"Government, including the state and federal government, will properly play a large role in aiding with the flood disaster in Texas. Central government can bring in the most money, the biggest tankers, the most trucks. Federal agencies have also acquired expertise by handling hurricane flooding everywhere from Galveston to New England.

"But the federal role will always be anterior, in time and in moral importance, to the local, voluntary, individual efforts.

"That is, American Greatness is explicitly not a government program. It is the freest people on Earth giving their time and resources and risking their safety, to help neighbors, including neighbors from hundreds of miles away whom they have never met. May it ever be so."

"How do you satirize the left's general, ongoing hysteria? It's starting to affect me because I could swear that I saw Vladimir Putin in a Confederate uniform the other night sneaking into my yard to plant poison ivy."

"There's an infamous figure looming large in today's politics, a rogue of sorts, often unfairly maligned. Shunned by the national political establishment, it darts in and out of the shadows, haunting the dreams of D.C.'s professional class. 'One day,' it whispers, casually flipping a set of imaginary six-shooters, nonchalant like Doc Holliday, 'I shall come again.'

"I'm talking, of course, about a good old-fashioned government shutdown.

"As you may have heard, the specter of a federal shutdown returned to our nation's capital this week, reentering the public eye after four long years. The news swept through the halls of Congress like a cold desert wind. Somewhere, a lone coyote howled. A single set of maracas shook. Capitol staffers later swore they could hear that brief minor-key whistle that plays in old Western movies right before the camera zooms in on a rattlesnake or a slack-jawed desert skeleton or the saucy villain from The Three Amigos sauntering into a local saloon. ...

"As for the latest episode in the grand historic saga of government shutdowns, we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, take heart: Here in Texas, the legislature is shut down every other year -- and that's by design. Somehow, we all manage to survive."

"...[O]verall, tax reform is a winner, yielding on average 2.6% higher GDP over 10 years than without it. The U.S., with its subpar 2% growth right now, can't afford to pass up this chance to reboot the economy and return to a 3% or so growth rate.

"If that 2.6% growth estimate doesn't impress, consider this: Based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, U.S. GDP will total roughly $236.856 trillion over the next 10 years. So a mere 2.6% addition to growth would add about $5.4 trillion more in economic output over that time. Yes, it's a big difference.

"The point is, tax reform is a big winner. It will create stronger businesses, more jobs, higher incomes and a better standard of living for all. The Republican-led Congress in June whiffed on ObamaCare repeal and replace. After that, we feared that tax reform, too, was dead.

"Turns out that tax reform, once though defunct, has a zombielike second life. But it's a good zombie. If the GOP wants to remain in control after 2018, it had better pay attention to the zombie: Pass a fundamental tax reform, the sooner the better, and show you can keep a promise."

"I waited to write about this story because at first it seemed too insane to be true, but alas, it's come to this.

"ESPN pulled Asian-American sports announcer Robert Lee from this weekend's University of Virginia vs. William & Mary football game because they were afraid he might offend people. Why? His name is too similar to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. For the record, Robert E. Lee is white and has been dead for over 100 years. ...

"So, here we are."

"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."

Read entire piece here.

" ... 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."