Should NY Thank Chuckie

The terrorist who carried out the ISIS attack in NYC today that left 8 dead and many more injured came into the USA under a special program pushed through by NY senator Chuck Schumer a few years ago.  He got a so-called "diversity visa".  Isn't it great when NY's own senator can take steps to bring terrorists right into New York City without all that annoying red tape.

We should all thank Chuckie for this.  The best way is to vote for his opponent the next time he runs for re-election.

So You Decide -- What's The Top Story?

At 9:00 tonight, I decided to take a look at the cable news shows to see what the networks were covering.  CNN was covering the terror attack by ISIS in New York that has left at least 8 people dead.  Fox News covered the same story.  MSNBC began by Rachel Maddow telling her viewers about big news in the Trump-Russia investigation.  The news Maddow said was important is that George Clovis testified before the grand jury this week and the special prosecutor released more documents like the arrest warrant and brief on setting bail for Manafort and Gates.  After a few minutes focused on Trump-Russia, Maddow cut away for a short time for an update on the ISIS attack, but then it was back to Trump Russia.

So which story do you think is more important?  Should America hear about a terror attack in New York City and the unfolding news that makes pretty clear that the terrorist was acting on behalf of ISIS?  Or, should America hear that one of the supervisors of the Trump campaign testified to the grand jury and that some rather mundane documents were made public?  In making your decision, you ought to know that Sam Clovis is the person in the Trump campaign to whom George Papadapoulos emailed a suggestion that he would meet with a Russian professor.  Clovis was Papadapoulos supervisor in the campaign hierarchy. 

My own view is that MSNBC is a disgrace.  I understand that the network is wedded to being anti-Trump all the time, but it is supposed to be a news network.  When we have a terror attack in New York, the news network should provide coverage of that terrible event rather than some meaningless drivel about rather unremarkable events in the Trump-Russia story.  The fact that Clovis testified before a grand jury really doesn't mean much of anything unless we also know what he said.  It cannot have been very important, however, or the testimony would likely have been leaked by the Mueller team (or someone else) just like the news of the sealed indictments was. 

 

Why Must The Left Distort Economic Arguments

I understand how political battles sometimes distort the truth.  Sadly, however, the left seems unable to stick with the truth even on economic matters.  That reality hit me again today when I read an article by Jeffrey Sachs on the CNN website under the headline, "The Ominous Absurdity of Trump's Tax Cuts."  Sachs is a professor at Columbia and director of something called the Sustainable Development Center.  That makes it sound like he knows what he's talking about.  Ten seconds of research reveals that he's a professor of public health.  But let's go beyond his credentials.

Sachs argues that the tax cuts are just designed to reward billionaires and other super rich people who flock to the GOP.  Let's stop there.  If Sachs bothered to look at the election returns, he would see that Hillary Clinton carried mostly all of the extremely high income areas of the country.  Even among the super-rich, there was high support for Hillary.  For example, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, the three riches people in the country, were all Clinton supporters.  Throw in more billionaires like Soros, Bloomberg and Steyer and you have many more of the super-rich.  The Waltons from Walmart are the richest family in the country.  They backed Hillary too.  I don't know of any poll limited to billionaires, but it sure seems like the majority supported Hillary.  So maybe Sachs can stop with the political lies that are supposed to somehow become truths when applied to economics.

Sachs next uses a misleading study by the CBO to argue that American corporate taxes really aren't all that high.  According to the CBO, the USA has the highest statutory corporate rate in the world at 39% (that's 35% federal and 4% state.)  The USA also has nearly the highest average corporate tax rates in the world, much higher than most other developed countries.  So far, the study is correct.  Then the CBO goes to what it calls the "effective tax rate".  That's how much a company would pay on a dollar of additional income generated by a new investment.  This is not empirical data, however.  On this basis, American corporate taxes are not out of line with those of other countries.  But there are a number of problems with this analysis.

First, companies need capital to make new investments.  That capital comes for the most part from income generated from existing facilities.  The tax on such income in the USA is the highest in the world.  That means less investment.  Second, the CBO supposedly looked at all American investments compared to actual taxes paid.  The problem is that a huge amount of American investment goes overseas in order to avoid US taxes.  The US taxes on the profits those investments generate is zero until the cash comes back into the country, something that rarely happens.  So what this means is that the CBO describes American taxes as lower because they average in profits from overseas that can't come back into the USA without being taxed.

Sachs doesn't stop with the misleading CBO study, though.  He states that an American tax cut for corporations will necessarily lead to lower taxes in all other countries.  Really?  There's no basis for this.  Sachs just states it as a given.  After blasting the supporters of tax cuts for supposedly just making claims without any basis, Sachs actually does just that.  We don't know what the Japanese or the Chinese or the French will do to their tax rates. 

In short, this is a dishonest hit piece.  No surprise it is on the CNN site.

Another Clinton Lie Exposed

When the Uranium One news came up again recently with this discovery that the FBI had investigated the bribery, extortion and coercion used to get approval for the Russian purchase of 20% of America's uranium production (approve by Hillary while secretary of state), a big response from the Hillary apologists/mainstream media (OK, that's the same thing) was that none of the uranium could be exported.  Neither Uranium One nor Rosatom (the company buying the Uranium One stock) held an export license, you see.  That may sound reasonable, but it is just a misdirection.  That's a nice word for a lie.

The reality is that the Russians had a logistics company that got the export license.  That license allowed the export of uranium produced by Uranium One to Canada.  From there, it could go anywhere.

Here's the link to the detailed story explaining how this all worked.  I wonder if there will ever be a Clinton story that won't lead to a lie.

Rose McGowan Arrest Warrant -- Something Is Very Wrong

The story broke that there's a warrant out for the arrest of Rose McGowan for drug possession, and that the warrant has been outstanding since last February.  McGowan, of course, is one of the most prominent of Harvey Weinstein's accusers and also now a major crusader against the silence in Hollywood regarding sexual abuse.  Supposedly, the warrant was obtained after personal items left behind on a plane at the airport in DC were found to contain a controlled substance.  Investigators believe the belonging are the property of McGowan.

There's something very wrong with this story.  Even if there were drugs found in a suitcase left in an airplane there clearly is not enough for a conviction.  If the suitcase were unlocked, McGowan could say that the drugs are not hers and that she does not know how they got into the suitcase.  They could have been put there by an airline employee in order to avoid detection while taking them off the plane.  They could have been put there by police after the bags were retrieved.  There are many explanations for how the drugs got into the suitcase.  Unless there is testimony that connects McGowan to the drugs, there is reasonable doubt over how the drugs came to be in the suitcase.  She would have to be acquitted by law.  No prosecutor would seek an arrest warrant in that situation.

Now maybe there's more evidence that is not getting reported, but there's no reason to think that.  After all, if there were an arrest warrant for a felony for the actress, there would not be much difficulty finding her.  It certainly shouldn't take eight months to do so.

Something is wrong with this story.

Fooling Themselves

Ezra Klein of Vox is a good indicator of "liberal thought" in DC.  Today, he manifests the wishful thinking that is infecting the reason of the left with regard to Trump-Russia.  He has written a long article in which he says two important things.  First, there is no smoking gun that indicates any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians in 2016.  Second, with these indictments, it is "impossible" to believe that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Russians.

Think about that.  There is nothing in the indictments that indicates any collusion.  There's a low-level volunteer who spoke to someone from Russia and who tried to arrange further meetings with both the candidate and the high level people in the campaign.  Those attempts were refused; the effort went nowhere --according to the indictment.  So with no new evidence, it is now impossible to believe there was no collusion.  The problem, however, is not that there is no new evidence.  No, the problem is that there is NO EVIDENCE.  So now, based upon nothing but wishful thinking, the left is concluding that there must have been collusion.  That's just wrong.

I don't know what else Mueller has found.  His well planned leaks indicate to me that he doesn't really have anything.  When the indictment was sealed, somehow the whole world knew (and the only possible source of the leaks was Mueller.)  We keep seeing well placed leaks.  My guess is that if there were any proof of collusion, it would have been leaked out by now.  So one year after the election and over one and a half years after the FBI started investigating, there is still no evidence of collusion.  In a rational world, that would lead to the conclusion that there was no collusion.  Sadly, DC and particularly the left in DC does not constitute a rational world. 

Today's Really Big News

If you read or listen to the mainstream media today, you would think that there is no news of importance other than who the special prosecutor got indicted and for what.  That, however, is completely wrong.  The big story comes from North Korea.  According to the British press, there was a collapse of underground facilities at the NK nuclear testing site and over 200 people have been killed as a result.  There is also a major fear that there will be further collapse which could release enormous amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere.  The collapse was the result of improper procedures used by the NKs during their last underground nuke test.

