I read Opioid overdose epidemic was largely responsible for that drop. Border security may help with that.

It is alleged the major players who took part in creating the Opioid epidemic include:

Purdue Pharma
Abbott Labs
Johnson & Johnson
Pfizer
Novartis
Covidien
Watson Pharmaceuticals
Endo Pharmaceuticals

Send in Border security

Those are prescriptions based. When the prescriptions run out, addicted users turn to heroin and fentanyl smuggled in.

Border security will help with prescription meds? Nah, doubtful. However, synthetic opiods, maybe, heroin, maybe. Of course if you stop creating addicts, that will help too. Doesn’t fentanyl come from China?

In 2016, more than 63,000 people died of drug overdoses, I believe 42,000 died of opioid abuse. Source below.

Trump can wave his tiny hands and speak to the disaster of overdose deaths, but the administration needs to fund and put prevention into practice.

So anyway, don’t get your chisels out for mt Rushmore quite yet.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/21/he...ers/index.html

To be honest, Trump can't really prevent people from overdosing if they want to. Unfortunately, many addicts are normal people who have been prescribed opioids for pain relief, and have not been able to get over their dependence on it. And then their prescription or coverage runs out, so they turn to street heroin. Very sad indeed.

But he did assign Kellyanne Conway to look into it. I think this needs an out of the box solution.

So woman are now attacked for not chiming in? Isn't that counterproductive?

First they were all silent for decades - now everybody has to claim having been harrassed? Maybe the guy had a "type" and left the others alone?

So you believe Trump was foolish? Quote "Trump made battling the nation’s opioid crisis one of the key planks during his presidential campaign, promising to address it soon after he took office"

I don’t believe that most addicts want to overdose. There is something wrong with a system that does not fully cover people for their meds and does not afford a mechanism allowing them to taper down. Or gets them addicted in the first place. Maybe Conway can look at that.

You’re right about one thing, Conway is a unique choice.

About 100 of President Trump's nominees for Govt. roles will have to be resubmitted for approval next year. Senate rules require that at the end of the first session, any nominees who have not yet been confirmed are sent back to the White House.

The sheer number of nominees sent back to the White House this year is unprecedented. Only eight of former President Obama’s nominees, and two of former President George W. Bush’s, were sent back during their first years, according to Politico.

Source

And yet another cock-up.

"The new US ambassador to the Netherlands has been caught out on Dutch television after a journalist quizzed him about comments he had made about Islamic extremism in the country.

Pete Hoekstra denied he had ever said there were "no-go zones" in the Netherlands, calling it "fake news".

But the Dutch journalist showed him a clip of the comments from 2015.

The Trump appointee then appeared to deny the "fake news" term he had used earlier in the interview."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42460055

If you build it, they will come.

Romanian ruling party chief considers moving Israeli embassy to Jerusalem

Trump likes the UN

"The United Nations Security Council just voted 15-0 in favor of additional Sanctions on North Korea. The World wants Peace, not Death!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

Bannon Puts Jared Kushner Through the Grinder

Source

Now that Trump has destroyed Kushner's ME peace process with his Jerusalem announcement maybe it is an opportune time to divert focus from Trump and throw Jared Kushner to the wolves?

Not possible unless he wants to lose his daughter.

Collateral damage
Ivanka is in the Trump mode; she will stick with Donald.

she should run for president

Melanie is more popular...

Like Trump-early senility-not being able to remember what one say's a minute ago

Maybe Trump heard this?
According to Snopes fact checks this is a true Lyndon B. Johnson statement Source

Seems Grandad shuffled out of his bedroom and found his smart phone
One of three anti FBI tweets by Trump, how can an US President so attack his own agencies?
Ultimately he alone is responsible for their behaviour?