Friday AM ~ TheFrontPageCover

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The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
The Nutball the Neocons Wanted in NATO
by Pat Buchanan
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Bad Optics on Republicans' Tax Proposal
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          Aiming to make the tax cuts as effective as possible for working class families, Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) sought to lessen the corporate tax cuts by 1% in order to offset expanding the child tax credit (CTC). Republicans quickly voted this down as it was argued that the 20% corporate tax rate needed to be maintained.
          However, now Republicans are seeking to raise the corporate tax rate to 21% — just as Rubio and Lee proposed — but this time to offset tax cuts on individuals making $500,000 or couples earning $1 million annually. Wisdom of the policy aside, the optics really can’t get worse, as it looks almost literally like Republicans are taking from the working class in order to give to the wealthy. The truth is much more nuanced, especially given the fact that many working-class families end up paying next to nothing in federal income tax, even though they are hit with payroll taxes like everyone else. But the worst part is the perception that Republicans created when they were unwilling to budge on the corporate tax rate to help families via the CTC, but now when it comes to cutting tax rates on the wealthiest they seemingly have a change of heart and are willing to negotiate that 20% corporate tax rate.
          Now the Democrats will scream about the Republicans favoring the wealthy, and, unfortunately, they will have a point — however skewed.  

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52944

Judicial Watch Sues To Force Clean 
Up Of Rolls With More Voters Than Citizens
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{rickwells.us} ~ Judicial Watch revealed on Wednesday that they have filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County and the State of California... due to their failure to maintain clean voter rolls and to produce election-related documents which are required under the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The lawsuit was filed jointly by Judicial Watch, Election Integrity Project, Inc, and 4 individuals lawfully registered to vote in Los Angeles County in US District Court. The suit alleges that the State of California and eleven of its 58 counties, including Los Angeles, have more registered voters than they do age-eligible citizens. Los Angeles has a voter registration rate of 112%, clearly there is a problem with their voter rolls. Statewide the percentage is 101%.. https://rickwells.us/judicial-watch-clean-rolls/
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The Four Congressmen Remaining In Congress Despite Sexual Misconduct Accusations
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by PETER HASSON
{dailycaller.com} ~ Four members of Congress, three Democrats and one Republican, have indicated that they will finish out their terms... despite facing accusations of engaging in or covering up sexual misconduct. Democratic Nevada Rep. Ruben Kihuen has said he will at least remain in Congress through the end of his first term. Kihuen is accused of sexually harassing his campaign finance director, who quit during the primary after he allegedly demanded sex from her on multiple occasions and touched her thighs. Pulosi stated Kihuen should resign, but he said he has no intention of doing so and accused Pulosi of being a hypocrite. Pulosi, Kihuen claims, knew about the harassment claims during the election and still supported his candidacy. Pulosi denied that claim...   http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/13/the-four-congressmen-remaining-in-congress-despite-sexual-misconduct-accusations/?utm_medium=email
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How Many Muslims in Europe? 
Pew's Projections Fall Short
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by Soeren Kern
{gatestoneinstitute.org} ~ Europe's Muslim population is set to double — and possibly triple — between now and 2050... according to new projections by the Pew Research Center. The projections, contained in a report, "Europe's Growing Muslim Population," confirm what has long been common knowledge: decades of declining European birthrates, coupled with mass migration from the Muslim world, are fast-tracking the Islamization of Europe. The demographic calamity facing Europe, however, is even worse than the Pew report lets on. A critical analysis of the data shows that Pew's calculations of the current Muslim population in key European countries are partial and incomplete — and in some instances inaccurate...  https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11545/how-many-muslims-in-europe
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Israel’s ailing Teva to cut 25% 
of global workforce in recovery effort
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by SHOSHANNA SOLOMON
{timesofisrael.com} ~ Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. said on Thursday it plans to cut 14,000 positions globally... over 25 percent of its total workforce – over the next two years. The drug-maker said the number of layoffs in Israel would total some 1,700 employees by the end of 2019, according to a letter sent to Teva’s Israeli employees. The restructuring will see the closure of the Jerusalem manufacturing plant by the end of 2019 and some of the research and development activity in Israel will be cut back. The company will also seek to sell off its global logistics center in Shoham and its plant in Kiryat Shmona... https://www.timesofisrael.com/ailing-drug-maker-teva-to-cut-14000-jobs-globally-in-effort-to-recover/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=5ca723bddb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-5ca723bddb-54638825
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Trey Gowdy Roasts Deputy AG 
Rosenstein: “What the Hell is Going on?”
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by Thomas
{thepoliticalinsider.com} ~ Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a former prosecutor, took the gloves off with his questioning of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein... who worked in the liar-nObama Administration, during a House Judiciary hearing. Gowdy demanded answers, noting that his constituents want to know “what the hell is going on” with the FBI and the Justice Department. Gowdy turned up the heat and roasted Rosenstein: “The reason we have Special Counsel is because of conflicts of interest. We don’t like conflicts of interest because it undermines people’s confidence in both the process and the result. And lo and behold! Those that are supposed to make sure there are no conflicts of interest seem to have a bit of their own.”... https://thepoliticalinsider.com/trey-gowdy-rosenstein-fbi/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=criticalimpact&utm_campaign=TPI_Morning_Newsletter_12_14_2017&utm_content=4b4ea4948726422aa6473c7b9fa19141&source=CI
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The Nutball the Neocons Wanted in NATO
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by Pat Buchanan
{townhall.com} ~ Even interventionists are regretting some of the wars into which they helped plunge the United States in this century.