This is something that may finally stir China to increase pressure on the NKs with regard to giving up their nukes.  After all, the countries besides North Korea who would be most affected by a radiation cloud would be China, South Korea, Russia and Japan.  Depending on the weather at the time of the release and the duration of that release, the Chinese could see a cloud of radioactive materials float over their northeastern region and cause massive casualties.

How can this not be covered in the US media?

Enjoining A Tweet

What's wrong with the federal judiciary?  Have things become so politicized that judges are just going bonkers for political reasons?  It sure seems so.

Today, a federal district court judge issued an injunction to enjoin any move towards changing the military policy with regard to allowing transgender individuals to serve.  The current policy which now allows transgender service was put in place by president Obama in 2016, and it is not yet even fully in effect.  Prior to that time, the military did not accept transgender people although there were surely some who kept their feelings hidden.  A few months ago, President Trump tweeted that he would change the policy back to the original one.  The tweet did not have the force of law, but President Trump did direct the Pentagon to start a review towards determining if and how to implement a return to the original policy.  That's where things now stand.  There is no new policy.  The current policy is not yet fully in place.  The military is studying things to determine what would work best on this issue.  So a federal judge now issues an injunction determining military policy?  That's insane.

In the court proceedings, the administration argued that it was premature for the court to act since there was no new policy or change in policy and it is unclear how this will all end up.  The judge rejected that because the president had tweeted his intentions.  That's just wrong legally, and any careful lawyer would say the same thing.

It seems that the judge is just so hell bent to do something to take a slap at the President that she issued a bogus injunction.  Most likely there will be an appeal and the case will be reversed.  Still, it should never have gotten to this point.  The judge is doing a true disservice to the country by taking political rather than legal action.

Don't They Read?

I just passed a TV showing MSNBC and the host was speaking to a panel of pundits.  She said that Manafort was arrested for failing to register as a foreign agent, "and not just for any country, but for Russia."  The assemblage of pundits nodded their heads in agreement.  That position may fit with the narrative of the last year about Trump-Russia collusion, but it's also completely wrong.  The indictment says that Manafort failed to register as an agent of Ukraine and one particular political party in Ukraine.  It wasn't Russia.

I can see someone who is not paying attention make this mistake, but these are reporters and supposed experts who are being paid to pay attention.  I read the indictment when it was issued to the public this morning.  It doesn't take more than a few minutes to read.  Here we have these fools reporting the news, but it's clear that none of them took the time to actually read the indictment.

How can this all be?

This Should Be Interesting

Election day is a week from tomorrow, so the pollsters ought to be trying very hard to get their results to be correct.  That's why today's poll in the Virginia governor's race is so strange.  In the last ten days, there have been five polls taken in this race.  They've been very close on average; Northam the Democrat leads Gillespie the Republican in the five polls by 0.6%.  Then Quinnipiac releases today's poll which shows Northam up by 17%.  It is as if Quinnipiac is polling in a different state.  I went back to look at the previous polls in the race.  For months, Quinnipiac has been showing Northam with a double digit lead.  Of the last 22 polls done by other pollsters, only one (taken months ago) gave Northam a double digit lead.

It is not statistically possible that validly taken polling results could be this skewed.  Simply put, Quinnipiac is doing something to give the Democrat a big lead.  Why would a polling organization like Qunnipiac put out bogus polls like this?

Okay, before you email me to say that maybe all the other polls are wrong, remember that there are seven other polling organizations doing these polls.  It is impossible that all seven got together to fake their polls so that the race would look close when it really isn't.

It ought to be wrong for a pollster to put out phony poll results or to tailor his poll so that faulty results will be produced.

Great News -- Leader of Benghazi Attack Captured in Special Ops raid in Libya

One of the leaders of the 2012 attack by Islamic terrorists on the US consulate in Benghazi was captured over the weekend in Libya.  Special forces mounted a raid into that country and took Mustafa Al Imam to a ship offshore in the Mediterranean Sea.  No one is certain of the terrorist's present location, but he is believed to be on his way back to the USA to stand trial for his role in the attack in Benghazi that left four US dead including our ambassador to Libya.

This is great news.  Five years after the Benghazi attack, American forces are finally responding to that attack.  The capture of the terrorist took place on Saturday, but it was not announced until today once the US ship is no longer near the Libyan coast.

The saddest thing about this news is the reaction from many in the media.  They are tweeting about whether or not the capture of the terrorist leader was just something done to take attention away from the indictment of Paul Manafort.  That's truly disgraceful.  This terrorist led an attack that killed four innocent Americans.  When we catch him, the reason is because he needed to be caught and prosecuted.  Any suggestion otherwise is despicable.

The Flake Fake

Just a few days ago, Arizona senator Jeff Flake announced that he would not seek re-election.  He blamed the decision on his personal distaste for President Trump.  It was a silly ruse; Flake was at 22% approval in Arizona and was behind in hypothetical primary matchups by double digits.  There was no way he was going to win, so he made a splash by blaming Trump.  Amazingly, it didn't take long for Flake's lies to be revealed fully.  We get news today that Flake is now working with a group that is polling how he would fare if he ran as an independent. 

It's disgusting that a senator cannot be honest with the public even when he is leaving office.  Why is it impossible for the senator to just say that he realizes he can't win so he won't be running again?

After news of the poll came out, Flake again said that he won't be running as an independent cause he's a Republican.  The poll results were not released, but you can imagine from this news that they must have not been good for Flake's prospects as an independent.

The B Side Starts

This morning, in the indictment for Paul Manafort, there was extensive discussion of "Company B", and American lobbying firm that was involved with the alleged scheme.  When I read the description of Company B, it was clear that it was a reference to the Podesta Group, a firm founded by John Podesta and his brother Tony Podesta.  Strangely enough Manafort was chairman of the Trump campaign in 2016 while John Podesta was chairman of the Clinton campaign.  It seems as if the implications that another indictment will be following for Company B and/of its leaders was not lost at the Podesta Group.  The news has just broken that Tony Podesta has resigned as the CEO of the Podesta Group.  Podesta told company employees that he wanted to "fight this thing" as an individual without involving the company.

In one day we get both Trump and Clinton campaigns hit.  Nevertheless, none of the allegations on which the indictment is based have anything to do with either the 2016 campaign or collusion about the election with Russia.

One might validly wonder how we got to the point where the special prosecutor on Russia and the election came to get involved with this other stuff.

The Manafort Indictments

The special prosecutor brought indictments against Paul Manafort today.  Interestingly enough, the charges have nothing to do with the Trump campaign or any collusion about the election with Russia.  Instead, Manafort is charged with matters connected to his representation of Ukraine in the years prior to his involvement with the Trump campaign and some coverup that he did following that representation.  The indictment refers extensively to a plan Manafort worked out for this coverup involving what the indictment calls Company A and Company B.  Company B seems clearly to the Podesta Group, the lobbying firm founded by Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and his brother.

Mueller has come out with an indictment.  Nevertheless, despite the inevitable spin we will hear from the media, Mueller has come forward with nothing that would implicate the Trump campaign in any wrongdoing.  In fact, he came closer to hitting the Clinton campaign.

Congrats to the Media For Stopping Repair of Puerto Rican Power Grid

Hooray for the media!  They managed to stop repairs to the Puerto Rican power grid.  The problem is that the Puerto Rican power authority gave a repair contract to a company called Whitefish that happens to come from the same town in Montana as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.  That's it!  Alarm bells went off.  It must be corruption, right?

The problem, however, is that the federal government had nothing to do with the award of the contract.  That was done by the power authority in Puerto Rico.  Although the contract signed says that it was approved by FEMA, FEMA denies any involvement in the matter.  In fact, FEMA says that it has never seen the contract.

Now, after the media storm, the governor of Puerto Rico wants to cancel the contract with Whitefish.  The problem is that Whitefish has over 100 linesmen in Puerto Rico working nearly 24 hours per day on repair to the electric grid.  If the contract is canceled, that repair work will stop.

Shouldn't there be something wrong before the contract gets cancelled?  Shouldn't the work of repairing the grid continue so that all those without power can get it back sooner rather than later?  Why must the innuendo in the media beat the reality of facts?

Look, I don't know how Whitefish got this contract.  I know of nothing that indicates that Zinke was involved in any way in this matter.  After a week of searching, the media has found nothing that indicates any involvement by Zinke.  If that is true, there is no reason other than political machinations that calls for cancellation of the contract.

I've seen estimates that for each day the Whitefish workers continue many thousands of Puerto Ricans (maybe tens of thousands) get their power back.  The work should not stop.

Of course, the media doesn't care about the people without power.  They just want a good story, especially if it can be used to attack president Trump.  It's really unfortunate that things have gotten to this point.

