Profile In Courage

To the great frustration of the left and the NeverTrump movement, President Donald Trump demonstrated yesterday why he is a positive force for conservatism.

Confronted by the overwhelming weight of "respectable" opinion, all telling him that he dare not withdraw from Barack Obama's Paris climate pact, facing division within the White House and his own house, confronted by calls from corporate titans begging and threatening him not to withdraw from the pact, Donald Trump did exactly what he said he would do. And the left-wing media and political establishment just can't cope.

I am not going to get into the idea of climate change and whether human activity is responsible for it. That is not the point. The issue before us is whether the Paris deal was the best solution, and it clearly was not. It was simply another transfer of wealth from the United States to Third World countries.

Here are some additional observations about the president's speech yesterday and the climate pact:
 

• There were many great lines in President Trump's address, but the best was this one: "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."
   
• Serious constitutional scholars doubt that Paris agreement was constitutional. Barack Obama committed the United States to spending tens of billions of dollars, while refusing to submit the pact to the Senate as required by the Constitution for formal ratification. Without that step, the deal was not binding law.
   
• U.N. bureaucrats are outraged this morning. They estimate that by the year 2100 the earth's temperature will be 0.17 degrees Celsius warmer than it would have been if Trump had kept us in the climate pact. All the left-wing talking heads whose hair is on fire today will raise temperatures more than that! We have trouble predicting the weather 24 hours in advance, but they think they can predict the exact temperature 83 years from now? (By the way, their track record on such predictions is terrible.)
   
• Under the agreement, China, the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, did not have to take any steps to mitigate its emissions problem until 2030. Where is the logic in that?
   
• How much does China pollute? According to the Institute for Energy Research, for seven straight years beginning in 2005, China added two 600 megawatt coal plants every week. Obama signed a deal that would destroy the American coal industry while allowing China to do whatever it wanted for another 13 years.
   
• The worst myth of all this is that America has abandoned its leadership, especially on environmental issues. That is completely absurd. U.S. carbon emissions are down significantly. According to the Department of Energy, "Energy-related CO2 emissions in 2015 were about 12% below 2005 levels." President Trump is demonstrating common sense economic leadership, while the left wants to follow the lead of European socialists.

  Job Growth Stalling

  With unanimous opposition from the left and division on the right over repealing Obamacare and tax reform, new government figures released this morning show the urgency of action on Capitol Hill. Only 138,000 new jobs were created in May, while jobs figures for March and April were revised downward.

  Job growth is still nowhere near the level we need. More evidence that President Trump did the right thing by getting the climate pact off the backs of U.S. job creators.

  See You In Court

  The Trump Administration filed an emergency application yesterday asking the Supreme Court to stay (or end) injunctions imposed by lower federal courts against enforcement of the president's national security order limiting immigration from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. If the justices agree to issue a stay, the president's order could take effect immediately.

  In addition, the administration also asked the high court to expedite the appeals process so that this case could be argued before the justices as early as October.

  This should be an easy win at the Supreme Court -- 7-to-2 or 8-to-1 -- based on the Constitution. The law gives the president tremendous discretion to decide on national security grounds who is allowed into the country.

  But as we have seen recently, left-wing ideologues on the lower federal courts have been eager to ignore the clear facts of the law in order to thwart the president's agenda. I think it is very possible that the four avowed liberals on the Supreme Court will do the same thing. That leaves us at the mercy of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is highly unpredictable.

  By the way, liberals are now begging Justice Kennedy to not retire.

  Planned Parenthood: More Abortions, Fewer Services

  Planned Parenthood recently released a report outlining its budget for the previous fiscal year. The nation's largest abortion business performed even more abortions, provided fewer health services and took even more of your hard-earned tax dollars in the process.
   

• Planned Parenthood "performed 4,349 more abortions in its latest year reported . . . than it did in the previous year it reported."
   
• It provided fewer than 2,900 adoption referrals, "meaning that for every 114 abortions it said it provided in that report, it gave 1 adoption referral."
   
• "Cancer screenings have plummeted by 50 percent over the past five years." In fact, total services performed -- not just cancer screenings -- also fell 50 percent over the same period.
   
• At the same time, Planned Parenthood took in $554.6 million of taxpayer money, which accounted for 41% of its revenue, and represented a $12 million increase in taxpayer subsidizes over the past five years.

  I know you are as frustrated as I am by these figures. That's why I joined more than a dozen pro-life organizations this week urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to act on the "15 criminal and regulatory referrals" issued last year against Planned Parenthood by a special House committee which investigated the pro-abortion lobby's trafficking in baby body parts.