Among those wars are Afghanistan and Iraq, the longest in our history; Libya, which was left without a stable government; Syria's civil war, a six-year human rights disaster we helped kick off by arming rebels to overthrow Bashar Assad; and Yemen, where a U.S.-backed Saudi bombing campaign and starvation blockade is causing a humanitarian catastrophe.

Yet, twice this century, the War Party was beaten back when seeking a clash with Putin's Russia. And the "neo-isolationists" who won those arguments served America well.

What triggered this observation was an item on Page 1 of Wednesday's New York Times that read in its entirety:

"Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia, led marchers through Kiev after threatening to jump from a five-story building to evade arrest. Page A4"

Who is Saakashvili? The wunderkind elected in 2004 in Tbilisi after a "Rose Revolution" we backed during George W. Bush's crusade for global democracy.

During the Beijing Olympics in August 2008, Saakashvili sent his army crashing into the tiny enclave of South Ossetia, which had broken free of Georgia when Georgia broke free of Russia.

In overrunning the enclave, however, Saakashvili's troops killed Russian peacekeepers. Big mistake. Within 24 hours, Putin's tanks and troops were pouring through Roki Tunnel, running Saakashvili's army out of South Ossetia, and occupying parts of Georgia itself.

As defeat loomed for the neocon hero, U.S. foreign policy elites were alive with denunciations of "Russian aggression" and calls to send in the 82nd Airborne, bring Georgia into NATO, and station U.S. forces in the Caucasus.

"We are all Georgians!" thundered RINO-John McCain.

Not quite. When an outcry arose against getting into a collision with Russia, Bush, reading the nation right, decided to confine U.S. protests to the nonviolent. A wise call.

And Saakashvili? He held power until 2013, and then saw his party defeated, was charged with corruption, and fled to Ukraine. There, President Boris Poroshenko, beneficiary of the Kiev coup the U.S. had backed in 2014, put him in charge of Odessa, one of the most corrupt provinces in a country rife with corruption.

In 2016, an exasperated Saakashvili quit, charged his patron Poroshenko with corruption, and fled Ukraine. In September, with a band of supporters, he made a forced entry back across the border.

Here is the Times' Andrew Higgins on his latest antics:

"On Tuesday ... Saakashvili, onetime darling of the West, took his high-wire political career to bizarre new heights when he climbed onto the roof of his five-story apartment building in the center of Kiev...

"As ... hundreds of supporters gathered below, he shouted insults at Ukraine's leaders ... and threatened to jump if security agents tried to grab him.

"Dragged from the roof after denouncing Mr. Poroshenko as a traitor and a thief, the former Georgian leader was detained but then freed by his supporters, who ... blocked a security service van before it could take Mr. Saakashvili to a Kiev detention center and allowed him to escape.

"With a Ukrainian flag draped across his shoulders and a pair of handcuffs still attached to one of his wrists, Mr. Saakashvili then led hundreds of supporters in a march across Kiev toward Parliament. Speaking through a bullhorn he called for 'peaceful protests' to remove Mr. Poroshenko from office, just as protests had toppled the former President, Victor F. Yanukovych, in February 2014."

This reads like a script for a Peter Sellers movie in the '60s.

Yet this clown was president of Georgia, for whose cause in South Ossetia some in our foreign policy elite thought we should go to the brink of war with Russia.

And there was broad support for bringing Georgia into NATO. This would have given Saakashvili an ability to ignite a confrontation with Russia, which could have forced U.S. intervention.

Consider Ukraine. Three years ago, RINO-McCain was declaring, in support of the overthrow of the elected pro-Russian government in Kiev, "We are all Ukrainians now."

Following that coup, U.S. elites were urging us to confront Putin in Crimea, bring Ukraine, as well as Georgia, into NATO, and send Kiev the lethal weapons needed to defeat Russian-backed rebels in the East.

This could have led straight to a Ukraine-Russia war, precipitated by our sending of U.S. arms.

Do we really want to cede to folks of the temperament of Mikhail Saakashvili an ability to instigate a war with a nuclear-armed Russia, which every Cold War president was resolved to avoid, even if it meant accepting Moscow's hegemony in Eastern Europe all the way to the Elbe?

Watching Saakashvili losing it in the streets of Kiev like some blitzed college student should cause us to reassess the stability of all these allies to whom we have ceded a capacity to drag us into war.

Alliances, after all, are the transmission belts of war.
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