Flipping the Script

In 2016, Wikileaks released emails of DNC personnel that showed the DNC under Debbie Wasserman Schultz conspired with the Clinton campaign to rig the Democrat primaries so that Bernie Sanders couldn't win.  No one disputed that these were real emails, but the Democrats and the media focused instead on who gave the emails to Wikileaks.  About the same time, Wikileaks started publishing the emails from the account of John Podesta, the chair of Hillary Clinton's campaign.  These emails showed all sorts of things, none of which were very complimentary to Hillary.  Again, there was no attempt to dispute the accuracy of the emails published.  The focus was on who gave the emails to Wikileaks.  There was no government review of the computers that were hacked at the DNC; the Democrats forbade the FBI access to those computers.  Instead, an outside "security" firm was hired to do the review and that firm pronounced the Russians to be guilty of the hacking.  Thus was born the whole "Russia hacked the election" mantra and then the Trump-Russia investigation.

Keep those facts in mind as we look at the main reaction to the news that the phony Trump dossier that the FBI used to get a FISA warrant in 2016 to surveil people involved with the Trump campaign was, in fact, paid for by the DNC and the Cllinton campaign.  The basic view from Clinton-land has been that the source of the dossier doesn't matter; we need look only to see if the facts in that dossier are accurate.  Here, for example, is what James Clapper told CNN after the news broke:

“With respect to the dossier itself, the key thing is it doesn’t matter who paid for it.  It’s what the dossier said and the extent to which it’s corroborated or not.”

The former Director of National Intelligence suddenly is focused on the truth, or lack of truth of the allegations, not the source.  Of course, we know that the dossier is mostly untrue.  When it was the email of the DNC and John Podesta which were admittedly true, he wanted to ignore the validity of the content and focus only on the source.

This is what is called flipping the script.

The Liberal Attack on the First Amerndment

Robert Post is a law professor at Yale, and he was dean of the law school until a few months ago.  He ought to understand the Constitution.  Nevertheless, he penned an article for ultra-liberal Vox entitled "There is no 1st Amendment right to speak on a college campus".  Post argues that a university has to engage in determining "proper content" of what gets said on campus to promote proper education of the students.  Wow!

Let's break down what the First Amendment actually means.  Simply put, the government cannot take any steps to limit the free speech of the American people.  We start with "government" and what it means.  The courts have interpreted "government" to include all the instrumentalities of the government.  In other words, every public university is clearly part of the government.  If the University of California at Berkeley or Ohio State wants to limit free speech, the Constitution says it cannot.  The next issue is whether or not a private university that is heavily funded by the public constitutes the "government".  There is no point in describing exactly where the line is drawn but suffice to say that some so-called "private schools" are considered the government as well.

The next question is what constitutes "free speech".  It is not acceptable or protected speech to engage in a crime.  For example, walking into a bank and yelling "This is a robbery!" is not protected speech.  The line can be hard exactly to define in certain circumstances, but it is clear that political speech is protected.  Advocating for one policy or another is the essence of protected free speech.

So what of Post's argument that a university can determine proper content before allowing speech?  It flies in the face of the established meaning of the First Amendment.  If Penn State or the University of Connecticut want to bar left wing or right wing speakers from campus in the name of "proper content", they would be acting illegally.  That's not a difficult concept to grasp.  Post certainly knows the rules; you don't get to be dean of Yale Law School without understanding them.  Nevertheless, Post is pushing a bogus argument to justify a totalitarian approach towards speech.  Why do liberals feel so threatened by those who do not agree with them?  Is it because they know that they cannot win in the battle of ideas?  Or is it that the totalitarian impulses of the left are so strong that they just feel compelled to extinguish freedom of the individual whenever they can?

Just go Away Already

The ever-nasty Kathy Griffin is back with a new stunt to get attention.  Today, she posted a video in which she calls out the head of TMZ and posts his cell phone number in revenge for TMZ not supporting her when she pulled her famous stunt of posing for a photo with what appeared to be the severed head of President Trump.  How desperate is she?

Imagine this!  Griffin pulls one of the most bone-headed and disgusting stunts of the year and it blows up in her face.  She apologizes profusely, but she gets dumped by media businesses (e.g. she lost her New Year's Eve gig on CNN).  She also pretty much disappears.  So Griffin does what she does best:  she tries to make a scene.  She "retracts" her apology (as if anyone believed it in the first place.)  When that doesn't work, she tries working abroad but discovers that if she ever gets back to TV her old show "My Life on the D list" would need to be renamed "My Life on the Z list."  Her international "tour" is a total flop.  So now with Harvey Weinstein in the news, Griffin goes out to make a video about her mistreatment by TMZ.  And what was that mistreatment?  TMZ reported on her stupid and disgusting photo stunt and the reaction to it.  In other words, Griffin is just doing another of her stupid publicity stunts with no merit.

Maybe next week she can denounce The Weather Channel for reporting on the weather.

The Connections Keep Growing and Growing

Marc Elias is a Washington attorney at the firm of Perkins Coie.  He was also the counsel for the Clinton campaign in 2016 and represented the DNC too.  He also seems to be in the center of some really big problems for both the DNC and Hillary and also for the Trump-Russia investigation.  Here's what we know:

1.  In March of 2016, Elias retained Fusion GPS to work for the DNC and the Clinton campaign. 

2.  Fusion GPS was paid over 9 million bucks to create the Trump dossier, a file filled with false smear stories attempting to connect Donald Trump to the Russians.  The payments were hidden by having the DNC and Clinton campaign pay Elias' law firm which, in turn, paid Fusion GPS.

3.  Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya had apparent connections with the Putin regime.  She also had worked in the past on more than one occasion with Fusion GPS.

4.  Veselnitskaya lured Donald Trump, Jr. to a meeting by claiming to have information detrimental to Hillary Clinton, but at the meeting she just talked about laws regarding adoptions.

5.  In the spring of 2016, the servers at the DNC were hacked and email of all sorts were taken by the intruders.  Attorney Elias hired a firm called Crowd Strike to come to the DNC and review the computer system.  Crowd Strike said that the hack was the work of the Russians.

6.  When the FBI learned of the hack at the DNC, they asked to have their experts see the DNC computers.  Attorney Elias, acting for the DNC, refused to give the FBI access to those computers.  Instead, he gave the FBI the report from Crowd Strike which blamed the Russians.  To this day, the FBI has NOT seen the DNC computers.  The only basis for the intelligence community saying that the Russians hacked the DNC computers is what Crowd Strike said.

7.  Until a few days ago, attorney Elias claimed consistently that he did not know who had hired Fusion GPS to write the phony Trump Dossier.  Elias also sat next to John Podesta as his attorney when Podesta testified that he did not know who paid for the Trump Dossier.

Let's now put this together (and remember, none of the facts listed above is contested.)
Elias, working on behalf of Hillary and the DNC, arranged for the creation of a phony dossier of misinformation obtained from the Russians in order to try to discredit Donald Trump.  Elias, working on behalf of Hillary and the DNC, thwarted every effort by the FBI to see the hacked computer systems at the DNC.  As a result, we have no way of really knowing who hacked those computers.  A Russian lawyer who often worked with Fusion GPS lured the President's son into a meeting that looked like some sort of effort at collusion even though nothing untoward happened at the meeting.  Oh, and we also know that Julian Assange of Wikileaks has said for over a year that the emails that Wikileaks published on the internet were NOT obtained from the Russians.  This means that the entire Trump-Russia connection could be nothing more than some dishonest and disgusting dirty trick put together by Hillary and the DNC to try to damage Trump.  We don't know who hacked the DNC computers.  The FBI and CIA and NSA don't know either since they have been kept from reviewing those computers.  We don't know if the Veselnitskaya meeting was a set up arranged by Elias (or someone else at the DNC) in order to "create facts" usable against Trump.  We don't know how involved Hillary herself was in this entire mess.

One thing is certain though:  there was a great deal of collusion with regard to the Trump Russia matter.  The only thing is that it seems none of the collusion was between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

How's This For Even-Handed?

Here's how Politico starts its latest article on the status of the tax reform proposals:

Rank-and-file House Republicans are increasingly alarmed by the secrecy shrouding the massive tax bill their party leaders plan to ram through Congress next month.

How's that for an even-handed approach.  Of course, if you read the full article, you find that the "secrecy" is that there are still some details being finalized on the bill and that the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, congressman Kevin Brady is doing that together with the committee's tax lawyers.  The final bill will be unveiled Tuesday.  It's not exactly secrecy since the members of the committee have seen most of a preliminary draft of the bill although it hasn't be released to the public.

And how about "ramming" the bill through Congress.  First there are going to be hearings and a mark up where the bill can be amended.  That's what happens to all bills in the normal course.  Then there will be votes with ample opportunity to amend the bill again.  It's call passing the bill.  That's not ramming the bill through the House.

