"Let's get this out of the way right now: Yes, Kid Rock can absolutely win if he runs for U.S. Senate in Michigan. He will be in first place to win the GOP nomination within a week of entering the race, and instantly be a tossup to defeat Democrat incumbent Debbie Stabenow.

"When Kid Rock first tweeted about running for Senate, political watchers rushed to proclaim that he was not serious about running, and that even if he were, he could not win the nomination, much less defeat the better-funded, more disciplined Democrat.

"It's hard to overstate the place Kid Rock holds in the consciousness of a certain segment of blue-collar Michigan voters. He is Detroit. He has made his quite lucrative career out of celebrating Michigan in general and Detroit in particular. He embodies the 'Detroit vs. Everybody' mentality that defines southeastern Michigan. His 'American Bad Ass' brand is tailor-made to appeal to a state and city that resent the contempt they feel from elitists around the country, while celebrating the overlooked virtues of the city and state. That's an easy message to sell in a campaign. ...

"Is Kid Rock going to run? I have absolutely no idea. Could he win? To borrow a phrase from the man himself: Hell, yeah."

"Judging by the unhinged reaction this past week to the first public meeting of President Trump's blue-ribbon voter fraud panel, progressives are terrified.

"They're fearful that these election experts are actually going to do the job they've been given -- uncovering the extent to which the nation's voter rolls are vulnerable to fraudulent activity. How else to explain the panic and shots fired before the commission even met? ...

"The left continues to insist that vote fraud is a myth, but panelists cited ample evidence such as hundreds of counties where registered voters far exceed the number of residents eligible to vote and where felons and noncitizens have no trouble registering -- and voting.

"A case in point is Broward County, Florida, which had 106 percent of its population registered to vote in 2010 and 103 percent registered to vote in 2014. This week, the American Civil Rights Union's lawsuit against Broward over its dirty voter rolls will be heard in the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Miami."

"Based upon President Trump's promise to secure the U.S. Border with Mexico, illegal immigration plummeted during the first half of 2017. In the first three months of his presidency, illegal border crossings fell by nearly 75 percent from that of the previous year and represented a historic low in the modern history of the Border Patrol. What President Trump accomplished is nothing short of a miracle, but he can't continue to do it alone. Border security is not the sole responsibility of the White House; it's also the responsibility of Congress.

"The initial dramatic declines in illegal border crossings demonstrate that when our government sends a clear message that people who attempt to cross our borders illegally will be turned away, far fewer people make the attempt. Conversely, when the government signals that crossing the border illegally is likely to pay off, people break our laws in large numbers. Unfortunately, most of the time, our government incentivizes illegal immigration.

"Since the American people cannot rely upon their government's resolve to turn away illegal border crossers, we will continue to need physical barriers to discourage people from entering the country illegally. Even under the best of circumstances the Border Patrol cannot detect, much less prevent everyone from entering illegally along the nearly 2,000 miles of border we share with Mexico.

"A secure border fence, particularly the double-layered fencing called for in the bipartisan Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Pub.L. 109367) and which Mr. Trump pledged to build, would provide another level of deterrence to those contemplating illegal entry. In all areas of law enforcement the most effective and humane way of enforcing laws is convincing people not to break them in the first place."

"There's a Republican credibility crisis brewing. The party's leaders are not leading their troops, who have found that there is often only disappointment rather than reward for following orders. Republican members won office promising to reform healthcare and taxes, but run the risk of doing neither.

Republicans need to reform taxes, both to prove they can govern and to juice the economy. To reform taxes, they need to pass a budget. And to pass a budget, their leaders need to abandon their heavy-handed ways."

"There were lots of celebrations on the left side of the aisle after the Senate GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare died. The good times will be short lived, because one way or another ObamaCare is going away, and it's not at all clear that Democrats will gain additional leverage over what comes next by waiting for its collapse.

"It was amusing to hear Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say, after the Senate bill failed, that Republicans should 'work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system.'

"Lower premiums, stabilize insurance markets, improve health care? Wasn't that what ObamaCare was supposed to do in the first place? ...

"So the GOP's answer to Schumer should be: You had your chance to fix health care. You blew it. Twice. First when you passed ObamaCare, and second when you refused to admit that mistake and decided to cast Republicans as evil. Why should the GOP reward you with a third?

"Plus, as the ObamaCare exchanges continue to crumble and as more states chafe at Medicaid's costs, it will be easier for Republicans to get what they want on their own -- if Republicans are smart enough to seize the opportunity, that is."

