"We are in an age of melodrama, not tragedy, in which we who are living in a leisured and affluent age (in part due to the accumulated learning and moral wisdom gained and handed down by former generations of the poor and less aware) pass judgement on prior ages because they lacked our own enlightened and sophisticated views of humanity -- as if we lucky few were born fully ethically developed from the head of Zeus."

"In 1993, when President Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), its boosters claimed that it would solve, once and for all, a plethora of problems plaguing the nation's voter registration rolls.

"However, like many ballyhooed efforts, the Motor Voter Law, as it is best known, resulted in an even crazier system, with such absurdities as millions of people registered in more than one state, cemeteries full of active 'voters,' and noncitizens 'inadvertently' placed on voter rolls.

"Although Motor Voter has a provision requiring jurisdictions to keep voter rolls up to date and accurate, many election officials openly flout it, which is why the American Civil Rights Union has been suing counties from Texas to Florida over their dirty voter rolls.

"Now comes the left's latest 'solution,' which they call automatic voter registration (AVR). The idea is to enroll everyone who has contact with the DMV or any public agency, whether they want to be in the system or not. This is mandatory registration, a precursor to mandatory voting, one of Barack Obama's pet schemes."

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" ... Americans have grown increasingly accustomed to the view that your politics is determined by your racial, ethnicity or gender identity. Politics is seen as a zero-sum battle for government favor. College and corporate leaders join in.

"Universities sponsor separate orientations, dormitories and commencements for identity groups (are separate drinking fountains next?). A corporate CEO fires an employee who challenged the dogma that only invidious discrimination can explain gender percentages in job categories different from those of the larger population.

"America today is a long way from Weimar. But identity politics threatens to get us a little closer. Possible solution: Unequivically condemn bigotry and violence and, in the fired Google engineer James Damore's words, 'Treat people as individuals, not just another member of their group.'"

"North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un appears to have blinked and President Trump can claim a foreign policy victory and justification for his strategy.

"Reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan's 'peace through strength' approach to deterring adversaries, Mr. Trump stood up to the blustering despot and forced him to back down from his threat to launch missiles at Guam.

"China, North Korea's biggest ally, no doubt played a role in getting Mr. Kim to change his mind, but primary credit should go to the president. ...

"American resolve has been tested and has prevailed, at least for now. Mr. Kim has lost face. His military leaders and others will take notice, as will the rest of the world. The significance of the unanimous U.N. resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea, which included the support of China, could not have been lost on Mr. Kim."

"The American economy has been in a funk for a decade. Donald Trump was elected largely on his promise to see the economy regain traction and resume speed on the road to prosperity. There are encouraging signs that his strategy of releasing the regulatory brakes is working. Combined with changes in immigration policy, the years in the doldrums may soon be at an end.

"A study by the free-market think tank, American Action Forum, demonstrates that the president's administration has made tangible progress in rolling back the regulatory state that has been choking the economy. ...

"Reeling back the red tape is already enabling the economy to pick up speed. From 2013 to 2016, the years of Barack Obama's second term, the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) had averaged only an unimpressive 2.1 percent, by the account of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Since Mr. Trump took office in January, GDP leaped from 1.6 percent during the first quarter of 2017 to 2.6 percent during the second quarter. It's a promising trend, one bolstered by the continuation of job creation that added 1 million jobs nationwide."

"President Trump on Monday instructed the office of the United States Trade Representative to consider an investigation into China's sustained and widespread attacks on America's intellectual property. This investigation will provide the evidence for holding China accountable for a decades-long assault on the intellectual property of the United States and its allies.

"For too long, the United States has treated China as a developing nation to be coaxed and lectured, while tolerating its bad behavior as merely growing pains. There has been an expectation that as China's economy matures, it will of its own accord adopt international standards in commerce, including protection for intellectual property. There has also been a tendency to excuse mercantilist behavior, including industrial espionage, as a passing phase, and to justify inaction as necessary to secure Chinese cooperation on other, supposedly more important, issues.

"Chinese companies, with the encouragement of official Chinese policy and often the active participation of government personnel, have been pillaging the intellectual property of American companies. All together, intellectual-property theft costs America up to $600 billion a year, the greatest transfer of wealth in history. China accounts for most of that loss."

"Consistency of principles is neither foolish nor small-minded. It is the essence of any moral system. Principled consistency may be difficult to achieve, especially in our current hyper-partisan atmosphere. But if we are ever to end the partisan bickering and name-calling that is coarsening dialogue and making reasoned compromise impossible, we must insist on a single standard of legality and morality that applies equally to Democrats and Republicans. We are far from that in the current shouting match in which each side calls the other 'criminal,' 'racist' or worse.

"We must declare an armistice in this divisive war of words and agree to do unto your political opponents what you would have your political opponents do unto you. That golden rule of consistency should be as applicable to political debate as it is to personal morality."

"The chatter about a House leadership post is gone. So is talk of statewide office. After Hillary Clinton's defeat, there's no prospect of an administration job for Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

"One year after the Florida congresswoman's resignation as national party chair at the Democratic National Convention -- where activists booed and shouted 'shame!' at her during a Florida delegation breakfast speech -- the once-rising star's political fortunes continue to fade, beset by critics on all sides.

"Wasserman Schultz is again on defense after steadfastly refusing to explain why she continued to employ Imran Awan, an IT staffer who was under a federal investigation for an alleged equipment and data scam in the U.S. House since February. She finally fired him on July 25, one day after authorities arrested him on a seemingly unrelated mortgage fraud charge. He was at the airport leaving for Pakistan, after wiring $283,000 there. ...

"The drama ensured Wasserman Schultz would play a central role in a murky congressional summer 'scandal' story playing out from Washington to Weston, her South Florida congressional district's base. "

"Tuesday's bombshell Washington Post story that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has determined North Korea is capable of constructing miniaturized nuclear weapons that could be used as warheads for missiles -- possibly ICBMs -- left out a crucial fact: DIA actually concluded this in 2013. The Post also failed to mention that the Obama administration tried to downplay and discredit this report at the time.

"During an April 11, 2013, House Armed Services Committee hearing, Congressman Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., inadvertently revealed several unclassified sentences from a DIA report that said DIA had determined with 'moderate confidence' that North Korea has the capability to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be launched with a ballistic missile."

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"Concern of an armed clash over North Korea's nuclear weapons program reached new heights Tuesday as an angry President Trump warned that Pyongyang could soon face 'fire and fury like the world has never seen' amid reports that the North has managed to build a nuclear bomb small enough to fit inside an intercontinental ballistic missile.

"Mr. Trump's outburst, which brought both criticism and praise from Capitol Hill, followed the revelation that Japanese analysts and at least one U.S. intelligence agency had concluded that the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was proceeding much faster than previously thought in obtaining a nuclear weapon capable of hitting much of the U.S. mainland as well as key American allies across East Asia.

"U.S. intelligence officials sought to calm nerves about the situation by asserting that a Washington Post news report about a confidential Defense Intelligence Agency analysis on North Korea's progress toward miniaturization had not revealed anything that American authorities haven't been aware of for months."