When the bill gets to the Senate, there will not be a filibuster since reconciliation will be used.  Again, that is proceeding by regular rules.  There will be hearings in the Senate Finance committee as well.  So there's no "ramming" of the bill through that house either.

Everyone in America who has been listening knows the basic structure of the tax bill, but not all the details.  Those detail are very important, but it won't take too long to understand them.  This is not like a 2300 page Obamacare bill that the Democrats would not release to members until two days before the vote.  For Obamacare, there was no way anyone could possibly have understood the bill and all its ramifications in those two days.  Surprisingly (or dropping the sarcasm unsurprisingly) Politico never thought Obamacare was being rammed through Congress.

Tax policy is a very important issue for the USA.  Can't Politico, just for once, try to present the issues in a fair, unbiased way to let the American people decide for themselves?  Why must everything be reduced to lies told to favor the Democrats.

The Bias At Yahoo Is Astonishing

There's rampant bias in the media; that should surprise no one.  Still, I never fail to be surprised by the extent of the left wing bias at Yahoo.  Remember, Yahoo is no long a stand alone company.  It is a subsidiary of Verizon.  The bias of the old days has not changed one bit, however.  I was reminded of that today in an article about the fact that the congressional Republicans are going to publish their final tax proposal on this coming Tuesday.  So how does Yahoo announce this?  The headline announces that the GOP will unveil the "winners" and "losers" from the tax plan next week.

Think about that.  If you only read the headline (like at least half of all readers) you wouldn't know that the details of the tax plan were being unveiled.  All you would know is that there are clear losers (and winners) in the GOP tax plan.  And you can be sure that Yahoo would tell you that the rich were the winners and everyone else comprise the losers.  In other words, there's no need to read the details of the tax plan; you are likely a loser from it.

Then there's another article headlined "Trump dossier research funded by site with GOP ties".  So it wasn't Hillary's campaign and the DNC that paid for the dossier, right?  WRONG!!  The article under this headline points out that the Washington Free Beacon paid Fusion GPS to do research on Trump, but none of the material in the Trump dossier was the result of that research.  Let's make that clearer:  Hillary and the DNC paid Fusion GPS to put together a dossier of phony stories designed to smear Trump and claim connections with the Russians.  The Washington Free Beacon had earlier employed Fusion GPS to do research, but that research had nothing whatsoever to do with the dossier.  Simply put, the Yahoo headline is a blatant lie.

So we have Yahoo and its never-ending narrative that Trump is bad and everything Republican must be destroyed.  When the facts don't follow that narrative, Yahoo just ignores those facts.  Even when it publishes an article with facts harmful to the Democrats, Yahoo just creates a false narrative with the headline it writes.

I stopped reading Yahoo News long ago for just this reason.  If I hadn't gone to Yahoo today to see some of the college football scores, I wouldn't have seen this latest bit of phony news.  I suggest we all stop visiting Yahoo News.  Maybe the loss of clicks would awaken people at Verizon's headquarters to the kind of dishonest or misleading stuff being put out on that website.

The "I Knew Nothing" Coverup already Unraveling

The big news of the past few days has been that the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid for the Trump-Russia dossier.  On top of this, we learned that the FBI had investigated the Russian bribery, extortion and other illegal coercion in connection with the Uranium One deal.  The response from top Democrats and Hillary Clinton has been pretty consistent.  The current and the former chairs of the DNC denied having any knowledge about the dossier.  All those around Clinton denied knowledge in similar fashion.  Clinton's campaign spokesman said that Hillary may have known about the dossier, but Clinton herself stayed silent on the subject.  Then CNN reported that unnamed sources tell it that Clinton didn't know anything about it.   It was the most massive stampede of Democrats to a common position of supposedly not knowing that I can recall.

The know nothing response, however, is already starting to fall apart.  Two high powered Democrats wrote an article in the New York Post in which they say that it is not possible that Hillary and the head of the DNC were unaware of what the 9 million bucks paid to their law firm was for.  Doug Schoen worked for Bill Clinton in the 1990s and he was a major Hillary supporter in 2008.  Andrew Stein was a major elected official in New York and also knows Hillary well.  These are not conservative bloggers (some of my favorite people) but important Democrats who know how both election campaigns and the Clintons work.  They know that it is inconceivable that Hillary Clinton was unaware that her campaign was spending many millions on creating a phony dossier with scurrilous lies about Trump. 

If people like these are already abandoning the Clinton ship, it won't be long before that ship sinks.

Spreading the Lies on Taxes

Here's a question to ponder:  If I own 1% of a public company and that company's taxes get cut by $1 million, did I just get 1% of that tax cut or $10,000?  The simple answer is NO.  I won't have even one dollar more.  The company will, however, have an extra million dollars and could use that to invest in a new project, to pay higher wages, to pay off debt, or even to pay a dividend.  If the dividend is chosen, I would get some of the tax cut; otherwise, I get nothing.  The value of my stock might rise, but that value is more related to the amount the company is earning and its future prospects than the size of its tax payment.

That question and answer is rather obvious to those who understand how companies function and how the stock market works.  Of course, in the stock market, nothing is perfect and nothing always works the way it is supposed to.  Nevertheless, the idea that the shareholders of a public company are the direct and proportional beneficiaries of a tax cut is sheer nonsense, and that is not a complicated or even contested issue.

I'm writing about this, because Paul Krugman adopts exactly that assumption in the New York Times today.  He cites the falsely named Tax Policy Center for the conclusion that a $2 trillion cut in business taxes will go 35% to foreigners because 35% of the stock in America's public companies is held by foreigners.  He also announces that the tax cut won't help create jobs or raise wages because the connection between the tax cut and such behavior is just too tenuous.  Krugman won a Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on international trade some years ago.  As a columnist, however, Krugman seems to want to live in a fantasy world where facts don't matter and laws of economics can be ignored.  That's a nice way of saying that Krugman's column is pure nonsense.

First, a tax cut for American businesses does not go directly to shareholders.  That's why I started with my example.  The tax cut might go in a small part to dividends, but that's the only thing the shareholders will get directly.

Second, there will be a major push for new investment by America's businesses after the tax cut.  Before a company typically makes any investment, they analyze the expected outcome of that move.  With a lower tax rate, the return on the investment is greatly improved, so more investments will get made.  Investment by business is the greatest single source of new jobs and higher wages in the economy.  Even Krugman would have to agree with that.

Third, as more businesses invest and more jobs are created, we will get to the point where American workers can share in the increased prosperity in the form of higher wages.  During the Obama era, wages were stagnant.  There was no meaningful increase.  And, of course, Krugman thought that the Obama economic policies were just great.  The proposed tax cuts will raise wages and incomes.

Fourth, the Tax Policy Center decided that since 35% of the shares of public companies in the USA are foreign owned, that 35% of the entire tax cut to business ought to be credited to them.  Public companies, however, are not the only beneficiaries of the tax cuts.  There a millions of small businesses and large businesses that do not have shares traded on any exchange.  The Tax Policy Center decides to ignore these privately owned companies even though they make up close to half of the US economy.  The Tax Policy Center uses clearly erroneous numbers to get it's 35% figure and Krugman just adopts this obviously faulty method.  Their goal is not analysis, but rather to come up with the best argument against the tax cut no matter the actual facts.

Fifth, the terms of the tax cut proposal have not been finalized.  The Tax Policy Center and Krugman both don't know what the proposal for business will be.  Somehow, though, it doesn't matter to them.  Not only do they use faulty logic, but they also just assume what they want about the content of the final bill.  It's total BS.

Krugman should issue a retraction for his article.

Changing The Narrative

Yesterday, news stories appeared from "sources" that said that a grand jury has voted for the first indictments to stem from the Mueller investigations.  The stories say that the indictments are sealed under order of a federal judge.  There was no indication of who was indicted or for what alleged crime.  Think about that for a minute.  Who is the source of the story?  It can't be the person indicted or his or her legal team; they don't know yet of the indictment.  It's unlikely that it's a member of the grand jury; they are sworn to secrecy and a grand juror breaking that secrecy would put the whole matter at risk.  Individual citizens on grand juries do not typically break the order of a judge who directs them to stay silent on pain of punishment.  No, the likely source for this story (assuming, as I do, that it is not fake news) is the Mueller team.  These are the lawyers who asked in the first place for the indictment to be sealed.  So why are they leaking this to the media?

