Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.

The first big story coming out of this New Year 2018 is last Thursday the Dow Jones Industrial Average blasted past 25,000 for the first time – by Friday closing it landed at 25,295!

The Democrats are left standing along the side of the road on this one. They completely missed their chance to fly. President Donald Trump is in the driver’s seat and leading the way for an unprecedented Republican win in November’s elections. Past performance — of mid-term elections traditionally swings back toward the opposition — is no indication of future results, not with this president who really is making history and charting out new territory from Wall Street to the Middle East.

All the Democrats can do now is get out of the way and stop opposing this president at every single turn. Unemployment – including black unemployment — in the USA is at record lows, millions of new jobs are being created, consumer confidence is strong and people from coast-to-coast are making money in their retirement saving plans and investments while small businesses and large corporations are offering higher pay and giving decent annual bonuses. Good things are happening across the nation but not so much in Washington.
Mainstream media and the Democrats can’t stand it when President Trump is successful. Now we are seeing the beginning of a series of books covertly and expressly written to discredit Team Trump in any way possible.

President Trump’s recently enacted tax-cut law is directly responsible for the Trump Train gaining speed and picking up believers like never before. The Liberal-Left can only respond with a silly book “Fire and Fury” about Trump’s White House being “in crisis” and the president is “unfit for office” and he “acts like a child” written by reporter Michael Wolff — with the liberal USA Today and the ultra-liberal Hollywood Reporter — who spent a very short time in the West Wing of the White House and was never in the Oval Office. This book containing interviews with former White House staffers is being panned by the White House as a complete “fabrication.” Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called the book “laughable.” Some of those interviewed were quick to object saying they were misquoted by Wolff — who also claims in his book he interviewed the president for three hours inside the White House. The president responded with “That never happened.” For Trump supporters it’s just another ripple in the pond.

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who was fired last year, proved this week he really is a-loose-cannon with his disparaging quoted comments about the Trump family in Wolff’s book. Many of Bannon’s former supporters and those Republicans he was planning to support during the mid-term elections are distancing themselves from Bannon — who President Trump now refers to as “Sloppy Steve,” according to Breitbart News and Real Clear Politics.

In less than two weeks, President Trump will have been in office a full year. Here’s a short review of the “Trump Effect” for 2017.
Best economy the USA has seen in decades. Radical Islamic ISIS has lost 98-percent of the areas they once occupied in Syria and Iraq. Increased border security with Mexico has decreased illegal crossings by 60-percent. The overall strengthening of immigration laws will help keep undesirables out of the USA. Swinging the U.S. Supreme Court more conservative while appointing a record 12 new federal Circuit Court judges is insuring a future of conservatism will be the rule of law in support of the U.S. Constitution — not weak liberalism. According to the Federal Register – a definitive source – Trump has cut the strangle hold of federal regulations on business and industry by nearly 50-percent in less than 12 months. The president and Congress managed to rewrite the outdated and complex tax code that had not been accomplished in more than a generation.

All the liberals, Democrats and mainstream media can do now — since the impeachment threat fell flat — is attack President Trump’s mental state. But the voters witness a president taking care of business for all the American people. Democrats have nowhere to go. If the Democrats all of a sudden take up any positive message of support for the USA, the National Anthem, the U.S. Flag, the military, law enforcement, national security and legal immigration — Team Trump has all of that territory covered. So the Democrats and mainstream media are left in the dust with only their constant and boring anti-Trump shouting routines and rants.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan had this to say recently about President Trump and his support for the law of law. “The President has done more for border security and public safety than any of the six presidents I’ve worked for.” Homan has been a career officer with ICE since 1986, according to Wikipedia.

Finally the U.S. Department of Justice along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation are reopening it’s old investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, and her involvement with the Uranium One deal with Russia while Clinton was secretary of state, and her and the Democratic National Committee’s involvement with that fake “Trump dossier” document allegedly used to open the FBI’s special counsel Trump/Russia collusion investigation and low and behold the Clinton Foundation and alleged “Pay-to-Play” schemes while Clinton was secretary of state. Congressional investigations with subpoena power are taking place simultaneously looking into much the same topics.

The Democrats say these investigations amount to nothing more than political hate campaigns from the right to discredit the left. By golly — 2018 — is gonna be a ‘Pop the Cork’ kinda year.

About the Author Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.