"With Mike Lee and Jerry Moran declaring their opposition, the latest Senate health-care bill is dead. McConnell now wants to revert to what was his original idea of repeal-only. The problem is that the CBO score will be much worse -- a projected 32 million fewer with insurance rather than 22 million -- and even repeal-only isn't true repeal (the repeal-only bill in 2015 left the Obamacare regulations untouched). If Republicans can't pass what is, in relative terms, a generous version of a repeal bill, it's hard to see how they are going to get a more stringent version over the hump -- they may get Mike Lee and Rand Paul on board, but they will presumably lose from the left of the caucus. McCain is already out with a statement calling for a bi-partisan bill. If the current fight isn't completely over, it's certainly closer to the end of the end than the end of the beginning. We may well be witnessing one of the greatest political whiffs of our time."

"The Cruz amendment -- which has been inserted into the GOP Senate health plan -- is smart, because it doesn't take anything away from anyone. If you want Obamacare -- you can have it. You can have the coverage for the 10 'essential benefits,' you can have the subsidies and the exchanges that were supposed to save $2,500 per family. It's still there for you.

"The Cruz amendment creates what is called a 'Consumer Freedom Option.' This essentially allows an 'off-ramp' from Obamacare for the tens of millions of Americans who don't want it. The 'Consumer Freedom Option' allows insurers who offer Obamacare-compliant plans to offer a range of much less costly plans. In other words, it empowers people and families to pick and choose what they want in their own insurance package. Some families want and can afford blanket coverage that insures them for everything from cancer to contraceptives to drug addiction to dental care to the sniffles. If you want to pay for that coverage, go for it.

"What about families or individuals with lower incomes or healthy life styles that want the other extreme? They want slimmed-down coverage that protects them from major medical expenses -- a bad injury like breaking a leg, or a serious disease with costly ongoing treatments. These families may voluntarily choose to pay for more routine medical expenses, like a checkup or a visit to the dentist's office, out of pocket. One benefit is that since more people will pay directly for medical services, they are likely to shop around for the best price, and this competition will lower prices for everyone."

"Per the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015, the Trump administration is required to certify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is in compliance with the July 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) and that this agreement is in the national-security interests of the United States. The next certification is due on July 17, 2017.

"It is crucial that the Trump administration, in the next JCPOA certification statement, correct the gross error it made in April, when it certified that Iran was complying with this agreement and that the JCPOA is in the national-security interests of our country. Unfortunately, the administration reportedly might make this same mistake again.

"The April certification went against Mr. Trump's accurate statements during the presidential campaign that the JCPOA was one of the worst agreements ever negotiated and that there was clear evidence of Iran's failing to meet its obligations under the agreement as well as cheating. Although many Trump officials opposed the April certification -- and this decision to certify appeared to irritate President Trump -- State Department careerists succeeded in convincing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to agree to certify anyway. Press reports yesterday indicated that President Trump will grudgingly agree to certify Iranian compliance again but could change his mind.

"Senators Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Ted Cruz (R., Texas), David Perdue (R., Ga.), and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) made it clear in a July 11 letter to Secretary Tillerson that they do not want this to happen again and cited four ways Iran is not complying with the nuclear agreement ..."

Read entire article here.

"The vast sums states are forced to throw into pension systems erode their ability to provide good public education, safe streets and livable communities -- all goals deeply cherished by progressives.

"Roughly a quarter of the entire Illinois budget in recent years has gone to funding pensions. And yet, all this money has done is slow the rate of decline of its financial outlook.

"It is time for Americans to recognize the troubling fiscal plight in many states. Perhaps when Illinois or other states like it finally hit a fiscal wall, voters will wake up to the calamity that awaits them."

"The problem with the Democratic Party can be summed up in the strange odyssey of Bernie Sanders. Formerly a weird, hard-Left socialist outlier, Sanders became iconic of the new party by his assault on inequality and his calls for massive government intervention to share the wealth.

"But if a self-acclaimed socialist can earn a $1 million a year while on the government payroll, own three tony homes, and have his wife under FBI investigation for mismanaging and bankrupting a college and leaving with a lucrative golden parachute (and perhaps on the way out, evicting the disabled from her college's new digs), then no progressive is immune from the new Democratic stereotype of talking socialist while living hyper-capitalist.

"Figures like Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, Jeff Bezos, and other Silicon Valley and Wall Street grandees are not the Democratic pathway to rebuilding the blue wall. So far Trump has so positioned himself that most attacks on his agenda reflect the parochial concerns of privileged progressives rather than those of hoi polloi. Every time a MSNBC talking head, a NeverTrump New York pundit, an identity politics functionary, a Hollywood celebrity, a campus Pajama Boy, a Silicon Valley master of the universe, or a Democrat functionary attacks Trump, he ends up sounding either snobbish, hypocritical, or parochial -- and thereby energizes the Trump populist message."