The answer to this question is pretty obvious.  In the last week, Mueller has taken quite a beating in the press.  First we learned that as head of the FBI, Mueller investigated the Russian bribery, extortion and coercion surrounding the Uranium One purchase.  Mueller, however, did not inform the people making the decision on approval of that deal (supposedly) about the investigation and what it found.  He could have told those people making the decision and they likely would have then turned down the Russians' criminal enterprise designed to win them 20% of the uranium production in the USA.  Of course, then there's also testimony coming (or so we are told) that a confidential informant who embedded himself in the Russians' illegal activities at the behest of the FBI was told that president Obama was being kept abreast of the Russians' activities in his daily intelligence briefing.  That would mean that Mueller participated in a scheme in which Obama kept news of the Russian criminal activity (including giving over a hundred million dollars to the Clintons and other major Democrats) under wraps.  This mess ought to be enough to have Mueller recuse himself.  Second we learned that the Trump dossier was actually false information paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign.  Then the FBI used the bogus info to get a FISA warrant that allowed it to spy on the Trump campaign.  We also learned that the lawyer who lured Donald Trump jr. into a meeting supposedly to discuss info harmful to Hillary in the possession of the Russians but which turned out to be about adoption law actually worked with Fusion GPS (the group hired by the Clintons to create the dossier with the phony stories about Trump.  In other words, we learned that the main basis for the entire Mueller investigation is flawed at best and completely phony at worst.  Mueller's investigation was on life support.  In this kind of an atmosphere, Mueller's team wants to change the narrative.  What better way to do that than to leak a story of a supposed indictment.

Many times in investigations sealed indictments are never unsealed.  The person who is being indicted makes some sort of a deal to help the investigation and the indictment is dropped.  Indeed, since it is sealed, the defense of those eventually indicted may never even know of the sealed indictment.  If anyone asks about the indictment, the response is that it cannot be discussed because it is sealed.  What better story to leak than one about which no follow up questions can be asked.

With that in mind, it is interesting to see the coverage of this news.  It isn't making that big a splash except inside the Democrat/media bubble.  Last night after the story broke, CNN had a panel discussing whether or not the President could pardon himself in view of the indictment.  For CNN, a first indictment from Mueller means that Trump is in big trouble.  That is just their wishful thinking, but it is indicative of the sort of coverage they provide.  I don't get why anyone ever watches that network.

Hatch Leaving?

Today's rumor in Washington is that Orrin Hatch is retiring.  The second part of the rumor is that Mitt Romney is going to run to replace him.  Others say that Evan McMullin is also running for the seat.

Hatch has been in the senate for over 40 years.  He's 83 now and would be 84 on election day next year.  If he's retiring, as rumored, it's a good decision.

The other day, I discussed the possibility of Hatch retiring with a friend who speculated that this could lead to the Democrats taking this seat.  That, of course, is crazy.  Utah is about as Republican as a state can be, and there are no credible Democrats to run for the seat.  If Romney runs for the seat, it is hard to imagine his losing to anyone.  He has all the money he needs to finance a run, major name recognition, and on top of that he's a Mormon which gives him a major leg up in Utah.  Romney's only problem is that he is on the outs with President Trump, but my guess is that their differences can be easily papered over should Romney actually run.

Mitt wasn't the greatest presidential candidate.  He let Obama get away with all sorts of things without confronting him on them.  The worst moment came in the foreign policy debate in 2012 when he could have destroyed Obama with Benghazi and instead let Obama lie his way out of the situation.  Nevertheless, Romney could well make a very good senator.

On the other hand, I would also like to see Congresswoman Love try for this seat if Romney doesn't.  She is extremely bright and would make a great addition to the senate.  I actually would rather see her in the seat than Mitt Romney, but that's a race I doubt she could win.

Most Likely A Plot by the Makers Of Throat Lozenges

On the first anniversary of the 2016 election, supposedly thousands of Americans are going to go outside to scream helplessly at the sky as part of a protest against President Trump.  I realize this sounds like a scam or a joke of some sort, but it's actually a real thing.  What less effective way could their be of protesting Hillary Clinton's (well deserved) loss in 2016 and the Trump victory?  I guess they could all try self-immolation, but that has a finality that few want to experience.  Most likely the crazy useless protest will take place followed by an expose in which it is revealed that the who thing was a ploy by the makers of throat lozenges to sell more of their products.

Is Syria A Vital US Interest?

At Real Clear World today, there is an article in which the authors argue that the US should stay away from involvement in Syria as that country is not a vital US interest.  They also argue that Assad is going to be the leader of Syria and that the US needs to accept that.  They also argue that we ought not concern ourselves with secular slaughters in Syria and its neighbors.

So is this correct?  Should America run from Syria now that ISIS is about to be destroyed?  Let's take a look at what would happen in Syria without any American presence.

1.  Assad, with the backing of Russia and Iran, would indeed reassert control over the country.  The Sunni rebels are mostly a spent force without American support.  If they lost American air support and resupply, it would likely be just a matter of time until their forces collapsed. 

2.  The Kurds would also be likely overrun.  Not only would they face hostility from Assad and Iran but also from Turkey and Iraq.  It would be yet another middle eastern ethnic group that would be subjected to ethnic cleansing.  After years of the Kurds being our allies, we would be just forgetting them.

3.  Iran would have an unbroken highway of Shiite governed territory from Teheran to Beirut.  This would allow Iran to send major forces to threaten Israel right on the Israeli border.

4.  The chance of ever using sanctions against Iran would end because the other nations under Iranian hegemony would be a porous entryway into Iran.

5.  The Sunni oil states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc. would be faced with a strong alliance of Iranian led Shiite states with great hostility to the USA.  The Sunnis might have no choice but to reach some modus vivendi with the Iranians to America's detriment.

That is hardly a list of items that are not of national importance to the USA.  Indeed, just making the list disproves the validity of the contrary claim made in today's article.  So what can the USA do to respond?  Is there anything other than a permanent American presence in the region that could bring a positive result?

The answer here is one that is rapidly becoming more difficult to achieve.  America ought to support creation of an independent Kurdish state on the territory held by the Kurds in Iraq and Syria.  This new state would be met with hostility by the Assad forces, the Iraqi government, the Turkish government and also the Iranians.  American support for the Kurds, however, might be enough to head off military confrontations between these antagonists.  A Kurdish state would block much of Iran's regional ambition.  It would also provide an American ally in a region where those are hard to find.  This resolution, however, requires quick moves by the USA.  If we wait, the Kurdish regions will be dismembered and the Kurdish forces destroyed.  That will just insure years more of conflict in the region but with one less American ally.

The US Economy Is Finally Growing As It Should

The government released the first estimate of economic growth for the third quarter of 2017.  It showed that the economy grew at a rate of 3.0% during the quarter.  This is a great report.  The GDP is the one indicator that measures the economy as a whole, so a good growth rate here means on average everything is doing well.  Under president Obama, his war on business was such that he never managed to have a year in which the economy grew at 3.0% or higher.  That made Obama the first president since these statistics began to be kept about 100 years ago to fail to achieve that growth rate.  In two quarters under Trump, the economy hit 3% both times (the second quarter growth was 3.1%).  It's amazing what a removal of needless regulations and a change in attitude at the top can do for the American economy.  These results are even better because the three percent growth rate was achieved despite the battering that the economy took from three major hurricanes.  Without those storms the economy would have grown by at least another half a percent.  Since that missing growth is likely to be picked up during the fourth quarter, we are already well on our way towards another great quarter.

It is important to know that today's figure is only the first estimate.  There will be three refinements to the number as more data comes in.  We could see the number go up or down by half a percent.  The point, however, is that the first estimate sets the parameters for the final number (which we won't get until some time in the summer of 2018.)

It's great to write about pure good news for once.

You Can't Win

Today, President Trump declared the opioid addiction crisis a national health emergency.  It is an unprecedented step.  For the previous eight years then president Obama did nothing like it.  Basically, Obama ignored the problem.  So what was the reaction from prominent Democrats?  Senator Blumenthal from my own state of Connecticut said that those who are suffering "deserve better than half measures and empty rhetoric offered seemingly as an afterthought."  What a disgraceful statement!

It's amazing.  For all those years as Obama did nothing, Blumenthal was content to stand on the sidelines and do nothing.  Now that Trump is in office and taking some action, Blumenthal criticizes it as not enough.  What a hypocrite.  I wonder if he cares even a little bit about all the people actually suffering from opioid addiction and the damage it inflicts on families and individuals.

I have no problem if Blumenthal thinks he has better ideas how to deal with the opioid crisis and puts those ideas forth to the public.  Blumenthal, however, does no such thing.  He just criticizes everything that Trump does.

That Obama Excuse Disappears

During the Obama years, every time there was another scandal, the president claimed to have not known anything about it until he read about it in the media.  Fast and Furious was the Department of Justice running thousands of assault weapons to the Mexican drug cartels.  Obama said he first learned of the whole thing on the news.  The IRS targeted conservative and Christian groups, but Obama never heard of any of it until it made the news.  Time and time again, Obama denied knowledge but claimed he only heard of the scandal from the media.  It was a stupid excuse which any sane person would find hard to believe.  Nevertheless, Obama stuck to this story line and the media pushed the lie time and time again.

