers on asking for more controls on automatic weapons. Those who died did not die in vain in my opinion because these survivors are out for political blood if any candidate doesn’t see it their way in the future. Meanwhile more gun violence too numerous to mention continued in the United States.
5. 2018 midterms: This was in House Districts a repudiation of the Trump agenda and Republican vision of America. Plus more women gained sentence to the House as the Democrats gained 40 seats. The ads against Nancy Pelosi by scared GOP candidates were fruitless. Meanwhile the Senate had gains for the GOP from red states. But the House that has been ruled by the minority Freedom Caucus will now be run by a woman and party that put the needs of people first. The biggest deal breaker issue for most House candidates was Health Care. Those who embraced it as n issue….WON.
6. US immigration: Children torn from parents, refugees turned away and a relentless stream of changes to immigration regulation and enforcement. To those who champion President Donald Trump and believe cracking down on immigration translates to better lives for Americans, 2018's breathless headlines were a fulfillment of campaign promises. To many others, they hearkened back to dark moments in U.S. history. Even as those living in the U.S. illegally remain targets, the administration has sought to redefine what legal immigration looks like, too, slowing or halting those seeking to come to the country for a job offer, through their relationship to a citizen, or to find a home as a refugee or asylee. The bottom line is that there could have been an immigration bill in 2013 but the House Freedom Caucus stopped it. There could have been a fix to DCA and Diaper Don would have got 20 billion for his wall. But he reneged on the deal. Immigration can be fixed but not under any current or foreseeable Republican leadership.
7. Brett Kavanaugh hearing: Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to become an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States on July 9, 2018, filling the vacancy left by the retirement of Anthony Kennedy. When nominated, Kavanaugh was a sitting judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The Senate Judiciary Committee began Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing on September 4. At the end of the confirmation process, Kavanaugh was accused of sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford thirty-six years prior, while they were both in high school in 1982. The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed its scheduled vote to allow both Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh to respond. In the interim, two other women (Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick) alleged separate instances of sexual assault. Kavanaugh categorically denied allegations made by Ford, Ramirez and Swetnick.
Bottom line after all of this, Kavanaugh was confirmed by the GOP Senate by a very close vote, 51 to 49. 
8. California wildfires: The 2018 wildfire season is the most destructive and deadly wildfire season on record in California, with a total of 8,434 fires burning an area of 1,890,438 acres, the largest amount of burned acreage recorded in a fire season, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the National Interagency Fire Center, as of December 6. The fires have caused more than $3.5 billion in damages, including $1.792 billion in fire suppression costs. Through the end of August 2018, Cal Fire alone spent $432 million on operations. The Mendocino Complex Fire burned more than 459,000 acres, becoming the largest complex fire in the state's history, with the complex's Ranch Fire surpassing the Thomas Fire and the Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889 to become California's single-largest recorded wildfire.
9. Climate change: Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years). Climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather around longer-term average conditions (i.e., more or fewer extreme weather events).
10. Jamal Khashoggi murder and attack on free press: Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian dissident, author, columnist for the Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who was assassinated at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government. He also served as editor for the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan, turning it into a platform for Saudi Arabian progressives. The Trump administration’s reluctance to condemn the murder outright as well as its constant attack on the press with the two syllable attack of “Fake News” has put all journalists in fear for just doing their job.