Lately, however, this lie has lost its luster for the Democrats.  The DNC and the Clinton campaign paid for the Trump Dossier.  The current chair of the DNC Tom Perez claimed to know nothing about that.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz - who was chair of the DNC when the payments to Fusion GPS were made-claims to know nothing about it.  She just heard about it in the media.  Hillary Clinton knew nothing about it.  Hillary's campaign spokesman and the campaign manager knew nothing about it.  Somehow, though, close to nine million dollars was sent to a law firm that the Dems used to conceal payments to Fusion GPS.  Maybe it was all done by magic and no one knew about it.  But here's the big problem for these people:  the media isn't really covering the story.  As CBS, ABC, CNN and NBC avoid the story, all these people seem to have known enough about it to deny any knowledge about it.  How did they come to know the details if it wasn't from media coverage?

The Democrats have a problem:  they don't even know how to lie well.

Nonsense On The Budget

Here's the news:  the House passed the federal budget blueprint today with every Democrat voting against it.

Here's the media spin on that vote:

1.  Republicans abandoned a balanced budget because of Trump's "boast" of a "massive tax cut".
2.  Democrats opposed the budget because of the deficit spending it included.
3.  Republicans say that tax cuts will boost the economy, but "experts" warn that this will not happen.
4.  The purpose of the budget busting tax cuts is to give cash back to rich people and richer corporations.

Here's the reality:
1.  The budget does not spend even one cent of federal money.  Instead it is a blueprint of proposed spending.  Nothing will be spend unless and until Congress authorizes the spending and appropriates the money.  Nothing in the budget affects how large or how small the actual federal spending will be.
2.  Passing the budget is necessary for Senate Republicans to head off a Democrat filibuster of any tax reform effort.  The budget lets the senate use a procedure called reconciliation which mandates a vote with limited debate.  In short, that means passing the tax bill with a majority rather than with 60 or more votes.
3.  The idea of tax reform is not a "boast" by the President, but rather one of the core principles of the GOP.  It is also a major promise from President Trump during the campaign as well as a major promise for nearly every GOP member of Congress.
4. In modern times, Democrats have never opposed any spending because it might lead to a deficit.  Indeed, while Obama was in office the level of deficit spending rose to previously unknown heights.  Nothing in the budget or the tax reform measures would even come close to the deficit levels foisted on America by Obama and the Democrats.
5.  The so called "experts" who warn that tax reform won't boost the economy are frauds.  When rates were cut by Kennedy, Reagan and Bush, the economy responded with much quicker growth.  There is no instance in the last hundred years of a tax cut ever failing to boost economic growth.  That means that these supposed "experts" are just hacks trying to achieve a political end, rather than real experts in economics.
6.  Tax cuts for business are not gifts to rich people.  If America's private sector has more money to invest, the resulting extra growth will mean millions of additional jobs, higher wages for those employed and reduced government spending for welfare. 
7.  Tax reductions for individuals will most likely mean some additional cash for the wealthy.  That's because they are the ones who pay most of the taxes.  Only about half of American households actually pay income taxes.  The top 25% of households in income pay over 90% of income taxes.  If taxes are reduced, the benefit will go to those who pay taxes in the first place.  That's no surprise.

An Interesting Choice

Today brings an interesting choice with regard to the subject of this post.  We have another liberal icon falling before the axe of sexual harassment.  This time the admitted sex abuser is MSNBC/NBC News' analyst Mark Halperin.  There are now at least 5 women who say Haperin abused them and he has been dumped by NBC and MSNBC.  One minute MSNBC is laughing in derision at Fox News because of its problem in this area and the next MSNBC is suffering from its very own scadal. 

Besides Halperin, we also have two election races where the script is being flipped.  The first is in Alabama where the media told us that the GOP candidate for senate, Roy Moore, might lose to the Democrat.  Indeed, the poll taken immediately after Moore won the primary showed a tie.  The excitement in DC and other Democrat hangouts was palpable.  Now, however, there have been a batch more polls and Moore has pulled into the lead by at least 14% over the Democrat in each.  Things have returned to normal in Alabama.  Then there's Virginia where the latest poll shows GOP candidate Ed Gillespie with an 8% lead over his opponent.  This is causing panic among the Democrats around the country.  Virginia has been trending to the Democrats for a while now.  Obama carried it twice, and it was the only state in the South that Hillary won.  Two months ago, the Democrat was up by double digits in the polls.  Then came two important moments.  First, Northam, the Democrat, airbrushed his African American running mate out of photos on some campaign materials because some Democrat campaign workers didn't want to hand out literature with the running mate's picture on it.  It was the sort of racist (or seemingly racist) moment that aren't supposed to happen in American politics anymore, not even in the South.  There's a real question how this is affecting black voters.  Second, Northam is being painted by Gillespie as soft on crime.  The MS-13 gang of mostly illegal aliens has been terrorizing parts of northern Virginia.  Northam was the deciding vote when the Virginia senate passed a sanctuary city bill that would protect MS-13 from deportation.  It's one thing to protect dreamers under DACA and another to protect murderers and felons from MS-13.  The latest polls show a shift in voters in the northern part of the state towards Gillespie.  It's too early to tell, but we could see a GOP win in a major upset in Virginia.

Then, of course, we have the amazing stories about the Trump dossier and Uranium One.  I've already written about these, but they remain probably the biggest political scandals of the year.  It's such a tough decision that I decided to write a bit about each.

Mr. Holier Than Thou McCain Was the One Who Gave Trump Dossier To FBI

John McCain admitted tonight that he gave a copy of the blatantly phony Trump Dossier to the FBI shortly after the 2016 election.  McCain says he couldn't tell if the information in the dossier was real or not so he gave it to the FBI so they could check it out.  It's an amazing statement.  The stories in the dossier are so outrageous that not even the news media would publish them.  All it would take was to check the dates of some of the supposed events in Moscow against Donald Trump's schedule and it would be clear that the dossier was filled with false information.  Surely, McCain had a staffer who could have done that rather simple task.  But no, McCain claims that it was beyond his ability to recognize this blatantly false document as a fraud, so he gave it to the FBI.  Oh, and somehow after he gave it to the FBI, the media learned all about that.

It has been clear since before election day that McCain hates Trump.  After all, Trump said that McCain was only a hero because he was shot down and that he (Trump) likes people who weren't shot down better.  Those are fighting words to McCain.  I don't blame McCain for being angry.  What Trump said was wrong and inappropriate.  Still, that leaves the question whether the best way for McCain to respond is for him to pass bogus and blatantly false derogatory information about Trump to the FBI?  McCain likes to posture how he is above all the DC squabbling; yet with this move on the dossier he was swimming in the deepest part of the swamp.

I don't doubt that it is possible that McCain was used here by the Democrats to try to hurt Trump.  After all, it was a former British ambassador (who may have been paid by Fusion GPS or some DNC lawyer) who gave the dossier to McCain.  What better way to get the document to the FBI without leaving fingerprints?  Take advantage of the old man with the huge streak of anger against the then president-elect.  We may find out soon if this is true; right now we just don't know.

One thing we do know is that John McCain did his country no favor by this move.  Sure, McCain was a war hero during Vietnam.  Trump is wrong there.  But war hero or not, McCain should not have participated in the character assassination of the man the American people had just chosen to be their leader.  Even if Trump didn't deserve more consideration in McCain's view, the American people and this nation certainly ought to get that respect from the senator.
 

Was Debbie Wasserman Schultz Ever a Sargeant?

Remember Debbie Wasserman Schultz?  She used to be the chair of the Democrat National Committee until she was forced out when Wikileaks published emails that showed she rigged the primary system to guarantee a victory by Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.  She was also presiding over the DNC when it jointly with the Clinton campaign funded Fusion GPS to create the phony Trump dossier.  Today, Wasserman Schultz was asked why the DNC paid for such a thing.  Schultz' response was to say "I knew nothing about the dossier."  When she was asked two follow-up questions about the matter she just said each time "I knew nothing about the dossier."

Many years ago, there was a show about prisoners of war called Hogan's Heroes which had a character named Sargeant Schultz.  Schultz was famous for saying "I know nothing" or "I see nothing" or "I hear nothing" as the prisoners did all sorts of things which were strictly forbidden.  Maybe Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a relative.  Indeed, someone should find out if Debbie Wasserman Schultz was ever a sergeant.

There Could Be Some Really Big News Coming

According to news reports tonight, the Justice Department has released an witness to the Uranium One mess from the terms of his non-disclosure agreement or NDA.  The witness was an undercover informant for the FBI for about four years.  He (or she) provided documents, recordings and information about the wave of bribes, corruption and extortion that was allegedly used by Russia and its agents to convince the US government to approve the sale of about 20% of the US uranium supply to a company controlled by the Russian government.  In fact, the estimate is that something like $40 million dollars was allegedly given in bribes and another $150 million given to the Clinton Foundation as the uranium deal was being considered for approval and thereafter as American utilities signed up to purchase processed uranium from the now Russian controlled company.  For many months, Congress has tried to get information about these events, but the witness has been unable to speak because the FBI had made the witness sign an NDA which barred such testimony.  Today's decision by the Justice Department to waive the NDA changes all that.

Just imagine what this witness may know.  He or she may be able to provide details about money allegedly given to the Clintons or others in exchange for getting approval of the Uranium One deal.  He may be able to tell Congress about what the FBI knew before the Uranium One deal was approved.  He may be able to explain to Congress why it was kept in the dark by then Attorney General Holder and president Obama as the Russians used bribery and extortion to get what they wanted.  We already know from the lawyer for the witness that he was told by the FBI that president Obama was being briefed daily on the events surrounding the Russian purchase of Uranium One.

A few days ago, Uranium One was just a story in Peter Schweitzer's book, Clinton Cash, and the Trump dossier was the product of foreign intelligence which led to the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.  Now, in the space of a few days, we know that the FBI knew all about the Uranium One mess but somehow kept that information from Congress and the public.  We also know--at least according to the lawyer for this witness-- that president Obama himself was briefed on all this alleged wrongdoing but allowed the coverup and the sale to Russia of 20% of America's uranium to go forward.  We also know that the Trump Dossier was not the product of foreign intelligence, but rather was a file of phony opposition research put together by employees of the DNC and the Clinton campaign and then used to justify an attack on the President.  What a difference a week makes.

If the witness actually testifies in front of Congress, what he has to say could be more explosive than anyone ever imagined.  Did the Clintons really take cash from the Russians in exchange for getting the Uranium One deal approved?  Did president Obama really cover up the alleged bribes and extortion and other criminal acts of the Russians?  In short, we may find out what actually happened.

There could be some really big news coming.

The Tweet of the Decade

Brian Fallon was the spokesman for the Clinton campaign in 2016.  Today, he tweeted a message that has to be the tweet of the decade.  Fallon spoke of the phony Trump dossier put together by Fusion GPS at the expense of the Clinton campaign and the DNC.  He called the cost of the dossier "money well spent".

Imagine!  Clinton and her campaign get caught paying a pr/lobbying group to put together a phony file accusing Donald Trump of all sorts of things including treason, and the spokesman for the campaign says it was "money well spent."

In the annals of American politics, there has never been a more disgusting or disreputable statement, and that is truly amazing.  When the campaign is caught knowingly spreading false and defamatory charges including treason, there is no remorse, no guilt, just happiness at "money well spent".  That is a sign of total moral depravity.

UPDATE:  After sending out this tweet, Fallon was questioned on CNN of all places.  In the course of the interview, Fallon said that Hillary Clinton may have known that her campaign had paid for the Trump dossier.  Wow!

Mulling It Over

I've been thinking about the revelation that it was Hillary Clinton and the DNC that paid for the phony Trump dossier that led to the entire Trump-Russia collusion investigation.  I wrote about this yesterday, but on second thought, I don't think I did justice to the extraordinary nature of this story.  Think about it.  We had a major party candidate for president paying for creation of a phony dossier falsely accusing the other candidate of colluding with a foreign power, an enemy of the USA.  That's not just a lie or even just an outrage.  It's actually something the equivalent of which I cannot recall happening in this country previously.  In the past, there have been dirty tricks in many campaigns.  Usually, this involves springing some bad fact from the past on the opponent right before election (like 2004 when Kerry sprang the Bush DUI at the last minute.)  Sometimes, it involves lies or "questionable" facts.  We've never seen anything like the dossier, however.  With that dirty trick, Clinton and the Democrats tried to plant the false idea that Trump was both deranged and a traitor to boot.  After Trump won, the plan was changed into a method for attacking the legitimacy of the presidency itself.  That makes it an attack on America and the American people who chose Trump to be president.

This ought to be the end of the Clintons.  I don't ever want to hear another word from either of them.  They truly are the lowest of the low.  Let me put it this way:  they make Richard Nixon and Watergate look good by comparison.

Wow! The Clinton Campaign and the DNC paid for the Fusion GPS Dossier

The whole Trump Russia collusion story began with a file of false information put together by Fusion GPS, a Washington firm.  That file (which the media called a dossier to make it seem more official) accused Donald Trump of all sorts of misdeeds including many involving the Russians.  The problem with the file was that it was so far from the truth that not even any of the pro-Hillary media would publish it.  As a result, there was a ploy to get it into public view.  The file was given to the FBI (apparently by a well place senator according to rumors) and the FBI then showed it to the President-elect last January.  When that happened, CNN immediately jumped on the story because it could report that the FBI had given the file to Trump directly.  The file was still filled with lies and misinformation.  The whole Trump-Russia story went on from there.

One thing that was never clear until now, however, was the identity of the person or organization that hired Fusion GPS to put this smear job together.  As recently as last week, the personnel from Fusion refused to answer Congressional questions on the identity of their employer; they used their fifth amendment defense against self incrimination as a basis for that refusal.  Well now we have learned the identity of who it was that hired Fusion.  It was the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee.  That news is in today's Washington Post (and it must kill the Post's editors to have to reveal this dirty trick by the Democrats and Clinton.)  Not only did the Democrats pay for the file, however, but they also lied to their friends in the media about doing so.  That part of the story is reported by the New York Times (and it must kill them to do that too.)

Combine this revelation with the news that Robert Mueller is investigating Uranium One and the massive amount of cash that went to the Clintons and their foundation from Russia while Hillary's state department was considering approval of the sale of a big chunk of US uranium production, and you have a really bad moment for the Democrats.  Throw in the fact that the FBI investigated the Clinton Russia connection in connection with Uranium One and the fact that Obama attorney general squelched that investigation, and it's even a worse moment for the Dems.

Of course, the most of the media is focused on the retirement announcement of senator Flake, but this story will still get out there.  Just imagine if Mueller indicts Clinton or some of her staff.

More Flaky Thoughts

I've been thinking about the decision by Arizona senator Jeff Flake not to run for re-election.  It seems to me that this is a consequence of the politics of Obama in which statements and style matter much more than actual conduct.  Think about it.  Here are two key facts:

1.  Senator Flake has voted with the Trump position 92% of the time.  There has not be a single important issue in which the senate voted this year where Flake contested the position supported by Trump.

2.  Flake's criticisms of Trump have all been about style.  Flake doesn't like the way Trump tweets.  Flake doesn't like the statements Trump has made about other Republicans.  Flake doesn't like Trump's combative demeanor.  Flake takes issue with Trump's failure to act "presidential" in the way Flake thinks "presidential" ought to be.

Put these together, and you have in the President and senator Flake two men who agree nearly always on policy but who disagree most strongly about style.

In other words, we have in Flake a senator who is measuring President Trump by the standards Democrats used and encouraged with Obama.  Many times Obama announced policies with smooth style but with no substance.  For example, Obama announced that use of chemical weapons by Assad in Syria would cross a "red line" of the USA.  Obama repeated that pronouncement on many occasions.  Then, Assad started to use chemical weapons in Syria.  Obama did nothing.  In fact, after sixteen documented uses of chemical weapons by Assad, Obama did nothing other than to repeat his red line statement and say that the USA did not have proof that Assad had used chemical weapons.  For months, Obama spoke about chemical weapons in a very stylish way but did nothing aside from denying having proof that these weapons had been used.  Even when the UK and the UN said that the chemical weapons had been used, Obama kept us his very stylish word game about Syria and the chemical weapons.  Finally, video of hundreds of people dying from chemical weapons was smuggled out of Syria and Obama couldn't deny the truth anymore.  He then moved on to doing nothing while dithering in public about whether or not to take action.  There was no shouting or insults, no tweeting or anger.  Ultimately, Obama made a deal with the Russians under which Assad supposedly gave up all his chemical weapons.  We had a very stylish president with a weak and useless policy who did nothing but talk. 

Of course, once Trump took office, Assad tried again to use chemical weapons, the same chemical weapons that Obama had supposedly gotten him to give up.  It took three days after those weapons were used, then President Trump sent cruise missiles to Syria which wiped out the airbase from which the chemical attack had been launched and also took out about 20% of the Syrian air force.  There were no stylish speeches, no soothing words or "presidential" moments.  Instead, there was strong and swift action by the President of the USA which ended all use of chemical weapons in Syria since that time.

My point is that with Obama the media and much of Washington got used to a stylish president who actually accomplished next to nothing.  When Trump flipped the protocol for presidential behavior, many of these people couldn't deal with it.  Flake seems to have become one of those people after his years in the proverbial swamp.  Instead of rejoicing in the return to actual accomplishments at the White House rather than soothing words, Flake lamented the loss of the phony style of an Obama.

It's a good thing that Flake has decided to go.  America needs leaders who accomplish good things for the country; the style used in those efforts is nowhere near as important as the ends achieved.

Proof Of Bias From Non-Partisan Tax Group

The Tax Policy Center is a group that previously attacked the GOP outline for tax reform by announcing a study that showed a big increase in the federal deficit over the next ten years if the tax plan is adopted.  That's idiotic and obviously wrong because until the brackets and the tax rates for each are announced (and that has not yet happened), no one can estimate the impact of the tax plan.  Think of it this way:  suppose I told you that the new tax plan would be to pay at the rate of 10% up to a certain number and 35% after that number is reached.  Would your taxes go up or down due to that plan?  Most likely if the number where the 35% rate kicks in is $14,000, your taxes would likely go up.  If that number, however, were $4 million, your taxes would likely go down.  The Tax Policy Center doesn't know the rates or the brackets but it is certain that there will be a bigger deficit as a result of the unknown changes.

When the first study came out, there was still a chance that the people at the Tax Policy Center just misunderstood the GOP proposal and had made an honest mistake.  Today, however, brings news which makes clear that the TPC is not non-partisan and that it is just tossing mud at the GOP tax plan no matter what the truth.  Today, TPC announced that the GOP plan would provide a major $70 billion gift to foreigners.  How can that be, you might ask.  According to the TPC, if the corporate tax rate is reduced from 35% to 20%, American businesses would save $200 billion in taxes each year.  Since foreigners and foreign entities own roughly 35% of the stock in American public corporations, that means that foreigners would save $70 billion a year in taxes.

This is pure nonsense for a number of reasons.
1.  The savings from corporate tax reductions are savings for the American corporations themselves, not for their shareholders.  As dividends are paid to shareholders, the tax rate paid on those dividends will remain unchanged even with a change in the corporate tax.  If the foreigners sell American stock, their liability for capital gains taxes remains unchanged even with a change in the corporate tax.

2.  The point of the cut in the corporate tax is to make America appealing for investment whether from domestic or foreign sources.  If a billion dollars is invested in the US economy, that will help tens of thousands of American workers.  We want foreigners to look more favorably upon American investments.  Cutting the corporate taxes does just that.

3.  The analysis by the TPC ignores the huge percentage of the American economy which is comprised of private companies.  All sorts of small businesses and some of the large ones are owned by American citizens.  TPC just uses the percentage of public company ownership in its calculations.  The percentage of private companies owned by foreigners is much, much smaller than 35%.

So the calculation by TPC is wrong.  The methodology used by TPC is wrong.  Indeed, TPC misses the basic purpose of the tax reform proposals.

There is no way that the people at the Tax Policy Center could have missed all of these points.  These are not the sort of mistakes that anyone even slightly familiar with how the tax code works would make.  That certainly indicates that these misstatements are intentional.  The so-called non-partisan center is obviously not only hyper-partisan but also willing to say anything no matter its validity in order to attack the GOP tax plan.

Never Trump Becomes Never Flake

Arizona Republican senator Jeff Flake announced this afternoon that he will not run for re-election next year.  That's certainly no surprise.  Polls in Arizona show Flake just a bit more popular than cholera among Republican primary voters.  After all, Flake is an adjunct member of the Never-Trumpers.  Flake always has something negative to say about the President.  President Trump, however, didn't refrain from responding the way Bush used to do.  As a result, Flake burned every bridge among Arizona Republicans.

It's good that Flake is not running.  Hopefully, this will lead to someone other than Dr. Ward getting the nomination.  A Republican who is not opposed to the President but who has positions that will sell with most Arizona residents can easily win next year.

I have to say this, however:  I am glad to see Flake go. Even when he announced his decision this afternoon, he tried to paint himself as this super moralist.  The reality, however, is that he just does not want to run and then be embarrassed by losing big in the primary.

Sure Sounds Like Trump

Yesterday's big news in the Middle East came as the forces in Syria allied with the USA captured that nation's largest oil field from ISIS.  The al-Omar oil field in Deir al-Zour province was taken with little damage done to the oil production facilities there.  The loss of the field means the end of the biggest single financial asset that ISIS had.  But this is more than just a blow to ISIS.  The oil field was taken as the forces of Assad and his Iranian allies were just about 5 miles from that field.  The American allied forces came, in a surprise move, from about 50 miles away over an arid landscape with a surprise attack on the field.  Now the question is whether or not the Kurds and Sunni Arabs who are holding the field will, in turn, be attacked by the Assad/Iran forces and, in the event of such an attack, will the USA support its allies in such a battle.

There is also a race between the Assad and the US-backed forces to take the towns along the main road between Iraq and western Syria.  If the US-backed forces take these towns, it will prevent Iran from having a clear convoy route to Damascus.

This strategy sounds a great deal like one approved by President Trump.  For years, he has spoken about how America should have "taken the oil" during the Iraq War.  The President understands the strategic benefit that a huge oil field confers on its holder.

Hopefully, uncertainty as to the US reaction will prevent the Assad/Iranian forces from launching any attacks on this oil field or on the forces allied with the USA.  The Iranians ought to fear that if they do hit our allies that they might also hit American special operators who are embedded in those allied forces.  Such a move might lead to direct armed conflict between the Iranians and the USA, something that would not end well for Iran. 

Another Horrible Move By Trump

If you follow the mainstream media, by now you've probably heard that in a condolence call a few months ago to the parents of a soldier killed in action, President Trump asked the father how he was getting by.  The father responded that he was having financial difficulties and that there were few, if any, benefits that came from his son's death.  President Trump told the father that he would send him $25,000 from his personal funds to help.  There was no publicity about this gesture by the President, but a few weeks ago, someone in the media made it public along with an article about how President Trump never sent the check.  The point of the story was that the President was adding to the pain of this gold star family with a false promise.  Well, now there's an update.  The check from the President has arrived.  It was delayed because of all the regulations that control interactions between the President and anyone else, particularly when it comes to gifts by or to the President.  It has taken all this time for the bureaucrats to approve the payment as legally allowable.

The family is thrilled and overwhelmed by the check and the gesture from President Trump according to their own words.  They have decided to use the funds to start a non-profit group designed to help other Americans in honor of their son.  It's a wonderful outcome. 

After the publicity the matter got a few weeks back when the story of the check first broke, one would think that the media would cover how the story finally turned out.  If so, you would be incorrect.  Neither NBC or CBS has any mention of the story on their websites although both have multiple new stories about the phone call between Trump and the widow of one of the soldiers killed in Niger and its aftermath.  ABC, however, did cover this story.

For its part, the White House never tried to use this gift for political purposes and, even now, says that it is a private matter.

Once again, the media tries to make this look like a horrible move by the President, but the story blows up in their faces. 

Revenue Neutral Has Got To Be Ignored

They're back at it.  The media and Democrats who cheered president Obama as he spent ten trillion dollars the nation did not have are expressing horror and outrage at the thought that a GOP tax reform plan could result in a bigger budget deficit.  These folks are all screaming that the tax cut has to be revenue neutral.  What utter garbage!

The point of a tax cut is to reduce the total tax burden on companies and people.  That will leave more cash available for investment and consumption.  It will goose up the economy so that we see faster growth, higher job creation and higher wages.  Making tax reform revenue neutral takes away those benefits to the economy.  In other words, trying to keep tax reform revenue neutral is intentionally throwing away the main benefit of tax reform. 

If your child were sick, would you take him or her to the doctor but first prohibit the doctor from giving him or her any medicine that might help?  That's exactly what the revenue neutral crowd is doing.  They're trying to take away the benefit of tax cuts before agreeing to any. 

It's time for Congress to realize that tax cuts are needed for faster economic growth and to get moving to complete the task.

Oh, The Good Old Days

Seven years ago, South Carolina congressman Joe Wilson was listening to president Obama speak to a joint session of Congress.  Obama was speaking about his healthcare bill, Obamacare.  When Obama said that no illegal aliens would get coverage under the Obamacare bill, Wilson shouted, "you lie."  Of course, it turns out that many illegal aliens do get coverage under Obamacare, many through Medicaid and some through other means.  Nevertheless, Wilson was condemned far and wide for being so disrespectful to the president.  The media went berserk over Wilson's behavior.

I think of that moment often as I listen to some of the empty heads in Congress like Maxine Waters, Ted Lieu and Frederica Wilson and what they have to say about President Trump.  They have certainly accused Trump of telling lies, but they have also accused the President of nearly every crime imaginable.  And it's not just the idiots I listed above.  Democrat leaders like Pelosi and Schumer have said the most inflammatory and outrageous things about the President.

It's disgusting that all that it took for the media opinion of proper respect for the president of the United States to change drastically was a switch in party.